[-empyre-] whose "our systems"

[Johannes Birringer]

dear all:
the question of whether the dispositif is us, admittedly, now confuses me.


This post just came in, sent from Alan Sondheim:

Hi Johannes,

You say,
>I tend not to believe we are "always already virtual" (as Alan Sondheim
suggests)>

-- but one problem I have with the discussion is that it doesn't include a 
critique of the corporate. Take the distinction (which I've also written 
about) between digital and analog - on a 'deep level' these merge or are 
problematized, in spite of things like the collapse of the wave function. 
But on the level of the _body,_ embodiment, the digital is entangled with 
digital technology - i.e. protocol suites, software, etc.; a gif is not a 
jpg is not a png - and a bvh is not an stl is not a mesh is not an Oculus 
is not a glass etc. - each of these have their own protocls, standards, 
tolerances, media ecologies, etc. etc. So on THAT level, the virtual 
becomes entangled with embodiment yes but also with the corporate/control 
etc. What I'm saying is that not ENOUGH attention is given, say, to the 
ontology of dreams, hypnagogic visions, the pervasive imaginary, etc. etc. 
- which is deeply inhering within embodiment, entangled with it. And for 
me THAT is what's interesting, not technological articulations and 
mappings etc.

Alan


____________________________________

Sent: Friday, July 04, 2014 4:47 PM

Simon, I realize you were teasing me, but what if it were not funny?

>
Yes - I'm saying we are the dispositif, the system. We are that, we are defined by that - we become what we are through that.
But the dispositif is multi-modal. It is all about how we exist in our relations - our relations with things, systems, technologies, other people, the planet, etc. These are specific to the individual, and of course culturally conditioned (culture is part of the dispositif), but many elements are shared. If your system is a shambles then it's no surprise that everybody else's is too :)
>>

well I hope that my shambles, or my slower or broken movement, won't have dire consequences for anyone.
I tend not to believe we are "always already virtual" (as Alan Sondheim suggests), not do I identify with the dispositif or assemblage
or what John has called the techno-social system (TSS). I am often incorporated, I agree, and Sue and also Susan Kozel, and Alan also, have both
briefly mentioned the hijacking of our data or "signatures", but I doubt anyone hijacked my movement or my behavior when I am asked to perform
to the TSS --- my reference, Simon, was mostly derived from my experience (described in the EMPAC blog) of the interactve installations that were
built in that lab context and lab duration,  interactive, responsive and reactive environments that were called "systems" by everyone, and -
now on to Sue: