Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 14:02:03 +1000 (EST)
From: Christopher Mcmahon <Christopher.Mcmahon-AT-jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Abstract machines?


Dear Chris,

I'll try to explain. But writing about my writing is such a drag.

On Fri, 14 Aug 1998, chris wrote:

> Well I wouldn't want to write just anything either, but even in the
> instituions there are strands of questionsing and undoing -- what about
> fictocriticism as an attempt to undo/problemetise the strict rules of
> essay writing?  What's your position on this?

I think it is obviously so.
> 
> > I don't "write from the body". I write from abstract machines.
> 
> I think I disagree!   It's got to be a coupling at least doesn't it?  Of
> course, once outside the process it may be very easily sucked back up
> into the abstract machine, but mmmm   I need to think a little more --
> can you expand this idea for me please?

It's like a kind of geometry. It is a lot like what D&G write about in
the first chapter of WIP. I map things and find the transactions and
crisis points, the breakdowns and operations. Not just human bodies or
subjective economies, but suprasubjective, subindividual and inhuman
bodies (machines). I do this as workly play in a kind of abstract space.
it's a queer kind of writing that leaves most people cold, wondering about
the relevance, so I put in the glosses. But those glosses are also
misrepresentations. And I don't think the abstraction I do is in any way
'unreal" or more metaphorical than any other writing. In a sense abstract
machines are not metaphors/semes/signs because they don't stand in for
anything else. There is a certain synchrony (operative doubling 
without symapthetic connection) and asynchrony (an untimely symapthy) at
work here.

> > > > > And
don't be a slave to the revolution either. > 
> I think we might have missed each other on this line -- I don't consider
> myself a slave to anything or anyone, nor master.  I suspect we're
> actually in agreement, just differently positioned.
> 
Yes. I think so.
> 
> this sound ironic to me -- if your falling over it, then you've found it
> haven't you?

Yes. But is is always escaping too.
> > 
> well I don't know what you or i look like either, but the body is a hell
> of a lot more than what it looks like, in fact I think they may even be
> opposed.  And if we refuse to split the mind from the body, well your
> already there.  

Yes again.> 
> 
> Well, in my understanding the subjected-group is the
> directed/hierarchalised etc..  so in my own experience as soon as an
> agenda was announced (ie this is what we want to achieve) and then
> people were invited to speak I felt excluded, because the agenda (while
> not in itself unadmirable) didn't allow me any input in that I wasn't in
> a position to contribute.  On the other hand the idea of a subject group
> is a group that develops out of the people and their collective
> attributes/skills/ideas/desire etc..  so I would imagine it would work
> more along the lines of o.k. lets talk about what we all want/think out
> of this  so that rather than a preformed agenda that members have to
> plug themselves into, you develop a collective set of possibilities and
> actions -- 

I see. I think there is definitely some grounds to that - a de jure
distinction in mixed pehenomena? - In education, for e.g. its a real and
worthy challenge
structuring space with mutiple points of connection so that subject groups
emerge (but the institution tends to work against one here). Perhaps the
agenda works in this way too? like a demand? Forced upon us by the power
distributions of a political movement in contestation of hegemony and
making a contestational hegemony as a result? This is a real danger in my
work re: desire driven learning environments (connections and flows rther
than needs
and institional demands).
 > 

> In a sense, wouldn't you call this list a subject group?  

largely, yes.

Of course,
> it's not without its own little micro-fascist reactionary lines, but on
> the whole we all have the capacity to put our own thoughts up and
> discuss/dialogue without having to necessarily adhere to any specific
> discussion.  

We need those microfascist reactionary lines. i've got plenty of my own.

I think someone mentioned the other day the possibility of
> a connection between this and Friere, which I have only read a little of
> and I think it would be a good line to follow.   He discusses pedagodgy
> in terms of a difference between a 'banking concept' (which would create
> a subjected group) as opposed to a 'problem solving' method (which is
> more akin to the subject group where dialogue and open discussion is
> very important.

Yes I've read two of his books. Good stuff.  

just a derridean joke: I'll leave your proper name as my own,
> 
> Chris
> 
P.S. Thanks again!
>