Magnes: There was a time when people conceived me as a sort of key. A key to experiences of infinity, of the universe, of the sublime.

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It starts with something and with another thing, a hidden thing, something that is part of the beyond, that has contoures shaped by the known. The known is linked with suspect, with all that frightens us.

Anxiety: All that we cannot calculate.

When did calculation start?

When did the “great” distinction become productive, the distinction between male and female, active and passive, minus and plus, sun and moon, earth and sky, south – north, west – east?

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D.: I’ve never read Descartes to speak of. … I am not a Cartesian by pleasure. I happen to have been born a Cartesian. The French education is based on a sequence of strict logic. You carry it with you. *

*Eric Cameron: „Given”. In: De Duve, Thierry (ed.): The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp (Nova Scoatia College of Art and Design, Halifax Nova Scotia). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991, p. 17.

D.: A game of Chess is a visual and plastic thing, and if it isn’t geometric in the static sense of the word, it is mechanical, since it moves; it’ s a drawing, it’ s a mechanical reality.*

* Eric Cameron: „Given”. In: De Duve, Thierry (ed.): The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp (Nova Scoatia College of Art and Design, Halifax Nova Scotia). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991, p. 16.

The last post (Head as a vessel) on this blog was 1572nd post in this blog. Googling  1572 leads to SN 1572. The entry begins with: When Tycho Brahe was on his way home on November 11, 1572, his attention was attracted by a star in Cassiopeia.  Wikipedia speaks of Tycho’s Supernova … It burst forth in early November 1572 and was independently discovered by many individuals.

Vilém Flusser’s (12.5.1920-27.11.1991) theoretical work is an example of the critical understanding of the dominant role of writing in western society. On the other hand he serves as a counterexample: Flusser substitutes the domination of writing by the dominance of computing. He replaces one medium on the top of the hierarchy of communication by another one. His work integrates aspects of modern nomadism with the theory and history of exact sciences. As a writer he felt challenged by the impact of computer technology on text production. On the one hand Flusser argues that computer culture will dominate all aspects of civilized life, on the other hand he strengthens the position that this domination has to be counterbalanced by inter-subjective values. One part of his thinking is a prophecy, saying that exact sciences and their major tool – the computer – will overwhelm the culture of writing. He regards computer processed mathematical functions as far more sufficient in describing phenomena than writing. Therefore the art of bookmaking and of authorship will die. On the other hand thinking and philosophy will survive when the computer is used dialogically. Flusser believes that the computer on the one hand will help to establish a technocracy of scientists, a new authority, but on the other hand it can be used to set up intersubjective relations and to overcome the authority of monological narrators. Flusser points out the communicational and mediational potentials of the computer. We see Vilém Flusser engaged in a conflict between the traditional communication of writing and the event of computer based communication. Problematic is Flussers impetus to establish the sovereignty of the computer. He reorganizes written history under the effect of a technological revolution, and establishes by himself a historical order, leading directly to the advent of the computer, which he regards as a tool to establish a new technocracy. Often he writes that the remaining time in which to fight and avoid this technocracy is short.*

On occasion of Flusser’s birthday we post “Serie Flusser” from Darya Berner.

* Extract from Nils Röller: „Hierarchies of Communication“. In: Diebner, Hans and Ramsay, Lehan (eds.): Hierarchies of Communication. Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2003.

Bloom offers one slight  allusion to hope: A form of hope which gains its impact on the basis of a nihilistic  résumé. One has to think (according to the protagonists of Bloomism)  that subjects were never able to join a community. Subjects always had the illusion to participate in an community, but never participated in.  Now – with the advent of Bloom – the ruins of this illusion became evident. Given this, constructions of comunties may evolve.

Realometer is sceptical about this. Constructions are only conceivable within the framework of texts.

Jabès is in favour of this, because since the book of god did evolve, subjects are reinforced to invent themselves via fragments. He remembers Reb Fluss. Once asked to write about cities, Reb Fluss proposed to conceive cities as “Wellentäler” (wave troughs) and subjects as instable, momentary concentrations of waves (electromagnetic).

Duchamp puts into question. Wave is a metaphor, it is a mask for non retinal actions.

Realometer: Dancing creates a community. Blogging not.

Jabès: Order and disorder? This cannot be. Joining is a form of creating order. Therefore it is destinct from that which is ordered.
Magnes: Separating the force which forms from the object, is already the problem.

Dance floor: Where opposites meet and join in harmonia.

Meeting in harmonia is equivalent to “make Aphrodite” (Kittler).