File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1997/97-02-19.172, message 179


Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 14:37:53 +0100 (MET)
From: jnech-AT-imaginet.fr (NECHVATAL Joseph)
Subject: Re: How?


>It's the insistent bland materiality of the virtual that's its most
>irritating characteristic.

This says close to nothing Ann. Like any other overly imprecise polarizing
statement, the opposite is also true: the tenacious prosaic materiality of
the non-virtual is its most irritating and limiting characteristic. It
really kinda depends on the details - and the extent of one's experiences.

Virtuality is not the contrary of reality. Even if we cannot see it out
there, the virtual parts of living organisms, human beings, or complex
situations are probably the most important in their identities. A seed is
oriented by a virtual tree, but we cannot describe exactly the shape of the
future tree. We even cannot be sure that there will actually be a tree. The
(virtual) tree is the
problem of the seed, and it is in the same time the essence of its identity.

Far from being  a recent trend only linked to digital technology,
virtualisation begins with the birth of human race (languages, techniques,
religions...) and accelerates nowadays in different fields : virtualisation
of bodies, of economy, of society... Virtuality is the dynamic part of the
human reality. Therefore, the contemporary choices are not between reality
and virtuality but among various kinds of virtualisation processes. I would
like to point out to you an important philosophic distinction between two
dialectic couples, the possible/real one  and the virtual/actual one.
Following some suggestions of Gilles Deleuze, I would say that the possible
is a ghost reality : already completely defined, it only lacks existence.
The realisation is not a creative process, it is just a selection among
determined entities.

Now, what is virtualisation? It is the creative move that comes from an
actual entity, here and now, to a new general problem. The virtualisation
implies a shift in the centre of gravity of the entity. The main weight of
the being is put on the general problem instead of bearing on some
particular solution.



X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X
Joseph Nechvatal, Paris, France, Europa
http://www.cybertheque.fr/galerie/jnech
X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X 




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