[-empyre-] Objecthood and Ephemerality

Michael Angelo Tata, PhD mtata at ipublishingllc.com
Thu Apr 16 19:48:08 EST 2009 

Joseph,
 
Thanks for pushing me further regarding the e-lit debates.  As a poet and philosopher who publishes widely on various Internet venues and who collectively edits an e-journal (Nebula, Australia), I am personally intrigued by the complexities of using the WWW to showcase my or any work: for example, the exigencies of value and collectibility you introduce are “live issues” directly impacting mine and other literary careers.  The theme of the non-collectibiliy of the virtual e-lit object is critical, since it is value which inspires the act of collection, and the fact of collection which increases value, as presumably people do not amass valueless objects (here, folk art, with its buildings made of tin cans or gardens of half-buried Cadillacs, diverges, introducing the problem of naïveté and the charm of the “uncultured,” as this “genre” mandates the collection and utilization of the trash object).  As Walter Benjamin comments in his essay “Unpacking My Library,” it is through collection that the human achieves intimacy with the inhuman: what kind of intimacy does e-lit foster?  
 
E-lit does indeed highlight the issue of measuring scholarship, since it is presumably this “number” or measurement which designates position, remuneration, and the fame that only circulation and endorsement can produce.  What you have pointed out early on in this forum, the measurement of scholarship or talent changes over time, and is in some way tied to the workings of the economy in question, its permissiveness fluctuating with the movements of the capital that keeps it going as market per se.  Hence the wild excesses of “cultural studies” or other “area studies” which seemed chic, JIT and urgent in the not-so-distant past, and which, I have to admit, have structured my own identity as scholar, have become too expensive culturally in the wake of the ongoing Recession.  Foie gras and sea urchin are no longer in style: for the University, it’s back to meat and potatoes.  Entities like the University of Phoenix may even have a rôle in this new conservatism, as the promise of a functional education devoid of frivolities like speculative philosophy or psychoanalysis caries with it the promise of a stable career and income, and people do not have the luxury of engaging in reflection, which makes life worth living, as Socrates correctly observed, but does not necessarily fund it.    
 
Your comments on frames and expansion are especially poignant for me: do you have any links to photos of the work in question?  From an e-lit perspective, the Internet has become the new frame, the borders of the laptop or desktop hemming in text and image, introducing and authorizing the chance of any potential mobility (for example, the transportation of the notebook to the wifi café).  Yet because the Internet is essentially democratic, it is not clear how to assign value to the things it frames: does a Craigs List call for Afternoon Delight bear the same weight as a poem on La Petit Zine?  Does the one cheapen or enrich the other?  How can snobbery and the lordship of taste function within these loose and radically pluralist parameters?
 
The virtuality of e-lit poses particularly salient challenges for the object proper—but of course it’s not the first form to place the object in the vicinity of the precarious.  Specifically, I think of two innovations which redefined objects and objecthood: (1) installation art, and (2) performance art.  With regard to #1, I turn to Ann Hamilton’s exhibit tropos (DIA, 1993).  While this show, like so much installation art, did not consist of collectible or already collected, “loaned” objects on display, since what it presented and showcased was a large and unruly horsehair rug, a drone burning books line by line, and the voice of a stroke victim struggling to overcome his aphasia by doing the impossible and speaking, it did give gallery-goers the chance to purchase a limited number of Victorian horsehair collars at astronomical prices.  These items functioned as both exorbitant souvenir as well as crystallized and condensed installation-in-miniature, something portable and exhibitable, perhaps even wearable, depending on one’s antibodies.  Regarding performance art, within this genre the object becomes what Debord and his cronies aptly termed “the situation.”  Here, the situation becomes an object in its own right, collectible through the items which document its ephemerality (photographs, videos, a program, even a book from which monologues have been extracted, as in the case of Tim Miller’s Shirts and Skin, 1998).  E-lit appears to be the next crisis in the history of the object, as it places it in the vicinity of the virtual, and challenges assumptions about accumulation and price, the ultimate gauge of value in a capitalist society.
 
