<nettime> sondheimogram x4 [opened/closed, liminal, please, excerpt]

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

               [digested @ nettime -- mod (tb)]

Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
     fully opened, fully closed 
     Liminal, slow
     PLEASE, I BEG YOU. 
     Excerpt   

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Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:14:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: fully opened, fully closed 

fully opened, fully closed


Julu Twine was tuned and retuned; the particle spew was moved from abdomen
to chest - the bvh files had more movement in that region than in the
pelvis, which was near the root node, and therefore fairly quiescent.
Once the move was made, the invisible generator attachment was slid back
into the area of the womb, since birth occurs in the tuning and retuning.
What then? For the most part, a simulacrum or masquerade of a womb or
pelvis or abdomen node. Symptoms develop: on occasion the source of torso
generation moves from womb to a position outside the body of Julu Twine;
it's following the chest, not the womb, and therefore a displacement
occurs. Now with spawn - which is just that, spawn from loins as displace-
ment from chest - it's possible to see Julu Twine in mid-air with full
movement, and Julu Twine confined in an enclosed watery depression between
building and earth. In the confinement, there is shuddering; in the shud-
dering, there is masquerade and continuous torso production which appears
to emerge freely from the space, a signal or at the very least, a sign.
But this emergence, this torso, itself is a fantasm; it's nothing more
than a texture, a detailed square patch which appears, from certain
angles, to possess weight, dimension, volume. So this is one fantasm among
many, but a fantasm which goes nowhere; it can't be grasped in Second Life
and such couldn't be grasped anywhere. So the shuddering, this apparent
simulacrum of sex, this byproduct of confinement according to the codes
and protocols of Second Life, produces a signal and a frisson among non-
existent bodies, perhaps among viewers, perhaps a thrill or shudder,
again, at the birth of a symptom. It's this symptom, this excess of desire
in confinement and plein air, that disturbs, is read, goes nowhere - and
goes nowhere because of its autonomy, autonomic nervousness, autonomic
neurosis, railroad kidney and railroad spine and the like. It's what
appears to be a chance result of programming; it's in reality the uneasy
confluence of programming and interoperability, and collisions among
programs. I take full responsibility, at the same time releasing Julu
Twine to her own amazing ends. Now I dream Julu Twine, I no longer know my
own sex, but I own to no other and know no other, nor an other; it's all
uncomfortable and dis/eased masquerade, something tawdry that I simultan-
eously turn towards and away from, something in my character, a virus or
parasite, a parasite of alterity, dreams of others, incandescent.

Technical note: To go to any of these files, it's not necessary to go to
http://www.alansondheim.org and scroll down. Please go to the webpage and,
at least in Foxfire (other browsers may differ in details), click on "Last
modified" - this orders the directory by date, with the earliest at the
top. Click on it a second time, and the latest is at the top; at the
moment this is the spawn.mp4 file. You can always find the latest files
this way - they're at the top when "Last modified" is clicked wise - and
they're the ones that are referenced in the latest text as well.

http://www.alansondheim.org/spawn.mp4

this has been replaced by

http://www.alansondheim.org/spawn.mp4

which was originally entitled

openclosed.mp4 - see above.


To access the Odyssey exhibition The Accidental Artist:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/48/12/22


==

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Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:54:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Liminal, slow

i apologize for my arrogance.


Liminal, slow


There are liminal moments when real and virtual intersect in a contrary
and wayward matter, when Second Life, or any other program, isn't quite
loaded, is only half present. Like the older work of jodi.org, the user's
attention turns half towards immersion, and half towards anomaly -
simultaneous tacit knowledge and paradox. Usually these moments are quick;
sometimes they are slow, even permanent. There are also liminal spaces,
which might be defined as equivalent, but there are also liminal spaces at
game's edge, whether formed by island or height. Again, anomaly occurs;
everything is problematic.

As I type this, I look out the window; there are light cumulus clouds in
the dusk sky, reminiscent of Second Life dusk - but only if the Quality
and Performance slider is set high; otherwise, the sky is blank, tawdry,
unreal in any life. Here is yet another limit, and there are similar
limits built into the software itself - details aren't all that fine, but
as usual with avatars and landscapes, blank out into pixel-mania, no
matter what the bandwidth. (And dreams? How are these configured; if one
spends hours in Second Life, what happens then, if anything?)

