a book of prefaces – a book that always begins again, speaks about itself, reconfigures itself
looking at the rock and the water, i felt the oneness , that it is arbitrary in our mindes which one we choose to follow, which one we choose to say moves.
this is not an academic book. this is a scavenged creation. like a nest, bits and pieces are taken from wherever i find them, arranged neatly, out of context inot a new assemblage. small scraps of newspaper removed from the level of inform(edi)ation are incorporated for only their participation in a physical level. windows are washed, fish are wrapped, oil from the car is soaked up – with yesterday’s news. i can only hope that this book finds as much use.
problems identified with writing (which parallel that of identity constructions)
language
tense
dichotomy, either/or
perspective
who is telling the story? how can we read/rewrite simultaneously
first/second/third person, self/other
inclusion
where are the borders of the book? what is/not part of the self/text?
how to eliminate the original and its authority?
ability to collaborate
possible attempts to correct include wiki, but also carry additional baggage and become empowerment structures to be inhabited
the idea of ‘experimental’ is not shock art. rather, the idea is to destroy the boundary between art and life. and in order to do this, one must destroy all binaries. self and other, author and reader, artist and viewer, original and copy. said another way, the identity, the self, the body must be attacked and radically altered to be beyond form, beyond definition. meditation is the practice of controlling one’s own consciousness, of redefining the self. ‘practice’ here being defined not as a simulation before the real event, but as a way of life which refines itself, ‘controls’ itself. what we are proposing then is this: being is becoming. is this not the premise of all experimentation? materialization as conceptualization. perhaps at first this list consists of (re)presentations, tracings, and directions, but it is our hope that these become pieces in a new collage, so to speak, pieces incorporated in a new life. that eventually, they are either abandoned as meaningless products and representations, or assimilated in totally new manners into something that does not refer beyond itself to a past or future, but is a simultaneous being/becoming. we do not wish to hear grandiose theories. death to all transcendence! riveting life immanence, simultaneously flat and infinite we are. the particles are not metaphorical, they are pieces. between the pieces is the self we construct, an intuition that operates on them. we are the interval.
we are taking extra interest in the introductions, as the introduction is where the text discusses itself, turns on itself, and lays out a strategy and structure that includes itself. in this way, the entire experiment is an introduction, always a new beginning, always going beyond itself and including itself in the design.
we hope not to delimit certain beliefs, in fact, one of the principles with which we set out on was to destroy all beliefs. (of which we now find to be sort of an impossibility – more later.) but we hope instead that we can form a coalition, a community that aids each other in an endless search, comrades on a journey, rather than members in a system.
the text turns on itself. the circle opens. we have been working for a few years on what was intended to be a book. as we explored the issues and experiments we were writing about, it became obvious that in fact, the idea of a book contained many of the problems we were trying to escape. specifically, a book contains definite limits as to what is included (and not included). a book implies an original, and through copyright/copyleft etc., a series of reproductions limited by this original. a book implies a conclusion. a book implies a beginning. a book is a product, rather than a living experiment. a book implies an author’s words as valued over the readers. a book implies trascendence. a book implies a closed list of authors, and a subjugation of the text to the identities or pseudo-identities of these authors.
we hope to overcome these divisions.
thus, we are not issuing a singular physical book. we are not issuing the book as a singular text. we are not issuing the book under our name, nor under a pseudonym. we are not creating our own space for collaboration on the book, i.e. a website or mailing list. (no more utopic spaces.) nor are we requesting that any specific subject headers indicate inclusion in the book. we do not wish to make any edges or borders distinguishable. by following the logic within the book, we have come to realize that the book must be destroyed.
there is no book. there is no author.
instead, we are creating a work without borders, a work without originals. we are creating a living experiment.
in order to accomplish this, we are employing the following strategies:
there is no pre-written book. there is no beginning nor end. there are only texts. there is an inherent limitation in posting via email in that, as with the book, there are distinguishable borders between one post and the next. we hope that these borders can be somewhat degraded through the use of strategies below.
texts will thus be broken down and issued, in order to provide gaps between.
the entire process is thus a continual unfolding. the texts learn from each other.
