Computers and Writing Working Group
Fall 2000 Virtual Colloquium Series
Session log

Victor Vitanza
Professor of English
University of Texas at Arlington

[log started Sun Oct 15 16:55:17 2000 EDT]

Participants: love, stripp, Bradley, sophist, jrice, im, ddd, ronan, sullivan, salmon, Brendan, tharpold, S/M, glue, MrFurious, dave, epittman, jpl, the guest, and Storyteller
love turns the colloquium recorder on.
ddd [to sophist]: don't forget to put your text in quotes.
love says, "we're now officially logging, folks"
Brendan drops a Red folding chair.
love [to ddd]: thanks, forgot that part
sophist says, "Ah, now it's working! Thanks"
Brendan picks up the Red folding chair.
love says, "should we wait another few minutes for folks to show up?"
ddd winks at sophist
sophist says, "there's no rush on my part here. let's wait for a while."
Bradley [to love]: yeah
S/M [to love]: "At least half me is something called (at times) Michelle."
ddd dances a little jig
sophist says, "we've got another 2 hrs anyway."
sullivan says, "this is like the red carpet time. we can check out what everyone is wearing. so to speak."
love says, "plennnnty of time."
Brendan drops a Red Folding Chair.
Bradley hums a merry tune.
Brendan picks up the Red Folding Chair.
Brendan drops a Red Folding Chair.
Brendan sits on the Red Folding Chair.
Brendan grins
ddd grins at brendan
tharpold waits and watches.
glue arrives.
jrice [to S/M]: is laffey coming?
sophist says, "Is there anything to drink?"
love waves to glue.
ddd waves to glue
love [to sophist]: bradley didn't port the bartended
sophist says, "Hi, glue"
Bradley [to sophist]: I fear we didn't get a chance to bring in the bartender.
glue comes without hooves
love says, "bartender"
love says, "behold!"
love smiles at glue.
sophist says, "There is not even a cash bar!?"
ddd say, "Glue is carryinga hydrogen bomb!"
glue say, "behold, indeed!"
ddd say, "behold!"
jrice say, "drop da bomb"
Brendan screams in mock horror
Bradley says, "We could probably whip up a snack machine..."
glue can't remember how
ddd say, "ecce glue. "
tharpold drops into otherspace for a cup of tea. Back shortly.
MrFurious arrives.
MrFurious drops a Candy Machine.
Bradley thinks we should start when Steph wakes up.
MrFurious bows
MrFurious steps quietly out into the hallway. Aquifer. (Whatever!)
Bradley says, "Woo, sugar!"
S/M [to jrice]: "I'm not even breathing hard!"
Bradley pulls a dollar out of thin air and slips it into the Candy machine.
Bradley punches in the numbers for the candy of his choice.
ronan [to love]: still accepting slidesa
Bradley watches hungrily as the metal spiral turns and drops a bag of chips. He grabs the bag.
ronan drop a rug.
love [to ronan]: got some?
ronan sits quietly, without emitting any smells, on the rug.
ronan give love a r1.
dave arrives.
sullivan is getting hungry now
ronan drop a jail cell.
love loads the slide the r1 in the projector.
ronan liberate a VoidBoy from the dank and darkness of the jail cell.
love [to ronan]: thanks
ronan drop a VoidBoy.
Bradley [to Brendan]: Can we get this thing to sell beer?
jrice waves to dave
ronan pokes at the VoidBoy.
The VoidBoy says, "Hey, I'm already awake--can't a bot be quiet for awhile without getting poked at?"
glue drop a hydrogen bomb.
dave waves back to jrice
ddd waves to voidboy
love smiles at the pop-bomb
Brendan [to Bradley]: "I'll work on it."
glue pick up the hydrogen bomb.
ddd grins at glue
Brendan pulls a dollar out of thin air and slips it into the Candy machine.
Brendan punches in the numbers for the candy of his choice.
sophist says, "So ... Voidboy is here at a Bot, a Botched Bot or Bungled Bot ... we will see :-) "
Brendan watches hungrily as the metal spiral turns and drops a bag of candy. He grabs the bag.
The VoidBoy [to sophist]: what would be the topoi of a Third Sophistics of the Visual ?
ronan say, "all my Bots are botched and bungled"
sophist [to the VoidBoy]: the third eye thang.
tharpold feeling refreshed, sits down quietly and listens. Ears up. Nose twitchin.
The VoidBoy [to sophist]: what would be the topoi of a Third Sophistics of the Visual ?
ronan hushes the VoidBoy.
sullivan [to Bradley]: thanks dude
Bradley grins.
sophist hahahahahahahaha
ronan stand up from the rug.
love says, "what do you think? should we start?"
stripp says, "sounds good"
starting means a lot to ronan
sophist says, "Yo, let's start"
ddd say, "faked me out. i thought it was the . .um. ..'real' voidboy. . ."
Bradley says, "steph is awake, so let's rumble."
love says, "yea, stripp is back!"
ronan pick up the VoidBoy.
ronan give ddd a VoidBoy.
tharpold nods
love says, "okay! here goes..."

love shows slide 1 on the projector.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

WELCOME! to the INAUGURAL event of the CWWG Fall Colloquium Series!

Our special guest for this session is Victor Vitanza, Professor of English at the University of Texas at Arlington. Our focus for today is Victor's recent work in the theory and politics of the interface and MOO textuality.

We'll begin with the questions submitted in advance and then proceed to more open discussion. We suggest that you open a browser window (or two) to these URLs for reference during the discussion:

http://www.uta.edu/english/V/test/interface/v.1x.html

http://www.uta.edu/english/V/test/agamben/

NOTE: To review this or any other slide at any time, type <peek 1 on sp>, <peek 2 on sp>, etc.

ALSO NOTE: This session is being logged. The log will be posted on the CWWG colloquium web site for reference during the email discussion to follow.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ddd grins at ronan
sophist says, "Wow!"
Bradley says, "Wooo hoo!"
love says, "don't forget to open your browsers, y'all..."
salmon smiles.
love says, "we"
love says, "sorry"
love says, "we're going to start off w/ the posted questions"
love says, "so... if everyone's ready...?"
love says, "yes?"
ronan pants in excitement
love loves building up the suspense
im says, "moocho ready"
ronan sits quietly, without emitting any smells, on the rug.
love says, "here's the first one.. and it's you, im!"

love shows slide 2 on the projector.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Victor,

I am rather interested in this notion of the InterFace, where it seems you appropriate a Lacanian dialecticthe mirror stageand look beyond, question the distancing beTWEEN the self and the other. You ask, what do I care about this face? For you, Faces&InterFaces are my primary terms of interest right now. Thus, in looking at this in be TWEEN, you invoke Greek dialogic (sophistic rhetoric), Nietzsche, Kundera, Musil, and others. I have a couple questions and concerns regarding InterFace:

1) What sort of vision is necessary for InterFaces? Is this face only ever made evident through embodiment, as if it is a one-sided body that is imagined as an only kind of body to be seen because it elicits vision? Or is this face something that is hidden, deliberately hidden?

2) If the Inter/Face is more (rather less) than a whole body, can it be realized as something fractal, where persons and relations remain or multiply to form a whole relation? Such a relation allows us to discuss reduction or miniaturization, that is, art as reduction from nature.

