[-empyre-] Machine Dreams

[Mark Marino]

Hi, Machine Dreamers,

I'm so excited for this week's discussion.  Our Machine Dreams encounter
was one I will not forget.  For those of you who missed it, you can watch a
somewhat pixelated version here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFYFaWrqZik

As I read over our publication from Machine Dreams, flip through the pages
of Radio heart, or think about our time together, I'm struck by the shear
humanity of the whirls with robots.  Or rather, I'm struck by the parts of
humanity that emerge from the whirls.

Why are we so drawn to the machines of our machine dreams, as people, as
artists, as dreamers? I'm starting to think that it is not their inability
to be completely human but instead their ability to fully embody one part
of the human attributes without manifesting the full meat sack of messy,
squishy embodied being. In other words, they allow us to imagine intensely
our humanity in part.   Not metonymic but in isolation.

An emotion.  A logical flow.  A sense of consideration without empathy.
Knowledge without understanding.

But our intense encounter with even that part of humanity -- that part of
humanity isolated from the whole -- is transformative.

"I still hear you radio heart beating
Inside the meat of mine."

And of course, no doubt this partiality is part and parcel of our
experience of one another.

That is my first thought.  Looking forward to our conversation.

Best,
Mark Marino
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