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

Tue Nov 22 00:10:30 AEDT 2016

Michael,
I've been meaning to say that I've been following Dispatches fairly closely
from the beginning, & there's much to enjoy in there...
You got my attention right away with the masthead/crest, emblazoned, in
part, with the curious phrase (w/obscure reference) "non DIU list' (DIU an
irreverent project Ben Friedlander & I worked on together as grad
students). I'm sure Jack Clarke wouldn't have approved of DIU (as did a lot
of others), & yes flaws in our approach.
What you are doing with Dispatches is far more respectable, & glad to see
issues being kept alive & muck getting kicked up
-Chris F

On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Michael Boughn <mboughn at rogers.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Murat, Dispatches is not a blog, at least not in my reckoning. Nor, I
> think, in Kent's. . Blogs are a singular voice, even when they become an
> information clearing house. Neither is it strictly spealking a
> curated/edited instrument, which also a controlled zone.We saw Dipatches
> from the beginning as more of a place for a conversation to take place. I
> was motivated to match what Jack Clarke did with intent. and Ken Warren did
> with House Organ. intent. especially was an active zone of multiple
> intersecting vectors of thought. Jack's spirit informed it by opening it
> into time and space and welcoming a diverse community into a world of talk,
> thinking, and document.
>
> So with Dispatches, we try to keep the conversations open to various modes
> of address that are part of a being in common: critical commentary, poetry,
> video, satire, letters. It's really not a question of fighting anything.
> It's more a question of priming something. getting enough people to see it
> as a useful and interesting place that they can participate in so that the
> energy takes on a life of its own. A place you want to hang out and maybe
> say something every once in while. Explore some stuff in the basement.
>
> And the question of speed comes up again here in a different light.
> Everything happens quickly, much more quickly than with a print
> publication. Conversations can move almost as quickly as you can keep up
> with them. Something happens.
>
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 2:52 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Yes, Michael, we do need to simplify (not necessarily be simplistic) not
>> to miss the forest for the trees.
>>
>> For instance, you mention the "potential" of the computer. Hasn't the
>> vector of this potential has been essentially in the reverse order towards
>> increasingly restrictive. You have rightly mentioned the access the net
>> provided for us to get to know people that we would not have known
>> otherwise. That is truly a positive revolutionary achievement. But let us
>> examine the progression in use of social exchange structures on the web--
>> from  lists to blogs to facebook, each one more restricive than the other.
>> On lists, one could have discussions because each response kicked that
>> topic back to the top for easy access. When blogs first appeared they felt
>> great, as a medium of self expression. I think we are mostly familiar of
>> long stretches of time when the response box of the blog remains empty
>> --the blog surviving at best as a space of meditation.
>>
>> Of course, a blog like *Dispatches* is an exception to that. You are
>> fighting against the entropy of the form, turning it upside down. I would
>> very much like to know how you achieve that, what kind of effort does
>> involve. That's why I was so happy when you accepted to be a guest
>> participant.
>>
>> As for facebook, every comment almost immediately disappears in the flow
>> of time. Facebook has no practical mechanism of retrieval, therefore, no
>> memore. Time is made of pointillistic instances of time. That's why I was
>> so surprised and intrigued that you were able to sustain memorable, life
>> changing exchanges on facebook, rather than on lists (as it was with Poetry
>> Wars) or even blogs. How did you do that, Michael?
>>
>> You also say, "... But another facet of that is the weakening of
>> foundationalisms and their dogma. I worry about overly moralizing these
>> questions where the inevitable outcome is a foregone dystopia."
>>
>> Can you say that with the awesome,  increasing presence and affect of
>> Isil in the world, essentially through their use of communication on the
>> web?
>>
>> If we do not moralize --in the sense of assessing its human cost-- about
>> a medium that shapes our lives so deeply, what should we moralize about?
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Murat
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 1:06 PM, Michael Boughn <mboughn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> I think that's a bit too simple, Murat. Lots of things created the
>>> computer. Just as it has lots of uses. Certainly its use in war and its
>>> presence as a commodity have been extremely important in its development,
>>> but they don't own it. Again, how FB monetizes its service does not fully
>>> define the potential of that service. The velocitized temporality of it is
>>> important, but again, I would argue, not defining. The consequences include
>>> the rise of what is now being called a post-truth culture (pretty much
>>> Baudrillard's precession of the simulacra, no?). But another facet of that
>>> is the weakening of foundationalisms and their dogma. I worry about overly
>>> moralizing these questions where the inevitable outcome is a foregone
>>> dystopia.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On Nov 20, 2016, at 12:07 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>
>>> Jerome, capitalism and war created the computer, not the Communist state
>>> or an agrarian utopia-- and a desire to penetrate a code. One should pay
>>> attention how things are created --one discovers a lot about their
>>> purposes. I talk about in in an earlier post. Isn't the same thing with
