[-empyre-] night sea crossing 3

[Johannes Birringer]

dear soft_skinned ones


Deena,thank for this reply and your provocative questions,
after you went through the trouble of finding 'Kafka's Wound" before i even had a chance to
mention the link or the chain of associations it had harnessed and released.

I wanted to wait and listen you in the eyes, of words or links, or further associations forthcoming from an exchange.

Kafka's Wound was a proposition for a digital literary essay to be penned by Will Self on that story that I mentioned (A Country Doctor),
but before if was even written, we met, a bunch of people met and Mr Self opened up that planned writing by inviting other media, film, performance,
text, music, and machinima and games contributions, or associations or responses to the material at hand (much of the discussion in the planning meeting
was about the horrid description of the wound in the patient). Some of us, i think about 20 or 30 artists and researchers, then went off to ponder
and create something to give to The Space where the writing was to appear.  I sometimes hesitate to mention the space to friends, as
it is not easy to visit or dwell in, i guess it is like visiting a museum and you got a whole to spend there, wandering from room to room.
as the "media" and thus the whole chain of associated imagings, soundings and texting are linked to Will's writing on Kafka, and those
of us contributing had no influence on the navigation design or/and the place where our works would be put....  

http://thespace.lrb.co.uk/

so it was all very odd and fascinating to then go to the Kafka and listen. They put my "Leben in seiner Wunde" (the wrong version, i had given them a german one that
i was satisfied with, they prefered the english one) as a "link" to the lovely word in the text, "Wagnerina Gesamtkunstwerk" -- what an odd link.

Anyway, not to dwell.  I am also very interested, as Deena is, in how some of you respond to our discussion or think about the subject.
And Alan and Sandy, so I believe, probably wanted it to have taken directed attention, perhaps, more to  pain or death possibly experienced
in the VIRTUAL.  

I cannot speak to that, as i have experienced neither in a game environment or Second Life or VR art work. I would not probably imagine
experiencing pain there, as i do not see the virtual (or the online) being at all the same category as my ordinary physical life, and if there are
psychic confluences, and shared perturbations, then yes, one might address the emotional experience that we have in an imaginary space. Many of
you have done this here.  

If Pain and anxiety, violence and death surely exist, inside and outside and beyond ourselves, and in our midst, in around us, then they are inescapable,
and yes we all confront fear and also the immediacy of pain, there is not doubt.   When Alan asked about the pain in the VIRTUAL, i did not know
what to to say, as i simply had not pondered it. I also rarely if ever play games, I don't shoot at things
in a game world; 

and none of the few avatars (the dancers) we created for UKIYO [ Moveable Worlds]
(in 2009-10) suffered, except perhaps muscle ache. 

How is death experienced in animé?  by the manga characters?
i have no real idea, but some of you may have looked into the matter?

regards

Johannes Birringer
dap-lab