[-empyre-] A poem is a small (or large) machine

[Murat Nemet-Nejat]

Yes, Davin, modernism (underlined by the image of the machine) is a purely
Western concept, essentially derived from the West's roughly 17th century
onward positivist ethos (Descartes' view of the body as a machine and the
soul as ineffable, robbed of speech). In our global universe where the East
(Asia, Middle East, etc.) is at least as relevant and potent as the West
(Europe and the United States). For me, the most important aspect of the
post-modern is its mongrel aesthetics, not distinguishing between "high"
and "low" art or the divisions of forms, open ended, potentially ephemeral
or ever changing (forgotten and re-remembered), valuing the gesture over
the final act or product or "well-defined thought," giving up "*con*tent"
for "tantra," far preferring movement over solidity. This almost quantum
change in values requires an equally drastically new poetics (or
aesthetics). In this endeavor, the images of the robot and the android (and
replicant)-- and as a corollary the computer, the digital-- are extremely
valuable because they deconstruct the idea of humanity, the human as we
have know it for centuries.

Interestingly, this connection between the robot/the machine and the
supernatural was sensed both by Jewish mystics (the Golem, made of the
inanimate) and the popular art in the West, novels and movies
(Frankenstein, Zombies, both move machine-like), and also by the
Jansenist/religious film director Robert Bresson's view of the "non-actor"
(his name for his ideal film actor) as someone who moves like a machine (
*not* perfect, but drained of all self-consciousness). In Blade Runner, the
viewer first detects (maybe unconsciously Rachel's replicant nature in her
"stiff" walk across the room as she is first introduced in the film. That
walk was immediately before (or after?) replicated by the flight of the
"mechanical bird" which moves across the same space. (A significant
part of *The
Spiritual Life of Replicants* is about Raechel's walk and Bresson's theory
of acting."

By the way, one should remember, the lens is essentially a robotic eye.
Ciao,
Murat

On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 9:08 PM, Davin Heckman <davinheckman at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> I like the idea that one would write, whether it be for philosophy, art,
> science, or love, without commitment to a pre-ordained solution.  In this
> sense, sentimentality is an obstacle to a kind of art.
>
> On the other hand, I also think, like Murat, that there might contemporary
> demands placed on poetics beyond modernism....  and that works might be
> forged from deliberation, not as perfected gestures, but as relational
> events between rigorously engaged subjects.  Which requires the suspension
> of sentimentality, but in a different way.
>
> davin
>
>
> On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> ""There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small
>> (or large) machine made out of words. When I say there's nothing
>> sentimental about a poem, I mean that there can be no part that is
>> redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship.
>> But poetry is a machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy."
>>
>> Margaret, if we change the word "redundant" to "non-functional," one
>> might as well be describing modern architecture of Bauhaus, etc. I wonder
>> if our era has not gone beyond that stage and requires a different
>> aesthetic, one more in tune with the realities of our times.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Murat
>>
>> On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 1:22 PM, Margaret J Rhee <mrhee at uoregon.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> "There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small
>>> (or large) machine made out of words. When I say there's nothing
>>> sentimental about a poem, I mean that there can be no part that is
>>> redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship.
>>> But poetry is a machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.
>>> As in all machines, its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical
>>> more than a literary character."
>>>
>>> I'd like to start a thread about this quote by WCW, that Mike raised
>>> here.
>>> A friend the Mexican poet Hugo Martinez, remarked we should replace
>>> machine
>>> with machete.
>>>
>>> "There must be something hardwired into its machinery--a heartbeat, a
>>> pulse--that keeps it breathing." -- Ed Hirsch
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
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