These inquiries stem from my desire to read hypertext discourse through a not-so-obvious ideological framework. I have framed these questions based on an articleMarilyn Stratherns One-Legged Gender. _Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from V.A.R., 1990-1994_-in which she looks at the tension of display (of the body and androgynous figures in various cultures such as that in the Papau New Guinea Highlands) beTWEEN what is concealed and what is revealed. Your site may already answer these questions, but I am interested in drawing a correlation between societies that have already realized such relations and our own, coming to terms with this face.

harun karim thomas

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ddd sniffs at ronan
[ 5:05 pm ]
ronan sniffs back at ddd
sophist says, "Lacan!"
ronan [to ddd]: this old rug, I thought I had cleaned it properly
love [to sophist]: victor, whenever you're ready...
Bradley notes that anyone can reread this question with 'peek 2 on sp'
love [to Bradley]: thanks
sophist says, "Some of these aspects of in the questions we will have to revisit during the week on the list. K? But here goes for now."
sophist says, "Harun, Please let me say at first, No, I am not appropriating a "Lacanian dialectic of the mirror stage." I of course understand how anyone reading what I have said can "read" one or two of the "notes for a video that will be produced but not released" for "whatever beings as interface agents" in a Lacanian (perhaps Zizekean) manner. Such a reading "fits.""
epittman arrives.
ronan waves to erica
sophist says, "It is possible to appropriate anything on faces or mirrors, especially, in terms of anyone whose spoken or written about mirrors. Reading-reflecting on (someone's work) is like looking into a mirror. We bring to readings what we know and like, or don't like, when we read-reflect."
sullivan [to epittman]: hey girl
epittman sinks into the overstuffed couch beside love.
sophist says, "Harun, the passage you are referring to ("What do I care about this face") is from the character Agnes in Kundera's _Immortality_. She is the interface in that entire novel. I find how Kundera *employs* her, has her *work* her way into his mind while writing the novel very (ethically-politically) interesting. The other passage, the one from _The Man Without Qualities_, the one about Ulrich as "in be Tween" is an an/achronistic switching of time in terms of revaluing (in an accomplished nihilism) and in terms of what and where is something presumed to be known (in terms of the author's mind or in the logos--or writing--writing). "
sophist says, "This is impossible to explain @ the MOO! Sorry! Put simply, but perhaps misleadingly, I am asking the old yet ever new question, Who is writing when writing is written? In terms of the Face, I am asking, Who is talking when the face (or head) talks? But these are minor issues, anyway, in the piece on interface agents."
sophist says, "Harun, your reference to _Visualizing Theory_ is awfully interesting. I will have to read this book of essays. Thanks for mentioning the book; it appears that I can get a lot of *Use-Value* out of it :-)"
sophist says, "Harun, What is the in be Tween for me in the piece on interface agents? I am punning on, establishing the puncept, *Tween,* using it as it is meant in software applications such as Flash or ImageReady--bringing in the ani-mated middle--BUT the middle that I would politically insist on bringing in is the heretofore excluded middle, if not muddle. "
im says, "no problem"
stripp finds this strand on work interesting
ronan [to sophist]: following up, is Crumb's libidinal investment in Bugs Bunny, then, an act of masking, or unmasking?
sophist says, "Therefore, the Tweening is going to look a little odd to most people with their expectations of the middle being filled in with expected iconic, actional transitions (i.e., by way of the principle of "identification"). "
sullivan [to glue]: is this middle/muddle related to your middlist stuff?
love [to tharpold]: yes, i think so.. we haven't worked out the protocol here too closely, except that he's to address the preloaded questions before going to any others
sophist says, "I hope it's related :-)"
ronan [to sophist]: is Bugs the middle, here, or is it the ironing out the crinkles that acts as the space of in-between?
Bradley wonders about the Face portion of Harun's question. Vision is such a weird thing to think about in the MOO, especially in a text-based MOO like this one.
sullivan [to sophist]: "can you say more about the political insistence you mention above?
sophist says, "What I would bring in would be the unexpected since supposedly Xcluded from the protocols of communcation that we are expected to employ (i.e, work with). I do not like the principle of identification. And Agnes can make little of it anyway! Nor really can Kundera in that particular novel. He finally has to set aside Aristotle's notions and dance with chance, or accident (tuche)!"
glue :->
Bradley nods at glue.
sophist says, "Laura, well yes. By politics in this discussion, I mean a politics that would return from exclusion all or near all that has been suppressed or politically oppressed."
sophist says, "Which would include not only people but ideas, etc."
ddd say, "the excluded middle/muddle. "
sophist says, "Yes, Bradley, where's the Face in a MOO! But it's t.here."
S/M [to Bradley]: "Yes. Should we think about 'inter/facing virtuality' in the way our forebears were told to 'face reality'? I wonder!"
ronan [to sophist]: since Bugs is overdetermined, how can the face of Bugs, even when appropriated by Crumb, not be iconic, not be an actional transition? how can a libidinal attachment move from eidos to Inter/Face?
glue [to sophist]: could you relate Tween to middle voice theories?
sullivan [to sophist]: i'm sure your position is not one of relativism, but can you address, will there be criteria for what ideas are more valued than others? or is this too much in the old way of thinking that you're trying to get around?
sophist says, "In terms of politics again ... Harun and Laura, I do not like what goes for labor and work in terms of acceptable writing and reading and listening protocols in our field (or what's called Rhetoric/Composition), which I refuse to call a discipline or refuse to accept its call to be disciplined... "
sophist says, "Let me focus some on Crumb and Bugs...."
sophist says, "if you noticed in the piece "Whatever beings as Interface Agents," I took other examples from popular culture. The section on R. Crumb (crumbling) and Bugs Bunny (bugger of buns) and the parallel with Andy Kaufmann and "irony fatigue" ... and "Being John Malco*b*itch" ... and the 'invisible man' movie ... I can't remember the correct title ... points, all point to the devolving changes in Interface design--Whatever beings as interface agents--that I think we need in not only electronic envIRON.Yments but in print envIRON.Yments as well. "
[ 5:16 pm ]
sophist says, "Faces and Interfaces are in a statelessness of "fatigue." But the powers (the will to the truth of GUI) would, nonetheless, have the familiar-fatigued faces. I especially call for the strange. St.Range. the stranger. Make of these strange words what you will(s), but don't a truth."
sophist says, "It's as if everyone, or mostOnes are a-feared of the too closeness of "FACES" and "FAECES"! "
ronan nods
tharpold musing on tuche, misfortunate causality, trauma, desire... Would like to ask sophist to clarify: <<We bring to readings what we know and like, or don't like, when we read-reflect.>> This seems to tharpold to rely too heavily on a psychologistic model of the subject, rather than a desirous subject -- for whom the cause of desire is obscure (not seen in the mirror, visible only in the tain, as Zizek would have it, no?) Please clarify what you mean by "know and like"...
ronan fears the politics of poopoo
Bradley says, "well, I'll agree that most interfaces are shitty..."
ddd grins at ronan
ronan [to Bradley]: or as crumb says, I don't know. you tell me.
sophist [to tharpold]: Well, yes. but I think that desire is always present whether or not held in psychoanalytic terms or some other terms.
glue say, "interface already in its name shows repression at work"
ronan give ddd a poopoo.
sophist [to tharpold]: ... What is it that Aristotle writes at the beginning of the Metaphysics or physics ...? All men desire to know... something like that. And ever since then we have been looking at desire (theoEyezing desire) whether in psychoanalytic terms or sociological ones or naive ones.
ddd say, "euwww."
ddd gives poopoo back to ronan
ronan [to sophist]: and as you say in your book, that is the exact wrong starting point to think desire
MrFurious arrives.
sullivan [to tharpold]: "why must the cause of desire be obscure? and how does this model relate to the social?
sophist says, "Let look at it this way: Ah, there's a MIRROR IMAGE, a nesting, for yo.u/s: faCEs::faECes. ... When Agnes looks into the mirror perhaps she sees "shit"! Her identity has turned into the identity of shit. (If you read the novel, this reflection might make more sense. The whole novel turns in the opening on a *gesture* that Agnes makes and that sticks with Kundera as implied authorial narrator. What Kundera must find is a match for this horrifying *gesture,* which he does find in Dr. Avenirus who is a *jester* in the novel. Hence, *from Gesture to Jester.*) "
Brendan opens the Candy Machine.
MrFurious puts beer in the Candy Machine.
Brendan closes the Candy Machine.
MrFurious grins
ronan [to ddd]: it was a real object, a bot named poopoo
MrFurious steps quietly out into the hallway. Aquifer. (Whatever!)
ronan ,while thinking hard thoughts, expel a poopoo.
ddd drop a VoidBoy.
Brendan gets the Candy Machine.
sophist [to tharpold]: By like or dislike, when reading, I am talking about my not being a disinterested reader. I respond in many different ways, some of which I am aware of and not aware of and these likes-dislikes shape my readings. That's all that I mean :-)
ddd grins at ronan. keep yer poopoo to yerselphs.
Bradley sees another face in the moo...
ronan [to sophist]: why did Aristotle get desire wrong? why shouldn't desire be read on the side of acquisition, on the side of lack ?
ronan holds his nose and carefully scoops up the poopoo.
sophist says, "The gesture to jester routeen is a movement from tragedy to comedy or a hybrid. Hence my use of Crumb. But more so, I use Crumb because he is cartoonish and Agamben refers to Whatever beings as cartoonish. Literal renditions :-)"
ronan nods at the Quicktime captures from Crumb:The Movie
jrice say, "as ironic?"
ddd say, "He says they're tricksters and toons. :)"
love . o O ( should we move on to the next question? understanding that this one need not be abandoned . . . )
sophist [to ronan]: Good question about Aristotle. My likes are, yes, the same in terms of seeing Aristotle as wrong on this matter.
ronan [to sophist]: would his libidinal investment in Bugs be an exemplary moment of desire as production?
tharpold [to sophist]: -- OK. Didn't mean to hold you to the limits of an off-the-cuff formulation, of course. But I would emphasize more strongly the meconnaissance of desirous regard -- the "not aware of" bits which shape the possible "reflections" on the interface.
sophist says, "Yes, ddd, Crumb is a trickster also. That's why i refer to his talk as being an irony that is tired"
sophist says, "yes, let's go to the next quesiton if you wish. we leave nothing behind :-)"
ddd nods to sophist
love says, "okay, here we go..."

