Re: [-empyre-] poetics...



Aliette,

Didn't really mean to start a discussion on A vs. non-A... The reason for going back to "the beginning of the world" was simply to sample a first impression and find it spilling over with the non-verbal! You mention many writers in your search for the answer to A vs. non-A... Many words are spilled on the page and in RAM... The poetics of interest here exceed the word... especially the written variety... it's all in the voice which is the body and singing and damned if you don't start dancing then... and after that the whole world flows in.

Just didn't want to be associated with Birhoff's formula of "esthetic measure" M = O / C, where M is esthetic measure, O is order, and C is complexity. Sounds like Management Science.... or techno-aesthetics... that's not it either.

Computational Alchemy? Computational Metaphysics? Good idea to remind ourselves of Korzybski.... the code is not the territory. It's your body. What can you do with it? Use it?... or lose it?

I first found computers to be useful in executing compositional processes. Excited that simple rules could be devised to generate complex and unexpected results. But the random number generator that helped provide the novelty turned out to be pseudo... Until I figured out how to hook up a microphone and a camera to the machine and give it a view on the real complexity which is the world... or inject samples of that worldly complexity into the machine for it to use as material so it could keep up with what we were doing with our fingers.

And yes... to all the writers, poets and painters and philosophers you mention. Aristotelian? Not? Is this an interesting question? I sound their work for other purposes. I'm not familiar with Pierre Klossovski's work but a quick search on the net reveals his book on Nietzsche and his philosophical "vicious circle", namely the idea of the eternal return. A temporal concept... an interesting if somewhat bleak variation on the irreversible arrow of time. Other philosophers in other traditions have come up with variations like the spiral which appeal to the musician in me (octave equivalence brings out the Pythagorean in me, the ear being the organ of mathematics however "unaware of its counting" ;-) But that's also the beauty of electronic media. We found a way to hold pieces of time in our hands, as objects, amenable to slowing down, stretching, reversing, layering the fast with the slow, etc. etc. We've created lots of alternate theories about time since the late 19th century and this is clearly a core area of investigation for a computational poetics.

I think it's interesting to look back to the beginnings of things like words to find out what their meaning was before they were changed for all the various reasons we make language describe a world we desire to come into being. Heidegger taught me that in his discussion of the word "techne": art - idea - technology That was a startling opening for me when I first encountered it. As was his suggestion that the poetic was perhaps the answer to the question of technology. What he was suggesting was not art as the handmaiden of the technopoly... rather a deeper, yes poetic, probing of the troubling relationship of the kind of revealing that advanced forms of technology provide. What do we gain? What do we lose? What should we keep? What do we turn away from?

Kenneth.



On 7-Jan-06, at 10:26 PM, Aliette wrote:

Dear friends of Empyre,

Hello and my best wishes for the Year.

What I have to say in this debate is not highly qualified, but without
missing aptness although ringing peripheral, with baroque and anachronistic
speaking - I hope


Forgiveness for my pitiful English, I thus leave below my French version.

First of all that listen we by Aristotelian? Is it to say of the Poetics, or
of the categories in Porphyr tree? Because on one side we place the Greek
tragedy and the myth, in a particular shape of represented speech which
updates the history of the city, and the other side one place the exclusive
determination of the reason which would never take into account the fate nor
the accident - so as to consider them as providential.


Before and after the dominion confirmed Aristotelian influence in Europe,
and same counterpart, we had and always had for example emergent poetics of
the number in the allegories, that it were inspired by the Scandinavian
myths or by the Mediterranean cultures, who does not recover from the
symbolism nor the Aristotelian categories. At the Gnostic's in the Middle
Age there is of the disjunction which they express themselves in literature
and in Art. There were metaphysicians and alchemists to be men of Letters,
at the origin of big changes such as the separation of the knowledge, but
completely no-Aristotelian. It was even the object of university wars aiming
at the dominion and at the power. The history of Paracelse and this of
Albert were made famous by modern and post-modern writers or modern
semioticians...


Averroès praised as Aristotelian presents a big part of his work which is
not it, exactly that one dedicated to Islam which was hidden by the
convenient reputation of the triumphant tendency of the quarrel of
"universaux". On the other hand, I do not see what would recover from
Aristotle in the Cabbala even if it presents a diagram.