In general, I wonder: how are networks different from communities?  Aren’t communities networks in and of their cohesion, support, and “wiring?”  For example, “social networking” on sites like Myspace or Friendster builds communities, and communities would not be able to sustain themselves as communities without the very networks that facilitate linkage and interconnection.  It may be the impersonality of the networks of Systems Theory that are at stake in this discussion, as these are quite adept at sustaining themselves, performing functions long after their functionalities are desirable for no particular community or social niche: these networks operate without prejudice, producing output for anyone and everyone.  
 
PS—I’m looking forward to that forthcoming JIT article!  Thanks for cluing me in. 



*******************************************
Michael Angelo Tata, PhD  347.776.1931-USA
http://www.MichaelAngeloTata.com/




 

> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:49:14 -0500
> From: jtabbi at gmail.com
> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Magma
> 
> Michael, you ask, about e-lit: does it arrive JIT ('just-in-time')?
> 
> Certainly it emerges in the time of neo-liberal politics and
> economics, and that affects the work and also its institutional
> organization.
> 
> I do suspect that creative and scholarly work increasingly is produced
> from compulsion. "De-Christianized Christian guilt" - there's a lot of
> it around and I wouldn't be surprised if it's a motivating factor.
> 
> Another, more measurable factor, is the way scholarship now gets
> measured: credentializing and peer review is the big thing that
> everyone worries about, but it's not really about review by 'peers.'
> That still goes on and it's the only way one knows if the work is
> being read, viewed, experienced, and communicated. But as yet there's
> no good way (in literature, at least) for that peer-to-peer activity
> to translate into institutional recognition - the kind that sustains a
> literary career and keeps one's spirits up. So in the absence of a
> strong professional or guild conscience, we get all kinds of schemes
> for weighing the value of work published in tiered research venues, a
> really tiresome exercise that's now next to impossible to avoid: the
> 'outcomes' document circulated by Sally Jane is again relevant here.
> 
> I remember a conversation in my Chicago apartment about twelve years
> ago, between two writers who have sinced achieved careers in e-lit.
> Both had begun by publishing with independent literary presses, but
> they had just discovered that, if they framed a short piece of prose
> (literally, put the page in a metal frame) and presented it as an art
> installation, their channels of distribution suddenly expanded
> dramatically. The Internet, and e-media generally may have offered
> more ways to "frame" literary work, though we've yet to see if there's
> a market for e-lit. But it is safe to say, that with at most two or
> three exceptions e-lit is NOT establishing itself in literature and
> creative writing programs (which have emerged arguably with the
> disappearance of a market for literary fiction, essays, and poetry).
> Either there are new programs in the digital arts and humanities, that
> aim to develop disciplinary "frames," or practitioners seek venues in
> programs for the arts and the gallery circuit.
> 
> (The ELO, recognizing this latter trend, hosts exhibitions along with
> paper presentations and readings at its bi-annual scholarly
> conferences: I think my e-lit colleagues and I need to do more
> outreach to those hundreds of NYC galleries mentioned early in this
> thread.)
> 
> So the work, generally, is migrating toward the arts and markets which
> have been proactive in creating new audiences, sponsors, and outlets
> for displaying work.
> 
> What has not developed, yet, is a way to make the work of e-lit unique
> and collectible, the way many art objects are, or printed books for
> that matter.
> 
> But this is of course where Warhol comes in. And Fluxus. And Walter
> Benjamin. e-lit is becoming the 'work' of art in the age of digital
> reproduction - and the word, 'work,' implies more an activity and
> lifeway, than the individual auratic 'work' or the multiple,
> mechanically reproducible 'work.'
> 
> Such digital literary 'work' is sustained by networks. Not
> 'communities' since we don't have the common interests and prejudices
> and exclusions that hold communities together, traditionally. What we
> have are individuals who use networks to advance their interests and
> positions.
> 
> So I guess I see whatever comes 'after,' as taking a network form, one
> way or t' other.
> 
> Somewhere Hardt & Negri said of the State, that it could not just
> engage networks (money networks, terrorist cells, and so forth); the
> State in their view needed to BECOME a network.
> 