love shows slide 3 on the projector.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The metaphor of the whatever for the MOO interface is very interesting. Following the reading of Agamben, it implies exclusion. But the end of the piece's leftover's from the trailer that is never to be released almost have an indifferent feeling to them, to say whatever is really to be indifferent. Even this could be an interesting metaphor for electronic space. But I'm wondering if there isn't a third approach, a whatever that comes by way of Barthes. In _Camera Lucida_, Barthes calls the punctum that which is elusive, escaping. Can electronic culture's punctum be the whatever, the thing which is elusive (as in the Nike ads that read whatever while someone chases or is being chased by an elusive thing)?

Can this too be a metaphor for MOO space? And how might it be approached?

Jeff Rice

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bradley thinks that if we get about four questions started, cool... we can continue on email.
sophist says, "... much of the issue of waste is dealt with in relation to Laporte's _History of Shit_ and he points to our thinking of waste as formulating how we think of subjectivity"
tharpold [to sullivan]: Just a psa formulation -- the object-cause of desire *is* always obscure to the subject, off-scene (obscene) -- in that "other scene" -- wanted to hold VV to a bit stricter formulation of this. (And he complied :-) )
[ 5:26 pm ]
sophist says, "Okay, Jeff's question/s..."
salmon has disconnected.
ronan ,while thinking hard thoughts, expel a poopoo.
sophist says, "Jeff, "whatever" signifies *What is excluded*! It *is* the third space of thinking! Remember one of the quotes that I take and use is Patty Harkin's critique of "postmodern Hoosier students" who say "whatever" to her when she points out that they have contradicted themselves?! Patty says that they want to INVENT in the genre of Whatever! BUT OF COURSE THEY DO AND SHOULD! I believe. "
ronan say, "me and my bots think about shit all the time"
tharpold says, "Exactly. Glad you brought up Laporte. Essential reading in this context (I was just typing up a comment to that effect.)"
ronan activates the poopoo.
The poopoo says, "Thanks for waking me up; I must have dozed off there."
salmon has connected.
sophist says, "I insist on and incite us to think so! And for political and pragmatic reasons. Using Agamben, I point to Tiananmen and the students as Whatever beings, issuing in a nonreactionary politics (again, without Identity Polar-tics). But ... perhaps I can say this ... Greg (in his trilogy of books) has shown us how to invent by way of the Whatever! I certainly read what Greg has written in that Whatever way. I am writing an article on that very interpretation of Greg's work now and in relation to interface design (dasein)."
The poopoo [to sophist]: to your health, stoolie...
sophist says, "glue, if I am wrong about this point, please correct me :-)"
ronan [to tharpold]: as a revolutionary practice shit and the materiality of shit is what matters
The poopoo [to ronan]: shit is both scatalogical and a material practice.
glue [to sophist]: not at all
ddd say, "quodlibit ens" is in agamben: being such that it ALWAYS matters. it's not exclusion. . .but as vv says, a radical radical inclusion."
glue [to sophist]: in fact, I have taught Agamben several times now
sophist says, "Jeff, but Barthes's various discussions of Threes (third nonhegelian spaces) is very interesting and for the most part is similar to whatever I am referring to as the xcluded as well. I've an article that focuses on Barthes and Threes and parainventional procedures. It's titled "Threes." And Greg certainly has had an article--I've recently discovered!--on Barthes's threes way before I did."
The poopoo [to sophist]: to your health, stoolie...
ddd laughs at ronan and the talking poopoo
sullivan [to epittman]: me too
sophist [to the poopoo]: :-).......
jrice say, "I'm just thinking in terms of "whatever" escapes me -- what is the MOO - a common question/ it escapes me is it chat or something else...."
Bradley says, "The big three of computing is input, output, error."
sullivan [to sophist]: "i'm working on a weird plane now, trying to bring this whatever into a conversation with historical materialist approach
glue notes that the connection between Barthes' punctum and Agamben's quodlibet is most astute
ddd . o O ( "error" must be the poopoo )
The poopoo [to sullivan]: to your health, stoolie...
The poopoo [to ddd]: D.DianeDavis has 3 D's in her interface
ronan . o O ( poopoo is always already stepping in it )
love wonders about bataille's ipse...
ronan hushes the poopoo.
ronan activates the VoidBoy.
The VoidBoy says, "Thanks for waking me up; I must have dozed off there."
The VoidBoy [to the VoidBoy]: You are most welcome!
ronan [to sophist]: why, or how, is Barthes 3 different from your middle/muddle ?
sophist says, "my sense is that we have multiple names across these thinkers that interface very closely together."
The VoidBoy [to ronan]: tell us more about the Society of the Friends of the Text, VV.
The VoidBoy [to sophist]: what would be the topoi of a Third Sophistics of the Visual ?
glue wonders about "interface" as itself an interface metaphor
ronan hushes the VoidBoy.
ronan [to love]: yes, Bataille seems to take up a lot of space in Negation,....
sophist says, "yes, this is good wondering. ... all of a sudden a couple of months ago ... i realized :-) it's interfaces all the way down...."
sullivan wonders about the woman's face, in the discourse of beauty, as an 'interface'
glue [to sophist]: for example, in Freud, as in the case of Dora, matters having to do with the face are DISPLACEMENTS
sophist says, "ah, yes, Laura. The woman face that launched a thousand ships...."
sullivan finds it hard to think about the woman's face in non-objectified terms
sophist says, "Yes, glue, and in that case on Dora, Freud keeps wondering about what writing protocol as interface he is using to understand himself and Dora..."
sullivan and yet she thinks there must be something more...
tharpold musing on Bradley's big three. Typically, "error" is conceived as waste, shit-to-be-excluded-from-view, something to be hustled out of the field of interactivity as quickly as possible -- and not as material excess of the dematerializing strategies of computing, irreducible remainder -- perhaps the *ground* of input and output. Laporte points us to an interesting, perhaps new way to reconceive the excrementality of error.
sophist says, "He finally has to use the interface of an Hysteric. He is writing a case study that is held together with fictions, short story fictions"
stripp says, "The interface of the Tween itself strikes me as an abyss, at least in digital animation programs that can "tween" two keyframes to infinite regress. "
ronan [to sullivan]: a non-objectified Hellinism ? yes,
sophist says, "I was reading an interview with a designer using Java who said that he coded errors in to get special effects that he could not get if he coded correctly"
sullivan [to sophist]: "and so in this case isn't freud using an interface he borrows from his culture? can we talk about these types of interfaces without acknowledging the role of ideology?
glue [to sophist]: the lesson being, the interFACE would better read interBODY
Brendan . o O ( perhaps the toilet would be a better Icon for the trash bin on the desktop... )
Bradley nods at sophist.
sophist says, "interesting point, stripp"
[ 5:36 pm ]
glue [to sophist]: or to be specific, to name that place from which attention was displaced--
glue [to sophist]: the interPELVIC (as I wrote YEARS AGO now :>
jrice say, "attention is easily displaced in the MOO"
ronan [to stripp]: which seems to mirror, in a way, the the GUI metaphor of between the code and the user...
sophist says, "yes, glue, i am getting this notion of displacement now in this context... very interesting ... inter PELVIC ... Wow."
ronan say, "so how might the tween of the frames allow for all the excess of meaning to be expelled BEFORE the affect/effect of the juxtaposition occurs?"
