nettime's_chatterbox on Thu, 24 May 2001 12:12:58 +0200 (CEST) |
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lagadu@altern.org Re: words,words,words; what use are words without people? "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net> Re: no people. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: lagadu@altern.org Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 11:00:43 +0200 Subject: Re: <nettime> words,words,words; what use are words without people? Hand made/french brain deconstruction my spill, your sleep if ever meant would connect annoyingly power the brain from words post would quiet meaning hell isn't yours it is the anger and author how light since Alan has in heaven been Chris - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 05:33:31 -0400 (EDT) From: "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net> Subject: Re: <nettime> no people. a brief flurry of correspondences... ironic... I'm in Dresden a city bombed by the Allies right at the end of WWII... new city>old city.... and an e-mail about no people from Mark Dery crosses my screen.... I Be Chillin'.... Ken - the idea of nature, language and of course, permutations/involutions of the two have been really well explored in many non European cultures, there's a great series of books that a really interesting anthropologist, Michael Taussig, has explored in detail. One of the better book length essays, "Mimesis and Alterity," he wrote on how recording devices altered the way people perceive their environment might be a good start. It focuses on European compression of identity, language, and the loss of magic in the everyday affected the post-colonial (re)formation of language, art, and yes! even science. Most of the cultures the book explores, alas, are almost extinct. The funny thing is that, as folks as diverse as Amos Tutuola (My Life in the Bush of Ghosts/The Palm Wine Drinker), Rupert Sheldrake, Amitav Ghosh (The Calcutta Chromosome), Mcluhan, Erik Davis, Vernor Vinge, Sherry Turkle, Neal Stepheson, and Ishmael Reed (to name a few) point out, because of information technologies impact on how people respond to the environment, the post-industrial European scene is finally catching up to the way language worked in many of the cultures Taussig describes. Linux, ASCII, HTML etc etc become the equivalent of the shamans chant perhaps, and the screen mediates the codified ideals - maybe that's the new thing - the TCP/IP environment of the info saturated present. Dialectical triangulation meets the Flip Mode Squad or something like that... Given a choice between incantation, invocation, and reading critics I wish were extinct, like Mark, I think I'd take the former over the latter any day of the year. Regretfully, the cultures are gone, but the critics remain. I guess its all about the ectoplasm, eh? The pendulum swings a strange path between stuff like the Matrix and The Blair Witch Project... with stuff like Vernor Vinge's "True Names" or Tim Burners Lee, Kool Keith a.k.a. Dr. Octagon a.k.a. Black Elvis thrown in for for good measure.... Paul kold chillin' in Dresden on the way to Moscow... transfer path>MAN>TRANSFORMS ------Original Message------ From: Mark Dery <markdery@mindspring.com> To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Sent: May 22, 2001 4:17:31 PM GMT Subject: Re: <nettime> no people. McKenzie Wark wrote: >>Those 'nature' documentaries annoy the hell out of me. They are part of <...> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net