Alan Sondheim on 22 Feb 2001 17:27:31 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] language in irc (internet relay chat) |
- language in irc (internet relay chat) there are three types of languaging: >>hello hello - just where you speak and it appears, and this serves in addition as a declaration of presence; it's speech, nothing more - it may be reply or affirmation or expostulation, interjection or query - there's always the expectancy of the other, always something in return >>/me says hello Alan says hello - thus a performative, Alan performing in conjunction with the assignation of the /me - the inclusion of action - >>/me turns around Alan turns around - the performative connected with a material action - thus _in the virtual realm_ all actions are necessarily performatives - this holding as well with programming - so that semantics are intended as well - /me turns around always already ikonic - attend to this distinction - just as the speaking above is also ikonic - >>/echo it is raining out it is raining out - here the language is itself the material substrate of the world - the world constituted by language - if the /me indicates process, the /echo indicates state - however >>/echo the world burns the world burns - and the state may well be a state-description of an action whose performance is subtexted by the neutrality of the (re)quoted expression here in virtuality all expressions are doubly or triply quoted - in ytalk doubly quoted - i type, transmit, you read elsewhere triply - i type, i read, transmit, you read - three different instantiations - resonances - sheaves >>/echo it is raining out it is raining out - the description of the world is already the state of the world - however the /me in >>/me is taking a walk - there is a separation - as in me < is taking a walk - the expression is piped; in >>/echo it is raining out - here the /echo is a modification on it is raining out - as in e(it is raining out) - or as in e(x) x whereas with /me thinks it is raining out - m(thinks it is raining out) > $n + thinks it is raining out - or as in m(x) $n + x as if there were the construction or constitution of a number series - in any case the presence of the other - that is the name $n as an adjunct or supplement to the string x. where does this lead - to three states - that of enunciation, that of action, that of world-constituting language. if enunciation is declarative - and one might consider an interpolated enunciation here as a shifter - then action is performative - and it is echo, world-constituting language, that becomes deeply problematic, in the sense that it is _separated from intention, from speaker, from source_ - it is an emission above and within the _face of the world, its alterity,_ within which it resides. >>one might think of these languagings as modal; in which case echo references the foucauldian _divinatio,_ but only as index; in fact, echo is _in fact,_ the construal of the world as-if (vaihinger, bentham) there is no presencing, no intentional, no actor, no agency. in another similar sense, echo is the call of a shell command from a perl script; it is ulterior, an existential alterity, legible, readable, or not.<< >>thus i call my book .echo, which acts subtly towards the material completion of a constituted world, however fragile, however thinned (down to the width of a pixel), .echo which reflects, not narcissus, but the very grain of the separated and dismembered voice.<< _ _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold