Re: [-empyre-] networked_performance 2

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

Hi - Stelarc's performances - there were early ones - that involved hooks 
- I think 16? or so were completed - the online work/networking work is 
different - as far as I know, no hooks -

I'm following this discussion with great interest - wondering if anyone 
can address the issue of (Levinas') alterity - the issue of face-to-face; 
it seems to me that one of the characteristics of, say, email, or net sex, 
or online performance, is that the kill/delete/dev/null keys can be used 
quite quickly - in other words, one can tailor one's online experience by 
absolutely elminating the negative - but in everyday life, there is always 
the possibility of (Sartrean) negation - of having, so to speak, one's 
existence annihilated, one turned down, without recourse (thinking of what 
happens when one asks someone out and is refused, or for that matter, an 
unfortunate encounter with Simon Penny last night, who basically looked 
through me and saw an imaginary). This is also the realm of the stand-up 
comic, who is in the situation of a wager, really a wager of existence, 
with her or his audience.

There is a terror in the real, in other words, a terror of negation, that 
plays only a secondary role in online performance (performance in the 
broadest sense).

Any comments greatly appreciated; apologies if irrelevant -

Alan

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