Re: 'The unrelenting horizonlessness of the Covid world'

[Alan Sondheim]

Yes always good to attack each other's pain.

On Mon, 28 Sep 2020, Hoofd, I.M. (Ingrid) wrote:


Dear David and all,

Oh boohoo. Nick Couldry cum suis are rather late to the party of general 
hopelessness and lack of future perspective that so many others have 
suffered from for decades already. Who is the 'we' they are talking 
about - all the white privileged men who could up until recently still 
believe in the radical progressiveness of higher education and new media 
technologies? Welcome to the despair of the rest of the world, Nick and 
Bruce.


Cheers, Ingrid.


-Original Message-
From: nettime-l-boun...@mail.kein.org  On 
Behalf Of d.gar...@new-tactical-research.co.uk
Sent: Monday, 28 September 2020 10:53
To: Nettime 
Subject:  'The unrelenting horizonlessness of the Covid world'



Just read an eerie and insightful essay by Nick Couldry and Bruce Schneier's 
'The unrelenting horizonlessness of the Covid world'
which Identifies the fact that although we may not all be depressed we are more 
likely be suffering from  the condition of Acedia. A malady of medieval monks 
described as no longer caring about caring, a feeling of dislocation when all 
the normal future contexts that give our lives meaning are suspended no longer 
providing stable temporal horizon. Here is an extract. At the bottom is a link 
to the full essay.

"Six months into the pandemic with no end in sight, many of us have been 
feeling a sense of unease that goes beyond anxiety or distress. It?s a nameless 
feeling that somehow makes it hard to go on with even the nice things we regularly 
do.

What?s blocking our everyday routines is not the anxiety of lockdown adjustments, or 
the worries about ourselves and our loved ones ? real though those worries are. It 
isn?t even the sense that, if we?re really honest with ourselves, much of what we do 
is pretty self-indulgent when held up against the urgency of a global pandemic. It 
is something more troubling and harder to name: an uncertainty about why we would go 
on doing much of what for years we?d taken for granted as inherently valuable."

"It?s here, moving back to the particular features of the global pandemic, that 
we see more clearly what drives the restlessness and dislocation so many have been 
feeling. The source of our current acedia is not the literal loss of a future; even 
the most pessimistic scenarios surrounding Covid-19 have our species surviving. The 
dislocation is more
subtle: a disruption in pretty much every future frame of reference on which 
just going on in the present relies.

Moving around is what we do as creatures, and for that we need horizons.
Covid has erased many of the spatial and temporal horizons we rely on, even if 
we don?t notice them very often. We don?t know how the economy will look, how 
social life will go on, how our home routines will be changed, how work will be 
organized, how universities or the arts or local commerce will survive.

What unsettles us is not only fear of change. It?s that, if we can no longer trust 
in the future, many things become irrelevant, retrospectively pointless. And by that 
we mean from the perspective of a future whose basic shape we can no longer take for 
granted. This fundamentally disrupts how we weigh the value of what we are doing 
right now. It becomes especially hard under these conditions to hold on to the value 
in activities that, by their very nature, are future-directed, such as education or 
institution-building. That?s what many of us are feeling. That?s today?s 
acedia." Full essay here...

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/22/opinions/unrelenting-horizonlessness-of-covid-world-couldry-schneier/index.html

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Re: Facebook

[Alan Sondheim]

I read about this - it sounds amazing, and working through consensus is 
brilliant. Fb is different, however; it's taken me a long time to build 
community that 'works for me' on it, people worldwide who are interested 
in the kinds of media art, music, theory, that I'm interested in. So 
there's a kind of flow, give and take, that's valuable (especially for 
those of us who have no institutional support). I feel oddly nomadic in 
this regard. But it's important for me to connect with online work and 
network projects, for example, with participants everywhere, reading 
documents from Nauru re: refugee conditions.


- Alan

On Tue, 5 Nov 2019, tac...@riseup.net wrote:


other social networks are possible

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50127713


Em 2019-11-04 21:29, Alan Sondheim escreveu:

I'm in agreement here; I leave as little trace as I can. (Also trapped
because I want my own work to remain.) This reminds me of the fight I
had on YouTube with Viacom and YouTube (later) re: my banning which
went on for a couple of years, a fight I finally won. YouTube has its
own viciousness of course - even something as saying no to autoplay,
which then returns on the next login.

I'd be curious about the server farms YouTube must use; they seem
unimaginable to me.

Best, Alan

On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, Craig Fahner wrote:


maybe it's not so much a question of whether facebook's policies are bad (of
course they are) or whether facebook is part of our social infrastructure
(of course it is), but, rather, what capacity users have to undermine
facebook's more predatory policies and evade its data collection regimes and
biased recommendation algorithms. given that a lot of people use facebook
not because they think it's an optimal platform, but because it is
absolutely necessary to use it in order to connect with certain communities,
what possibilities exist for users to participate in those communities while
circumventing the platform's more odious aspects? what do a tactics of
social media usership look like? i suspect they would engage in a constant
give-and-take with the algorithmic governing forces that be, but, with a
growing sentiment of suspicion regarding facebook's policies, perhaps a
tactical approach along the lines of plugins that remove algorithmic
recommendation features, deliberate scrambling/obfuscation of users' data
and trackable behaviours, etc. might be more successful in empowering users
than simply encouraging them to leave the platform entirely.
craig fahner - https://www.craigfahner.com/

On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 9:25 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:


  On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, mp wrote:

 > On 03/11/2019 20:36, Alan Sondheim wrote:
 >>
 >> The loss is more important to me
 >
 >> On Sun, 3 Nov 2019, Frederic Neyrat wrote:
 >>> 1/ FB enables to create a "community," that's good for
  sure;?
 >>> 2/ but in the same time, it destroys?the condition of the
  possibility of
 >>> community/togetherness/Gemeinwesen/?tre-ensemble, etc.
 >
 > Individual, particular and hence relatively short term
  perspective and
 > context (Alan's) vs. collective, abstract and hence relatively
  long term
 > perspective and context (Frederic's).
 >
 > A common disjuncture.
 >

  What disturbs me here is the assumption of passivity "relatively
  short
  term perspective" for example. Unless you know my work, read my
  posts,
  etc., you have no idea how long my perspective is. I've run
  talkers, a
  MOO, conferencing in IRC years ago, CuSeeMe, and on and on. I've
  taught
  courses in internet culture from 1995 on. And one of the things
  that keeps
  me generally from posting on nettime, is its own toxicity, these
  constant
  presumptions about one another, about the world, etc. And re:
  below, there
  is no "on the one hand, on the other hand" - the issue is far
  more complex
  as is people's usage of Fb or other platforms (for example email
  lists
  themselves). So "email is also shit"?

  I know a hell of a lot of free jazz musicians who work through
  Fb, fight
  racism, and take advantage of the platform. I know people who
  have found
  community on Fb that is absent for them in rl. I've participated
  in
  courses taught on Fb. I've engaged in political action on the
  platform. I
  don't expect purity anywhere; I never have. And one person's
  purity can be
  another person's hell. I'm appalled at Fb's policies but also
  given that
  the platform has between 1 and 2.4 billion users, the sociality
  is far
  greater (and far more diverse and interesting) than its public
  image.

  Alan


 > It is a complex issue. On the one hand it makes sense to
  adjust your
 > mea

Re: Facebook

[Alan Sondheim]

I'm in agreement here; I leave as little trace as I can. (Also trapped 
because I want my own work to remain.) This reminds me of the fight I had 
on YouTube with Viacom and YouTube (later) re: my banning which went on 
for a couple of years, a fight I finally won. YouTube has its own 
viciousness of course - even something as saying no to autoplay, which 
then returns on the next login.


I'd be curious about the server farms YouTube must use; they seem 
unimaginable to me.


