[-empyre-] new media practice, simultaneity and boredom

[Murat Nemet-Nejat]

Hi Renate,

I found our discussions on boredom extreme interesting and led me at least
to make dormant, unexpected connections. Thank you for that.

The dilemma between seductiveness of technology and the anxieties it
provokes is equally real for me. It expresses itself in my case in relation
to repetition. When I finish a work, my impulse is to resist to build on
the "achievements" of that work, forcing myself to explore new avenues. For
instance, in my last book length poem *The Spiritual Life of
Replicants *the "spectacle"
of the poem, the space each fragment/poem occupies visually on the page is
absolutely crucial. It is a poem that tries to use film technique to
organize the total poem, seeing the poem as a film. I have a short essay at
the end "A Few Thoughts On Fragments" that explain the process. In the next
poem *things, real or unreal, objects, living or unliving*, the poem I am
writing now, I am consciously avoiding to use space as a central organizing
tool, rather trying to string several (one to four) poem together in a page
and let them interact with each other. The process is agonizingly slow and
arduous, I think similar to your experience. In my case, the hardship lies
in my discovery among the many fragments/short poems/statements/quotes,
etc., I have in my hand ones that will create electric, explosive reaction
among themselves as a single chain. Its like a hunt for treasure troves in
language. Simultaneously, certain moments in *Hamlet* exist as markers in
the background, acting as a percussion drum section (the visuality of *Blade
Runner* is replaced by the verbalism of *Hamlet)*.

Yet, when (if finally ever) the poem is finished, I will realize how the
this poem also is related to the previous one (answering questions paused
by the previous one and pausing new questions) despite all my attempts to
veer away. They are parts IV and V of a serial poem *The Structure of
Escape*. Repetition is inevitable, the attempt to escape I suppose merely
insuring the authenticity of the repetition. In that respect, it is like
your friend Buzz Spector's work which I found very powerful.

Thank you for locating and posting the Renoir interview. I think it has a
lot to say about our discussions around boredom.

Thank you again and have a great summer in whatever you are or are not
doing.

