[-empyre-] digital poetics

[Alan Sondheim]

(Before replying before, I received an email back-channel about erasure; 
this (seriously!) disappeared from my inbox - I'd appreciate it if it 
could be sent again. Thanks, Alan)


> From: "Simon Biggs" <s.biggs at eca.ac.uk>
>
> On 10/3/09 01:00, Alan Sondheim wrote:
>
>> [I find it problematic to say that "poetics is" {x} when, at lest for some
>> of us, any definition is always under erasure. we could argue poetics and
>> "its" definition for ages; this, like any other, seems somewhat
>> reductive.]
>
> Yes, we could argue about this endlessly ? I was simply looking for a
> workable definition, otherwise we have no subject to discuss. I fully accept
> your use of erasure in this mix and wouldn?t see that as in any way excluded
> by the rough definition I propose. I would suggest that the definition
> embraces this modality.
>
fair enough -

>> (I wrote) Turing?s concept of computation does not have to involve a 
>> (electronic) computer ? it does not need a machine to assure its 
>> instrumentality. It can also employ the human. Perhaps other forms of 
>> instrumentality also exist?
>>
>> [what is the difference between this practice and that of any
>> enunciation?]
>
> It is this blurring of difference I am playing with. I am using the word 
> instrumentality carefully. I wish to avoid terms such as ?agency? as 
> this will amplify unhelpful (within the narrow context of this debate) 
> ontological issues. I also want to avoid the use of the terms ?author? 
> and ?reader? as they immediately establish certain roles and functions 
> around the ?text?. I am seeking to orient attention away from author 
> driven and reader-based theories of ?writing? towards an analysis that 
> engages writing as a process unto itself ? potentially separate to the 
> human. That is why I suggest there might be other forms of 
> instrumentality (there is no metaphysical intent here either, in case 
> anybody was looking for it).
>
Alan: as with the other reply I sent, the blurring I think leads to more 
difficulties than is helpful; it overlooks that, instrumentality or not, 
the TM reflects a platonic ideal conception - for example, an infinite 
tape, an infinite time, etc. - and this conception "collapses" into the 
very useful mathesis of unsolvability theory. For me, a TM need not exist 
for a TM to exist; it states something (many things) about mathematics and 
logic, and what it states may be in/formed by well-defined symbols. I 
think the very nature of the machine implies a poetics, perhaps a poetics 
of the digital, but I think there are more problems than usefulness in 
associating this with a blurring of the digital to encompass all writing, 
all language (however language is defined, etc.) and so forth.

> Yes, I agree...this is the point I make in the following paragraph, seeking
> to assure that any apparent difference in instrumentality is largely
> cosmetic in relation to writing DOING writing. But as you say, in that
> context, it depends on what is meant by the term ?digital?. I am using it in
> two senses at the same time (if I am permitted that Derridean indulgence)
> but if I had to make a choice then I would go for the expanded definition,
> where ?digital? means any discrete symbolic system of exchange with the
> capacity for self-modification. As you observe, within this model all
> writing (and poetics) is encompassed. That is problematic.
>
With the capacity of self-modification? Then most digital devices below 
the level, say, of the old TI-59 calculator, aren't digital, since they're 
basically GIGO on a simple level.

> Your point that poetics is that which escapes such discrete systems is well
> taken. However, whilst meaning (or not-meaning) might arise as an instance
> of the poetic obscurely (and apparently irreducibly) it is the case that
> such an instance surely be internally (and relationally/externally)
> organised as more than one element. Any other understanding would provoke
> that most reductionist of all apprehensions, essentialism. Given this, those
> components must in some manner be discernable. The question then moves to
> how we ascertain what they and their relations are. In this sense the poetic
> cannot escape the digital.
>
I'd say it can entirely escape the digital, because, for me and at least 
in the usual (useful) sense and distinction, discernible elements don't 
imply the digital...

- Alan, and thanks for your reply

> Regards
>
> Simon
>
>
> Simon Biggs
> Research Professor
> edinburgh college of art
> s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
> www.eca.ac.uk
> www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
>
> simon at littlepig.org.uk
> www.littlepig.org.uk
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>
>
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