Re: [-empyre-] transgression and Matrix Theory

[Kate Southworth <katesouthworth@gloriousninth.com>]

Hi Jess,

I think what you are asking are really very interesting questions.  Firstly,
I think that there are great similarities between aspects of Matrix theory
and between the rhizome as described by Deleuze and Guattari  which, as you
say, informs much new media/net art practice.

(I also think that there are significant differences between the rhizome and
the matrix, but I have not been able to articulate these ideas sufficiently
well to really say much more about these differences at the present time).

Deleuze and Guattari (A Thousand Plateaus, p.21) argue that "The rhizome is
an accentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system [..]".  When describing
hierarchical systems, they emphasise the relationship to binary logic.

Is it through binary logic that borders are defined (and transgressed?)
within hierarchical systems?

How are borders defined and transgressed in say, distributed systems, like
Internet, that have some non-hierarchical qualities, but simulatenously
maintain rigid control mechanisms?

In response to your particular point about net arts' allegiance to
rhizomatic principles frowning on the idea of fixed parameters, I would
argue that the difference between an ideal system and what we actually have,
is all the difference in the world, and so, as we don't yet have a
non-hierarchical system or network, we are constantly encountering
boundaries which need to be identified and transgressed.

And, yes, I find it incredibly difficult, really difficult indeed to create
an awareness of those boundaries' existence - especially to myself.  It is
the space between these invisible boundaries - the one's that are supposed
not to exist - that sometimes I find the most interesting, and sometimes I
find the most demoralising.

Bracha Littenberg-Ettinger (Matrix and Metramorphosis', Differences, vol 4,
no 3 (1992) page 201) has written
" Metramorphosis is the process of change in borderlines and thresholds
between being and absence, memory and oblivion, I and non-I, a process of
transgression and fading away.  The metramorphic consciousness has no
centre, cannot hold a fixed gaze - or, if it has a centre, constantly slides
to the borderline, to the margins.  Its gaze escapes the margins and returns
to the margins.  Through this process of limits, borderlines and thresholds
conceived are continually transgressed or dissolved, thus allowing the
creation of new ones"


bw
Kate

 





4/4/05 23:49Jess Losebyjess@rssgallery.com

> Hi Kate,
> I am also interested in the use of the word "transgressions" in your
> connections with 
> border crossing. How to you correlate these binary terms within a net/new
> media whose 
> allegiance to rhizomatic principals may seem to frown on the idea of any fixed
> parameters - little own artists moving beyond (or within) them?
> Have you ever found creating "an awareness (rational, emotional) of that
> boundaries 
> existence" difficult?
> Cheers,
> Jess.
> 
>> Christina,
>> 
>> I wanted to use the term 'transgressions' in connection with 'border
>> crossing' for this month's discussion because for me, carried within the
>> concept of 'transgression' as a human activity, is the idea not just of
>> questioning and challenging boundaries - laws, norms, behaviours, values,
>> categories, systems, identities - but of actually finding ways of moving
>> beyond them.  
>> 
>> So, I understand that to transgress boundaries requires an awareness
>> (rational, emotional) of that boundary's existence,  and some real, tangible
>> means of going beyond the limits presented by that boundary.
>> 
>> And having attended a convent school, I too was taught that sin is a serious
>> and willful transgression of God's law.  But perhaps when human activity is
>> interpreted within phallo logic systems (e.g. the law or the church) maybe
>> those working within those systems are only able to conceptualise
>> transgressions in binary terms - inside or outside the law, good or evil,
>> with us or against us.
>> 
>> Kate
>> 
>