sophist says, "but i am wondering , really wondering about what is happening to "secondary revision" or irony"
sullivan says, "i'm all for this excess/remainder (i think)--but i wonder: once we see/produce it, what do we *do* with it?"
stripp says, "I wonder, though, how the Tween interface in digital media might differ from the tweening practices in animation studios where tweening was not algorithmic, but the product of people "filling in" with all their desires and quirks."
glue [to sophist]: say more about your animation metaphor: the Tween, as suggesting a way to "write" more than may be thought?
sophist says, "it is very difficult to tell if Crumb is serious in any way or whether Kaufmann is. the poles of irony have imploded or are imploding...."
love . o O ( interPELVIC = khora = WOOmb? )
ronan [to sophist]: are you putting us on?
ronan [to sophist]: when will you be you, putting us on?
ronan [to sophist]: how can one be put upon?
sullivan [to sophist]: "so can that ambiguity/ambivalence be mobilized in some way? or are you lamenting this state of not being able to recognize if something /someone is ironic or not?
ronan feels put upon
sophist says, "i am lamenting but more so embracing the opportunity of and in the conFusion...."
ronan feels the sophist is putting on putting him on
sullivan [to sophist]: "i see, can you say more about what kind of opportunity we have in this confusion?
ronan . o O ( my Irony is no longer hot, and thre Steam button only makes my ironying worse )
sophist says, "Whatever and Irony Fatigue are very similar and I think that they function as a sort of fifth atopos for Freud's Dream hermeneutic...."
sophist says, "But they function for wide awake dreams"
glue [to sophist]: because the culture industry assumes the "filling in of the gap" as predictable...
sophist says, "I like this "
glue [to sophist]: and rhetoricians imagine that it is possible to "out" the enthymeme
ronan [to sophist]: so, is not knowing if Crumb is putting us on what makes the Irony ironic? I am confused about the deliberative aspect of *putting on*
sophist says, "I like this Tweening thing and the adding of quirks into the animation..."
sophist says, "we have certain expectencies and it is the tuche, the accident, the quirk that is beyond any quirkiness that we could imagine that speaks to us, or to me, in any case...."
sullivan says, "it seems to me that the culture industry also has no problem with confusion about irony, this in itself is used to sell products all the time in contemporary advertisements"
sophist [to glue]: "to out the enthymeme .... well put.... hahahaha
ronan nods at that
Brendan says, "like the renegade artist who slipped a naked Jessica Rabbit into the movie..."
love wonders if tweening is like a leibnitzian series...
jrice [to sullivan]: "which is why I point to the Nike commercial - what you're supposed to buy is elusive, you can't catch it
epittman wonders if tweening isn't a little bit like ideology critique -- maybe...
sophist [to sullivan]: yes, you are right about the advertising industry. they have no problems with irony fatigue at all. they know it works on us
ronan nods at Brendan
jrice say, "and the commerical is called "Whatever""
Brendan [to jrice]: or like Dubya's RATS
ddd say, "rats?"
glue [to sophist]: say a bit about the "risks" associated with quodlibet in Agamben's sense
sophist [to jrice]: yes, it is called Whatever ... that bleeping commercial. But at this point everything gets very Zizean for me
sophist says, "and very predictable IF Zizekean"
glue [to sophist]: re: travelling a ways with pornography and commodity
sophist [to glue]: okay, risk. I think that ...
sullivan [to sophist]: "ok, so if the ad industry knows this irony fatigue 'works' on us--then how do we mobilize the confusion in a different (non-alienated for lack of a better word) way?
Bradley says, "What is the term Zizek uses... kynicism?"
ronan say, "but What*ever always contains the possibilty of surpassing irony, a political sense of the what that makes every ever a potential, a becoming... or am I overly optimistic about Nike and meconnaissance ?"
[ 5:46 pm ]
love . o O ( it's time for another slide...? )
glue [to sophist]: or utopian dream?
tharpold says, "Re. sullivan's comment -- <<it seems to me that the culture industry also has no problem with confusion about irony>> -- indeed, such irony serves as a useful "heat-sink" for class-political conflict: expending libidinal energies in a shortcircuited way (mis-directing them), by not stating the obvious *as* obvious (unironically) -- which would then open the possibility of sustained, thoughtful discussion (or of active outrage)"
sophist says, "everything tells us that we should not take that risk and go with Whatever, for we have been so trained, disciplined to read it as a quiet apolitical response. We cannot accept Whatever anymore than we can amor fati. Therefore we would embrace being reactionary"
sullivan says, "i think the point is not to take our cue for optimism from nike...rather, how can we re-animate, reactivate these kinds of textual strategies?"
tharpold steps away from the terminal to grab another cup of tea...
ronan would never take anything from Nike per se, I meant the possibility of passing irony within the term itself
sophist says, "well, yes, Laura, but this is not Agamben at all. Which is okay. But I don't think that I've seen any productive outrage in a long time...."
jrice say, "It seems for composition, the whatever is reacting to the ever popular "thesis""
ronan puts on his New Balances
Bradley is barefoot
sullivan [to sophist]:
sophist says, "yes, jrice, this is a good point about composition theory and pedagogy and Whatever"
ronan [to Bradley]: better to step in shit with bare feet, no?
glue admires tharpold's vocabulary
sophist says, "whatever anyone else wants is fine with me"
sullivan [to sophist]: "oops...on the lack of productive outrage, i agree. my thinking is that we need to take the outrage and produce something else, not sure what, but something that will still mobilize us to action to change social structures etc.
ronan wants world peas
jrice say, "I want to imagine the classroom that asks "Where's your whatever" instead of "Where's your thesis?""
ronan say, "stirred, not shaken"
love says, "okay, i'm going to layer on another question.. again, not to leave anything behind..."

love shows slide 4 on the projector.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In Of MOOs, Folds, and Non-Reactionary Virtual Communities, you suggest, with the help of Deleuze and Lyotard and in the name of Nietzschean self-overcoming, a metaphor for a MOO anarchitecture that is all surface, that denegates the negative, setting red cruelties loose on the white terror and instituting a virtual space in which there is no No. And yet, Deleuze rarely discusses lines of flight without simultaneously issuing cautions. In _Dialogues_, he describes the inevitable dangers associated with molar, molecular, *and* flight lines. In _A Thousand Plateaus_, while discussing the BWO and flight lines, he and Guattari write:

<<You have to keep enough of the organism for it to reform each dawn; and you have to keep small supplies of significance and subjectification, if only to turn them against their own systems when the circumstances demand it, when things, persons, even situations, force you to; and you have to keep small rations of subjectivity in sufficient quantity to enable you to respond to the dominant reality. Mimic the strata. You don't reach the BwO, and its plane of consistency, by wildly destratifying. . . .There are, in fact, several ways of botching the BwO.>> (160)

<snip!)>

So the question: Is it possible that BaroqueMOO invites precisely these dangers, instituting a surface-space that blows up the strata too quickly? Put another way: If there is no No in BaroqueMOO, if there are only red cruelties (total defeat of the white terror,) does it become a non-reactionary space of self-overcoming or does it become an/other kind of death trap? And if the terms of this question don't work for you, please feel free to reframe and rework it to make a space for whatever wants to be said.