>>> Facebook, to peek into the private activities of a college girls dormitory.
>>> Isn't that original impulse written all over what Facebook has become
>>> despite all the "social media" goodies it offers --to penetrate the
>>> personal activities of one's essentially private, intimate lives, create
>>> data out of them and sell it. The primary impulse of Facebook --the raison
>>> d'etre of its flourishing personhood-- is to make the private public and
>>> social interactions short and infinite. In a very few years, it has
>>> created a Brave New World and we are all caught in it.
>>>
>>> Ciao,
>>> Murat
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 11:48 AM, Jerome Sala <jeromesala502 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>> Murat, your comment brought another question to my mind, especially
>>>> because it alludes to the transformation of businesses. Working in the
>>>> corporate world for many years, I know that businesses found digital
>>>> technology irresistible because it was a tool that saved them lots of
>>>> money. It helped eliminate lots of jobs and made outsourcing, near
>>>> shore and far, much easier. As a result, it's hard for me to separate
>>>> the growth of this technology from the capitalism's desire to increase
>>>> profits by cutting costs. So the question for me is -- is it
>>>> technology per se that's the problem, or the way capitalism uses it?
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 10:38 AM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>> > Michael, I do not agree with you. What makes it different is the
>>>> incredible speed with which things are happening. There is no time to catch
>>>> up and rebalance as in the old model. It is a bit like cancer or like a
>>>> species through a mutation gaining a critical, basically irresistible
>>>> advantage over its habitat. As a result all the other species begin to
>>>> disappear and finally the habitat is destroyed, including the dominant
>>>> species.
>>>> >
>>>> > Something like this is already happening. Wealth is concentrated more
>>>> and more on fewer and fewer people (and Trump, who ostensibly got elected
>>>> to fight this trend, will intensify it through his tax cuts). One day,
>>>> companies will have nobody to sell their goods to. That sounds far fetched.
>>>> But it will happen, maybe sooner than we think. That is when the
>>>> pandemonium will start. My guess is it will not be pretty.
>>>> >
>>>> > Take the idea of Uber for example, which is the cat's meow because of
>>>> its convenience for people who used to take taxis and the bus. By one
>>>> "disruption" enabled by the computer, they destroyed a whole ecology of
>>>> businesses that owned local taxi fleets or individuals who owned their own
>>>> taxis. They seduced taxi drivers by offering them better commissions. Who
>>>> cares for a few taxi fleet owners! Everyone is happy. It took I think less
>>>> than five years, now Uber is talking about driverless cars. I suppose those
>>>> drivers can find jobs in the future as traffic cops for those Uber cars.
>>>> One should not forget the owners of the taxi fleets may represent the
>>>> "other," but the drivers are us.
>>>> >
>>>> > To be continued...
>>>> >
>>>> > Ciao,
>>>> > Murat
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 6:33 AM, Michael Boughn <mboughn at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>>> >> OK, devil's advocate here. Every tool humans have developed has
>>>> changed them, has obliterated certain practices and modes of thinking and
>>>> generated new ones. The computer is just another tool, a really
>>>> sophisticated and complex hammer. Some of the consequences of this tool are
>>>> pretty dire -- the enablement of a post-truth polity, for instance -- but
>>>> it also creates a potential being in common that is the  -- I want to say
>>>> "cure" but that's not quite it. It's the antithetical action that opens
>>>> into other possibilities. It can go either way, depending on what people
>>>> do, and there are a lot of people doing a lot of different things.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I don't think that our lack of awareness of our dependence on those
>>>> systems is new. Isn't it always just "the world". And they (the techne)
>>>> have always shaped us. Isn't that Heidegger's point? If you figure out how
>>>> to make flint spear tips, you stop throwing rocks and become different. We
>>>> become aware of it when the computer stops working in the car in the middle
>>>> of Death Valley, or the operating system goes wacky just before the
>>>> deadline for a huge project. It's really the same old same old.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> It's just that the stakes have risen catastrophically.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I think that's true about sci-fi. It has framed the question of
>>>> technology in terms of an address to ontology.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Mike
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Sent from my iPad
>>>> >>
>>>> >> On 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
>>>> >>
>>>> >> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>> >>
>>>> >> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>> >>
>>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>>> >> empyre forum
>>>> >> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>> >> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>>> >> empyre forum
>>>> >> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>> >> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > empyre forum
>>>> > empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>> > http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>

-- 
Dr. Christopher T. Funkhouser
Program Director, Communication and Media
Department of Humanities
New Jersey Institute of Technology
University Heights
Newark, NJ 07102
http://web.njit.edu/~funkhous
funkhous at njit.edu
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