Ciao,
Murat

On Sat, May 30, 2015 at 12:54 PM, Renate Terese Ferro <rferro at cornell.edu>
wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Erin and Jason thanks so much for posting this week.  The Heidegger recaps
> were incredibly helpful to me Erin.
>
> I¹ve been thinking about my own artistic production in light of how the
> idea for this month¹s topic began with a lecture that Michelle Grabner
> gave at Cornell last month.  Many artist¹s move through their career
> producing one kind of work that they become identified with and I am
> actually enamored but also challenged by this.  I¹m thinking of my friend
> Buzz Spector
> https://www.google.com/search?q=Buzz+Spector&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS542US542&espv=
> 2&biw=1398&bih=725&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=JdppVcrOG8qNyATH8oGwD
> w&ved=0CB0QsAQ
>
> who has built his entire career on book arts most notably sculptural
> installations.  These installations involve not only collecting books but
> moving them, stacking, and balancing the individual units to create room
> sized sculptures.  Throughout his career he has re-created several of
> these installations in various venues. Like Michelle Grabner the
> disciplined repetition of an artistic action eventually brings forth a
> whole piece. Over the course of these two artist¹s working careers the
> work has managed to revolve around a very central thesis both visually and
> conceptually.
>
> Throughout my undergraduate days as a fibers and installation artist and
> my transition a bit later into printmaking, the long arduous requirements
> of production never suited the speed in which my ideas flowed.  While the
> labor¹s of repetition allowed for a space of boredom including
> mind-wandering and creative reflection, the urgency and abundance of  my
> conceptual ideas and concerns just were never met head on.  Now thirteen
> years ago my decision to embrace new media practices allows for more
> simultaneity.  While the boredom of coding and problem-solving are
> ever-present there is a generous space for multi-tasking, working across
> disciplines, learning new emerging technologies, and so much more that
> support wide open conceptual and production possibilities.  I¹m merely
> suggesting that for me this was the case.
>
> As we wind down our discussion on boredom this weekend I think about the
> summer ahead for me.  A time to begin a new drawing project about weather
> that will intersect with Augmented Reality technology and a video and
> sound piece that  focuses on patterns in local lake water biospheres and
> their shifting evolutionary bio-patterns. Of course -empyre business,
> updating my websites, and perhaps launching a new blog on art, technology,
> and life. Looking forward of course also to simply floating on Lake Cayuga
> with absolutely nothing to do.
>
> One more addition:  Thanks to Murat for taking part in our discussion in
> spite of his busy travel and work schedules and for the reference to
> Renoir¹s interview.  For our subscribers who may be interested
> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/jean-renoir-on-technology-an
> d-art
>
>
>
> To John Stadler, Ben Bogart, Emilie St. Hilaire, Lyn Georinger, Ana
> Valdes, Simon Biggs, and Murat Germen-- hope you will all feel free to
> post parting posts over the next two days to finish our month out. I will
> close our discussion down on Sunday evening EDT May 31st. Thanks to all of
> you.
>
> Renate
>
>
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Assistant Professor of Art,Cornell University
> Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office:  306
> Ithaca, NY  14853
> Email:   <rferro at cornell.edu <mailto:rtf9 at cornell.edu>>
> URL:  http://www.renateferro.net <http://www.renateferro.net/>
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>
> Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 5/29/15, 8:59 PM, "Erin Obodiac" <emo57 at cornell.edu> wrote:
>
> >----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> >
> >And, here's chapter four of Heidegger on boredom:
> >
> >Now and then, as when Heidegger writes, ³Following our vacation, we shall
> >now attempt . . . ² (132), the reader is reminded that this discourse was
> >a seminar in 1929/30.  No doubt, Heidegger experienced the first (waiting
> >at a train station circa the impending 1930s Depression) and second
> >(attending a pleasant party circa the end of‹the party¹s over‹1920s)
> >forms of boredom during this specific hiatus, yet he asks in general
> >³whether a profound boredom is a fundamental attunement of contemporary
> >Dasein² (132).  In addition to socio-historically positioning Heidegger¹s
> >discourse on boredom, we might also position it in relation to the rest
> >of the book  (The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics) and note that it
> >precedes and frames his famous discussion concerning animality and its
> >poverty in world.  We might assume that the animal cannot be bored, and
> >that boredom is an attunement proper to Dasein alone.  I would like to
> >argue, however, that boredom¹s relation to temporality‹being in limbo,
> >being empty, dragging and standing still‹point to mediations of time that
> >animality and technical entities also interface with.  One point of entry
> >might be that although the second form of boredom comes from within
> >Dasein, the first form comes from ³the outside² (133), from things
> >themselves.  Unlike animals, inanimate things, and technical entities,
> >says Heidegger, Dasein has a relation to world, to beings as such, so
> >this comportment, which is the ground of attunement, is foreclosed to
> >them. Though without a proper relation to beings as such, the animal is,
> >nevertheless, open to world.  Heidegger calls this being poor-in-world,
> >and we might wonder if being poor-in-boredom is the animal¹s modality of
> >boredom.  So we might ask here, can animals be bored?  And what about
> >machinic entities?  If we keep within the Heideggerian parameters, we
> >should remember that boredom is analyzed outside the concept of
> >consciousness.  Heidegger tells us that with regard to boredom, time must
> >be questioned outside consciousness and subjectivity: ³the initial
> >positing of man as consciousness in general, or as a nexus of lived
> >experience or the like‹all this must be put into question if a path is to
> >be cleared for us to penetrate into the essence of boredom, and together
> >with it into the essence of time² (134).
> >Instead of investigating the psychology of the bored subject or in a
> >subject passing the time, Heidegger suggests a listening ³to what
> >profound boredom gives us to understand² (134).  We know that this
> >listening is neither the hearing that belongs to sensory perception nor
> >an understanding that belongs to consciousness: boredom affects our being
> >in a different mode, as an attunement, the attunement of boredom.  The
> >first step is to dissociate boredom from any particular identity or ego
> >and relate it to the there is, the es gibt, the il y a, or, as Heidegger
> >states the ³it is boring for one² (135).  His example here is ³¹it is
> >boring for one¹ to walk through the streets of a large city on a Sunday
> >afternoon² (135).  This boredom, he says, ³wishes to tell us something²
> >(135).  Profound boredom cannot be shouted down (136) by passing the
> >time, nor can it be not listened to, but it must, says Heidegger, be
> >listened to: ³we now have a being compelled to listen² (136).  The
> >command-structure of the call (Ruf) is a familiar motif throughout
> >Heidegger¹s work, and here we might venture into the politics of boredom
> >and its authoritarian (?) call.  It seems that profound boredom compels
> >us to listen.  It seems inescapable and relates to the question of
> >³Dasein¹s innermost freedom² (136) and ³has already transposed us into
> >the realm of power² (136).  The power of profound boredom flattens
> >distinctions: ³it makes everything of equally great and equally little
> >worth² (137).  It produces indifference.
> >Although Heidegger, in his de rigueur fashion, seeks to understand
> >profound boredom and its originary temporality, we might ask in a
> >Kittleresque manner, what is technologically determining this
> >investigation?  Stiegler¹s Technics and Time volumes have fully
> >elaborated Heidegger¹s suppression of technics, especially the
> >phonograph, and we might begin here since profound boredom compels us to
> >listen.
> >Heidegger introduces the idea of a temporal horizon to address the
> >temporal character of profound boredom.  The temporal horizon entrances
> >Dasein in the attunement of boredom.  The horizon is the temporal
> >totality of beings, and although Heidegger suggests that it is not a
> >scenery or backdrop enfolding beings, we might think about Stiegler¹s
> >project and consider the temporal horizon as the totality of tertiary
> >retentions‹tertiary mnemotechnics‹that constitute time.  In this chapter,
> >Heidegger demonstrates that it is time itself that is entrancing in
> >boredom: entrancing because it both announces/manifests beings and makes
> >possible the refusal of beings, beings that refuse themselves (150).  In
> >this space, a space of freedom, says Heidegger, Dasein discloses itself
> >to itself (149), and this is a moment of vision [Augenblick]: ³time is
> >the moment of vision itself² (149).  The idea that self-disclosure is
> >subtended by temporality and vision is a familiar motif in much western
> >philosophy: temporality as the inner sense and self-reflexivity as a
> >mirror-structure often constitute ipseity, subjectivity, and selfhood.
> >Dasein, of course, is a different animal, and we must understand
> >temporality and vision not in terms of sensory perception or
> >phenomenology, but in terms of Heidegger¹s existential analytic.  Yet, I
> >would also like to argue that the pairing of time and vision suggests a
> >cinematographic technics, and it is here that we might pose the question
> >of cinematic boredom, both in the sense of the kind of boredom that
> >belongs to cinema and in the sense that boredom is somehow cinematic.
> >
> >Erin Obodiac
> >_______________________________________________
> >empyre forum
> >empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> >http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
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