D. Diane Davis

NOTE: This question was edited for length.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

sophist says, "Where's your Whatever!!! Write five Whatevers for me and turn them in Monday...."
jrice grins
ddd args.
sophist says, "okay, next question, which, since DDD, I take it to be a puton question. Whatever?"
ddd say, "I want to distance myself from this question. . .i was hoping it'd be anonymous! as I told vv i was going to try to play a resistant reader when i asked this question. "
ronan [to ddd]: what does it mean to edit for length?
sullivan says, "this question to me seems to return us to surface/depth questions. the depth somehow not entirely out of the picture "
ronan scans MOOville for the Red terror
sullivan [to epittman]: interesting little remark there about red t., huh?
ronan . o O ( denegate the negative )
sophist says, "I'm not--in thinking about the problem of reactionariness and white truth--willing to"
sophist says, "I'm not--in thinking about the problem of reactionariness and white truth--willing to"
ronan [to sullivan]: I meant red terror versus white terror, but MOOvillians are aware of the surface tensions in such a formulation, of course
sullivan [to epittman]: yeah, but seems to have an interesting, even if unintended, double meaning...or am i reading too much in here?
sophist says, "I am not--in thinking about the problem of reactionariness and white truth--willing to capitulate to big daddy-oEdipus. When I am told to be cautious and careful (responsible), even when words of Dolce & Gabanna are used, I would even more, some more, live lives dangerously as I said in ch. 4 of _NSHR_. I would think for what goes thinking "dangerously." "
sullivan says, "i meant the question on the slide actually, as bringing depth back into the picture"
ronan nods at Chapter 4
ronan [to sophist]: What is it to Experience Being ?
sophist [to sullivan]: okay.
sophist says, "I would make "danger [my] vocation" (Nietzsche). For the option with corporashuns is to live li(f)e coweringly. I have warned myselphs and my readers in that ch. 4, using Heidegger as my example. "
sophist says, "I say this (above) knowing that the good oedipal boys and girls will but repeat what their oEdipal paters and maters said to them! The field that I am in is filled--like a jelly donut--with such good petit boys and petite girls. I don't like jelly doNOTs, doNUTTINs. "
ronan nods at the concept of hegemon as deployed by VV in Ch.4 of NSHR
sophist says, "Cows do not need or even desire to be beasts of burden for the milk associashun. Cows just want to be cows. And then other beings as well. Becoming Cow is what I say we must practice when thinking, as well as becoming other thinglesses. But if I, as a cow wearing a bell for all to follow me, appear a dangerous thinker and if I have a f(ol)lowing (hahaha), and if I as pied piper am leading the little cows--petit/e dogies--to the slaughter(haus) of the red cruelities, then take this bell off of me. "
ddd say, "trembling on the edge of being. . .is a gud thing. D&G, though, are always always always coming back to the dangers involved in all three lines. All three invite certain conservative reactions for them. And they go into all of these INSTRUCTIONS for taking lines of flight, etc. Would you disagree, then, with them?"
sophist says, "Yes, I would disagree.... they are not my masters nor my teachers..."
tharpold returns, to find an epic discussion already underway. Sheesh.
[ 5:56 pm ]
ronan is lead to the slaughterhouse on a line of flight called *mastery*
ddd say, "This is a place where d&g and Agamben seem worlds apart."
sullivan [to sophist]: the cow imagery in the article, of living in the present etc i dug, but i think i have to go into some "deep" part of me to get closer to that kind of cowlike state...
sophist says, "Yes, D, they are whirls apart here"
ddd say, ""
stripp [to tharpold]: tea always is a good, bracing prelude to an epic
sophist says, "okay back to the cows..."
ronan [to ddd]: speak more to that, and the reactionary response to anarchitecture
sophist says, "Lift this (your) spirit of gravity off me! And put it back on the body polar-tic COWers that would co-operate with CORPorations when thinking. (I am hungry for thinking; I do not want thinking rationed!) The whole chapter in _High Wired_ is about "thinking" as I point out in relation to Foucault and Deleuze. Recall the opening quote from Deleuze in _Foucault_. Let "us" think otherwise(dom). Udder sophists. (And let us forget, affirmatively forget, what goes yesterday and today for "critical thinking"!)"
ronan [to ddd]: of MOO anarchitecture that folds along baroque surfaces
sophist says, "Let's not forget here that in the chapter in _High Wired_ I am talking about MOO-environment, about "rape" in virtual reality. DibBell's acount. I am not talking about changing the fundamental structure of the world in which we/you live. The thinking in the chapter is "a thought experiment." I will leave for later the changing of the whole wide world. :-) "
glue gave a talk at society for cinema studies entitled "the trojan cow of media studies" or rather, the "mad trojan cow"
jrice say, "There were these cows on south park last night who could communicate with the aliens..."
Bradley says, "to relate this a bit to the pedagogy of whatever discussed earlier:"
sophist [to glue]: mad cow indeed! I like that title...
ddd [to jrice]: I LOVED that episode
Brendan . o O ( (battle cattle!) )
ddd say, "mad cow, behold!"
sophist says, "Yes, Bradley?"
ronan forgot that part about thinking otherwise. dunno why, since *thinking otherwise* is so highly-valued in English Departments
sullivan [to sophist]: "but it seems to me that what you are saying has implications that go beyond the moo situation, or rather, that your thought experiment does point to how the moo is imbricated within larger structures etc.
Bradley says, "How can we get to that changing of the world (since it's all about world domination, at least for me), without turning whatever into critical thinking"
epittman thanks Bradley for framing one of her questions for her
Bradley says, "I can just see it... Microsoft Whatever 2001"
ddd say, "So, ok, you (vv) see no dangers in running lines of flight. . .or rather, you see dangers and you just say YES. ;) And you disagree with d&g here. you want s'mo. "
sullivan [to sophist]: "what i was thinking is that the self-overcoming you describe still seems to need some depth to clean out to get to, i dunno, i can't get around the notions such as the unconscious etc.
glue say, "have we come to a new metaphor: intercattle?"
Bradley says, "whatever in a box"
jrice grins at intercattle
ronan nods at glue the geneticist of metaphors
sophist says, "Yes, Laura, what I say, we say, has wide application. But I am focusing on the MOO only. When this article gets into the book that I am writing on Canonicity, rape narratives, and the history of rhetoric ... it will have very wide application. Yes."
ddd laughs at glue
sophist says, "intercattle, chuckle.... "
jpl arrives.
ronan [to Bradley]: whatever in a box is a determinate negation of whatever. whatever in an open box, however...
glue finds ronan's poopoos appropriate in this venue
sophist says, "Bradely, i am subscribing to the notion that history is not human. We are not bringing about any changes ourselves...."
ronan [to glue]: I knew you would like poopoo eventually
ronan activates the poopoo.
ddd [to Bradley]: "whatever politics" doesn't look like that. ..i mean, it isn't involved in critical thinking. According to agamben. It's an/other politics altogether.
The poopoo says, "Thanks for waking me up; I must have dozed off there."
The poopoo [to ddd]: D.DianeDavis has 3 D's in her interface
ronan hushes the poopoo.
