<nettime> [Recent theory of the cave, well, notes towards]

["A. Jenn Sondheim" <sondheim@panix.com>]

==


[Recent theory of the cave]


=======================================================================


Asleep at the Wheel


As an alternative (says no one), consider an enormous cave with protru-
sions, largely convex, almost ellipsoidal, there are flashes of electron
interactions, there are spheres that protrude as well... one might notice
the wires, inordinately thin, hair-like, interfaces, located within or
without the cavern - this only matters from the viewpoints of topography
and epistemology. They're carriers; the swarms imitate bodies or portions
of bodies or extrusions from bodies, part-objects or emissions related to
communication. The "from" and the "to" are defined elsewhere, outside. One
finds a consciousness roaming at will, cognizant of the phenomenology, the
geography, the geomatics underlying what might be considered a site, were
it not a model of worlding. For the topography continually morphs, connec-
tions are made and broken. Think of threshold logics, gateways constantly
making and breaking connections, variable thresholds based on feedback and
feedforward mutating flows. Think of parallel fluxes, wires illuminated,
one might be after the other, wires burned into temporary substrates,
couplings and linkages ignoring organic, metallic, or glassy compounds -
the s/ms* flood (says no one) in the manner of the speaking of avatars,
the coherencies of the body and its totalities, consensualities among
internal and external communicative domains. Pulsing with bloods, red-
brown fluids, membranes, flows, micro-connectors. Apply quantum logic here
(non-distributive gestural structures): What forms emerge, visible as
temporary turbulent structures? Give the stases names: If the space is
Alan, think Jennifer. Place her back within the ellipsoid (says no one);
harbor her there. It's nothing of the energy, everything of superimposi-
tion. Let her rest. Let the rest of her rest. 

*s/ms: sado-masochistic part-objects, coupling mouths, etc. - the cohesive
grain of the social, hand-shaking, etc.
___________________________________________________________________________


Neuraesthenic


Thrown against the upper cranial aspects (no one says), tendrils shoot
across the net like lightning - no one present on the talker, no one there
for ICQ, no one in the chats, no one hungered around for ytalk. Tendrils
withdraw, curl into basketry. Within the baskets, souls. It's then I
recognized Nikuko* was neuraesthenic, withdrawn and wan, delicately and
violently harboring the life-form of a flower in her forgiving hands.
(Nikuko draws on Lafcadio Hearn.) A visage appears in the blood-red womb,
the red-brown womb, the sea-borne womb, darker brown, tending towards
black, no one knows the source of the dim light flowing towards the floor
(no one says). No one brings names into this place; "Nikuko draws on Laf-
cadio Hearn" is discarded. Replacement-semantics, mobile tags, flooded and
toppling structures, emanations. Emanation is the sure sign of the neur-
aesthenic; something uncanny glowed about her as flesh and features seemed
to form, coalesce, into a coherency described as human. Then disappear, no
one coming forward (no one says) for conversation near the hearth. Here,
the hearth is everywhere and in dark bloom. Here, shadows are emanations.
Here, neuraesthenics are emanations, ancestors of ectoplasm. Avatars are
centuries in the future. 

[Nikuko - one of my three emanations.]
__________________________________________________________________________


==========================================================================
the cave reflects the wires glowing, pulsed less on walls where shadows===
form, dampen neural firings. no myelin sheaths around wires, just scars,==
scabbed cells shunting them through living flesh. everyday worlds come====
here to be made. they're shades, projections, emergences, extrusions from=
subtexted mathematics. if the world is mathesis, this is the factory-womb,
centering it all. data incoming illuminates entities newly-formed from====
extrapolations, recursions, strange attractors. all matter is dark. (no===
one says.) outside there are bands, dominations, reports from the frontier
that "all matter is dark" has taken, hardened. wires fuse. there are no===
real objects, "plato," no ideal objects. affect, mute pulse, plasma. the==
cave is groped within, without. desire sends things a little into past and
future, waveforms collapse, static. because the spark comes to an end. be-
cause there are drains, menses-clots pooled and emptying into circulation.
mouths and mouths couple and link. murmuring "every name is a wound,"=====
"plato" opening up a fissure between two spheres. surrounded, swallowed,==
or universal swallowing. the air is moist, unending.======================
==========================================================================



starting the thing (says no one)


on the wall of the cave you might, if you were an interpreter, see grids
of 0s and 1s. you might find them rectangular, you might find more 0s than
one, 1s like nuclei floating in vacuo, you might find flickered 1s where
0s used to be. you might see repetitions and growths, you might find the
rudiments of cellular automata, you might find circulations, repairs. 

you press your eyes, you press god into your eyes, you see god, you see
patterns and geometries. sometimes you open them, and there is delay-
decay, and through delay-decay you see all colors upside-down. you see the
origin of the world in your mind, the mind that is your origin as inter-
preter. you are inside the cave, factory-womb, you press your eyes. 

through delay-decay you look with wide eyes at the grid, flicking 1s and
0s, and you see things. what you see you can tell, what you can tell is
what you see, but you will see things off and peripheral, distortions,
corrections and checksums, and you want to see things badly. you tell the
same desire which is your name for wanting to see things badly. 

delay-decay, but they are there, what you are seeing, which is your tell-
ing in many other ways, as if there were other caves, caves reflecting and
projecting caves, caves of pulsion and inconceivable affect, caves of in-
flationary worlds. you are knowing them and telling them jennifer and ava-
tar, and your telling is your naming, naming and telling are one. 

you will know that there are externals, as thick bundles of thin wires
course energy and disappear into the darkness, and you will know too that
within the darkness, naming and telling are separated although always
connected, always in relation. it is there, you will think, that jennifer
begins tell you things. but she has already started, and she is here. 


