[-empyre-] Starting the Third Week: Michael Boghn and Jerome Sala

Mon Nov 21 02:13:45 AEDT 2016

But all narratives are fiction religion is a narrative too and it's fiction
as well a very powerful tool. And science play the role as well. That's
because many call science the new religion :)
Language is a fiction too :)
Ana

Den 20 nov 2016 11:53 skrev "Murat Nemet-Nejat" <muratnn at gmail.com>:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> What I mean is that science has built its own narrative of truth by which
> it prevails which can also be a fiction.
>
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 2:28 AM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Sorry I don't understand your question.
>>
>> Skickat från min iPad
>>
>> > 19 nov. 2016 kl. 21:53 skrev Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com>:
>> >
>> > I am an old fan of science fiction and I am still in love with masters
>> as Philip K Dick Sturgeon and Ursula Le Guin. They wrote about dystopian
>> realities not far from ours. Sturgeon wrote about a gestalt a kind of
>> complex unity composed by kids with extra sensorial abilities I don't want
>> to call it "powers" to avoid any link to Marvels hyped heroes.
>> > And Ursula Le Guin, an anarchist, challenged the whole idea of an
>> antrhopomorfic God.
>> > Science needs a narrative to prevail.
>> > Ana
>> >
>> > Skickat från min iPad
>> >
>> >> 19 nov. 2016 kl. 21:34 skrev Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com>:
>> >>
>> >> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> >> "... "we're mostly unaware of how deeply our lives depend upon
>> >> the functioning of complex, expert systems..." -- we're the fish in
>> >> their ocean (McLuhan) (unless they break down). ..."
>> >>
>> >> That's why a digital art critiquing its own medium must involve, one
>> >> way or another, a break down of its system. It must have an ethos of
>> >> inefficiency or failure at its center-- not an expression of power,
>> >> but weakness-- maybe an elusive glitch that the reader may experience
>> >> subliminally or a software that decrease communication rather than
>> >> improving it, etc., etc.
>> >>
>> >> "...I am not sure whether the "digital" can speak its truth (at least
>> in a
>> >> language we understand), but Shaviro suggests one way we humans might
>> >> begin to see its truth/reality for ourselves - by creating art where
>> >> the "material and technological factors are explicitly
>> foregrounded...."
>> >>
>> >> I do not agree with this part of the argument. Most often, this kind
>> >> of work is celebratory, of "look what I'm doing, ma" kind  (I hope
>> >> people will jump up and show the error of my way). It suggests that
>> >> the technology is revealing something about us when in actually the
>> >> work is mimicking, promoting the reality the technology is imposing.
>> >>
>> >> I think all great science fiction is dystopian. And I am a great fan
>> >> and believer in it as a modern relevant form of expression. My
>> >> previous poem The Spiritual Life of Replicants is actually a science
>> >> fiction work. At this moment, Peter Valente's reference to Melies's
>> >> silent masterpiece A Voyage to the Moon comes to my mind. On first go,
>> >> it seems to be a science fiction work that is celebrating the future.
>> >> So far so good... But the film is so full of domestic details and the
>> >> space ship the "space men" are traveling on is so ramshackle that one
>> >> gradually realizes that the people are transporting their bourgeois,
>> >> middle class life to the moon, that the movie is a magical, exquisite
>> >> piece of satire.
>> >>
>> >> Ciao,
>> >> Murat
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 5:54 PM, Jerome Sala <jeromesala502 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> >>> Murat, your question, as to whether "the computer (and the web and its
>> >>> consequence) has the ability to expose and criticize the condition it
>> >>> has created...whether the digital can be 'revealer of is own truth',
>> >>> brought to mind a book I've been reading - Discognition, by Steven
>> >>> Shaviro. One of the points Shaviro argues is that, in our everyday
>> >>> experience, "we're mostly unaware of how deeply our lives depend upon
>> >>> the functioning of complex, expert systems..." -- we're the fish in
>> >>> their ocean (McLuhan) (unless they break down). Another aspect we
>> >>> don't grasp, as your question implies, is that such technological
>> >>> entities, rather then just being there, inert until we manipulate
>> >>> them, have an agency of their own: "...if we engineer them, in various
>> >>> ways, they 'engineer' us as well, nudging us to adapt to their
>> >>> demands."
>> >>>
>> >>> I am not sure whether the "digital" can speak its truth (at least in a
>> >>> language we understand), but Shaviro suggests one way we humans might
>> >>> begin to see its truth/reality for ourselves - by creating art where
>> >>> the "material and technological factors are explicitly foregrounded."
>> >>> His book is about science fiction stories that do this. Perhaps this
>> >>> is also what I had in mind by the poetic project I wrote about, which
>> >>> foregrounds digital/corporate cliches that inform us, through the
>> >>> jargon we speak. In any case, Shaviro's book may offer a clue as to
>> >>> the great popularity of the SF genre. Often, in allegorical ways, it
>> >>> acknowledges the agency of the technological (remember the Borg?), and
>> >>> enables people to start talking about the power of its influence.
>> >>>
>> >>>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 3:15 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <
>> muratnn at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> >>>> Hi Jerome, by your question on the nature of "knowing" in poetry, I
>> >>>> think you touched a critical point, an issue running throughout the
>> >>>> discussions and presentations this month.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Knowledge that poetic experience contains or "reveals" does have
>> >>>> multiple facets. On the one hand, the knowledge (in some
>> incarnations,
>> >>>> message/propaganda) may be transactional and implicitly points or
>> >>>> leads to action. Some great classics are of that sort, for instance,
>> >>>> Lucretius's On Nature or Virgil's Eclogues, Shakespeare's Henry V and