Best, Alan

On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, Craig Fahner wrote:


maybe it's not so much a question of whether facebook's policies are bad (of
course they are) or whether facebook is part of our social infrastructure
(of course it is), but, rather, what capacity users have to undermine
facebook's more predatory policies and evade its data collection regimes and
biased recommendation algorithms. given that a lot of people use facebook
not because they think it's an optimal platform, but because it is
absolutely necessary to use it in order to connect with certain communities,
what possibilities exist for users to participate in those communities while
circumventing the platform's more odious aspects? what do a tactics of
social media usership look like? i suspect they would engage in a constant
give-and-take with the algorithmic governing forces that be, but, with a
growing sentiment of suspicion regarding facebook's policies, perhaps a
tactical approach along the lines of plugins that remove algorithmic
recommendation features, deliberate scrambling/obfuscation of users' data
and trackable behaviours, etc. might be more successful in empowering users
than simply encouraging them to leave the platform entirely.
craig fahner - https://www.craigfahner.com/

On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 9:25 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:


  On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, mp wrote:

  > On 03/11/2019 20:36, Alan Sondheim wrote:
  >>
  >> The loss is more important to me
  >
  >> On Sun, 3 Nov 2019, Frederic Neyrat wrote:
  >>> 1/ FB enables to create a "community," that's good for
  sure;?
  >>> 2/ but in the same time, it destroys?the condition of the
  possibility of
  >>> community/togetherness/Gemeinwesen/?tre-ensemble, etc.
  >
  > Individual, particular and hence relatively short term
  perspective and
  > context (Alan's) vs. collective, abstract and hence relatively
  long term
  > perspective and context (Frederic's).
  >
  > A common disjuncture.
  >

  What disturbs me here is the assumption of passivity "relatively
  short
  term perspective" for example. Unless you know my work, read my
  posts,
  etc., you have no idea how long my perspective is. I've run
  talkers, a
  MOO, conferencing in IRC years ago, CuSeeMe, and on and on. I've
  taught
  courses in internet culture from 1995 on. And one of the things
  that keeps
  me generally from posting on nettime, is its own toxicity, these
  constant
  presumptions about one another, about the world, etc. And re:
  below, there
  is no "on the one hand, on the other hand" - the issue is far
  more complex
  as is people's usage of Fb or other platforms (for example email
  lists
  themselves). So "email is also shit"?

  I know a hell of a lot of free jazz musicians who work through
  Fb, fight
  racism, and take advantage of the platform. I know people who
  have found
  community on Fb that is absent for them in rl. I've participated
  in
  courses taught on Fb. I've engaged in political action on the
  platform. I
  don't expect purity anywhere; I never have. And one person's
  purity can be
  another person's hell. I'm appalled at Fb's policies but also
  given that
  the platform has between 1 and 2.4 billion users, the sociality
  is far
  greater (and far more diverse and interesting) than its public
  image.

  Alan


  > It is a complex issue. On the one hand it makes sense to
  adjust your
  > means to the ends you desire. Be the change you want to see
  and all that.
  >
  > On the other hand, it could be seen as a form of
  neoliberalisation when
  > the responsibility for the future of the system is distributed
  to
  > individuals - and at the end of the day, it is impossible to
  live in
  > this planetary urbanisation without acting in destructive
  ways, so we
  > all have to cut corners. Email is also shit for the web of
  life we are
  > entangled in.

  > #?distributed via : no commercial use without
  permission
  > #?? is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
  > #?collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
  > #?more info:

Re: Facebook

[Alan Sondheim]

On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, mp wrote:


On 03/11/2019 20:36, Alan Sondheim wrote:


The loss is more important to me



On Sun, 3 Nov 2019, Frederic Neyrat wrote:

1/ FB enables to create a "community," that's good for sure;?
2/ but in the same time, it destroys?the condition of the possibility of
community/togetherness/Gemeinwesen/?tre-ensemble, etc.


Individual, particular and hence relatively short term perspective and
context (Alan's) vs. collective, abstract and hence relatively long term
perspective and context (Frederic's).

A common disjuncture.



What disturbs me here is the assumption of passivity "relatively short 
term perspective" for example. Unless you know my work, read my posts, 
etc., you have no idea how long my perspective is. I've run talkers, a 
MOO, conferencing in IRC years ago, CuSeeMe, and on and on. I've taught 
courses in internet culture from 1995 on. And one of the things that keeps 
me generally from posting on nettime, is its own toxicity, these constant 
presumptions about one another, about the world, etc. And re: below, there 
is no "on the one hand, on the other hand" - the issue is far more complex 
as is people's usage of Fb or other platforms (for example email lists 
themselves). So "email is also shit"?


I know a hell of a lot of free jazz musicians who work through Fb, fight 
racism, and take advantage of the platform. I know people who have found 
community on Fb that is absent for them in rl. I've participated in 
courses taught on Fb. I've engaged in political action on the platform. I 
don't expect purity anywhere; I never have. And one person's purity can be 
another person's hell. I'm appalled at Fb's policies but also given that 
the platform has between 1 and 2.4 billion users, the sociality is far 
greater (and far more diverse and interesting) than its public image.


Alan



It is a complex issue. On the one hand it makes sense to adjust your
means to the ends you desire. Be the change you want to see and all that.

On the other hand, it could be seen as a form of neoliberalisation when
the responsibility for the future of the system is distributed to
individuals - and at the end of the day, it is impossible to live in
this planetary urbanisation without acting in destructive ways, so we
all have to cut corners. Email is also shit for the web of life we are
entangled in.



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Re: Facebook

[Alan Sondheim]

The loss is more important to me; the community functions as best an 
online community can. I'm connected with all sorts of other networks as 
well such as Furtherfield, ELO, etc. What I find worse and more 
problematic is the university system including publications - I can't 
afford most books that are advertised for example (which is why the 
Alexandria project was so important for me); I go to conferences if I can 
get a stipend, etc. American intellectual life is more of a divide for a 
lot of people than Fb.


(Of course it also depends how intelligently one uses Fb; I put in a lot 
of controls, use blocking, etc.)


- Alan

On Sun, 3 Nov 2019, Frederic Neyrat wrote:


Thanks Alan! But I've a question, I try to formulate it... Let's say:?

1/ FB enables to create a "community," that's good for sure;?
2/ but in the same time, it destroys?the condition of the possibility of
community/togetherness/Gemeinwesen/?tre-ensemble, etc. For instance, in making
possible the election of people whose main goal is to destroy any
community/being-in-common (note that I do not consider being quantified and
recombined by algorithms a good way to generate some being-in-common).

So, in the end, I understand?that something would be lost by leaving FB -
hence my first question! - but would it be possible to say that the loss is
even more important while not quitting FB?

My best,

FN

On Sun, Nov 3, 2019 at 11:14 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:


  I'm on it because there are a number of new media
  artists/writers/etc.
  including myself who form somewhat of a community - it's a way
  to
  distribute work, especially if one's not in academia or media
  industry.
  It's brutally flawed but also useful and it gives more scope to
  textual
  work than Instagram.

  Alan

  On Sun, 3 Nov 2019, Frederic Neyrat wrote:

  > Hi,
  >
  > I'd like to know if some people on this list - be they
  activists,
  > environmentalists, artists, thinkers, contributors - are
  (still) on Facebook
  > and if yes, why, being given the extreme noxiousness of this
  "social" (?)
  > network.
  >
  
>Thisarticle?https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/03/facebook-pol
  itics-
  > republicans-right
  > is not the reason of my email, but its occasion.
  >
  > Thanks in advance for your light on this matter,
  >
  > Frederic Neyrat
  >
  >
  >

  web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 347-383-8552
  current text http://www.alansondheim.org/wm.txt





web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 347-383-8552
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/wm.txt
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Re: Facebook

[Alan Sondheim]

I'm on it because there are a number of new media artists/writers/etc. 
including myself who form somewhat of a community - it's a way to 
distribute work, especially if one's not in academia or media industry.
It's brutally flawed but also useful and it gives more scope to textual 
work than Instagram.


Alan

On Sun, 3 Nov 2019, Frederic Neyrat wrote:


Hi,

I'd like to know if some people on this list - be they activists,
environmentalists, artists, thinkers, contributors - are (still) on Facebook
and if yes, why, being given the extreme noxiousness of this "social" (?)
network.

Thisarticle?https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/03/facebook-politics-
republicans-right
is not the reason of my email, but its occasion.

Thanks in advance for your light on this matter,

Frederic Neyrat





web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 347-383-8552
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/wm.txt
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Re: nettime past and future

[Alan Sondheim]

of extreme interest, re the nudge-horizon of compression/containment

On Fri, 6 Sep 2019, tbyfield wrote:


(I just dug this up -- maybe of interest.)

- - - - - - - - - - - - 8< SNIP! 8< - A- - - - - - - - - - -

To: nettim...@kein.org
Subject:  digestion digest
From: nettime mod squad 
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 06:27:37 +0100

As nettime comes up on its twentieth birthday, we've started looking
back at what happened. What follows is a nearly complete list of more
than 700 different identities we've given to nettime's digest function
over the last 16+ years.

