[-empyre-] fort(ification)

[Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis@gmail.com>]

On Nov 14, 2005, at 7:00 PM, Cara wrote:

> localized systems of exchange that remain dependent on global  
> corporate infrastructure and production to exist are tenuous--they  
> break down easily when challenged. what is our fortification?
>
> while it may be possible that due to fuel shortages "the political  
> reality (inequalities) of the body aren't any more likely to be up for  
> discussion." they will exist and will be addressed. how? (given  
> sustained global and local conditions of economic and social disparity  
> based on entrenched systems of global distribution of capital and  
> corporate-military presence---pronounced cultural reliance on a steady  
> stream of visual information---apparent surveilance of bodies through  
> cell phones, computers, tv, etc.)

This is exactly what i was trying to get to... i think, anyway. my  
point about the potential for politics (in a discursive sense) to be  
shut down within a context of control and fear pertains precisely to  
the affirmative response that the body will assert itself. it's the  
inhabitants of the bodies that will have (do have) the means to do the  
asserting that i'm worried about.
the questions of fortification and the body recalled a contextual  
discussion of the sci-fi zombie movie "28 days later" by Eugene Thacker
http://www.metamute.com/look/article.tpl? 
IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=24&NrSection=5&NrArticle=932&search 
=search&SearchKeywords=thacker&SearchLevel=0
(if the url breaks due to the "?" you may have to copy and paste the  
lines above into your browser)
but perhaps even more relevant to an "everyday" discussion of  
body-power relations, the critiques of Rosalyn Deutsche, especially  
"Agoraphobia."
when do politics give way to "security" in the form of "fortification"  
(i ask as i contemplate constructing a rain-fed drinking water  
system...)?
this kind of comes back to the more mundane questions of "making a  
living" that came up earlier...
best,
ryan