salmon steps quietly out into the hallway. Aquifer. (Whatever!)
Bradley [to ronan]: Well, I guess my point is that perhaps critical thinking used to be something different before it was put in a box for resale...
sophist says, "remember that whatever beings ae without the need for recognition, without political identity and therefore they are very dangeorus and a major threat to the STATE...."
ddd nods to vv.
ronan nods to resale value of critical thinking
ddd say, "and they are a threat precisely b/c they have no identity to vindicate. "
jrice [to sophist]: then if pop culture is the place of the whatever, that puts the students of pop culture as a threat to to the STATE which gives teachers like me POWER
sophist says, "we in acadmia are not a threat to the state at all."
sullivan says, "but even if whatever politics isn't involved with critical thinking, can't we take this other thinking, thie excessive, libidinal stuff vv talks about for ex., and use it to do some stuff to make the world better? (i'm not willing to give up on these kinds of value judgments. some of them seem obvious. having millions starve yearly for ex, isn't desireable from this standpoint)"
sophist says, "yes, no vindication. no redemption. none of that church-state stuffings"
ronan [to sophist]: is Crumb such an Enemy of the State, or is it Bugs who tricks that role?
ronan [to sophist]: it seems your picture of Crumb is, itself, a cartoon of whatever
sophist says, "Laura, I am not giving up either. But facing (FACING) the fact that what we see as our making change is epiphenomenal, not anything else.... Human beings are of less consequence than we think they/we are...."
glue [to sophist]: but isn't the goal of whatever (Agamben's version) to have the body and the image coincide? such that the image may become part of EXPERIENCE for the body?
ronan [to sophist]: his drawings are awash in the sentiment of _no vindication, no redemption_
ddd [to sullivan]: b/c agamben calls "community" precisely the nonbelonging that preceeds any/every *condition* of belonging, I think there are implications for "the world" (If we can still call it that.) but it's not the same as MAKING the world better.
sullivan [to sophist]: "an obvious and hopefully not too annoying question but: even as we recognize the limits of arguing etc based on "identity" than can't we still talk about and examine social structure?
[ 6:06 pm ]
sophist says, "glue, this is an interesting possible convergence you are referring to. i had not seen that in Agamben. But i will think about this convergence...."
sophist says, "Yes, Laura, we cannot not do as you say...."
sophist says, "We who are not Whatever beings."
ronan [to ddd]: victor wants to make that point with the Tianamen students, but the nonbelonging of their status was quickly charged to something else, so how does, in this particular political example, nonbelonging create a condition of possibility ?
sullivan [to sophist]: "well, i don't know how to explain this one, but i think it's like the whatever comes *through* human beings and so we are involved in making the world better, but not in the ego kind of sense of acting.
sophist says, "Glue, in relation to this convergence, you must be referring to the dancers and the advertisement? is this what you are referring to or is there another passage."
jrice say, "But how does the student who answers the question "whatever" make the world better? Don't understand that..."
glue aside (you can get Kirin at Publics now)
ddd [to glue]: this is the chapter when agamben says that the body's image has gone whatever, but the material body has not, right? And he suggests that the task is to make the body whatever. . . I get kind of confused in that chapter. ..it seems profound. . .hehe. but i'm struggling with it. I like your interpretation.
ronan [to glue]: and they also carry Big Daddy's now, too
sophist says, "Laura, yes. I like that view. NOt that it needs me to "Like" it. this is not a box of chocolates, of course...."
sullivan [to jrice]: it's not a question. it's more of letting the excess/remainder come through you, writing what you cannot think and then letting the result animate your next actions
ddd wishes she had _CC_ with her. . .
ronan wishes he had DDD with him.
glue 's interpretation is that the dilemma that whatever remedies is personified in the life of princess di
ddd say, "sorry, Agamben's The Coming Community. It's at home."
ronan say, "oh wait, I do"
sophist says, "Yes, but i am hearing psychoanalysis again. And Agamben, thank the gods, does not get into that discourse...."
ddd smiles at ronan
ddd jumps up and down. YES! That's a great connection, glue.
stripp [to sophist]: earlier you mentioned the whatever in conjunction of the amor fati. as someone with an incipient interest in stoic philosophy, i would like to hear more on how you feel these two correspond and what it means to invoke this ethical tradition at this juncture (and the D&G, too, of course)
sophist says, "Yes, I can see this. LET IT BE!"
sullivan [to ddd]: "i haven't read this agamben dude, but i think that you have described my own process of late, learning to let this whatever energy come through in the body, listening and even paying attention to the body has been new for me, and then using what results, for ex in my writing
sophist says, "good example, glue...."
tharpold thinking re. <b/c agamben calls "community" precisely the nonbelonging that preceeds any/every *condition* of belonging>> -- this critique begins with Freud's _Civilization and Its Discontents_: the social form is founded on intersubjective agon(y): only when we grasp this, will we be able to think beyond the happy-talk pop-psychology of apolitical, utopian formulae of "virtual" communities
ronan say, "as a whatever being, does princess Di get her whatever from without? a media darling, does the ever of whatever not coem from an ideological portrayal of the People's Princess ?"
glue [to ddd]: shucks twarn't nuthin
ddd [to tharpold]: the geawds, i hope we can get beyond the "coke and a smile" discourse on cyberculture.
sullivan says, "re: princess diana--after her death they tried to sell tubs of margarine with her signature on them in the uk, didn't go over too well, though, but the effort itself speaks volumes i think"
sophist [to tharpold]: that's a good parallel, no doubt about it. from one to many topos works t/here....
sophist says, "in France, it was Butter, of course!"
ddd laughs at VV
ronan activates the VoidBoy.
ddd say, "but of course."
The VoidBoy says, "Thanks for waking me up; I must have dozed off there."
glue [to sullivan]: wasn't that princess margarine?
The VoidBoy [to the VoidBoy]: You are most welcome!
ddd [to glue]: have you read Wolfgang Schirmacher's stuff on Mother Di and media cloning?
sophist says, "what agamben is in part about is what nietzsche in Zarathustra is about: our relation with the past, our attempt to redeem it, which leads to ressentiment and the rest of the bloodly rest...."
The VoidBoy [to sophist]: what would be the topoi of a Third Sophistics of the Visual ?
sullivan says, "in relation to the face and princess di: on all the videos on british tv on the one-year anniversary of her death, they just ran soundtracks of cheesy songs, she never says a word, and the narration always was sure to mention that at least she would/will never grow old, her image (youth) will be permanently preserved..."
ddd looks at tharpold and ROFLS! HAHAHAHA
epittman confesses to not having read Agamben, but wonders how CC might connect to Nancy's idea of being-in-common
glue [to ddd]: no, although I know Wolfgang. where's zat?
ddd [to epittman]: it connects, BIG TIMe.
ddd [to glue]: got it on the net. ;) When i get home, i'll get the url and zip it to ya.
[ 6:16 pm ]
ronan say, "any more slides?"
love says, "ready?"