Cheers,
the mod squad
(Ted and Felix)


nettime's.sorry
nettime's(.bash)_history
nettime's_ _
nettime's_ _ again
nettime's_ roving_reporter
nettime's___
nettime's
nettime's_
nettime's__grand_inquisitor
nettime's__detector
nettime's_...wait...oh my god! it's alive!
nettime's_'r'_critic
nettime's_(anti)?thetical_synthesizer
nettime's_(g)?lo(b|c)al_pundit
nettime's_|<0u||+3r-.*
nettime's_1337ologist
nettime's_31337_h!5+0r!4||
nettime's_911_compiler
nettime's academy
nettime's accelerated cycles
nettime's accountants
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nettime's_adding_machine
nettime's_akademik_zensor
nettime's_alarmist
nettime's alias
nettime's_american_friend
nettime's_anal_editor
nettime's_anal-retentive-book-editor/librarian
nettime's_AND_gate
nettime's_annaliste
nettime's_annotation_line
nettime's announcer
nettime's_anonymizer
nettime's_anonymizing_service
nettime's anonymous coward
nettime's_anonymous_login
nettime's_anti_war_dig
nettime's_antithesis
nettime's_api
nettime's_appraisal_committee
nettime's_arbiter_of_taste
nettime's archivist
nettime's_armchair_historian
nettime's_ascii_infidel
nettime's_asciimilator
nettime's_assimilationist_system
nettime's_attivatore
nettime's_autoimmune_system
nettime's_automaton
nettime's avid crossposter
nettime's avid gift giver
nettime's avid law reader
nettime's avid reader
nettime's avid review reader
nettime's_avid_reader
nettime's_b00xw0rm
nettime's_B1FF!!!
nettime's_babelfish
nettime's bable fish
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nettime's blockwart
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nettime's_body_politic
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nettime's broken pumps
nettime's_broken_record
nettime's_bullshit_detector
nettime's_burning_man
nettime's_busy_reader
nettime's_butcher
nettime's_butlins
nettime's_c-spammer
nettime's_cache
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nettime's cage aux trolls
nettime's calculating machine
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nettime's_cheeseburger_to_go!
nettime's_chronicler
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nettime's closed
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nettime's_colostomy_bag
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nettime's_counter_counter_counter_something
nettime's_counterimagineer
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nettime's_CPA
nettime's crew of janitors
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nettime's crooked dealer
nettime's_crusher
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nettime's cuban middle
nettime's_cud_chewer
nettime's cultural
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nettime's_d-di-di-digestive_s-s-system
nettime's_d-spammer
nettime's_dataminer
nettime's de-terminator
nettime's_deadman_switch
nettime's deaf reader
nettime's_debabelizer
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nettime's_delete_key
nettime's_delp_hesk
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nettime's_digger
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nettime's_disintermediation_system
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nettime's_dom
nettime's_dot_dot_dot
nettime's_dot_matrix
nettime's_doubleplusuncountercountercounterreformer
nettime's dr doom
nettime's_drive_thru

here we go again -

[Alan Sondheim]

From mailer-dae...@mx.kein.org Sat May  5 23:15:44 2018

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Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 23:15:34
From: Alan Sondheim <sondh...@panix.com>
To: Heiko Recktenwald <heikorecktenw...@googlemail.com>
Cc: nettime-l@mail.kein.org
Subject: Re:  please read - and how can this possibly be combatted?


On Sat, 5 May 2018, Heiko Recktenwald wrote:


Alan,

Am 05/05/18 um 04:53 schrieb Alan Sondheim:



Isnt that in the story of the Tower of Babel? Maybe we should read it
again.


or the opposite, every thing and every one speaking exactly the same
digital terrain, the same protocols. even in one of 'my' areas of
interest, non-western instrumentation, the well-tempered western scale
and accompanying musics have been increasingly dominant.



But isnt this allready the end? The same protocols and no content. Well
tempered.


flat, absorbed -


less pessimistic. What is that "knowledge" of fb? Cant we laugh about
it? And what is new in our "mass-psychology"? What people may do one
day? A question of speed?


depends on what knowledge or knowledging of fb one's concerned with -


For marketing it may be better than nothing. But the rest is speculation.


it's the carapace that surrounds the user on Fb; there's very little 
control over appearance; the settings are a joke. it's designed for 
data-mining - almsot impossible for example to keep 'recent' from 'top' in 
the feed - the latter already shaping one's perception of one's personal 
sphere. there's also constant attempts to mine phone numbers and to give 
fb control of the computer - repeatedly asking if it can add notifications 
to your screen even when the medium's closed - which creates the constant 
presence of fb, no matter what.





There are some problems of dataownership that have mostly to do with
sharing that data. What did Cambridge do wrong? They didnt pay. As if
science would not be free.


That Robert Mercer wrote an email in january that sounded very much like
Timothy Leary...


"Question authority"...


Some of the opening questions of that Zuckerberg hearing were very good.


Unfortunately didn't hear this -



Feinstein was very stupid. I like those details. Maybe a starter in the
time of Babel.


That Donald was a present. He creates cases that we need.


He creates cases that brutally tear families apart -

Best, Alan



Best, H.




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Re: please read - and how can this possibly be combatted?

[Alan Sondheim]

On Thu, 3 May 2018, Heiko Recktenwald wrote:


On Sat, 28 Apr 2018, sebast...@rolux.org wrote::


compare, and should not be compared. But it's not hate speech that
worries me, it's the languages of desire, and what becomes of them
once they enter the grid of two hundred million. (9) Google "Jessi
Slaughter", for starters


Am 28/04/18 um 18:34 schrieb Alan Sondheim:


I do wonder if hate speech isn't precisely the languages of desire? TV
advertising around here is now based on jealousy and putdowns - buy
this car and you'll triumph over your neighbors. Just the planting of
a seed -


Isnt that in the story of the Tower of Babel? Maybe we should read it again.


or the opposite, every thing and every one speaking exactly the same 
digital terrain, the same protocols. even in one of 'my' areas of 
interest, non-western instrumentation, the well-tempered western scale and 
accompanying musics have been increasingly dominant.





The human destinity? The Donald and what we thought of him were mostly
reflections of ourselves and maybe it is the same here. One very old
friend very deep in the pop-media-business once told me that fb is the
first usable interface and I started to use it again. Maybe we should be
less pessimistic. What is that "knowledge" of fb? Cant we laugh about
it? And what is new in our "mass-psychology"? What people may do one
day? A question of speed?


depends on what knowledge or knowledging of fb one's concerned with -

- Alan, thanks!


There are some problems of dataownership that have mostly to do with
sharing that data. What did Cambridge do wrong? They didnt pay. As if
science would not be free.


Best, H.

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Re: please read - and how can this possibly be combatted?

[Alan Sondheim]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2018, sebast...@rolux.org wrote:




On Apr 27, 2018, at 6:07 AM, Alan Sondheim <sondh...@panix.com> wrote:

Query - again, I'm admittedly naive in these matters -

Here's a current stat on Fb - As of the fourth quarter of 2017, 
Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active users. In the third quarter of 
2012, the number of active Facebook users had surpassed 1 billion, 
making it the first social network ever to do so. Active users are 
those which have logged in to Facebook during the last 30 days. (from 
statista.com) -


My assumption is that these stats are wildly exaggerated, and that the 
definitions of "active", "unique", "logged in" or even "users" have 
little to do with how these terms are commonly - na?vely - understood.


I'm not sure of this - what is your assumption based on? Do you have 
alternative stats to back it up? In any case, there are huge numbers of 
users of course -




I keep coming back to this enormity which stresses across any number of 
cultures/population segments and wonder how this might be governed at 
all - given the number of empty accounts, bots, etc. And what are the 
mechanisms of control that anyone might apply to this quantity - as 
well as the quantity of material YouTube, say, handles daily? It's one 
thing to theorize what is to be done or not done, or whether Z. should 
be jailed or not; it's another to deal with this flood of material. As 
a problematic user, I'm always amazed at the naked control Fb exercises 
- the simplest example being the top stories trope over the recent. 
What may be turned off varies from week to week, but basically, 
nothing.


Facebook makes its users hysterical: about intimate stuff, about 
politics, and even more so about Facebook. One example would be the 
issue with "top stories", which I assume is the outrage about specific 
content that appears or fails to appear in what Facebook users tend to 
call "their feed", and the conclusion that secret "algorithms" have 
begun to take control of their lives. Even though the same is true for, 
say, my own - self-hosted, self-programmed, 
not-platform-or-silo-dependent - blog, if I had one: some things appear, 
some don't, I might even "personalize" content in a way that is 
intentionally intransparent, and if you don't like it, you're free to go 
elsewhere.


Even my old unused blogs have everything I put on them still in place. And 
there's a basic difference between 'top stories' and 'most recent' or some 
such - the former involves content algorithms, which is where shaping 
comes into play; the latter might be nothing more than a simple temporal 
ordering.