multiple versions of posts with the same name will be posted simultaneously to various mailing lists.
the limit imposed by the identity of the author is obliterated by posting anonymously. any and all can post and we cannot distinguish based on the author. the text must be used for what it is. we hope also to blur the limits of previous author identities by posting with others, with anonymous, by claiming and not claiming to be one of the anonymous. (it is worth noting here that anonymous posting to mailing lists, if done on the scale and intensity imagined here, could threaten the very identity-economy on which the mailing list is based. this means the texts may be filtered or digested or blocked. thus it is important to leech many a mailing list and make this anonymous writing experiment pervasive.)
glossary
‘we’ always includes you, the reader. ‘we’ is not to be taken as a third-party, but always, within the text, as self-inclusive. the reader is the author. the author is the reader. there is no longer a separation.
when you reply, please do not quote nor use > nor use any other marker of an ‘original’. instead, take whatever you want, discard what you don’t, write alternatives to what you disagree with, and give it back. there is no space for the critic here. we are all participants. we will only laugh and mock those identity-mongers who attempt to take an outside, meta, transcendent stance. death to all critics! we will only absorb or ignore you. we want experiments. we all experiment. we are all already part of the experiment. this includes quotes from other sources. avoid all proper names of authors and all quote marks. avoid merely forwarding or reposting. instead, edit ‘their’ text. eliminate the borders between them and you. make it not theirs, or yours, or ours, but a piece of the experimental construction.
eliminate headings. they imply a hierarchy. allow the text to speak for itself. to open itself to multiple meanings and contexts.
eliminate authorship. authors and identity imply hierarchy. refuse the attempts of so many to dissociate themselves from the chain of powers through claims on belonging to the nameless while preserving their own names. these are the people who know nothing of true equality, but instead propose their identity as a mediation between inequality and equality, boosting their own power through simulated dissociation of power.
eliminate either/or. eliminate not. (implies either/or) replace with and.
(re)presentation. (re)create. (re)author. the (re) implies that it is always never original, and never repeated. (re)production is not production or reproduction, but both simultaneously. (de/re)construction: simultaneously deconstruction, reconstruction and construction.
eliminate ownership. reader’s present becomes reader present. a conjugation rather than a hierarchy.
eliminate past and future tense.
this writing follows the spiral, a moving center expanding, never enclosed, never a circle. a convection current which changes all, which includes the self. the network is defined by the relations within it as they currently exist. the network always includes the self, discarding hierarchy. (the problem of the network is always mediation.) the creation always redefines the creator.
more language devices: avoid the tyranny of first, second, third person position avoid he, she, they, you (as other – you meaning an example self is ok) – these all imply other the fall of self/other implies the fall of large sections of language. it must be reconfigured.
===== from burroughs electric >this is of identity.< you are an animal. you are a body. now whatever you may be you are not an “animal”, you are not a “body”, because these are verbal labels. the is of identity always carries the assignment of permanent condition. to stay that way. all name calling presupposes the is of identity. this concept is unnecessary in a hieroglyphic language like ancient egyptian and in fact frequently omitted. no need to say the sun is in the sky, sun in sky suffices. the verb to be can easily be omitted from any languages and the followers of count korgybski have done this, eliminating the verb to be in english. however, it is difficult to tidy up the english language by arbitrary exclusion of concepts which remain in force so long as the unchanged language is spoken.
>the definite article the.< the contains the implication of one and only: the god, the universe, the way, the right, the wrong, if there is another, then that universe, that way is no longer the universe, the way. the definite article the will be deleted and the indefinite article a will take it’s place.