The history of the western thought stemming from Europe is not dissociable
of its criticism by Letters and Poetry which did not stop putting it in
abyss during centuries.


We so arrive at the universe of the modern mathematicians, the logicians
philosophers and mathematicians, and to the physicists, who turned the
universe of the Aristotelian reason by practising their discipline in its
limits. More the continental philosophy asked the question of the radical
evil since XVIII century till Hannah Arendt after Eichman lawsuit.


The congress of general semantics, notably Alfred Korzybski (" A card is
not the territory ") and all the cybernetic emergence were one from feet to
nose non Aristotelian, of course but finds the outcome today in the end of
genetic paradigm of the biologists, with the event of one statistical
paradigm, and meanwhile we knew the relativity, the uncertainty, the theory
of the chaos, etc....


 I know well that they are any still looking for Higgs Boson of the "
standard model " of the physics of particles... And any fiction being a
reality...

But finally, even before arriving at Pataphysics and at Oulipo, all the
thought of the West, alive, subversive or revolutionary, is a continuous
movement which has never ignored the exo visions and fed of them - even if
it was also oppressed in a continuous way - resisting, or innovating,
against the Aristotelian thought...


And Goethe, Hölderlin: of what do you think them?

W. Blake - or the same Virginia Wolf, or more thin, Kathryn Mansfield?
Etc....

Rimbaud.

To end, we cannot forget that the western culture, the literature or the
included poetry, is not homogeneous itself, that the modern philosophy
separated in two said currents "analytics" and "continental": on one side
the pragmatics, the logic, the languages, on the other one, the metaphysics
and the metaphor...


But without being assigned to territory: even if the analytical thought is
rather English-speaking... I do not think that Lugwig Wittgenstein was
English even if Bertrand Russel made the foreword of Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus.


what do you think you of Pierre Klossovski - sounding as poet as philosopher
and as artist?


And I spare you the detail of Saussure or later the structuralism, who led
Noam Chomsky and Harris to the triumphant structural mathematical
linguistics of the 60s, any ones of MIT glory.


what of Nelson Goodman in his theory of the languages of Art would
presenting as Aristotelian?...

I do not see that TS Eliot, Mallarmé (or same Djuna Barnes), or James Joyce,
even why not D.H. Lawrence, present furthermore Aristotelian better than
Alfred Jarry...


Joyce Mansour and Surrealism? Kathy Hacker and Burroughs... Aristotelian?

Not to call back still the Beat generation and Fluxus, indeed already quoted
within the framework of this debate.


And at the bottom here still we could even quote Baudrillard himself whose
speculative writing holds so much from Pataphysics that from Marx more from
continental philosophy and poetry .


In brief, it was just some pictures to avoid it the others...
Because, finally, I do not think that 'A' vision A or 'non-A' can
characterize specifically the poetic domain which you consider, no more than
in microtone music or in Albert Ayler's jazz...


All my best,

A.
http://www.criticalsecret.com (can be non-A?)

--------------------------------
Chers amis de Empyre,

Bonjour et bonne année.

Ce que j'ai à dire dans ce débat n'est pas hautement qualifié, mais j'espère
sans manquer de pertinence quoique périphérique, mais baroque et
anachroniquement parlant.


Pardon pour mon lamentable anglais, je laisse donc dessous ma version
française.

Tout d'abord qu'entend on par aristotélicien ? Parle-t'on de la Poétique, ou
des catégories de l'arbre de Porphyre ? Car d'un côté on situe la tragédie
grecque et le mythe, dans une forme particulière de discours représenté qui
actualise l'histoire de la cité, et de l'autre on situe la détermination
exclusive de la raison qui ne prendrait en compte ni le hasard ni l'accident
- sauf à les considérer comme providentiels.


Avant et après la domination confirmée de l'emprise aristotélicienne en
Europe, et même pendant, nous avions et avons toujours eu une poétique du
nombre par exemple émergente dans les allégories, qu'elle fussent inspirées
par les mythes nordiques ou par les cultures méditerranéennes, qui ne relève
pas de la symbolique ni des catégories aristotéliciennes. Il y a chez les
gnostiques du moyen âge des disjonctions qui s'expriment en littérature et
en peinture. Il y avait des métaphysiciens et des alchimistes qui étaient
autant des hommes de lettres, à l'origine de grands changements comme la
séparation des savoirs, tout à fait anti-aristotéliciens. Ce fut même
l'objet de guerres universitaires visant à la domination et au pouvoir.
L'histoire de Paracelse et d'Albert le grand ont été rendues célèbres par
des écrivains ou sémioticiens modernes et post modernes...