__________________________________________________________________________



(says no one) from beneath the ground and its cavern:

Chuang Tzu, old Giles translation: You would have sympathized, but you
could not understand. You would have looked, but you could not see. You
would have pursued but you could not overtake. You stood dazed in the
middle of the wilderness, leaning against a tree and crooning, your eye
conscious of exhausted vision, your strength failing for the pursuit, and
so unable to overtake me. Your frame was but an empty shell. You were
completely at a loss, and so you were amazed. 

(says no one) from beneath the ground and its cavern: You would have iden-
tified with the grid, but you could not understand. You would have looked,
but you would not have empathized. You would have empathized and then
would tell and name. You stood dazed in the middle of the cavern, leaning
against an image and murmuring the very first words ever, your eye uncon-
scious of depleted vision coming around to the fullest, your strength
gaining as you would overtake. Delay-decay. Your frame was coming into fo-
cus, you were moving from inside to outside, internal to external, intrin-
sic to extrinsic, intensive to extensive, intent to extent. You were no
longer amazed (says no one), coming into fulfillment, not aware that such
was the case of the real, that it was no case at all. 


_________________________________________________________________________




(someone says) these words wrote themselves across the cave, they weren't
projected, they were a new kind emerging from the dreams, they're trying
to get rid of the voice, bring the voice back, get rid of the voice, bring
the voice back, they're trying to link beneath the surface, couple beneath
the surface. what happens when there's no characters, no speakers, no in-
scriptions (no one says), what happens when writing . (someone says) i
read these words. (someone told me.)


__________________________________________________________________________


==========================================================================
the word mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm pouts, falls forth (says no one). speaking in
autonomic. the interface, upper millimeter of, between _in_ and _ex._ what
filters through, transformations from parametric shifts - humidity, temp-
erature, inclement or clement weathers. levels of sound adjustment, inten-
sity of electromagnetic radiations, wavelength by wavelength. dull mech-
anisms inside work around or through non-distributive logics, such that
any two elements of a spectrum smear, gesturally, across the rest. so that
one might have (anb)u(anc) != an(buc) because of an organism which plays
and interprets. in fact, given sufficiently large a, approaching U,
(anb)u(anc) -> U as well; the intersections function, not as restraints,
but as interacting, interpenetrating resonant signifiers (says no one).
from within, then, the potential field for comprehension of without; thin
wires shuttle back and forth across the zones. untrue there is no differ-
ence when _in_ requires a potential well - sufficient moisture and a rela-
tively clean, chemically neutral environment - for functioning. by which
is meant the imaginary production on the walls, the grids and their emana-
tions, the telling and naming, the collusion of couplings and linkages,
the _turn_ of the cave in space-time within or without the influence of
geography, the production of resonant mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
(as the cave is turned) (says no one).
==========================================================================


Recapitalized Bachelard, Jolas Trans lation, and

Paragraph of the Dis located Jaw, Conclusion of the Cave

Look within Yeselves, Words Bro ken or Broken Teeth

Somebody who has to Sweep the Writing Into Ex istence

Vision which has no Visor or Ob jects of your Fascination

Fastenings on the Grid, Rumors of Anti cipated Things

Withdrawals from the Grid, Tel ling before Naming

Conclusions of Swollen Life, So und and Bones Protruded

'Such Data as These can Receive Nothing from the Out Side

World but Illustrations', 'These I mages Blot Out the World

And They have no Pa st', 'They do not Stem from any Earlier

Ex perience', 'Naturally, this is an Exaggerated Image', 

And 'It real ly is Open to the Wind of Another Time,' for

The Tel ling has All the Time in the World, Something, and

The Time among the Links and Co uplings, Intersticing, for

No More Than the Tit le, No Less Than the Footnote, since

Between The Tit le and the Foot note, Where the Wor ld

Crumb les A nd in A Whim per, No Ban g, B u t*


______________________________________________________________



Once Again, Telling the Ground of All Metaphysics


@examine jennifer-virga
Jennifer carrying an open upside-down umbrella
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Jennifer is not currently idle.
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@profile
(Jennifer) Alan says we should have a profile.
(Alan) Yes, for example, weight, height, things like that.
(Nikuko) Why should we bother; it's nothing to us.
(Alan) It's true it makes little sense.
A little rain, in fact, begins to fall in someone's life.
(Jennifer) Well, I'm twelve and on the verge.
(Nikuko) You mean virga, rain that falls but doesn't wet the ground.
(Jennifer) More like a hinge of weight or height.
A little rain, in fact, gains weight from greater height.
@quit Nikuko
(Jennifer) What?
(Alan) Nikuko's just quit; this is getting depressing.
(Jennifer) Must be the showers that are coming in...
Puddles collect, Jennifer's frock is spattered, the ground cools.
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Listening to shouts and tells. Receiving logon/logoff messages.
Receiving banners. Accepting games. Beeps are on. Monitor off.
Wrapping ON. Paging lines 20 at a time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------


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