>the whole concept of either/or.< right or wrong, physical or mental, true or false, the whole concept of or will be deleted from the language and replaced by juxtaposition, by and this is done to some extent in any pictorial language where two concepts stand literally side by side. these falsifications inherent in the english and other western alphabetical languages give the reactive mind commands their overwhelming force in these languages. consider the is of identity. when i say to be me, to be you, to be myself, to be others- whatever i may be called upon to be or to say that i am- i am not the verbal label “myself.” >the word be in the english language contains, as a virus contains, its precoded message of damage, the categorial imperative of permanent condition.< to be a body, to be an animal. if you see the relation of a pilot to his ship, you see crippling force of the reactive mind command t
t h e a e s t h e t i c s
o f d e c o n s t r u c t i o n :
photographic gallery of architectural
construction and demolition sites
http://www.architexturez.com/decon
* latest css browsers required
< t e x t >
deconstruction is herein used as a generic
non-proprietary keyword to describe the
pragmatic utility of theoretical (theory-
rhetorical) ideas and ideologies.
nothing can be said in terms of reason nor
logic to further clarify, and importantly,
simplify the concepts based upon language
of which deconstruction represents. other
than that deconstruction, as a word, can
be seen to be of both ‘construction’ and
‘destruction’ in its structure, that is:
de-con-struction
de- struction
con-struction
the symbolic enhancement of the word, in
its structural formalism, can be re-
presented as:
de|con-struction
wherein the pipe `|’ symbol represents
a logical dividing line, and the hypen
`-‘ represents a continuity between the
infrastructural fragments of the word.
therefore, de|con-struction, with logic
and reason aided by visual symbols, can
be seen as a questioning and answering.
the sublime language in which deconstruction
is used, as a keyword, is passively reflected
in its application of the language of signs,
and not as a vivid interrogation of language
as a symbolic logic of these message signals.
one example is in the realm of identity, in
which the language inherited by most english
readers/writers is fused with a perspective
which is inherently privatized. this is best
exemplified in gender, where the basis for
public and private identity, and thus language,
are grounded. it is more than coincidence that
the deconstruction of the individual is still
defined by gender today.
he man male mankind
she woman female womankind
s|he wo|man fe|male wo|man-kind
a symbolic structural language transcending
gender as identity need include both gender
and its annihilation in the construction and
the destruction of individual identity.
aesthetics of deconstruction http://amsterdam.nettime.org/lists-archives/nettime-bold-0012/msg00452.html log: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/lists-archives/nettime-bold-0108/msg00141.html
first version wrote ~2002.
page last modified on october 10, 2005, at 04:03 pm
preface
a book of prefaces – a book that always begins again, speaks about itself, reconfigures itself
looking at the rock and the water, i felt the oneness , that it is arbitrary in our mindes which one we choose to follow, which one we choose to say moves.
this is not an academic book. this is a scavenged creation. like a nest, bits and pieces are taken from wherever i find them, arranged neatly, out of context inot a new assemblage. small scraps of newspaper removed from the level of inform(edi)ation are incorporated for only their participation in a physical level. windows are washed, fish are wrapped, oil from the car is soaked up – with yesterday’s news. i can only hope that this book finds as much use.
problems identified with writing (which parallel that of identity constructions)
language
tense
dichotomy, either/or
perspective
who is telling the story? how can we read/rewrite simultaneously
first/second/third person, self/other
inclusion
where are the borders of the book? what is/not part of the self/text?
how to eliminate the original and its authority?
ability to collaborate
possible attempts to correct include wiki, but also carry additional baggage and become empowerment structures to be inhabited
the idea of ‘experimental’ is not shock art. rather, the idea is to destroy the boundary between art and life. and in order to do this, one must destroy all binaries. self and other, author and reader, artist and viewer, original and copy. said another way, the identity, the self, the body must be attacked and radically altered to be beyond form, beyond definition. meditation is the practice of controlling one’s own consciousness, of redefining the self. ‘practice’ here being defined not as a simulation before the real event, but as a way of life which refines itself, ‘controls’ itself. what we are proposing then is this: being is becoming. is this not the premise of all experimentation? materialization as conceptualization. perhaps at first this list consists of (re)presentations, tracings, and directions, but it is our hope that these become pieces in a new collage, so to speak, pieces incorporated in a new life. that eventually, they are either abandoned as meaningless products and representations, or assimilated in totally new manners into something that does not refer beyond itself to a past or future, but is a simultaneous being/becoming. we do not wish to hear grandiose theories. death to all transcendence! riveting life immanence, simultaneously flat and infinite we are. the particles are not metaphorical, they are pieces. between the pieces is the self we construct, an intuition that operates on them. we are the interval.
