Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 00:53:13 -0800 (PST)
From: oconnell-AT-oz.net (Mark O'Connell)
Subject: Re: Warhol/sci-fi/turnips/sybil


>Hi Mark,
>Thanks for your questions. Let me try and give you my definitions!
>
>A modernist view of the self is that it is internal. It can be 'found'. I
>believe that identity is constructed socially and culturally. Having
>accepted this, the self becomes subject to all the vagueries of postmod
>society. Again, this is all subject to argument.

right-
The problem I'm running into is that in my experience of existence there is
indeed a self. Also, with regard to the artist, with no self there's no
self expression and therefore no artist in the modern sense. The problem
is, I see artists around me expressing themselves! What am I to make of
this?!?

> If you accept
>Baudrillards notion of simulacra and the death of reality, the self is
>constructed at a distance from 'the real'. It is not rooted. It is
>constructed from multiple representations of the real. I could never say,
>therefore, to 'know the world', as I am constructing from permanent
>simulations of the real. I can only say that I 'know the world through
>simulation'. To come back to your post, the world doesn't stop for me, I
>don't know where it starts!

I swear I won't bring this point up again, but you know the world through
much more then simulation. Your entire experience isn't based on
data/representation etc. . You do have some experience of the concrete,
experience of things not pre-digested, fresh frozen or canned by anyone.
You experience the weather, the street, the whole wide world of stuff. You
have biological experiences. You have emotional experiences based on your
interactions with other people. You get sick, you stub your toe. You suffer
>from hangovers, you shit, you get mugged, you fuck, you kick the dog,
etc.....  None of this occurs "at a distance from the real."  To say that
you know the world only through simulation would seem to be an error.


>A side issue to this is how technology is afecting social interaction/. In
>William Gibson's "Idoru" there is a character who exists in cyberspace as a
>street fighter. In realityshe is a paraplegic. her unreal construction of
>her identity is very much real. I was a ware of something similar on another
>list I sub to. Someone who we knew as 'Laura' turned out to be a 60 yr old
>male. W are constructing/deconstructing/ our own simulations everyday.

That's a lovely sentimental story (about the crippled kid) but the question
in regards to all this business about self would be: who constructed these
cyber realities?


>I think there has been a confusion between representations and a symbolic
>order.As I tried to describe in my previous post, a representation is
>something that has replaced the real object. Let me give you an example form
>architecture. One of my favourite places is a Yorkshire/Cumbrian village
>called Dent. Originally this was a farming community. Houses were built of
>local stone, using techniques limited by what the local land owner was
>prepared to pay. A few years ago, a housing committee was formed to make
>sure that the character of the village wasn't ruined by new building. They
>outlined what they thought was the style of existing building. New houses
>now have to import stone, as the local quarry is exhausted, building styles
>originally borne out of low cost, have become styalised traits. These houses
>are now 'representations of the real'. Reality has been replaced and is
>experienced once removed.

You say that "a representation is something that has replaced the real
object" but from your description it sounds like the replacement is pretty
much a real object as well. You don't get much more real then a house made
out of rocks! I'd say these houses are the representations of the concerns
of the housing committee more then anything else.


>As you mentioned in your post, we have had a symbolic order through which
>artists interpret the world for years,. But a sign is different from a
>represenation. A sign is an artistic vocabulary. A representation is
>something not real.

Representation is becoming part of the artistic vocabulary as well. (Should
I mention here, for the umpteenth time, that an artistic vocabulary would
require an artist who would require a self?) If I understand you
correctly...  The work I do and that many others do is based on sampling,
culture jamming, taking the representations and turning them back on
themselves. It is, of course, highly illegal......  But the representations
are "real."  At least real enough to fuck with your head and for us to fuck
with in turn. These representations can be questioned and turned around.


> If you accept my version of the self in an unreal world,
>artists are using signs to represent and make sense of the unreal. This is
>why I use the term' multple world'. I think this is different from a
>subjective point of view.

I'm not clear on this. The unreal seems quite real. The multiple world part
just sounds stagey. I think it's all, ultimately, a subjective point of
view.

> A subjective ppoint of view is an opinion.

What are you offering here? (if not an opinion?)


>Because
>I believe the self is constructed socially from the unreal (representations)
>the concept of  'a' world is outdated. As there are more unrealities than
>realities I favour the concept of multitple worlds.

That's so overblown!  What about a more pedestrian idea of multiple points
of view to consider?  What does all this drama get us aside from more
mystification and confusion?  As far as the "unrealities" go, they're all
realities at least in the sense that we can percieve them, and thus they
can be commented on/manipulated, so this distinction seems to be pretty
much falling apart.


>Its hard to deal with this in an email, as people right books on these topics.

Yes, but at the same time these concepts should be approachable and stand
up to ordinary discussion. Some of these ideas are certainly slippery. For
me, attempting to hash them out does help to clarify them, demystify them.
Conversations like this, undertaken seriously with the goal of a better
understanding, are not a waste of time. Part of it is to understand
Baudrillard, but a more important part is simply to try to make sense of
our world. I sincerely appreciate your comments, I realize that it requires
time and effort to put them down.

all the best-




Rachel-

>Mark, sorry to push in here on identities (rather than identity) but if you
>view the world from muliple perspectives then surely you view yourself in
>the same way, hence multiple identities?

Why is the multiple identities idea significant? Surely a person can
consider different perspectives without referring to multiple identities?

Mark O'Connell
oconnell-AT-oz.net