Averroès vanté comme aristotélicien tient une grande partie de son oeuvre
qui ne l'est pas, précisément celle dédiée à l'Islam qui a été tue dans la
réputation opportune à la tendance triomphante de la querelle des
universaux. D'un autre côté, je ne vois pas ce qui relèverait d'Aristote
dans la Kabbale même si elle présente un diagramme.


L'histoire de la pensée occidentale issue de l'Europe n'est pas dissociable
de sa critique par les Lettres et la poésie qui n'ont pas cessé de la mettre
en abîme au long des siècles.


On arrive ainsi à l'univers des mathématiciens modernes, des logiciens
philosophes et mathématiciens, et aux physiciens, qui ont retourné l'univers
de la raison aristotélicienne en pratiquant leur discipline à ses limites.
Mais la philosophie continentale se posait la question du mal radical depuis
le XVIIIè siècle (qui devient le moment du retournement critique de la
pensée la mieux assurée contre elle-même).


Le congrès de sémantique générale notamment Alfred Korzybski
"Une carte n'est pas le territoire" et toute l'émergence cybernétique furent
un pied de nez aux aristotéliciens, qui trouve son aboutissement aujourd'hui
dans la fin du paradigme génétique des biologistes, avec l'événement d'un
paradigme statistique, et entre temps nous avons connu la relativité,
l'incertitude, la théorie du chaos, etc...


Je sais bien qu'il en est encore pour chercher le Boson de Higgs du "modèle
standard" de la physique des particules... Et toute fiction étant une
réalité...


Mais enfin, avant même d'arriver à la Pataphysique et à Oulipo, toute la
pensée de l'occident, vivante, subversive ou révolutionnaire, est un
mouvement continu qui n'a jamais ignoré les visions exogènes et s'en est
nourrie - même s'il fut aussi opprimé de façon continue - résistant, ou
innovant, contre la pensée aristotélicienne...


Et Goethe, Hölderlin : qu'en pensez-vous ?


W. Blake - ou même Virginia Wolf, ou plus ténu, Kathryn Mansfield ? Etc...


Rimbaud.

Pour conclure, on ne peut pas oublier que la culture occidentale,
littérature ou poésie comprise, n'est pas homogène elle-même, que la
philosophie moderne s'est séparée en deux courants dits "analytique" et
"continental" : d'un côté la pragmatique, la logique, les langages, de
l'autre, la métaphysique et la métaphore... Mais sans être assignées à
territoire : même si la pensée analytique est plutôt anglophone... Je ne
pense pas que Lugwig Wittgenstein fut anglais même si Bertrand Russel fit la
préface du Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:)


Que pensez vous de Pierre Klossovski - comme poète comme philosophe et comme
artiste, j'entends - ?


Et je vous épargne le détail de Saussure ou plus tard du structuralisme, qui
menèrent Noam Chomsky et Harris à la linguistique mathématique structurale
triomphante des années 60 au MIT (était-ce bien au MIT?) etc.


Ni ce que Nelson Goodman dans sa théorie des langages de l'art présenterait
d'aristotélicien...


Je ne vois pas ce que TS Eliot, Mallarmé (ou même Djuna Barnes), plus tard,
ou James Joyce, même pourquoi pas D.H. Lawrence, présentent de vraiment plus
aristotélicien que Alfred Jarry...


 Joyce Mansour et le surréalisme ?

Pour ne pas rappeler encore la Beat géneration et Fluxus, en effet déjà
cités dans le cadre de ce débat.

Et au fond, ici encore on pourrait même citer Baudrillard lui-même dont
l'écriture spéculative tient autant de la pataphysique que de la philosophie
et de la poésie continentales.


Bref, c'était juste quelques clichés pour en éviter d'autres...

Car, enfin, je ne pense pas que le donné aristotélicien ni
non-aristotélicien puissent caractériser spécifiquement le domaine poétique
que vous considérez, pas plus qu'en musique microtonale ou dans le jazz
d'Albert Ayler...


Un salut  cordial,
A.


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