The third of the world that is on Facebook didn't get there as a result 
of enslavement by a global corporation. They're on Facebook because they 
love it. Maybe, since you explicitly use the term of "control" to 
describe the mechanisms at work here, it's worth to take yet another 
look at the little text, written and published in 1989/1990, that 
introduced this term - to me, but (I guess) to many others around here 
as well:


"We no longer find ourselves dealing with the mass/individual pair. 
Individuals have become "dividuals," and masses, samples, data, markets, 
or "banks." Perhaps it is money that expresses the distinction between 
the two societies best, since discipline always referred back to minted 
money that locks gold as numerical standard, while control relates to 
floating rates of exchange, modulated according to a rate established by 
a set of standard currencies. The old monetary mole is the animal of the 
space of enclosure, but the serpent is that of the societies of control. 
We have passed from one animal to the other, from the mole to the 
serpent, in the system under which we live, but also in our manner of 
living and in our relations with others. The disciplinary man was a 
discontinuous producer of energy, but the man of control is undulatory, 
in orbit, in a continuous network." (1)


"But in the present situation, capitalism is no longer involved in 
production, which it often relegates to the Third World, even for the 
complex forms of textiles, metallurgy, or oil production. It's a 
capitalism of higher-order production. It no longer buys raw materials 
and no longer sells the finished products: it buys the finished products 
or assembles parts. What it wants to sell is services but what it wants 
to buy is stocks. This is no longer a capitalism for production but for 
the product, which is to say, for being sold or marketed. Thus is 
essentially dispersive, and the factory has given way to the 
corporation." (1)


"The conception of a control mechanism, giving the position of any 
element within an open environment at any given instant (whether animal 
in a reserve or human in a corporation, as with an electronic collar), 
is not n

Re: please read - and how can this possibly be combatted?

[Alan Sondheim]

Query - again, I'm admittedly naive in these matters -

Here's a current stat on Fb -
As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active 
users. In the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users 
had surpassed 1 billion, making it the first social network ever to do so. 
Active users are those which have logged in to Facebook during the last 30 
days. (from statista.com) -
I keep coming back to this enormity which stresses across any number of 
cultures/population segments and wonder how this might be governed at all 
- given the number of empty accounts, bots, etc. And what are the 
mechanisms of control that anyone might apply to this quantity - as well 
as the quantity of material YouTube, say, handles daily? It's one thing to 
theorize what is to be done or not done, or whether Z. should be jailed or 
not; it's another to deal with this flood of material. As a problematic 
user, I'm always amazed at the naked control Fb exercises - the simplest 
example being the top stories trope over the recent. What may be turned 
off varies from week to week, but basically, nothing.
There are obviously alternative platforms but it's a question of 
populating - the people I want to reach are on Fb as their primary 
platform (for example free jazz / improvisation which reaches worldwide) - 
there must be millions of mini-commons like this.
I do see the damage Fb does and www for that matter; when I began teaching 
Internet culture/community/etc. in 1995 or so, I took my students first to 
stormfront.com which had the most sophisticated website at the time - it 
was international, in several languages, and a platform for neonazi 
organization.


Thanks again for the responses, learning here, Alan
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thanks for your responses

[Alan Sondheim]

I want to thank Stephen and Sebastian for their responses, particularly 
Stephen's.


- Alan
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please read - and how can this possibly be combatted?

[Alan Sondheim]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/world/asia/facebook-sri-lanka-riots.html

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from today's Washington Post - how to we resist this?

[Alan Sondheim]

The fascist creep in action:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Wednesday that he reserves
the right to jail journalists, if we have to.

Here's his exchange with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) during a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing:

KLOBUCHAR: Will you commit to not putting reporters in jail for doing their
jobs?

SESSIONS: Well, I don't know that I can make a blanket commitment to that
effect. But I would say this: We have not taken any aggressive action against
the media at this point. But we have matters that involve the most serious
national security issues, that put our country at risk, and we will utilize the
authorities that we have, legally and constitutionally, if we have to.

Maybe we  we always try to find an alternative way, as you probably know, Sen.
Klobuchar, to directly confronting a media person. But that's not a total,
blanket protection.

There is a lot of missing context here that Sessions would have been wise to
include, if he were interested in avoiding panic.

Sessions appeared to be reiterating a warning he issued in August, when he said
that as part of the Justice Department's effort to prosecute government workers
who make illegal disclosures of classified information, one of the things we are
doing is reviewing policies affecting media subpoenas.

[...0


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notes from working with Mike Gurstein, 1997

[Alan Sondheim]

(please post if relevant)

=
Working with Mike Gurstein

http://www.alansondheim.org/mike.txt


From 1997, Nova Scotia, mainly Sydney, working with Mike Gurstein


Revisiting, Notes and Pieces
=
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Re: RIP Michael Gurstein

[Alan Sondheim]

Oh hell, Ted. I worked with him in Cape Breton and elsewhere in NS on 
Wiring Nova Scotia; we were close until he moved west. We worked together 
in Sydney; it was wonderful and necessary work. I hadn't heard from him in 
a while. Thank you for passing this on.


He was amazing.

Best, Alan

On Sat, 14 Oct 2017, t byfield wrote:


I'm sad to pass this news on.

T

< https://www.facebook.com/gurstein/posts/10155671874752457 >

Michael Gurstein

October 2, 1944 - October 8, 2017

Michael Gurstein was born on October 2, 1944 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to 
Emanuel (Manny) and Sylvia Gurstein. While still an infant, the family moved 
to Melfort, Saskatchewan where Manny grew up and his family still lived. In 
Mike?s youth, Manny and Sylvia ran a successful retail store. There, the 
family grew with a younger sister, Penny.
Mike excelled at school. He spent his summers working at a golf club in 
Waskesiu and graduated from Melfort Composite Collegiate Institute high 
school, and then completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the 
University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Mike was driven by pragmatism and 
curiosity about the wider world that motivated his doctoral studies in 
Sociology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. While a student, he 
began his life-long exploration of the world, with trips through North Africa 
and a long journey from Southeast Asia through Afghanistan and Iran and back 
to the U.K.


Upon Mike?s return to Canada, he worked in politics and policy, as a senior 
civil servant for the Province of British Columbia under Barrett?s NDP 
government (1972-4) and for the Province of Saskatchewan under Blakeney?s NDP 
Government (1974-5). While teaching at York University, he ran unsuccessfully 
for the NDP in the riding of Parkdale.


Mike moved to Ottawa in the late 1970s where he met his wife, Fernande 
Faulkner. Together they had two children, Rachel (1981) and Marc (1983). He 
and Fernande established and ran a management consulting firm, Socioscope, 
which studied and guided the social aspects of the introduction of 
information communication technology. In Ottawa, Mike also built and managed 
a real estate portfolio. In 1992 the family moved to New York, where Mike and 
Fernande worked for the United Nations.


In 1995, Mike became Associate Chair in the Management of Technological 
Change at the University College of Cape Breton. There, he founded the Centre 
for Community and Enterprise Networking (C/CEN) as a community based research 
laboratory exploring applications of ICT to support social change in one of 
Canada's most economically disadvantaged regions.


Grown out of his early experience in rural small town Saskatchewan and his 
later experiences in impoverished but culturally and communally rich Cape 
Breton, Mike's work provided the conceptual framing for ?community 
informatics?. He published the first major work in the field, and introduced 
the term "community informatics" into wider usage as referring to the 
research and praxis discipline underpinning the social appropriation of ICT. 
Within the area of community informatics a major contribution has been Mike's 
introduction of the notion of "effective use" as a critical analytical 
framework for assessing technology implementation superseding approaches 
based on the more commonly accepted frameworks such as that of the "digital 
divide".


In 1999, the family moved to Vancouver to be closer to Mike?s parents and 
sister. In 2000, Mike and Fernande returned to New York, to work at the New 
Jersey Institute of Technology and the UN, respectively. Mike returned to 
Vancouver in 2006 and established the Center for Community Informatics 
Research Development and Training (CCIRDT). With this platform, he traveled 
the world to consult with governments and civil society organisations, 
present at conferences, and conduct research.


Mike was the founding editor of the Journal of Community Informatics and was 
Foundation Chair of the Community Informatics Research Network. He was at the 
time of his death the Executive Director of CCIRDT, and formerly an Adjunct 
Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies Vancouver Canada, 
and as well as Research Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology 
in Newark, New Jersey, and Research Professor at the University of Quebec 
(Outaouais). He was also a member of the High Level Panel of Advisers of the 
UN's Global Alliance for ICT and Development. He has also served on the Board 
of the Global Telecentre Alliance, Telecommunities Canada, the Pacific 
Community Networking Association and the Vancouver Community Net.


