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.
Very Hungry God calls the idea of the human head as a vessel and reservoir in question, since the buckets are completely empty.
The materials of Gupta’s sculptures, utensils in everyday use in India, are also traditional attributes of the gods. As such, they are useful for spiritual orientation. His sculptures point to the ambivalent status of instruments that structure the relationship between Man and his inner world as well as his outer world. This inner world is considered by traditional Indian culture as a transit station. The artistic thematization of instruments and everyday materials as in Gupta’s work is sculptural and therefore visual-spatial, yet it can also be time-based and appeal primarily to the ear instead of the eye.
Excerpt of Pointers - Contribution to beam me up
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.
We can turn it. A frame is a form of closure, but also a form of opening. It allows concentration. We may argue that reality is a Grenzidee (an idea of limit (limes)). We may approach reality only by setting up limits, in between which we may perceive.
Instruments for measurement set limits.
A measurement measures measuring means, John Cage thinks (Quote found in: Youngblood, Gene: Expanded Cinema, New York: Dutton, 1970, p. 136).
But what are measuring means? Mankind is conceivable as a means of measuring. It measures the universe as well as mankind itself. In order to function appropriately mankind has to become a measuring means for its own ends. These ends can be achieved by emptying human subjects. How this emptying happens in an aethetic process Marguerite Duras works show (see: Marcus Steinweg and Rosemarie Trockel: Duras. Berlin: Merve, 2008).
* J. adds: Metaphysics are a battlefield. A battefield which Kant conceives as female. He calls metaphysics a battlefield in one phrase. In the following phrase he compares metaphysics with a matron that is left alone.
** Is a hole a form that opens, or a form that closes? It excludes from integrity, or it opens towards an integrity which is open to the other. But a hole cannot be thought as a totally open. Without the framework the hole could not exist.
Mechanik ist eine Form, sich Dinge nacheinander vorzustellen;
Kunst ist eine Form, sich Dinge gleichzeitig vorzustellen.
Techniken wie Zählen oder Streichen oder Fotographieren; Materialitäten wie Farbe oder Kerben oder digitale Codes (Zero-One-Materialität) begünstigen unterschiedlich diese unterschiedliche Formen der Vorstellung.
Und Sex? Fordert zu Vorstellungen heraus.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII…III British seamen owe their lives to Alan Turing. Now
