<nettime> lookin for the perfect digest [wark, sondheim]

["nettime's_mixmaster" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

"McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark@hotmail.com>
     from hypertext to dj oulipo
Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
     MC?

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From: "McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark@hotmail.com>
Subject: from hypertext to dj oulipo
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:59:48 -0400

Thanks to Paul for his remarks, but, as they say, i want to
break it down...

>the problem with the digital media scene - it is SUPER WHITEBREAD - there 
>is a lot more going on....

Yes, but when it comes to entities like antiorp or jodi, is
it all that useful to pose things in this old identity-bound
language?

>think about precedents for theater and spectacle outside of the normal 
>discourse that goes on...

Yes, but i don't quite have the freedom of movement that
you do, Paul. As an artist, you can cut and mix in a way that
one can't in scholarship.

>this is a Mcluhan refraction of the old inner ear/eye thing, but with a 
>little bit more of a technical twist.

Always been skeptical about that aspect of McLuhan, but
I think Ong is useful here. He talks of  'secondary orality',
which is the orality that arises within a literate culture, but
i think there is also now a 'secondary literacy', the literacy
that arises within an electro-oral world.... I don't think its
possible to peel apart the senses and assign a different
ontology to each any more. All aesthesia is telesthesia.

>Artaud was the fellow who invented the term "virtual reality"

Oh really? Where? [scholar mode]
"We must awaken the Gods that sleep in museums."
Yes, Artaud is a good handle for understanding the global media
event. My first book already covers all this.

>this in itself is one of the major developments of 20th century culture: 
>the ability not just to accept the linguistic regulations of a situation 
>(again, Debord meets Grand Master Flash...)

Putting those two together is a great conjuncture, but a damned
hard one to pull off...

>- ...but to constantly change them. This is one of the major issues that 
>Henry Louis Gates wrote about in his "Signifying Monkey" essay a long while 
>ago

Yes, i once wrote an essay on Gates' signifying monkey and
Skooly D, who has a great rap about the monkey, the faggot
and the fat-assed pimp. Needless to say i couldn't get it published...

>Alan Sondheim is perhaps the equivalent of an  MC for Nettime

Alan posts to a lot of lists and does a lot of other stuff besides,
so i don't think he would want anyone to see his stuff here as
representative. But i think that's a nice take on it. Sondheim as
an MC of sense, of affect, cutting and mixing the letter to that
effect. Everything Alan does is a proposition about how to read.

>but again, the field could and  should be expanded at this point.

Its your job to think like that, Paul, some of us have to work in a
different kind of time. It's not about slow or fast, but about rhythms
(all  rhythms are the same speed as they all get you there in the
end). Its about being untimely. Mixing past and present is another
kind of mix. Blake and Integer. What is in that edit? I don't
see it as  invalidated by the other edits it passes over in silence.

>multi-cultural variations in language

You're an American, Paul, and in American discourse 'multicultural'
means multi-racial. That's fine, but it is not the definition of 
multiplicity with which the rest of  the world necessarily works. I'm 
not so keen on the compression of difference down to this narrow plane 
so as to squeeze it into American bandwidth.

If we're swapping urls, check out this one on Australian Aboriginal
country and western music. I'd love to see that incorporated into
the American idea of the multicultural aesthetic, but of course it
doesn't fit the parameters.
http://www.buriedcountry.com/

>multi cultural takes on this are alot more fun...

Well they would be, but American multiculturalism isn't much of a
multiplicity. I find it tone-deaf to 'patois' that isn't minted locally. 
And look at the basis on which other kinds of multiplicity are annexed
to its needs: the appropriation of postcolonialism, and so on. All
well and good, but in the long run just variations on the self image
of America in the world. A self image that, as recent events show,
is part of the problem.

So: there's a problem with the multicultural scene, its SUPER-
AMERICAN. But, again, its not a criticism of you, Paul, but just
indicative of the difficulty of working in this place and time. Its
hard to see the context, and how the context shapes the discourse.

Thanks for the urls, which i'm looking at and learning from.

cheers [oz vernacular for 'peace']
ken


____________________________________________________
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http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/
... we no longer have roots, we have aerials ...
____________________________________________________


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Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 03:23:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: MC?


tried and
tried to sleep then wanted to reply to DJS's through Ken - my "MC" of
nettime, master of ceremonies, multiculturalism?
I write into spaces, what is at hand; nettime like any other [  ] has its
particularities - the multi/media work I do is either in cdrom/video/
performance - assemblages of directories/variations - just so as not to be
judged in terms of nettime input/output -
the same for other lists; i send into nettime maybe 1/5 of texting, what
will apply here - also re: arte povera, minimal binaries - this isn't
a/the place
writing this so that the at-handedness/bricolage of the work isn't
mistaken for the w/hole: the archive cdrom remains still (as remains/
residue) whatever guide there is - not taking into account performance/
live work, video installation, all that messing about blurred categories,
collocations/accumulations - what floats poorly on the net and/or
presencing of flesh -
 - alan

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