Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 13:55:39 -0600 (CST)
From: Elizabeth Harrison <sybil-AT-csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: Re: Re[2]: nomads, cyborgs, personnes (long, and in 2 parts)


On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Karen Ocana wrote:

> WEll, 'Machinic Heterogenesis' in Eng. translation has been available> since 1993, as it is included in the Verena Andermatt Conley edited
> _Rethinking Technologies_ (which I bought in 09/94) and judging from the
> underlinings and scribblings in it must have read. But French readers
> definitely have the advantage as I suspect Guattari's _Inconscient
> machinique_ and other  books must play along similar lines, which is
> not to say that Mille Plateaux/1000 Plateaus is not already contaminated
> by Guattari's idiosyncratic mappings of machinicness esp. the Refrain/
> Ritornello plateau whose date 1837 foreshadows spells Debussy. *Machinic
> Heterogenesis* focusses more specifically, certainly, on cybernetics,
> computer-assisted technologies and then also connects with Varela, and
> voodoo and ...it's a beautiful piece of writing...thanks for bringing
> it up.
> 
> As to how available _Chaosmosis_ is, you've got me.  My copy is one
> of those prior-to-publication/being edited/forthcoming versions, and
> to my chagrin, I dropped it one quarter of the way through.  Am also
> unfamiliar with Guattari's other ecological/green writings--things to
> look forward to.
> 
*_Chaosmosis_ is available through the Indiana University Press.
   601 North Morton St.
   Bloomington, IN  47404-397
   Telephone (800) 842-6796
   Fax       (812) 855-7931
The cost is $11.15 + shipping/handling.
S. 

> *Ritornellos and Existential AFfects* is the machine i've been playing
> (with) lately or trying to play, but man, it's hard.  compared to bach
> and mozart, debussy is infernally ethereal....complex complex complex
> as is guattari, but there is certainly some kind of method to this
> madness, or at least repetition to this difference. which, yes, would
> be repeated in jazz.  have you ever listened to coltrane's *Ascension*?
> AH!!! (as i recall gregorio kaminski mentioned coltrane as one of
> his favourite jazz war machines, well *ascension* is one mother of a
> machine. Saludos!! as is something called the CCC--creative construction
> company.....)
> 
> karen, who oughtta be lurking & is still waiting curiously for folds
> and rhizomes.
> 
> >Karen writes:
> >>I, for one, am all set to
> >>find out more about this mysterious abstract machine.  For it seems that
> >that is
> >>what, or that that is where one is, both physical body and enunciating
> >body, wit
> >>nomadic desire on both sides, seemingly pulled in two directions...
> >I'm curious to know how available Chaosmosis is in the U.S. 'cos in this
> >book Guattari gives an extended account of abstract machines which acts both
> >as a valuable introduction and complexification. I won't burden you with
> >more quotes - I've already overdone that - but see partic. chpter 2.
> >"Machinic Heterogenesis" where G. introduces machinic assemblages and their
> >autopoietic dynamism. He gives numerous examples from the hammer to jazz
> >(q.v. chpter 5 "Machinic Orality and Virtual Ecology". Abstract machines do
> >not exist within the coordinates of energy/space/time but the components
> >that they relate together in a functional ensemble may do so - if these
> >components have a molecular dimension.
> >Can't resist it: "These assemblages cannot be located in terms of extrinsic
> >systems of reference, such as energetico-spatio-temporal coordinates or
> >well-catologued semantic coordinates. For all that they are apprehendable
> >through an awareness of ontological, transitivist, transversalist and pathic
> >consistencies. One gets to know them not through representation but through
> >affective contamination. They start to exist in you in spite of you. And not
> >only as crude, undifferentiated affects, but as hyper-complex compositions:
> >'that's Debussy, that's jazz, that's Van Gogh'."(p.92/93)
> >These machinic assemblages have a pathic transversality that agglomerates
> >the subject and object. The machinic phylum of jazz is 'an incorporeal
> >ecosystem' that is threatened when its 'enunciative consistency falls below
> >a certain threshold.'
> >I am of course contaminated by this 'text'.
> >Paul.
> >
> 

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