> I suspect something similar needs to take place in contemporary
> literary production.
> 
> (Credit where it's due: the phrase 'just-in-time' was applied to cult
> studies by John Durham Peters in an essay he presented to the German
> "Network" for American Studies a few years ago in Bonn, Germany; that
> essay is set to go live on www.electronicbookreview I hope in a month
> or so, so the phrase was on my mind.)
> 
> Joseph
> 
> 
> >
> > Joseph
> >
> >
> > I appreciate your connection of Neoliberalism with the discipline of cult
> > studies, and really love your identification of “Just-in-Time” or JIT
> > scholarship, which has for the most part transformed the University in what
> > I might argue are some truly wonderful ways.  Yes, for the 90s and parts of
> > this millennium, scholarship has had an urgent temporality at its core.  The
> > tones of post-structuralist and psychoanalytic writing are desperate and
> > crisis-laden: it is almost as if Derrida and Lacan are about to leap into a
> > volcano.  De-Christianized Christian guilt suffuses the atmosphere, making
> > it imperative that we find something important and canonical to say about
> > this phantom split subject who is at all moments about to disappear, or who
> > has already disappeared: how would we know?  Again, I raise the question of
> > a post-postmodernism, and ask your take on what comes next culturally, now
> > that history appears to have re-condensed.  Might the external referent come
> > back into vogue?
> >
> >
> >
> > As for the functional separation of Art/commerce, I would ask your take on
> > Warholian “Business Art.”  I don’t think you are advocating a return of the
> > Wildean, but am intrigued to see what you envision happening with these
> > unique yet integrated realms, especially as regards the promising field of
> > e-lit.  Also, is e-lit Just in Time?  Timely?  What is its “market,” its
> > role in Nick’s parallax view?  Does it also court problems of chic?
> >
> > *******************************************
> > Michael Angelo Tata, PhD  347.776.1931-USA
> > http://www.MichaelAngeloTata.com/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:37:55 -0700
> >> From: editor at intertheory.org
> >> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Enter...the Octo-Mom
> >>
> >>
> >> absolute ingenuity! octo-mom is the symptom, the product and the
> >> side-effect of our market/culture parallax...! when everything is genetic
> >> Code, we are equal in the sense of gross organic wealth, but then they will
> >> (and do) tell us all Code is not created equal...they tell us some Codes are
> >> inherently better suited to a particular milieu, some Codes are impaired,
> >> and so on, as a function of the market/culture/nature scaffolding... so we
> >> enter the era of genetic interventionism octo-reproduction...designer Code
> >> for designer Environments it is!?
> >>
> >> NRIII
> >>
> >>
> >> Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D Editor, Kritikos http://intertheory.org
> >>
> >>
> >> --- On Sun, 4/5/09, Michael Angelo Tata, PhD <mtata at ipublishingllc.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > From: Michael Angelo Tata, PhD <mtata at ipublishingllc.com>
> >> > Subject: [-empyre-] Enter...the Octo-Mom
> >> > To: "Soft Skinned Space" <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >> > Date: Sunday, April 5, 2009, 1:02 AM
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > #yiv895117554 .hmmessage P
> >> > {
> >> > margin:0px;padding:0px;}
> >> > #yiv895117554 {
> >> > font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Given Nick's reflections on the nature of the gift, and
> >> > of the given in general (for example, the phenomenological
> >> > donne of sense experience), I am left to wonder what happens
> >> > if we retain the theory of the gift central to Derrida's
> >> > thought, yet replace the "God" of the Old
> >> > Testament (the creator who demands an impossible sacrifice
> >> > from Abraham, one which becomes the extreme form of the
> >> > gift, here a violent oblation defying an ethical order and
> >> > necessitating an appeal to "absolute duty" and
> >> > "absolute responsibility") with the DNA of
> >> > biology. What does the gift become under these
> >> > circumstances? What becomes of the interrupted
> >> > economy of the gift, as it suspends the ethical in
> >> > the Augenblick of faith's leap?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > As for reciprocity, for Derrida, there is a
> >> > fundamental dissymetry between myself and the Other, as
> >> > well as among myself and the "other others" with
> >> > whom I share social concourse: the gift I am expected to
> >> > hand over to the deity is one which will not be
> >> > reciprocated, but refused, causing me to be
> >> > remunerated in a posthumous order where spirirual
> >> > riches accumulate, but only if I forget. With DNA in
