Re: <nettime> no people.

[McKenzie Wark <mw35@nyu.edu>]

Those 'nature' documentaries annoy the hell out of me. They are part of
an endless reduction of the life of the animal to the human, the measure
of all things, apparently. The whole biological world is read in terms of
its mirroring of our vanity. All of which is much better expressed in Alan
Sondheim's 'no people'. I'm surprised that Mark would take objection to
this, of all the nettime texts. Its better theory than a lot of the
theory on nettime, as well as being better writing. Like a lot of Alan's
writing, its looking at the meshing of writing with other things, the
heterogeneous world in which words partake. Unlike a lot of literary
modernism, his work (to me at least) is not about language. Its to do with
words, and the work they do amongst other orders of things. Codework, i'd
call it. Which might not be a bad thing to be thinking about, in an age
when media make so many more worlds in which words and other codes get to
mess with things.

Ken Wark

----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Date: Saturday, May 19, 2001 3:56 pm
Subject: <nettime> no people.

> ...
>
> no people. i am not an eagle and i am not powerful and fly higher than
> any other animal." i am not the "proud lion, wise and far-sighted."
> i am
> not the "humble mole, burrowing beneath the "world."  [etc]

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