[-empyre-] Para-site: Queer?: Specters of Derrida

[Robert Summers]

I think that Christina is at play, in play, which is to also say
immersed: an immersive thinking that plays and is relational, which is
a(n) (il)logic of *queer.*  I really find the notion of *para-site,*
which Christina surfaces, absolutely interesting, and I think it plays
well with Serres' theorization of *the parasite*-- anyone else?
I think *the parasite* is a site and a movement toward mediation -- to
mediate in a specific site, though _this_ site is no-site: cyberspace;
nowhere and everywhere.
Back to Seres: *I live among things—divine things—and I am plunged in
the obscure group. They are easier to understand than it is—not more
simple, for they are exquisitely complex. I find happiness in the
divinity of things themselves; they push me toward pantheism; I suffer
quite often in the group and in the dark, in my intelligence and in my
life. Soon, in order to make the collective clearer, I shall use the
notion of quasi-object. It circulates, it passes among us. I give it;
I receive it. Thank you; you're welcome. Eucharist and Paraclete. We
are the second and third persons, submerged in the incarnation and in
the wind of Pentecost, leaving the Father to infinity for all
eternity. Grace passes in the fuzzy area between words and things,
between the canals where substantial foods and sonorous voices flow,
between the exchanges of energy and information, an intermediate
space, a space of equivalence where language is born, where fire is
born, where it makes the things of which it speaks appear, an unstable
distance of ecstasy and existence, of incarnation and ascension, of
bread and birds. I move forward a bit in the black box. I hear the
invitation to live together in the space in which the material and the
logical are exchanged. The third appears; the third is included. Maybe
he is each and every one of us.*
(Indeed, I think, and this my own highly invested reading and claim,
that *the parasite* -- both literal and metaphorical -- can be
productive in a discussion of *relational aesthetics* ... but perhaps
I am taking up too much time at this discussion, this proverbial
dinner table.)
So, then, finally, can *we* articulate *queer* as a third (referring
back to Serres) without the first or second, which is to say without a
dialectics, without phallo-centericism, and without erections, but
with a unholy third?  ... 3 ... nothing before ... 3
On Derrida: I think that Michael O'Rourke has made a brilliant
discussion of *queer Derrida* in the issue of Rhizomes (which
resonates, the rhizome, with the movement of the parasite):
http://www.rhizomes.net/issue10/orourke.htm
And, I think that Paul Hurley has performed brilliant body art pieces
that *queer* Deleuze and Guattari:
http://www.rhizomes.net/issue11/hurley/index.html
Hurley enacts the parasite, the insect, the animal ... his work is an
embodied artwork that activates queerness, and necessarily *queers*
the spectator -- if only momentarily, temporarily.
As for *queer,* I do think *we* should discuss this more -- as Micha
Cardenas calls for.  I would say *queer* is more of a question and a
way of looking and engaging with/in the *flesh of the world,* than it
is an answer or a set of established guidelines -- not that Cardenas
suggests that -- but that is my quick response.  Thoughts, anyone?
Critiques?  I shall remain quite ... I look forward to Virginia
Solomon's and Emily Roysdon's engagements: both of them brilliant and
invaluable.

As ever, Robert

Robert Summers, PhD/ABD