From: "Fuller" <fuller-AT-bekkers.com.au>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 22:13:05 +0800


Hi,
I am bored so...

Perhaps offer this reading of the below? (To appease the gods maybe:)

> > >In nt notes on "The Inhuman", I found the following quote:
> > >
> > >"The question raised by the new technologies in connection with their
> > >relation to art is that of the "here-and-now".  What does 'here' mean
on
> the
> > >phone, on television, at the receiver of an electronic telescope?  And
> the
> > >'now'?  Does not the 'tele'-element necessarily destroy presence, the
> > >'here-and-now' of the forms and their 'carnal' reception?  What is a
> place,
> > >a moment, not anchored in the immediate 'passion' of what happens?  Is
a
> > >computer in any way here and now?  Can anything  _happen_ with it?  Can
> > >anything happen  _to_  it?"

I like his expression.

First point. The immediacy of the 'tele' presence is assumed, eg 'live' TV
news broadcasts, the spoken word of the newsreader is more 'real' (read,
perhaps, higher level of 'carnality'), than the reality of other constructed
texts, umm lets say newspaper, even though it may be the same news.

Second point. Art cannot be but full of the intent of the artist*, where as
the infinite replication of/in the simulacra of/in the hyper-real loses this
'intent' (yeah TV, yeah BAUDRILLARD!), where the intent becomes something
else (only ever possibly) besides this artistic intent. Perhaps the
'replication' itself for capitalist accumalation? Hmm, theorists always
bring up the example of photocopying and how with each copy something is
lost, and each subsequent copy is degraded in quality. I am not too sure if
this is an applicable metaphor anymore.

Third Point. To answer his question. Think of someone born into the
hyperreal, and knows nothing else. One of my mates was saying "Yeah, I would
like to liberate the common conscious from being ensalved by the Logos, but
I can't give up my Playstation." haha he loves his playstation.

Fourth Point. Can passions be drawn from elsewhere other than the 'real
carnality' of immediacy? Well, umm, what about being aware of self, perhaps
a postmodern nihilism, yep I have one of those Mc Upgraded, but I still have
a good time, even around other people sometimes. Goddamn Instrumental
Reason! GIR or grRRR even.

Fifth Point. A computer? Which computer? THE computer. Is the self
experiencing the computer ever here and now? Whoops...


okay, back again.

Okey dokey, Zizek wrote a paper that appeared at the end of a Laclou book.
It discussed the production of a subjectivity (my reading was of a
consciousness) in relation to the social antagonist vs self, eg the abject.
Way rad. Why should this 'social antagonist' be 'real'?

Come on Lyotard! Where is your postmodern self to go along with the
postmodern experience of a postmodern world?

Glen.

*Scroll note! Intent would be that which the great lit critics argued over
was what Shakespear was 'trying' to say, or actualy 'said' (grotesque
paraphrase of several pages of beyond semiotics). The message-in-itself that
can be read by the 'correctly educated' mind. Yeah yeah. Also though, as
well as this textual message, there is the contextual message also.
Context-in-itself. Perhaps a con-text? Lyotard couldn't be arguing for a
con-text-in-itself could he? (hahaha and here I am...)