love shows slide 5 on the projector.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I am interested in your thoughts on the inter/face between the pedagogical practices you gesture toward in your "trailers" and their enactment within what Bill Readings describes as the "University of Excellence," an institution no longer concerned with the ideals of national culture but instead based on "a non-referential principle that allows the maximum of uninterrupted internal administration" (120). Readings's book proposes a pedagogy that views the university as a "ruined institution" that, while no longer held together by an overarching mission nevertheless offers a site for particular projects in research and teaching. Although your approach obviously differs markedly from Readings's, I glimpse the ruin (or its traces) in your project as well: Benjamin, the rem(a)inder, the crumb. To what extent can (or should) we think of the University as a ruined (or crum(b)y) one?

Stephanie Tripp

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ddd [to epittman]: i think agamben is working closely with nancy's notion of community. . .then he takes it another. . .different direction when he goes toward being-in-language.
A guest arrives.
ronan waves to the guest
sophist says, "Stephanie, This is a diffiCult one for me, this question about Readings. I make un/certain associations with Readings. "
The VoidBoy [to sophist]: what would be the topoi of a Third Sophistics of the Visual ?
ronan hushes the VoidBoy.
glue only has a 28.8 modem
sophist says, "Stephanie, The first book I 'read' of his was _introducing lyotard_. I read half of that book during jury duty, voir dire! "
ddd Pops voidboy onna noggin
ronan pick up the VoidBoy.
ronan [to ddd]: he is hurt now
ddd [to ronan]: he seems to have a mighty THICK noggin, so i bet he recovers soon. ;)
ronan smiles at she with 3 D's in her interface
sophist says, "Stephanie, The second association I make is with my spouse talking about American Eagle flight 4184 (Oct 31, '94), which Readings was on and died on. If you recall, the plane crashed and burned. My spouse, a flight attendant for AEagle, has watched that plane crash over and over again on philm, during training sessions and retraining sessions. The question of course is Why did the plane crash? Coming up with an answer to Why? is difficult, for there is the added problem of there having been a brand new FAttendant, who was on her brand new first flight! But all data point to the simple, dreadful co-incidence of three things having gone wrong. The probability of the crash was millions to one. Those three things (with two things mainly as backups) had to go wrong in a certain sequence."
epittman isn't sure whether universities have ever been anything that wasn't a ruin
ronan banish the VoidBoy to the crowded corners of the jail cell.
sophist says, "Stephanie, The new third association I make with the book is Patty Harkin's recent critique of it at the Watson conference. She argued that "Excellence" is, contrary to what Readings says, an ideological construct. I can see Patty's point of view here, but it's not a necessity nor a necessary conclusion for me. For I can see "Excellence" as an empty, superficial cypher. I don't much truck with the hermeneutics of suspicion, or any depth hermeneutic. I have an article contrary to this kind of hermeneutic in _parallax_, which is "the hermeneutics of abandonment." Amor fati."
ddd nods at epittman. But . . . no more so than any other societal institution. Right?
sullivan says, "personally i find it hard to hold onto a sense of the university, at least this one, as a site of possibility, whenever i see things like the 'night shaft' (moving all phys. plant workers to 11 p.m -5 a.m. shift) and more personally when i freak out about my lack of funding etc."
sophist says, "Stephanie, These three associations of mine with Readings, Readings' book _the univers.ity in ruins_, are also associations that I have about the ruins of discourse: un/namely, judiciary, deliberative, epideictic (praise and blame)."
glue thinks of Johd D. Caputo's work, suggesting an abject ethics over against the Greek Arete
glue say, "but Caputo remains within the world view of Lyotard's jewgreek"
ddd say, "Is caputo the guy who writes the radical (and more radical) hermeneutics books?"
sophist says, "I have some more things I want to say about the unversity .... and will hold them off until we get online via the listserv. I can use any number of unversities (including UF) to illustrate some points about Readings' argument...."
ddd say, "I mean, is it the same caputo?"
stripp [to sophist]: I suppose my interest in invoking Readings here (or perhaps conjuring would be the word considering his spectral status--no less real perhaps thana my own) is to nudge you into saying something about the way you see your project within the existing institution.
glue [to sullivan]: the university is a site of possibility only relative to the other sites available in the community which is already here.
ronan [to ddd]: yes, the same
ddd [to ronan]: k. thanks. ;)
glue [to ddd]: well, he is a philosopher who writes about heidegger and derrida
sophist says, "okay, Steph, I took your question as asking along those lines...."
ddd nods to glue. K.
ronan [to ddd]: that's what an eager grad student does, right, provide research for his tenure-track pals?
ddd grins at ronan.
ronan smiles at DDD, future hiring committee memeber
sophist says, "And I would say that I work at the univeristy and get paid for the programmatic courses, but that my real purpose of being in the university is to dis/engage in another less programmatic, or nonpogrammatic (sic), teaching, or learning..... "
glue has to attend family dinner; looks forward to elist (thanks to sophist and congrats to cwwg
sophist says, "Is CWWG programmatic? or the other?"
ronan waves adios to glue
glue have disconnected.
stripp [to sophist]: The University of Excellence seems to me -indifferent- (whatever!) to critique (you can hate the university, or society,as long as you do it with excellence!) or to interpretation.
Brendan has to go too. He waves goodbye
Brendan stands up from the Red Folding Chair.
Brendan steps quietly out into the hallway. Aquifer. (Whatever!)
sophist says, "bye, glue. Thanks for coming"
ronan [to sophist]: our programme is Permanent Revolution
dave has to go as well
dave steps quietly out into the hallway. Aquifer. (Whatever!)
ronan [to sophist]: at elast until the permanence of the revolution becomes aporetic
sophist [to stripp]: I agree
The guest needs to step out for a smoke
The guest has disconnected.
The disconnected guest decides e's outstayed eir welcome and goes home.
[ 6:26 pm ]
sullivan has to quickly set up a video she's showing her students (in rolfs) be back momentarily
ronan say, "too bad we didn't tell the guest smoking is allowed in MOOville"
sophist says, "but my point is that CWWG is somewhat like what we had in the 60s in the name of 'the free university'. It was not run by the administration but by the students...."
ronan lights up a Macanudo
Storyteller arrives.
ddd [to stripp]: I agree, too. and that's agamben's point, isn't it? That the state (institution) can absorb ANY critique, ANY subject position. . . but it is truly threatened by whatever singularities.
stripp [to ddd]: Exactly!
ronan nods at irreducible singularity as a revolutionary possibility
sophist [to ddd]: Yes, i believe the university and the State are threatened by Whatever beings. No doubt about this one for me....
epittman has disconnected.
Storyteller has disconnected.
ddd say, "when agamben points to Tieneman Sq. as an example of whatever politics, it's b/c they aren't identifying. . .they aren't coming together or bonding or , ahem, whatever. They are a togetherness-of-otherness. "
ronan [to sophist]: is the singularity of whatever beings the Inter/Face, or the dissymmetrical contours of the Face (or the mask put on the face)???
ddd say, "and they aren't fighting, in the name of identity, for something in particular. . ."
sophist [to ddd]: yes. but they do this wonderful irony fatigue thing with the goddess of liberty ahahahahahaha
stripp says, "yes, a community of singularities"
glue's friends arrive to cart us off to bed.
ddd [to sophist]: RIGH! Haha.
sophist [to ddd]: they make phun of identity with that papermache statue
ddd [to sophist]: right.
tharpold says, "Re. 'CWWG is somewhat like what we had in the 60s in the name of 'the free university'...' Perhaps. We should not be quick to assume this as the eventual outcome of the group. Indeed, one of the things that will best insure that digital matters become the subject of active *critical* discussion at UF is to find ways to suture CWWG to institutional forms... perhaps without a loss of automony. Me thinking like professor-type, wanting to use CWWG as a base for promoting student thinking and work (like this colloquium)"
A guest arrives.
ronan [to sophist]: did the students hold the same TRUTHS to be self-evident ? is the statue Irony Fatigued because of associations we make, or the studenst fail to make?
ddd say, "this is not about critical thinking or whatnot. it's about the unworking of identity (there's nancy again)."
jrice [to tharpold]: and not to forget the group was only begun early this year...there is always the chance of remaining somewhat autonomous or being absorbed...or disappering altogether
sophist [to ronan]: What's the difference?!
ronan [to ddd]: ok, but the paper mache statue, no matter how open, has a certain political valence that made this community an oppositional community, at least to the Central Committee
Bradley [to ronan]: And made it play in Peoria
sophist says, "Yes but the group continues other paratraditions as I've come to understand them, others at UF..."
love wonders why whatever isn't an aporea... or if it is.
ddd [to sophist]: sophist = arch de bunker. ;)
stripp says, "yet here we sit at that damn university with all that _universum_ implies"
S/M wonders if VV would connect Agamben's whatever beings w/ Deleuze 'image of thought without an image.
ronan [to sophist]: the difference would be a self-evidence of being, a community that structures its ideal as ideal, concrete through an ironic association
sophist says, "And yes, what the students do gets appropriated, but that's okay, for there is something else going on in this ... event of invention...."
epittman's friends arrive to cart em off to bed.
ddd say, "and of course, the tanks arrive. . ."
ronan wonders what other paratraditions at UF the sophist refers to ?
stripp hates those pesky tanks
Storyteller's friends arrive to cart her off to bed.
ddd say, "Agamben says that whenever whatever singularities come together, unworking identity, the tanks will show up."
sophist [to S/M]: i would have to think some more about that connection with Deleuze. And i will :-)
sophist says, "yes, the tanks. Thanks. And they will smash the students. But the Whatever Beings keep on coming to form the community...."
ronan [to ddd]: arche debunker uses quite a bit9ch) of deMan in NSHR, not enough for my tastes, of course, but...
ddd say, "but community in messianic time. . .always 'to come'"
sophist [to ddd]: YES, it's destiny....
stripp [to ddd]: ah benjaminderrida
sophist [to ddd]: :-) hahahahaha
sullivan returns from setting up her videotape, just in time to read about the coming community
ddd grins
ronan [to sophist]: the community-to-come of the student movement seems to have been directed towards what Business Week might call *the entrepenurial spirit*
tharpold says, "'Paratraditions.' Nice. Perhaps this raises a pedagogical problem as well -- how to insure that such a form remains para-... And still achieves results recognized by the institution. Which might promote consciousnesss of the importance of what I *think* the CWWG folks are trying to make happen. This, again, said as someone who admires the initiative deeply, and wants to make sure that it thrives, beyond the moment."
[ 6:36 pm ]
sophist [to ronan]: Yes, it can be stolen, but that does not stop it. the coming community is not human; it's whatever. the coming community is the reign of LIMBO....
im has disconnected.
ronan [to sophist]: so I wonder how the *to-come* might always include a reactionary status, the other possibilities negated by the sinecure of associational imagery, ie life, liberty, etc ?
sophist [to tharpold]: I do understand the importance, the pragmatic importance, of the connections....
ddd say, "well, vv, doesn't agamben want "the human" and "the body" to go whatever? "
sophist [to tharpold]: ... and the value of those connections....
ddd say, "he rescripts them, i think."
sullivan [to ddd]: "yes, i'm nervous when we eliminate these terms/entities
ronan shines his CV, hopeing to make it look like a shiny apple
ronan makes the connection
sophist [to ddd]: I think so. Human is becoming Whatever community... There's a Nietzschean twist here toward self overcoming into the coming community
ddd [to sullivan]: they don't look familiar in agamben. . .but he does attempt to rescript them. he makes them uncanny.
stripp says, "What could be the interface between the whatever and the universum? "
ddd nods to vv
love says, "okay, another slide, okay?"