In recent years he was active as a commentator, speaker and essayist/blogger 
articulating a community informatics (grassroots ICT user) perspective in the 
areas of open government data and internet governance. Through all of his 
work, Mike was motivated by his commitment to democratising access to the 
tools of information 

Re: The Looming Impossibility of the Present

[Alan Sondheim]

For me, this depends on whose future, not an abstracted one, but one 
within which genocide all too easily inheres, where the extinction of a 
species is absolute; a few years ago Johannes Birringer and I co-moderated 
a discussion on empyre on absolute terror which centered, for me, around 
scorched-earth operations that permanently eliminated cultural narratives 
from whole regions. So 'whose future' is absolutely critical, given this 
and given the enclaving of so many of the top .1%; obviously the planet 
will survive, things change, etc., but given the potential of nuclear war 
etc., the future may be brutal indeed.


And as I've grown older, I've come to the opposite realization, that life 
is not resilient at all...


- Alan

On Sat, 14 Oct 2017, Peter ciccariello wrote:


This is brilliant. Thanks Ian Alan Paul.
I would like to share it?

On Oct 14, 2017, at 10:04 AM, Ian Alan Paul  
wrote:


And so here we are. In the present, the new normal. In a situation that 
feels just as quotidian as it does impossible.


With my coffee I read of fires in California and I scroll through 
friends' facebook posts debating which filters and breathing masks are 
best to buy. I read of the news from Puerto Rico, where a tragedy 
smears across days and then weeks in slow motion, obfuscated by 
politicians but nonetheless occasionally breaking through the surface. 
I listen to friends talking about what white supremacists are doing on 
their campuses, worried about posters and about speaking events, while 
some have begun receiving death threats. I hear of safehouses being 
organized for migrants that are soon to be made illegal. Everywhere 
things are heating up, the seas are rising, and democracies fall from 
the air like flies.


On mornings like this one, I'm reminded of Brecht when he wrote that 
"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they 
are." What could better describe our present? There's no room for 
nostalgia in such a formulation, in a rapidly disintegrating present 
that forcefully collapses towards the future. While collapse is always 
to some degree anticipated as we can see its shadow stretching across 
the ground beneath us, even its most astute architects cannot be sure 
in which direction the debris will fall.


As I've grown older, one thing which has become increasingly clear to 
me is that life is resilient. It goes on. Whether in occupied 
territories, under the weight of a military coup, or after the election 
of a demagogue, tea and coffee are still brewed in the morning, and 
people still find, even if somewhat troubled, sleep at night. Even in 
the face of the most tremendous of losses, the past's rubble is slowly 
and carefully accumulated into something new and is in turn guarded by 
the living. We find temporary and fragile shelters from our looming 
impossibility.


And so here we are. In the present, the new normal. In a situation that 
cannot stay this way because of the way it is. In a kind of life we 
live because we must continue living.


The question for us, I think, isn't whether or not the future can be 
warded off, although promises that it can be will continue to fill the 
air with their vacancy. All that remains for us is to embrace the 
possibility of the impossible present we find ourselves within. If the 
world can no longer hold as it is, what can come to be in its stead? As 
our lives in their present forms become increasingly less possible to 
live, the only refuge may be in the collective invention and 
elaboration of new forms of living.

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Re: nettime nottime: the end of nettime

[Alan Sondheim]

I've been relatively quiet on nettime; I've submitted more than has been 
allowed through, and I found that disenheartening. At one point, one of 
the moderators answered with a critique that I felt should have appeared 
on the list, instead of privately. What I find missing, what for me was 
there earlier on, was a freer, less strict environment; at this point, I 
do a lot of self-censoring because I send anything to nettime, and that 
doesn't feel right. (Maybe 1 out of 4 posts I have sent actually went 
through.) The discussion doesn't seem to allow for a critical poetics,
or at least the poetics I've submitted at times. So I have mixed feelings 
about nettime - while I don't think it should be a free-for-all, and I 
read what I can, I also think it should have a more open submission 
policy; otherwise it reproduces a kind of back-channel authoirty. Perhaps 
my submissions don't belong on the list; I do wish that had been up to the 
subscribers to decide, not the moderators.


- Alan


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nettime double apologies

[Alan Sondheim]

that last post went to the wrong list, I've been getting almost no sleep 
for weeks, apologies -


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nettime Broken World: Steerage and Steering Mechanisms

[Alan Sondheim]

Broken World: Steerage and Steering Mechanisms


We are steerage. We do not arrive.

*/Properly, the space in the after part of a vessel, under the
cabin, but used generally to indicate any part of a vessel
having the poorest accommodations and occupied by passengers
paying the lowest rate of fare. [1913 Webster]/*

The ship is steered. The ship wanders. The world's broken.
Don't misunderstand: nothing will save us; there is no land or:
the land is damaged, or: the land is exhausted: blank, the land
is blank: anguish. Anguish on our part. We're the ship. Our
world.

Or: We're all marooned. It is no longer a question of hope, of
the human project, of plans or structures, of capital or
capitalism, of late capitalism, of neo-liberalism, of inerrancy
or the absolute. It is no longer a question of ideologies, of
common language, of the commons: it's over.

It's steered, and it's steered over, the steering's over.

The mechanisms at work are simple and fundamental. They are
abject; they grind the rest, whatever was tottering through
modernism - they grind the rest down. The world's a world of
dust and radiations. The world does not crack. Our project's
broken.

Some of them:

The first intractable mechanism: Overpopulation. The planet is
close to its carrying capacity, and there's no end to population
increase. The demographics are skewed towards young reproducers;
exponential growth lumbers on. The result is more mouths to
feed, more strains on the environment, more slash and burn, more
hillside slums, more bush-meat, more overcrowding, less jobs,
more local war.

The second intractable mechanism: Environmental degradation
which has reached the point of no return. Consider the
plasticization of the oceans, the post-tipping point of animal
and plant extinctions, the increasing desertification
world-wide, the loss of biological diversity. The anthropocene
is not the usual planetary rise and fall; it's the greatest, the
fastest, the most violent, extinction. The world is already
destroyed; Gaia or its equivalent, is over. Something will
remain, future adaptive radiations, but it won't be us: every
species will be invasive, and the world, for the foreseeable
future, will swarm.

The third intractable mechanism: Global warming which is also
global redistribution of currents and weather flow. This is also
irreversible, past the tipping-point. The results are harrowing:
record-setting droughts and floods, enormous hurricanes, tornado
swarms, irreversible sea-level rises, and so forth. This is the
classical catastrophe (Rene Thom): the fragility of the good
descends to chaotic phenomena, and practical measures, theory,
containment, is always after the fact.

The fourth intractable mechanism: Increased violence and local/
global warfare: again, with limited resources, this will only
grow worse. Territories split and compete; the lines are
religious, ethnic, geographic, historic etc.; brutality
increases as humans turn more and more to the rigidity of
absolute/inerrant ideologies, and fortified binary oppositions -
classical logics - gain strength as ideological instrumentality.
This turn to the right, where the free press, women's rights,
science and self-critique etc., are all viewed with suspicion;
the left (if these binaries still exist at all) is an endangered
species.

The fifth intractable mechanism: The vast sea of weaponry and
the nuclear arsenal available to all; it is only a matter of
time before a dirty bomb or nuclear device is detonated, the
equivalent of over-fishing, trawling, the sea bottom. Scorched
earth returns to scorched earth; there are no longer resources
for rebuilding as poverty and social chaos increase in the
world. History, archaeological sites, villages, nations, records,
are erased; history is no longer visible, readable; reading
itself becomes suspect.

The sixth intractable mechanism: Enclaving of the rich and
income disparity exponentially increasing; the result is
hoarding of resources and increased poverty as noted. This
enclaving extends, crudely, to nations; the U.S. for example
uses far more resources per capital than almost any other
country; the U.S. prison system is itself a flux of pure
capital, privatization, the largest in the world. Prisons are
less efficient than pure disappearance; even so, population
growth more than makes up for the violent loss of life around
the planet. Think as well of local militias, including police
forces that, first and foremost, look after their own, by any
means possible.

