[-empyre-] varius

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

I don't remember the syndicate piece, but no, Weiner & Kosuth - first, as 
far as I know, and I was somewhat there, they were _always_ commercial, 
never participated in such things as Rickaby's activist critique of the 
gallery system etc. Second, whatever you quote from them, conceptual art 
was far broader; as you know the term concept art originated w/ Flynt who 
couldn't have cared less about Greenberg; neither could Fluxus, another 
heady route, for example Eric Andersen in Denmark. Conceptualist notions 
are in abundance beyond net.art because in a sense this approach is 
somewhat 'easy' technically; on a Webpage there are always parameters to 
play with, and this parameterization-approach is similar to conceptualist 
stuff - for example LeWitt's exhaustion of set-theoretics in practice, a 
bit later Krister Hennix in theory. I can't imagine _any_ art movement as 
a singularity or specific 'critique' or 'coming out of' x or y; the roots 
are incredibly complex/manifold - you'll find conceptualist stuff related 
to Kaprow, Oldenberg and Hanson's 'happenings' and so forth. This stuff 
was in the air as was system theory, Spencer Brown, Bateson's meta-x, etc. 
etc.

Second, I've been following, probably not closely enough, for which 
apologies, the discussion of matrixial spaces phallic spaces etc. etc. and 
I wonder about all of these, about in fact the entire psychoanalytical/ 
lacanian/freudian edifice, which seems increasingly outdated to me. It may 
well be my impatience at this point with continental theory. Their 
ontological and epistemological claims, even the Kristevan chora, which 
I've 'worked with,' seem very problematic. What may be more relevant, at 
least for me, possibly for some others of us, is the stuff that just came 
through in my inbox today on 'mirror neurons,' indicating that minds might 
be able to imitate, and do, on an unconscious level, the feelings and 
desires of others. I've also been looking back at Mead and Bateson's 
Balinese Character, the photographs, etc.

I'm currently reading Penrose's The Road to Reality, which gives a good 
idea (I think) of the present state of physics. The one message that comes 
through loud and clear is the inconceivable complexity of all of this, 
particularly in the mathematical realm, but also in the phenomenological - 
and the difficulty in fact of constructing any phenomenology without the 
math. Meanwhile we're dealing with mental phenomena in relation to spaces 
and places, on a level such as Lacanian, in which one construct is built 
on another on another etc. - and all of this in relative ignorance of the 
workings of the mind, which are far more complex than physical reality 
otherwise.

One approach might be through stuff like Bentham's theory of fictions or 
Vaihinger's philosophy of as-if, i.e. always being aware of the metaphor- 
icity of the spaces being discussed, the Lakoffs as well - always keeping 
in mind their running qua metaphor, their human constructibility.

I feel I've put my foot in it; I've not been reading that closely due to a 
lack of time and worse than usual depression/insomnia, so apologies. 
Please feel free to ignore -

Alan



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