> >> > the place of the Other, does this dissymetry remain, or is
> >> > the playng field leveled?
> >> >
> >> > For Derrida, to give is to forget that one has given: but
> >> > can we forget our investments?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On another note, I am struck by the coincidence of the Wall
> >> > Street crisis and the Octo-Mom's uterine crisis.
> >> > Like an investment scheme, she has taxed the system
> >> > by producing too much debt (all those mouths to feed,
> >> > that shabby house that needed to be replaced, etc.).
> >> > How many embryos were implanted? How many babies
> >> > came out? Is Wall Street an Octo-Mom, or is she merely
> >> > am emblem of excess in a time of defecit?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > *******************************************
> >> > Michael Angelo Tata,
> >> > PhD 347.776.1931-USA
> >> > http://www.MichaelAngeloTata.com/
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > > Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 14:59:42 -0700
> >> > > From: editor at intertheory.org
> >> > > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> > > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Eddies, Whirlwinds, Trade
> >> > Winds
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > In Derrida's "Given Time", the gift is
> >> > seen as that which may theoretically interrupt economy...but
> >> > in practice the gift cannot help itself; it serves to
> >> > reproduce the relations of exchange through the act of
> >> > reciprocity...such reciprocity of exchange seems to be the
> >> > basis of human relations...
> >> > >
> >> > > In terms of our lives today, internationally, many
> >> > expect the gift of electronic credit and finance, and true
> >> > to form, are expected to return its terms in full
> >> > spatio-temporal reciprocity...and with interest...where did
> >> > we go wrong? Why not simply, gifts, wrapping paper and bows
> >> > for all, with no strings attached?
> >> > >
> >> > > So, we 'give' more, and perhaps, expect more
> >> > too, and increasingly...the ineluctable march of
> >> > 'progress'...is this the way of God or the
> >> > Devil...or some other Way...at the risk of tautology or
> >> > paradox: did we create exchange (the exchange of currency
> >> > takes many forms (e.g. dollars/euros, DNA contributions in
> >> > reproduction, posturing and innuendo in strategies of
> >> > nuclear deterrence, etc.))...if all this true, human culture
> >> > may be but a side effect of some greater process of
> >> > 'crescere,' that expansion and coming to be of
> >> > creative Exchange, no?
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > nick
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D Editor, Kritikos
> >> > http://intertheory.org
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > --- On Wed, 4/1/09, Michael Angelo Tata, PhD
> >> > <mtata at ipublishingllc.com> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > > From: Michael Angelo Tata, PhD
> >> > <mtata at ipublishingllc.com>
> >> > > > Subject: [-empyre-] Eddies, Whirlwinds, Trade
> >> > Winds
> >> > > > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> > > > Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 8:35 PM
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > #yiv1848887985 .hmmessage P
> >> > > > {
> >> > > > margin:0px;padding:0px;}
> >> > > > #yiv1848887985 {
> >> > > > font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Greetings,
> >> > > > all! I’m quite excited to
> >> > > > share this panel with such an eminent bunch, and
> >> > look
> >> > > > forward to undertaking some important reflection
> >> > upon what
> >> > > > the cultural ramifications of the current Wall
> >> > Street
> >> > > > debacle might be, both domestically and globally.
> >> > Basically,
> >> > > > I’ve written a book about Warhol which is
> >> > currently
> >> > > > forthcoming from Intertheory, so hopefully
> >> > Warhol’s own
> >> > > > relation to commerce, as well as the role he has
> >> > been slated
> >> > > > within pomo-ism proper by people like Jameson,
> >> > will become a
> >> > > > part of the discussion.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Aside from
> >> > > > Warhol, the place toward which my mind
> >> > immediately turns as
> >> > > > I think about what Nicholas refers to as the
> >> > Immaculate
> >> > > > Deception is Camille Paglia’s identification of
> >> > Jacques
> >> > > > Derrida as a junk-bond salesman in her “Junk
> >> > Bonds and
> >> > > > Corporate Raiders” (part of Sex, Art, and
> >> > > > American Culture). I think
> >> > > > my mind races to this piece of writing because it
> >> > does raise
> >> > > > the important question of the potential
> >> > bankruptcy of theory
> >> > > > in general (a risk that does not seem to plague
> >> > > > philosophy quite the same way).
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Glancing anew at Derrida’s The Gift of