we are taking extra interest in the introductions, as the introduction is where the text discusses itself, turns on itself, and lays out a strategy and structure that includes itself. in this way, the entire experiment is an introduction, always a new beginning, always going beyond itself and including itself in the design.
we hope not to delimit certain beliefs, in fact, one of the principles with which we set out on was to destroy all beliefs. (of which we now find to be sort of an impossibility – more later.) but we hope instead that we can form a coalition, a community that aids each other in an endless search, comrades on a journey, rather than members in a system.
the text turns on itself. the circle opens. we have been working for a few years on what was intended to be a book. as we explored the issues and experiments we were writing about, it became obvious that in fact, the idea of a book contained many of the problems we were trying to escape. specifically, a book contains definite limits as to what is included (and not included). a book implies an original, and through copyright/copyleft etc., a series of reproductions limited by this original. a book implies a conclusion. a book implies a beginning. a book is a product, rather than a living experiment. a book implies an author’s words as valued over the readers. a book implies trascendence. a book implies a closed list of authors, and a subjugation of the text to the identities or pseudo-identities of these authors.
we hope to overcome these divisions.
thus, we are not issuing a singular physical book. we are not issuing the book as a singular text. we are not issuing the book under our name, nor under a pseudonym. we are not creating our own space for collaboration on the book, i.e. a website or mailing list. (no more utopic spaces.) nor are we requesting that any specific subject headers indicate inclusion in the book. we do not wish to make any edges or borders distinguishable. by following the logic within the book, we have come to realize that the book must be destroyed.
there is no book. there is no author.
instead, we are creating a work without borders, a work without originals. we are creating a living experiment.
in order to accomplish this, we are employing the following strategies:
there is no pre-written book. there is no beginning nor end. there are only texts. there is an inherent limitation in posting via email in that, as with the book, there are distinguishable borders between one post and the next. we hope that these borders can be somewhat degraded through the use of strategies below.
texts will thus be broken down and issued, in order to provide gaps between.
the entire process is thus a continual unfolding. the texts learn from each other.
multiple versions of posts with the same name will be posted simultaneously to various mailing lists.
the limit imposed by the identity of the author is obliterated by posting anonymously. any and all can post and we cannot distinguish based on the author. the text must be used for what it is. we hope also to blur the limits of previous author identities by posting with others, with anonymous, by claiming and not claiming to be one of the anonymous. (it is worth noting here that anonymous posting to mailing lists, if done on the scale and intensity imagined here, could threaten the very identity-economy on which the mailing list is based. this means the texts may be filtered or digested or blocked. thus it is important to leech many a mailing list and make this anonymous writing experiment pervasive.)
glossary
‘we’ always includes you, the reader. ‘we’ is not to be taken as a third-party, but always, within the text, as self-inclusive. the reader is the author. the author is the reader. there is no longer a separation.
when you reply, please do not quote nor use > nor use any other marker of an ‘original’. instead, take whatever you want, discard what you don’t, write alternatives to what you disagree with, and give it back. there is no space for the critic here. we are all participants. we will only laugh and mock those identity-mongers who attempt to take an outside, meta, transcendent stance. death to all critics! we will only absorb or ignore you. we want experiments. we all experiment. we are all already part of the experiment. this includes quotes from other sources. avoid all proper names of authors and all quote marks. avoid merely forwarding or reposting. instead, edit ‘their’ text. eliminate the borders between them and you. make it not theirs, or yours, or ours, but a piece of the experimental construction.
eliminate headings. they imply a hierarchy. allow the text to speak for itself. to open itself to multiple meanings and contexts.
eliminate authorship. authors and identity imply hierarchy. refuse the attempts of so many to dissociate themselves from the chain of powers through claims on belonging to the nameless while preserving their own names. these are the people who know nothing of true equality, but instead propose their identity as a mediation between inequality and equality, boosting their own power through simulated dissociation of power.
eliminate either/or. eliminate not. (implies either/or) replace with and.
