Re: [-empyre-] I once ate a pea

[Aliette <aliette@criticalsecret.org>]

Chert tous, cher Bruno,

Très intéressant ton texte et tes liens, décidément tu es trop brillant
Bruno:)

Mais sur ce point :

> modernity->postmodernity->modernity...
> - if we are in a postmodern cynical state, we lose our relation to humanity
> and we have to deal with guilt
> - at the contrary if we try to be politically modern, we encouter our
> sado-masochistic relation to the other (one of the beginnings of Modernity
> corresponds to Marquis de Sade).
> This alternance is quite commonplace, but what the piece tells us is that
> there is no hope of going out in the context of the new world or BPSC
> (Benthamian Panopticon of Semantic Capitalism), in which we are all
> accomplices.

Le cadre de référence du panoptique de Bentham étant humanitaire, Il y a
sans doute une troisième voie, laquelle paradoxalement tiendrait au
contraire au renversement de l'humanisme des Lumières (le jeter à la
poubelle). Autrement dit : imaginer de réécrire d'autres déclarations
universelles des droits de l'homme ou du "genre humain"..



On 29/03/06 2:38, "Christophe Bruno" <christophe.bruno@unbehagen.com>
probably wrote:

> Christina asked me If I could write about my own practice. I'm still in the
> process of reading all the previous posts in a desperate attempt to catch up
> the conversation. Lot of work... I haven't finished yet. But I'd like to
> make an artist's statement that is in relation to the question about
> Modernity/Antiquity:
> 
> My work deals with some impossibilities, like for instance:
> - in language with the "Google Adwords Happening": impossible matching
> between speech and knowledge...
> - in happiness  with  "WiFi-SM"
> - in Science, with a recent little project called "(In)human Sciences"
> (available on http://www.neterotopia.net )
> etc..
> 
> Let me try to articulate one of these impossibilities respectively to the
> question of Modernity, in the piece WiFi-SM for instance. The piece plays
> with the fact that we are stuck in the circle
> modernity->postmodernity->modernity...
> - if we are in a postmodern cynical state, we lose our relation to humanity
> and we have to deal with guilt
> - at the contrary if we try to be politically modern, we encouter our
> sado-masochistic relation to the other (one of the beginnings of Modernity
> corresponds to Marquis de Sade).
> This alternance is quite commonplace, but what the piece tells us is that
> there is no hope of going out in the context of the new world or BPSC
> (Benthamian Panopticon of Semantic Capitalism), in which we are all
> accomplices.
> 
> But the BPSC is an anticipation of a limit, beyond which the "division of
> labour" has reached an ultimate stage; division between spectacle an
> control, between terrorism and colonisation of privacy, between speaking and
> hearing: bloggers produce speech, Google extracts statistical knowledge
> about their intimacy etc. Here, the obstacle that modernity has to deal
> with, is related to Marx's Mehrwert, surplus-value, which Lacan turned into
> Mehrlust, plus-de-jouir. The postmodern master (Google) has to recover the
> knowledge of the slave (bloggers). This is done through hard science and
> technology.  This recovering of knowledge, this extraction from the
> gold-mine of free speech, aims at consituting an (impossible) implementation
> of Hegelian absolute knowledge, which would allow to optimize the economic
> dynamics of the new last world. So at the end of the process, there is real
> stuff, IPO.
> 
> If we ever want to go out of this circle, we need to avoid the false exits
> out of Modernity like those that history already produced. One way out might
> be related to the question of the "retour des choses" (cf a former post of
> mine), or double-hack, double-irony, or as Christina added: a double twist,
> transforming the circle into the border of a moebius strip.  Why the "retour
> des choses"? Maybe just because it's stupid or because of the "real stuff"
> or because Network = Death, or because: "You may freely eat of every tree of
> the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not
> eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." In my article on
> http://www.cosmolalia.com , I left a little bit aside the relation between
> the crisis in the roots of mathematics and the spectacle society. The thread
> is something like that: Kurt Gödel - Alan Turing - Snow White - Apple -
> Disney - Debord. Variation on the forbidden fruit (read Alan Turing
> biography and the way he committed suicide by poisoning half of an apple!).
> 
> In a previous post I already gave a few examples of this "retour des choses",
> like webpaintings (Valéry Grancher), Internet Paintings (Miltos Manetas). In
> my work I can give two examples: "Human Browser" (dealing with the voice as
> an object) or my platform of "art on demand" where I produce books from the
> following double-hack:
> All the books -> Google Books (formerly Google Print) - > N-unique (?)
> networked personnalized relational books on iterature.com
> See an example here (more will be online soon)
> http://www.christophebruno.com/wordpress/wp-content/artondemand1.JPG
> http://www.christophebruno.com/index.php?p=9
> 
> These examples show an evolution from relational or networked aesthetics
> towards a return to objects that ironically use old media, but are fully
> embedding our new media world.
> 
> Can we call them, N-State "objects" ?  (I think it's Brett Stalbaum who
> introduced the term N-State in the discussion) Heterotopic objects? In any
> case, they cannot be separated from the ironical attitude that presided
> their production; to be compared, of course, to the attitude of the Dandy -
> with Sade, one of the ultimate references when talking about Modernity, Pop
> and BPSC ("I once ate a pea" is one of the famous quotations by Brummel, as
> some old baronness would ask him if he liked vegetables, another interesting
> variation on the forbidden fruit). The Dandy would lead us to the idea of
> "devirilization" in the Modern World... Waiting for the next episode of
> Desperate Housewives...
> 
> The "retour des choses", even if it might be linked to a way out, to some
> renonciation that would let us drop out of the circle, is not enough in
> itself to find the way out. It's just a hint.  As you may know, "les choses"
> are in a critical state in France right now... You may have heard of CPE (=
> First Hire Contract) demonstrations. Maybe you are not aware of this other
> french (US-inspired?) project, a study published by the French National
> Institute of Medical Research (INSERM), entitled "Child and teenage
> behavioural problems" (« Troubles des conduites chez l'enfant et
> l'adolescent ») which aims at detecting criminal behaviour in three-year-old
> children. This study takes place within the context of a general plan of
> prevention of youth crime which the government is currently preparing.
> cf http://www.pasde0deconduite.ras.eu.org
> 
> Funny: Science thinks it can deal with the phallic stage but bumps into the
> anal stage ;-)
> 
> Christophe
> http://www.cosmolalia.com
> http://www.iterature.com
> http://www.unbehagen.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>