RE: [-empyre-] Re: 2 wr[b]yte : oulipo -- FWDing Giselle Beiguelman

["Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>]

> From: giselle beiguelman

> I think that we should keep in mind that what is interesting in
> History is that it is continuity *and* rupture.
> I agree with Friedrich when he states that we can not stress new
> futurist approaches and with the classification Marcus introduces in
> his post. In spite of that, I think it is important to recognize the
> novelty of the practices we are facing today.
> We are dealing with a code that is not only a transmission code but it
> is also executable. Because of this, it can affect material things
> (for instance: to set a machine into motion). Vernacular languages can
> persuade us but not execute actions.
> The example Friedrich used in another post -- Jaromil piece in p0es1s
> -- is a good example of this new situation which points, I believe, to
> new reading and writing practices. It seems to me that they don't have
> precedents in our cultural traditions.
>
> gb

well said, giselle.

i am not sure why the literary tends to be more conservative and slower to
innovate than visual arts. i recall reading ws burroughs saying that the cut
up technique was  basically from visual arts from fifty years ago.
currently, in digital writing, publishers have been slower than galleries to
have much involvement on the net or in writing that is pressing forward
concerning digital writing. and we hear strong injunctions such as
friedrich's not to dare speak of anything being new.

one can usually dig up precedents, however incomplete they are. i am fond of
william carlos williams quote from the fifties (or so) that 'a poem is a
machine made out of words' and apollinaire's words from his 1917 talk
L'Esprit Nouveau et les Poetès:

"Typographical artifices worked out with great audacity have the advantage
of bringing to life a visual lyricism which was almost unknown before our
age. These artifices can still go much further and achieve the synthesis of
the arts, of music, painting, and literature ... One should not be
astonished if, with only the means they have now at their disposal, they set
themselves to preparing this new art (vaster than the plain art of words) in
which, like conductors of an orchestra of unbelievable scope they will have
at their disposal the entire world, its noises and its appearances, the
thought and language of man, song, dance, all the arts and all the
artifices, still more mirages than Morgane could summon up on the hill of
Gibel, with which to compose the visible and unfolded book of the future....
Even if it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, the new spirit
does not refrain from discovering new profundities in all this that is not
new under the sun. Good sense is its guide, and this guide leads it into
corners, if not new, at least unknown. But is there nothing new under the
sun? It remains to be seen."

we read in apollinaire both an acknowledgement of the difficulties of
speaking of the new and also, nonetheless, a willingness to do so. that
strikes me as important. because the alternative is a kind of 'ipsi dixit'
atmosphere of 'proof by authority' in which it is viewed as futile to try to
say or do anything new.

so your willingness to hazard to speak of the new is very welcome to my
eyes.

ja
http://vispo.com