(re)presentation. (re)create. (re)author. the (re) implies that it is always never original, and never repeated. (re)production is not production or reproduction, but both simultaneously. (de/re)construction: simultaneously deconstruction, reconstruction and construction.
eliminate ownership. reader’s present becomes reader present. a conjugation rather than a hierarchy.
eliminate past and future tense.
this writing follows the spiral, a moving center expanding, never enclosed, never a circle. a convection current which changes all, which includes the self. the network is defined by the relations within it as they currently exist. the network always includes the self, discarding hierarchy. (the problem of the network is always mediation.) the creation always redefines the creator.
more language devices: avoid the tyranny of first, second, third person position avoid he, she, they, you (as other – you meaning an example self is ok) – these all imply other the fall of self/other implies the fall of large sections of language. it must be reconfigured.
===== from burroughs electric >this is of identity.< you are an animal. you are a body. now whatever you may be you are not an “animal”, you are not a “body”, because these are verbal labels. the is of identity always carries the assignment of permanent condition. to stay that way. all name calling presupposes the is of identity. this concept is unnecessary in a hieroglyphic language like ancient egyptian and in fact frequently omitted. no need to say the sun is in the sky, sun in sky suffices. the verb to be can easily be omitted from any languages and the followers of count korgybski have done this, eliminating the verb to be in english. however, it is difficult to tidy up the english language by arbitrary exclusion of concepts which remain in force so long as the unchanged language is spoken.
>the definite article the.< the contains the implication of one and only: the god, the universe, the way, the right, the wrong, if there is another, then that universe, that way is no longer the universe, the way. the definite article the will be deleted and the indefinite article a will take it’s place.
>the whole concept of either/or.< right or wrong, physical or mental, true or false, the whole concept of or will be deleted from the language and replaced by juxtaposition, by and this is done to some extent in any pictorial language where two concepts stand literally side by side. these falsifications inherent in the english and other western alphabetical languages give the reactive mind commands their overwhelming force in these languages. consider the is of identity. when i say to be me, to be you, to be myself, to be others- whatever i may be called upon to be or to say that i am- i am not the verbal label “myself.” >the word be in the english language contains, as a virus contains, its precoded message of damage, the categorial imperative of permanent condition.< to be a body, to be an animal. if you see the relation of a pilot to his ship, you see crippling force of the reactive mind command t
t h e a e s t h e t i c s
o f d e c o n s t r u c t i o n :
photographic gallery of architectural
construction and demolition sites
http://www.architexturez.com/decon
* latest css browsers required
< t e x t >
deconstruction is herein used as a generic
non-proprietary keyword to describe the
pragmatic utility of theoretical (theory-
rhetorical) ideas and ideologies.
nothing can be said in terms of reason nor
logic to further clarify, and importantly,
simplify the concepts based upon language
of which deconstruction represents. other
than that deconstruction, as a word, can
be seen to be of both ‘construction’ and
‘destruction’ in its structure, that is:
de-con-struction
de- struction
con-struction
the symbolic enhancement of the word, in
its structural formalism, can be re-
presented as:
de|con-struction
wherein the pipe `|’ symbol represents
a logical dividing line, and the hypen
`-‘ represents a continuity between the
infrastructural fragments of the word.
therefore, de|con-struction, with logic
and reason aided by visual symbols, can
be seen as a questioning and answering.
the sublime language in which deconstruction
is used, as a keyword, is passively reflected
in its application of the language of signs,
and not as a vivid interrogation of language
as a symbolic logic of these message signals.
one example is in the realm of identity, in
which the language inherited by most english
readers/writers is fused with a perspective
which is inherently privatized. this is best
exemplified in gender, where the basis for
public and private identity, and thus language,
are grounded. it is more than coincidence that
the deconstruction of the individual is still
defined by gender today.
he man male mankind
she woman female womankind
s|he wo|man fe|male wo|man-kind
a symbolic structural language transcending
gender as identity need include both gender
and its annihilation in the construction and
the destruction of individual identity.
aesthetics of deconstruction http://amsterdam.nettime.org/lists-archives/nettime-bold-0012/msg00452.html log: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/lists-archives/nettime-bold-0108/msg00141.html
first version wrote ~2002.
page last modified on october 10, 2005, at 04:03 pm