> >> > > > Death, I take immense pleasure in the text’s
> >> > flow, the
> >> > > > beautiful post-structural play of surfaces that
> >> > carry me
> >> > > > away on currents of semantic glissement: perhaps
> >> > she’s
> >> > > > right, but without comprehending that the
> >> > problematic she
> >> > > > formulates is wrong because theory is nor
> >> > philosophy, what
> >> > > > it can give transcends the gross objectivity of a
> >> > fact or
> >> > > > datum. Still, there is
> >> > > > Derrida’s love of counterfeit money in Gift
> >> > > > and Given Time.
> >> > > > How does this tropism speak to Madoff’s
> >> > > > antics? To the culture that will
> >> > > > flourish in the wake of collapse and that has
> >> > flowered all
> >> > > > along during these golden years of HELOC madness
> >> > and
> >> > > > Home Depot grand openings? To
> >> > > > the “cultural logic” of late capitalism in
> >> > general, and
> >> > > > the late, late gerontic capitalism of today’s
> >> > > > world?
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Places my
> >> > > > mind travels to next:
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > The
> >> > > > marvelous bankruptcy of American culture in
> >> > > > general—especially in its postmodern
> >> > instantiation. Something for nothing, nothing for
> >> > > > nothing.
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > The Dotcom
> >> > > > crash of the early millennium as prefigurement to
> >> > the
> >> > > > present real estate crash: the no-there-there of
> >> > the virtual
> >> > > > reasserts itself in the financial sector.
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > 9/11 and the
> >> > > > return of a historically meaningful present,
> >> > pace
> >> > > > Baudrillard’s post-history: what is
> >> > > > post-postmodernism? Are we
> >> > > > experiencing it now?
> >> > > > Specifically, what comes next, after irony? The
> >> > Pecker
> >> > > > paradigm.
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > “Yes We Can” becomes “Yes You Can”; the
> >> > Obama
> >> > > > slogan becomes a Pepsi mantra (or is it the Obama
> >> > mantra
> >> > > > becomes the Pepsi slogan?). Where do we go with
> >> > this
> >> > > > mutation?
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > On a recent
> >> > > > trip to Geneva, I stumbled across a department
> >> > store
> >> > > > (Manor-La Placette) built on the original site
> >> > of
> >> > > > Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s boyhood home: a little
> >> > placard,
> >> > > > tender yet bearing the weight of history, read
> >> > something to
> >> > > > the effect of “Ice est né le petit
> >> > Rousseau….’ How do we read this repurposing of
> >> > > > Rousseau in light of his “Discourse on the Arts
> >> > and
> >> > > > Sciences”? How do we connect
> >> > > > the cultural bankruptcy Rousseau outlines with
> >> > recent Wall
> >> > > > Street hijinks? Commerce and
> >> > > > culture alike straddle an abyss of currency and
> >> > meaning:
> >> > > > what does each realm have to say to the other
> >> > regarding risk
> >> > > > and venture?
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Alright: this little poetic scatter catalogues
> >> > my
> >> > > > various points of inception. I
> >> > > > am looking forward to reading everyone else’s.
> >> >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > *******************************************
> >> > > > Michael Angelo Tata,
> >> > > > PhD 347.776.1931-USA
> >> > > > http://www.MichaelAngeloTata.com/
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Quick access to your favorite MSN content and
> >> > > > Windows Live with Internet Explorer 8. Download
> >> > > > FREE now!
> >> > > >
> >> > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> >> > > >
> >> > > > _______________________________________________
> >> > > > empyre forum
> >> > > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> > > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >> > > _______________________________________________
> >> > > empyre forum
> >> > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >> >
> >> > Quick access to your favorite MSN content and
> >> > Windows Live with Internet Explorer 8. Download
> >> > FREE now!
> >> >
> >> > -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > empyre forum
> >> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> empyre forum
> >> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> > ________________________________
> > Quick access to your favorite MSN content and Windows Live with Internet
> > Explorer 8. Download FREE now!
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync.
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_allup_1a_explore_042009
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20090416/5e0a108e/attachment.html

More information about the empyre mailing list