The seventh intractable mechanism: Antibiotics and spread of
disease across varying species; as sludge and clutter increase
world-wide, the opportunity for endemic disease increases.
Disease vectors are driven by population vectors, by poor health
practices, by hunger and poverty. Understand that overpopulation
is behind all of this, a developing horizon, just like hacking
and criminal gangs are a developing horizon of violence and
seizure. There's no more living off the 

nettime Invisibility

[Alan Sondheim]

Invisibility

http://www.alansondheim.org/cairn016.jpg

Invisibility is the problem of our time, but there are so many!
Most of our collapsing phenomenologies center on attention
economies, acceleration, dromodology; these are epistemological
problems, what might be examined, what should be examined, and
the process of examination itself. But invisibility is more
perverse; it is an issue of ontology, of disappearance, from
within and without, a problem which not only robs us of our
situation, our habitus, but also invades the discourse of the
body and the self. It can be a sudden transformation, occurring
at the edge of the possible, the refugee, the unmanned migrant
ship floundering and heading for unknown shores; it may also be
a slow and almost imperceptible withdrawal from being, to the
extent that being exists as instrumental. Age is one index of
invisibility, and this I experience: whatever I do increasingly
makes no difference whatsoever, as long as it is with the bounds
of the law. Making a difference, making a distinction, is
fundamentally a communal and social act; when it no longer
matters, helplessness ensues - not the helplessness of a lack of
knowledge or tools (but that too), but the helplessness of the
collapse of speech acts or being. The aging body is a refugee
body, and what might have passed for wisdom is no longer given
an audience, but is transformed into some thing swept aside
within another register altogether. All of this occurs within a
rigidity of etiquette which is not acknowledged, but which
creates an iron and exclusionary ontology. Too many people I
know, for a variety of reasons (political, age, class, religion
or lack of it) feel marooned, a marooning which answers to no
shore, no boundary. The issue is one of consequences, which at
one point in our social evolutions might have been the concern
of cause and effect, but now operates within the regime of
effacement (what I have to say is of no consequence, because I
am not speaking - a Lyotardian differend which operates across
innumerable strata within broken models of being and the world).
Engagement is not a projection, not what 'makes us human'; it
is, of course, a skein, and one now driven by fast- forward
feedback, ranging from high-speed stock manipulation to high
speed online text-and-image feeds that leave no time for
reflection, but, more importantly, no need for reflection as
well. The horizon of all of this is the fracturing of steering
problems which dissolve in rhetoric and shifting positions; the
problems, however, remain and increase in urgency. Behind them
is an increasingly devastated planet with extinctions and
population out of control, existing within the immediacy of the
digital and its potential for internal transformation (a change
of pixel for pixel, for example), for epistemological slide. ...
For all of these reasons, these flows, invisibility tends
towards pharmacology and depression, towards despair and
violence, towards the inerrancy of fundamental religion and a
rigidity of logics and taxonomies between believers and non-
believers. It is easy to conclude from all of this that 'we are
all invisible' or some such, but in fact, the presence of belief
and violence point elsewhere, towards a sweeping-aside of the
ephemeral and the harnessing of the digital for a strict
rhetoric of communications. For those of us who can neither
ascribe to this, nor participate (by virtue of the problematic
'essences' of age, gender, sexual orientation, religion,
nationality, etc. etc. (all these categories left over from an
age of classical modernism and post-colonialism)), nothing is
left, and this nothingness leads nowhere to enlightenment, but
to those invisibilities which are always hammered into position
by others, but which always resist positionality as well; this
is the state of marooning, defined by the receding of that
instrumental past which at one point, close by, has seemed to be
heritage, but in fact was a social construct - the social
construct of time which, fast-forward, takes no time at all. It
is not that this too shall pass, but that this too has always
already passed, and where once the I-(pod) might have been,
there shall no longer be absence, but an absence of absence,
mute, ontological, nowhere and everywhere at all. There is no
answer because there is no time, and no evolution of our, or any
other species; there is only the time of slow cessation, on this
and other worlds, and the endpoint of invisibility is this -
that one is invisible because there is nothing to be seen. This
is no longer brilliant weather, but fabrication bending under
the weight of its own collapse, as popular culture demonstrates
over and over again, and we all succumb to its charms, just as
news, here in Providence, flails out with the slogan 'news you
can trust,' and advertisements hawk replacements and necessities
with the slogan 'just for you.' No one drives these, no one
receives them; events as well are marooned 

nettime Empyre list discussion on ISIS, Absolute Terror, Performance

[Alan Sondheim]

Empyre list discussion on ISIS, Absolute Terror, Performance


Please consider joining the November discussion on Empyre. All
you have to do is join empyre; more information is below. The
discussion starts this Monday, November 3rd, and runs until
December. There are amazing presenters. From the precis:

The world seems to be descending into chaos of a qualitatively
different dis/order, one characterized by terror, massacre,
absolutism. Things are increasingly out of control, and this
chaos is a kind of ground-work itself - nothing beyond a
scorched earth policy, but more of the same. What might be a
cultural or artistic response to this? How does one deal with
this psychologically, when every day brings new horrors? Even
traditional analyses seem to dissolve in the absolute terror
that seems to be daily increasing.

We are moderating a month-long investigation on Empyre into the
dilemma this dis/order poses. We will ask a variety of people to
be discussants in what, hopefully, will be a very open
conversation. The debate will invite the empyre community to a
deep and uncomfortable analysis of abject violence, pain,
performance, and ideology [taking further the October 2012
debate on Pain, Suffering, and Death in the Virtual], looking at
the ambivalences of terror, incomprehensible emotions, and our
own complicity in the production of 'common sense' around
terror.

Co-moderators: Johannes Birringer and Alan Sondheim.

About the empyre email list:

http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/

-empyre- is a global community of new media artists, curators,
theorists, producers, and others who participate in monthly
thematic discussions via an e-mail listserv.

-empyre- facilitates online discussion encouraging critical
perspectives on contemporary cross-disciplinary issues,
practices and events in networked media. The list is currently
co-managed by Renate Ferro (USA) and Tim Murray (USA).
Melinda Rackham (AU) initiated -empyre- as part of her doctoral
research in 2002.

-empyre- welcomes guest moderators who organize discussions for
one month. After more than ten years, -empyre- soft-skinned
space continues to be a platform dedicated to the plurality of
global perspectives reaching out beyond Australia and the
Northern Hemisphere to greater Asia and Latin America.


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nettime Net Neutrality Rules Struck Down by DC Court (fwd)

[Alan Sondheim]

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:49:47
From: NAMAC j...@namac.org
To:  sondh...@panix.com
Subject: Net Neutrality Rules Struck Down by DC Court


 Connecting You to the Media Arts Community

Court Strikes Down Net Neutrality

In a blow to Net Neutrality, today the DC Circuit Court struck down
the Federal Communications Commission?s Open Internet Order that
prevents Internet service providers from giving preferential treatment
to some online content over other.


This is a huge blow to all who currently make independent media
works that rely on an open Internet. Media works created outside the
commercial industry may now be relegated to the ?slow lanes?, thereby
marginalizing public interest and artistically expressive works. We
cannot allow this to happen!?? The Internet must remain open and
available to all, as it currently is, to ensure that Internet users
have equal, unfettered access to content, and creators may distribute
their work without artificial constraints.??

The ruling?s only good news is that the Court established that the
power to create and enforce rules for the Internet rests with the FCC.
The time is now for the FCC, under the direction of the new Chairman
Tom Wheeler, to reclassify broadband service as a telecommunications
service rather than an information service.

Add your voice to our allies at Free Press?s petition to Restore Net
Neutrality!

Copyright ? 2014 NAMAC, All rights reserved.

You are receiving this email because you are affiliated with NAMAC as a
member or you opted into our newsletter through our website or other
communication.

Our mailing address is:
NAMAC145 Ninth Street
Suite 230
San Francisco, CA 94103






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nettime even in the u.s. -

[Alan Sondheim]

even in the u.s. - i was in Providence in the late 60s/early 70s doing 
computer art, showing in 71; there were people working with lightshows 
earlier than that. these histories are all canonic histories and ignore - 
at least in this country - a lot of what went on. chris funkhouser's 
Prehistoric Digital Poetry covers some of this ground. and this stuff 
sloughs off into people who built video and sound synthesizers using
analog computer components - we built one of the latter in 68 from 
scratch. it's like the 'history' of electronic lit in this country - 
things like irc/newgroups/bbs/moo and mud programming are usually 
excluded. what's needed is a monumental, encyclopedic, and generous 
accounting for as much as possible world-wide, not this focus on media 
artists who happened to grab media attention. i should mention that so 
much was visible from MIT, San Francisco, NYC, LA, etc., that regional 
work was almost entirely ignored.