Below are some images recorded on the Asus pc EEE 701, which loads and
renders slow.

http://www.alansondheim.org/ slow jpgs

( Again, go to www.alansondheim.org; click on Last Modified twice, and
the most recent files are at the top. And again - to access the Odyssey
exhibition The Accidental Artist, sign up on Second Life and go to
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/48/12/22 .)

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Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:47:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: PLEASE, I BEG YOU. 

(SPACE)
PLEASE, I BEG YOU.
(SPACE)
THIS TEXT IS CREATED BY JULU TWINE, ALAN DOJOJI, ALAN SONDHEIM. WE BEG
YOU, IMPLORE YOU, TO TAKE THIS TEXT - ONE WAY OR ANOTHER - PRESERVE IT
OFFLINE.. INSCRIBE IT IN METAL, PHOTOGRAPH IT (SILVER FILM ONLY), TURN IT
WITH OAK AND LATHE; PAINT IT WITH ARCHIVAL PAINTS ON ARCHIVAL CANVAS. THE
BEST IS BRONZE: CARVED IN BRONZE, IT MIGHT SURVIVE.
(SPACE)
OTHERWISE, IT IS LOST, THIS ONE REMNANT OF OUR WRITING; OUR NAMES - AND
LET US NOT FORGET NIKUKO, JENNIFER, TRAVIS, AND CLARA - ARE LOST AS WELL.
PRESERVE MY NAMES, I BEG YOU. LET SOMETHING REMAIN.
(SPACE)

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Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:21:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Excerpt   


Excerpt


 	January 25. I was working at the table while Seryozha was lying on the 
sofa and reading some tattered book with a green cover. Suddenly he jumped up 
and explained:

 	"Sasha! Just a minute. Listen to this!"

 	"I'm listening."

 	As solemnly and loudly as if he were reading to an audience of
thousands he read to me:

 	"'To deliver up millions of men, superior minds, scientists, even 
geniuses, to the caprice and will of a being who in an instant of gaiety, 
madness, intoxication, or love, would not hesitate to sacrifice everything for 
his exalted fancy, will spend the wealth of the country amassed by others with 
difficulty, will have thousands of men slaughtered on the battlefields, all 
this appears to me, a simple logician, a monstrous aberration.' Pretty good 
eh?"

 	"Swell!" I agreed. "About Hitler, Eh?"

 	"You certainly hit the nail on the head!" said Seryozha bursting out 
laughing. "That's Maupassant, brother, 'The Sundays of a Parisian'!"

 	Somewhat embarrassed, I laughed too.

 	"Not so long ago I gave a talk on Hitlerism," said Seryozha. "I was 
asked why Hitler is burning the classics. I answered that fascism was the enemy 
of culture in general and so on. But what I should have done was read this page 
from Maupassant. It would have answered the purpose better. Pity I didn't get 
hold of this book before. This is one straight in the eye for crazy Adolf. 
There isn't a single classic in which he can't find a crack at himself. That's 
why he got so raving ad and gave orders to burn them all. Freaks don't keep 
mirrors in their houses. A mirror reminds them of their freakishness and only 
irritates them."

 	Then Seryozha took out his notebook and copied the quotation. Feeling 
extremely pleased with himself he began to walk around the room whistling an 
aria from "Carmen."

[ ... ]

 	Seryozha has summed up the work of the crew. We have 160 opera-
tional flights to our credit. We've done 180,000 kilometres over enemy
territory and dropped more than 200 tons of bombs on various targets. We
took a hand in defending Moscow, saw action on the Kharkov and Voronezh
Fronts and around Leningrad and Stalingrad. We've flown to Germany and to
Hitler's vassal countries. I must say that the "itinerary" of our crew
looks quite impressive.

 	"We've done what we could," said Sergei. "Wish to God that every-
one could do the same. And I hope that before the end of the war we'll
still manage to add something or other to our score. Right, Sasha?"

 	"Right," said I. "If only we're alive we certainly will."



>From A. Molodchy, "180,000 Kilometres over Enemy Territory," in An Army
of Heroes, True Stories of Soviet Fighting Men, translated from the
Russian by Elizabeth Donnelly, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow,
1944.

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