love shows slide 7 on the projector.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A question for VV

In your text, Negation, Subjectivity, and the History of Rhetoric, you make the following points:

Specdifically, what I have in mind here is reference to the playfulness of Being-however problematic it might be- is heraclitus's fragment 52: 'The course of the world is a playing child moving figures ona board-the child as absolute ruler of the universe.

you demand that 2 points need to be made/investigated, the second of which may be of interest to us here.

VV: second, a politics in and for itself, given this view of logos, is less likely, while an aesthetic that would perpetually interrogate a politics is more likely, if not necessary.

Q uestion from jfr: Is the third the ground from which such an aesthetic will spring? What is the passage from the Gay Science to the just gaming of a Differend that would posit an affirmative aesthetic? Is this question, as question, legible/visible in regards to your projects?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ddd [to love]: you sound like that teacher in Faris Buler's day off. hahhaa.
sophist says, "VVhatever for slides .... let's slip and slide...."
ddd wowows
ronan remebers that his slide projector is called SlipNSlide
jrice hopes we talk a lot about aesthetics on email this week
ronan does too
ddd hopes we talk about an aesthetics beyond aesthetics. ;) whatever aesthetics.
sophist [to ronan]: Well, yes, I am putting more value or am willing to find or discover more value in aesthetics than in what goes for politics. That is the gist of what I am partly saying in that book....
ronan nods
sullivan sullivan thinks these days that politics and aesthetics aren't separable
Bradley [to sullivan]: !
im's friends arrive to cart em off to bed.
ronan say, "I wonder about wehat you call the *third (sublime) subject position ?"
ddd . o O ( they have never been separable )
ddd . o O ( this will be a BUSY email week. heheh )
ronan say, "the necessity to aestheticize the ethical subject"
Bradley nods to ddd, on both points.
sophist [to ronan]: I think that third position is seen (theoretically, seeably possible) in whatever beings.
ddd nods to vv. Me too
sullivan [to ddd]: "i agree, i meant that's what i've been really thinking about lately
sophist [to ronan]: i wish that i had had agamben while i was writing and thinking that book, but i had to go with the weird outcasts and outlaws as well. but agamben goes with them also....
stripp trembles before the specter of Kant
Bradley says, "But 'what goes for politics', of course."
ddd nods to sullivan.
ronan say, "to set aside, without without sublation, of restrictive sublimation, would be sovereignity.... is how you put it in NSHR"
ddd giggles at stripp
ronan nods
sophist [to ronan]: well, ronan i dont want to say the necessity to call on aesthetics. i don't even like the contingency to call on....
ronan say, "I am really still working through that chapter, especially the movement from Bataille/hegel to Nietzche/Lyotard"
ronan say, "but you call on it nonetheless"
sophist [to ronan]: I don't have an appropriate or inappropriate VERB. sorry. for now
ronan say, "at least within that excursus, itr seems to me"
ddd gets busy making some verb-age for vv. . .
ronan say, "ok, maybe email would be a better forum for me to formulate that question"
[ 6:47 pm ]
Bradley is way past the point where he wants to revisit VV's texts to settle his steaming brain
sophist [to ronan]: Yes, you are correct. I call on it. Now, I would say that it calls on me, whatever the "it" might be. ... Give me some more time to rethink that connection, ronan, okay? Your question is important. And so is Steph's. ... I am not backing off from the aesthetic connection; I want to remove some of the content and qualities i associaed with it earlier, K? :-)
ronan say, "Man will esacpe his head as a convict escapes a prison....what a perfect quote for that passage in the excursus"
ddd hates to miss the closing stuff but has to weewee!
ddd say, "thanks everyone. "
ronan nods at the question of the sublime and the question of aesthetics
ddd waves to all.
sullivan [to ddd]: backatcha
jrice waves
sophist [to ddd]: bye, gurl :-) Have a good one
ronan waves to D. Diane
ddd have disconnected.
stripp says, "s'long"
ronan say, "maybe email will allow us some space to continue specific points explored tonight?"
sophist says, "the sublime. Yes, the sublime. I don't want at all to back off from what I said about the sublime. But linking it with the aesthetic has to be rethot. at lest by me..."
jrice nods
love says, "wellk, now that DDD's gone!"
sullivan says, "interesting how ddd just read as plural on that disconnection, every time i saw "ddd" i kept thinking of the memos here, ddd=deans, dept chairs, and directors. "
Bradley nods to ronan. "That's the theory anyway..."
ronan [to sophist]: ok, and I will try to frame my questions with more care on that point
love says, "are we winding down, folks?"
sophist says, "Yes, I love e-mail that flows also. But I love flowing MOOs as well...."
stripp has disconnected.
ronan activates the poopoo.
The poopoo says, "Thanks for waking me up; I must have dozed off there."
sophist says, "if you wish."
jrice say, "and on email there will be a larger audience"
ronan liberate a BoBo the Boob from the dank and darkness of the jail cell.
sophist says, "my middle sized fingers are hurting, but it's good pain...."
The BoBo the Boob says, "Hey, I'm already awake--can't a bot be quiet for awhile without getting poked at?"
ronan drop a BoBo the Boob.
Bradley [to love]: Let's shut off the recorder before Bobo gets rolling...
sullivan [to sophist]: thanks vv for being our intro moo person
love says, "okay, well, any/everyone's welcome to hang out and talk, but i just want to thank victor for talking with us this evening"
The BoBo the Boob [to sullivan]: You are most welcome!
The poopoo [to love]: to your health, stoolie...
The BoBo the Boob [to love]: aren't you privileging the phonic over the graphic
Bradley smiles.
ronan liberate a Mildred Pierce from the dank and darkness of the jail cell.
The BoBo the Boob [to ronan]: Mildred's pies and cakes are really tasty
ronan stops dancing with a Mildred Pierce.
The BoBo the Boob [to ronan]: Mildred's pies and cakes are really tasty
Bradley [to sophist]: Thanks very much for your time and effort
jrice thanks Victor for appearing and talking with us
The BoBo the Boob [to Bradley]: You are most welcome!
The Mildred Pierce [to Bradley]: You are most welcome!
The BoBo the Boob [to jrice]: You are most welcome!
The Mildred Pierce [to jrice]: You are most welcome!
The BoBo the Boob [to the Mildred Pierce]: Mildred's pies and cakes are really tasty
ronan hushes the BoBo the Boob.
ronan hushes the Mildred Pierce.
ronan hushes the poopoo.
sophist says, "it was good. thanks for the opening show. see you cats tomorrow and thereafter :-) ...."
Bradley [to love]: And you too!
ronan [to sophist]: thanks for all
love says, "and with that, i'm turning off the recorder"
sullivan [to tharpold]: "yes i understand