- Alan


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nettime Death of a Hospital

[Alan Sondheim]

Death of a Hospital

Today we went to the LICH, Long Island College Hospital, for
neurology issues. The hospital is being closed down so developers
can build condominiums there. In our area there are seven 30+
storey buildings, condominiums scheduled for the next few years.
Current condos go for around $700,000 for a one bedroom. The
hospital has been the scene of protests in recent months; it
serves a large number of neighborhoods and in particular seems to
serve minorities. Patients were removed and sent elsewhere. An
emergency vehicle was turned away as the emergency rooms were
closed down, and someone died on the forty-five minute trip to the
nearest still-functioning place. A mayoral candidate was arrested
along with doctors and others a week or two ago. When we went,
there were, now, security guards everywhere, to make sure there
were no more protests. We were escorted to neurology by one of
them. They were on the street, they were guarding everything. A
receptionist was crying. Our doctor told us how he felt when his
bag and belongings were searched as he reported for duty. They
have maybe a month to clear out. The developers say they're
beautifying the waterfront. The hospital is beautiful, with
trees and gardens. The guards looked like thugs with military
haircuts. Some of them had the word Summit on their uniforms.
Their uniforms were black. I cannot describe the horror of all of
this - after the Barclay Center was built through subterfuge and
lies, including seizing buildings by eminent domain and declaring
the neighborhood blighted (which it wasn't) - now this.
Healthcare is collapsing in NYC; this is the second hospital I
know to shut down. LICH has been around for 155 years. There are
no really close-by others, and to get to others, you now have to
negotiate traffic jams created by the Barclay Center over a mile
away. LICH doesn't make a profit - it loses I think around 15
million a year. Since when is healthcare supposed to make a
profit? We are now at the bottom of developed countries in terms
of healthcare - there was a long report about this online. The
US idea of healthcare is increasingly moving in two directions -
every nicety and technological advance for the rich - and back-
breaking financial burdens for the rest of us. Obamacare doesn't
change this that much and it will probably be defeated anyway. The
horror of people I know struggling to stay alive in the US is
unimaginable. People are dying, are been driven into poverty, as a
result of greed. There's no way out. I wish these developers will
all get sick, unbearably, unbelievably, sick, sick to the point of
death - and beyond - and that they lose all their money and have
to get in lines for emergency care or be turned away at the door.
I wish them hell. They make live miserable for the rest of us. I
hope they go up in flames in this life because I sure don't
believe in hell.


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nettime Do we still engage?

[Alan Sondheim]

Do we still engage?

Do we still engage with Sartre? Do we still read Derrida? Do
they speak to us? Does Heidegger speak to us? Does Husserl? Is
Hegel still critical to our thinking? Does anyone read Sartre?
Does anyone think through Derrida? Do we think we've absorbed
Badiou? Is Badiou important? Is Shestov? Is philosophy dead or
dying? Is thinking philosophically still important? Does anyone
read Plotinus? Does St Augustine speak to us? Is Descartes
necessary? Have we absorbed Spinoza? Are we the better for
Kristeva? Is Butler still relevant? Is Russell? Have we absorbed
Wittgenstein? Do we still engage with Reichenbach? Is Latour
still important? Have we gone beyond Carnap? Is Peirce relevant?
Does anyone read James? Have we buried Marx? Does anyone think
through Freud? Is Arendt still necessary? Are we still inspired
by Jung? Do we relate to Plato? Is our world Aristotelian? Is
Nietzsche still necessary? Has philosophy disappeared? Have
people read Thom? Has Mill disappeared? Is Confucius
fundamental? Do we still grapple with Hobbes? Is Kant still an
inspiration? Are there answers to questions? Do we still learn
from Kierkegaard? Is Lacan still read? Does Maimonides speak to
us? Have we abandoned Fanon? Does anyone think through Kofman?
Is there any reason to consider Hui Shi? Has Zhuangzi turned the
world upside down? Does Parmenides offer solace? Does anyone
read Goodman any more? Do we still engage with Bachelard? Is
Balibar important? Is philosophy important? Do we consider West?
Is Ranciere dead? Does Althusser still speak to us? Is the
thought of Merleau-Ponty important to anyone? Is there anything
to learn anymore from philosophy? Do we still read Trotsky? Is
Grene still relevant? Have we absorbed Cassirer? Is philosophy
of science science? Is philosophy of science necessary? Do we
still read Langer? Is thought important? Is untethered thought
necessary? Is philosophy tethered? Are we engaged with de
Beauvoir? Do we remember Deleuze? Do we consider Guattari? Do
Deleuze and Guattari offer solace? Is there any value in reading
Lyotard? Have we forgotten Kripke? Have we ever comprehended
Baudrillard? Is there any point to philosophy? Does philosophy
worsen us? Is it necessary to think philosophically? Is it
relevant to abandon philosophy? Have we taken Lao Tzu to heart?
Are we trusting Agamben? Have we forgotten Schopenhauer? Do we
still read Schelling critically? Is Heraclitus still inspiring?
Can our lives be guided by Pascal? Are we informed by Whitehead?
Do we comprehend the depth of any thought? Do we take thought to
heart? Do we still engage with Lucretius? Do we still read
Irigaray? How do we know?


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nettime Incident at YYZ Toronto International Airport

[Alan Sondheim]

Incident at YYZ Toronto International Airport


We were in Toronto for the HASTAC Conference at York University.
We left Sunday late afternoon. At the airport we checked our bag.
We then took the bag through customs. We went through several
stages. We had the bag tagged. We showed our boarding-passes and
passports everywhere. We filled out the customs declarations. We
waited in lines. We went through a long line. Azure had her
boarding-pass stamped. The Canadian official forgot to stamp mine.
We went through another line. We turned things in. I was stopped
two stops later and told to return to the Canadian official. The
line to reach him took a half hour the first time. I walked two
stops back. I reached a U.S. official who had allowed us through
the first time. I said do I have to go through the whole line
again. I was annoyed. He told me I was being rude. He started
yelling. He told me one of the three Canadian soldiers present
would escort me back [it was to booth 20]. He was furious. He said
if the soldiers have time. He said be polite to them. He said
don't interrupt them. He said be nice to them. He was glaring at
me. And for a moment I felt I was in a foreign country, the United
States of America. He was bullying. His sarcasm was stupid. His
insults were flat. His eyes impaled. Other people watched. He kept
his eyes focused 'in that male gaze way' on me. He wanted me to
challenge him. He wanted to arrest me for something. He wanted to
humiliate me. I said nothing. The soldier was fine, the Canadian
official joked with me, the U.S. guy let me through. I didn't look
at him. People afterwards asked us what happened. I didn't know.
All I knew is that here was an ugly bullying American who liked a
uniform and didn't like me. Who wanted to arrest me; more, I was
sure he was going to hit me. I kept thinking: here's the police
and here's the police leakage across the border. You check INTO
the United States while still in Canada. Canada, throw them out.
I thought: this guy owns guns. I thought: this guy wants _action._
I thought of his pleasure: humiliation. I wanted to strike out at
him. I was powerless _there._ _There_ was _here._

I came back to the States and played cura and did this piece:

http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/1115 (best)
http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/stations.mp3

I wanted to play as many styles as possible in as short a time as
possible. But it's long. I want to wrap the strings around his
eyes. I want to slam him to the ground. He turns me ugly. He turns
me enemy combatant. He turns me _collateral damage._

I don't play guns with cura. Of the music: cura _cures._




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nettime the HASTAC docx file as rtf - this might be easier

[Alan Sondheim]

Hi - some people couldn't open the http://www.alansondheim.org/hastac.docx 
file; please try http://alansondheim.org/hastac.rtf - this might be easier. 
Both will probably download the file to your download directory; it should be 
easy to open from there. Feedback welcomed.