>> >>>> also, in some sense, though a book of "revelation," The Bible, etc.
>> >>>> The election of Trump last week drove the discussion to the
>> >>>> transactional side of poetry (art), and rightly so. That is what all
>> >>>> the writing invited to be sent to Dispatches for the anthology all
>> >>>> about. So are the post cards Craig refers to, as conceptual acts.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> There is another kind of knowledge that poetry "reveals," not
>> >>>> necessarily leading to action-- of course, the distinction is
>> somewhat
>> >>>> artificial since a poem or work of art contains both simultaneously
>> >>>> each time creating a different balance. If one extreme side of this
>> >>>> spectrum is propaganda (all nations/cultures/languages have
>> propaganda
>> >>>> masterpieces), the other extreme is gnosis-- a knowledge not quite
>> >>>> contained in the practicalities of a language, but in its
>> peripheries,
>> >>>> the often unacknowledged overtones that emanate from words, space,
>> >>>> etc. (embedded in poesies).
>> >>>>
>> >>>> It is in terms of this same dilemma (the nature of poetic knowledge)
>> >>>> that Heidegger is discussing technology in his essay. On the one hand
>> >>>> it is defined as "enframing" nature to exploit it (in terms that
>> >>>> Francis Bacon asserts as "knowledge is power"). On the other hand, it
>> >>>> returns technology to its roots as techne, a making that reveals the
>> >>>> truth. Their relationship is dialectical.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I have been on Empyre list for about two years, following it on and
>> >>>> off with interest because it presents to me a digital culture that is
>> >>>> of great interest to me; but in which I am not directly involved as a
>> >>>> practitioner. What struck me most is that, save for important
>> >>>> exceptions such as Alan Sondheim and Isak Berbic (and I am sure there
>> >>>> are others), the focus of the participants was on what the internet
>> or
>> >>>> the computer can do for them, on the computer as a new potent
>> enabler,
>> >>>> the computer as artistic or political power. As far as I can see,
>> >>>> little attention was given to it as a revealer of "truth," the
>> >>>> knowledge of human condition and psyche in a digital technological
>> >>>> age.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> In my view, poetry (art) is doomed to die without containing within
>> >>>> itself both these knowledge, though the melange may be different in
>> >>>> each.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The underlying focus for me this month has been, that is why I
>> >>>> accepted the invitation to moderate, to explore whether the computer
>> >>>> (and the web as its consequence) has the ability to expose and
>> >>>> criticize the condition it has created, in other words, whether the
>> >>>> digital can be the "revealer of its own truth." I can not say I have
>> >>>> been that successful up to now.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The primary text for this month is the fifteen minute video clip I
>> >>>> referred to in my introductory statement at the beginning of the
>> month
>> >>>> in which the film maker Jean Renoir discusses the effect of
>> technology
>> >>>> on art (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Mtd6GE_PI ). He says that
>> >>>> art becomes boring to the extent that that the art maker is in total
>> >>>> control of his or her own materials and techniques. He refers to a
>> >>>> group of 11th century French tapestries (the Bayeux, the first known
>> >>>> ones) where the threads were coarsely spun, the colors were primitive
>> >>>> and of a narrow range; but they contained great beauty, revealing the
>> >>>> strife of their making.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> That is why "Overcoming Technique"--the first two words of my
>> >>>> introductory title-- is crucial, whether one finally agrees with
>> >>>> Renoir or not. In our daily lives with family and children and
>> >>>> teaching and grading papers, etc., I hope some of us find time to
>> >>>> re-focus on these issues the remaining days of this month. As
>> artists,
>> >>>> the issues are important for all of us.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Ciao,
>> >>>> Murat
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 9:28 AM, Craig Saper <csaper at umbc.edu>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> >>>>> Relevant to the discussion and the “dispatches” this event might
>> speak to the issue of, what Jerome Sala called in a recent "poetry is a
>> particular way of knowing the mind” …
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> "Post Card Avalanche"
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Join in and send a postcard directly to Trump! Here are the basic
>> instructions to participate:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> ** IMPORTANT - Don't mail your card until NOV. 26th **
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> In the message section, write this simple message: NOT BANNON!
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Throw a post card Avalanche party. Make postcards.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Address it as follows:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Donald Trump
>> >>>>> c/o The Trump Organization
>> >>>>> 725 Fifth Avenue
>> >>>>> New York, NY 10022
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Affix a stamp - you can use a 35 cent postcard stamp, or a normal
>> letter stamp.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Take a picture of your postcard that you can share on social media
>> using the hashtag #stopbannon
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Drop it in the mail! We are aiming to get these mailed between
>> Saturday, Nov 26th and Monday, Nov. 28th to create a concentrated avalanche
>> of postcards.”
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>> empyre forum
>> >>>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>> >>>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>> empyre forum
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>> >>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> empyre forum
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>> >>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
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