Thanks, Alan


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nettime ========================================= dead music (fwd)

[Alan Sondheim]

=

dead music

=

i do dead music: music of the dead, music by the dead, music for the dead.
sometimes someone listens over my shoulder until our bones fall off. our
bones are bright bracelets but the music goes out. sometimes someone does
dead music. yes because the dead are eternally with us, and my music, at
least to me, appears stillborn. I'm not sure what you mean like all
elements; objects have resonances but if they're chaotic enough they'd
cancel out. Meanwhile for us humans most music dies unrecorded and
probably unheard except for the musician - because I work the graveyard
shift. because there's nothing dreamed of in this world, there's just the
world. because the world does not dream. because it does not i do dead
music. my saz was made by ahmet tekeli a famous saz player. there is a
picture of him in Rebecca Bryant, The soul danced into the body: Nation
and Improvisation in Istanbul. the label reads Figure 5. Saz greats in a
_meyhane_ (bar/restaurant): Left to right, Semsi Yastiman, Kastamonulu
Yorgansiz Hakki Baba, and Ahmet Tekeli in Kastamonu, 1967 (courtesy of
Sinan Yastiman). my saz now has violin pegs, six working strings, a bridge
positioned upon veneer, a somewhat damaged headstock, a poorly-painted
bowl (black), and cracks. the sound is the sound of the dead. on my suroz,
the sound is the sound of the dead. do i play for myself. i imagine all
instruments in flight from the open window ascending silently into the
sky. i imagine they call for me. tonight i walked among them strumming the
open strings. they say, whatever you do is insufficient, your hands are
torn and crippled, your mind bedraggled, you think about death and your
thinking is a dream. i cannot reply unless i dream, and my dreams are
nightmares of death and close-knit families internally torn apart. on the
saz i play without error and without tradition, i know no songs, i cannot
sing anyway. to listen and play dead music is to inhabit the ashes of the
world. the world unsung has no history, no moments. it is the singing of
the world that transforms sound into speaking, that gives stories the
strength of continuing the history of death. our history is the history of
death and there is not, even for a moment, any other history. we do not
revive the past, we are drawn into its graves, we are already accumulation
and abyss. among ourselves with think we are talking. if you listen to a
recording of my saz you can imagine fingers in motion, the light weight of
the instrument, the smoothness of the neck, the roughness of the sound-
board from so many players. it is all grey, the color of non-existent when
the first whites and last blacks transform into last blacks, first whites.
that moment when death seeps through and you realize nothing has seeped in
all eternity, it has always been what we interpret in shuddering as motion
and meaning, just as we are forgetful and the promise or premise of the
fecundity of infinite worlds dies before the music has even a chance of
becoming-music, when it appears to take up residence, reside. besides, you
do not listen, and if you did, you would have to always listen, have
always listened. just in order to make an other order, to make an other.
which you cannot do. which is why i play for myself and it is always an
appeal and always unappealing. it refuses the raggedness of enlightenment
when something crackles and you believe you are transformed. but the
mountain is still a mountain. the mountain always was a mountain. the
solace of geologic time transforms it into flatness. notes are never
carved, they appear dream-like to inhabit the air. they do not. they are
not heard. there is possibility of hearing. there is no hearing. there is
no life, there is either death. there is no history and no death. there is
none of this. there is no writing. there is no sounding and no sounding-
out. nothing is heard. all music is dead music. i do dead music. i do dead
music: music of the dead, music by the dead, music for the dead. i do
nothing. in figure 5, ahmet stares at the camera with an odd expression.
he is on the right. he appears related to me. i am playing his saz which
has been changed through history. it is not his image and it is not ahmet
and he is not looking at anything. every statement precedes with a codicil
and is followed by a codicil. the codicil is mute. the codicil enunciates
the end of the universe within an imaginary belonging to the text. to the
statement. to every statement. the codicil is continuous reiteration. it
precedes and follows everything. it is within everything. it precedes and
follows every word. it is within every word. it precedes and follows every
letter. it is within every letter. it is within every sound. it is within
the sound of the saz. it is within the string and the vibration of the
string. it is the texture and textile of dreams. it precedes and follows
dreams. it is within 

nettime the difference between the new fiction and the old

[Alan Sondheim]

the difference between the new fiction and the old

is simple: we're increasingly forced to recognize
that we're buffeted in the universe, that we're
atom to mountain, that we're increasingly irrelevant
outside our own self-interest. so the narratives
are narratives of buffeting, of forces beyond our
understanding and control. we received entangled
messages of limited content from the cosmos; we
strangle ourselves in attempts to cohere, inhabit
instead of live within as abstraction - Heidegger,
where are you when we need you? we are the misery
of absolute annihilation within the matter of time;
we operate on smaller and smaller domains as if
space were a matter of local technologies and our
corporate love of them. the truth is that the truth
is incontrovertible, inconceivable, immense, beyond
our limitations, as multiverses become place-holders
in formulas and emptied signifiers. we believe in
universal knowledge, sentient networking, data-banks
of the world's intelligence, ignoring the real
physical devastation the planet shakes upon us. we
hold to the myths of an Internet of totalizing and
infinite connectivity, ignoring the buffeting in
favor of buffering, hold-fasts and clouds which are
still more phenomena of the mythos of placing and
placement. the buffeting will necessarily,
entropically, win out in the end, in a version of
Eliot's whimper, and it's this that's forming the
new germ of our cultures, hardly visible, but with
increasing presence as the surface of the planet
continues with its own branding of devastation.
write of buffeting, not buffering, and tell the
truth, while simultaneously the truth, under
erasure and corrosion, is annihilated, while both
voice and comprehension are permanently stilled.


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nettime RATTLING THE REPUBLICANS

[Alan Sondheim]

RATTLING THE REPUBLICANS

http://www.alansondheim.org/rattling.mp3

I want to rattle the Republicans; I want to SHAMANIZE them
I want to rattle their evil I want to SEND THEM TO HELL
All I can do is PLAY my MUSIC and play my SHAMANIC TRANCE
I did do TRANCE along with the DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
I did to RATTLE to RATTLE the REPUBLICANS AND SEND THEM
THEY ARE INCURABLE THEY SUCK THE MONEY FROM THIS COUNTRY
I want to rattle them I WANT TO SHAKE THEIR BONES
I WANT THEIR SKIN TO FALL FROM THEIR BONES
I PLAY SHAMAN TO THEM I PLAY SHAMAN AGAINST THEM
I PLAY SHAMAN AGAINST THEM
I SCREAM SARANGI AGAINST THEM
I WANT THEIR BONES TO FALL FROM THEIR BONES
I WANT THEIR POISON TO DESTROY THEM
I WANT MY MUSIC TO DESTROY THEM
I GIVE MY MUSIC TO THEIR DESTRUCTION
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE
I did do TRANCE




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nettime Internet immediate future, through E-Week

[Alan Sondheim]

You might want to check the following out; one of the things that 
fascinates me is the enormity of the next - and yet we continue to 
theorize as if it's somehow comprehended. I'm part of the Electronic 
Literature Organization for example, and mostly see the same names over 
and over again - and yet, with so many hundreds and hundreds of millions 
of people online, there have to be whole continents of thought we're 
unfamiliar with. I know in one area I'm concerned with - world-wide animal 
extinction - there are so many hotspots and so many populations on the 
move or in difficulty, that it's impossible to keep track of things, much 
less effect them. In any case, statistics like these are wake-up calls, 
but I'm not sure to what -


http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Networking/Cisco-The-Internet-in-2016-by-the-Numbers-394993/?kc=EWKNLNAV06012012STR1


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nettime Recent Books I'm In and Why They're Good

[Alan Sondheim]

Recent Books I'm In and Why They're Good


Ok, this is a bad way to begin reviews/announcements of some recent books
that discuss my work (in the midst of others of course); I'm not sure how
to do this modestly, or whether modesty would even be an issue. For me
these books have been important because much of what I've done, I thought
lost; my career is one of constant falterings, restarts, occasional
moments when it seems as if things are going to turn out well - then more
falterings, and so forth. I begin constantly; it's only a matter of time
before I collapse.

The truth is I also like these books for all sorts of reasons, so here
goes.

The most recent is also the most expensive, Garry Neill Kennedy's The Last
Art College: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1968-1978, MIT Press,
2012, around $70. I taught there several times during this period, as a
visiting artist or visiting faculty. The school was amazing; it had a
world-wide reputation with people like Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, and
Joseph Beuys coming up. There's a lot on Dan Graham and Ian Murray, who
was a student and catalyst at the time. The book's over 450 pages long,
large format, and includes a lot of work and statements by the people who
came through. NSCAD was a kind of paradise; students and faculty were
given tremendous latitude in their projects, and everyone was treated as
as valuable, and an artist. Simone Forti, Gerhard Richter, and Michael
Snow made books for the NSCAD Press. A lot of the energy and genius of the
place emanated from David Askevold, who headed the Projects class.
Krzysztof Wodiczko and Emmett Williams and Charlemagne Palestine were
there. Dorit Cypris and Sharon Kulik were students, Martha Wilson and
Kasper Koenig were there. I'm not sure of Martha's affiliation. The school
had a conceptual bent, but this was translated into thinking about and
through performance, painting, sculpture, and life. These were formative
years for me; in particular, I owe a lot to David and Ian. I wouldn't get
the book for me, however (god, what hubris); the totality of the volume
really shows what's possible in art education, and why art schools - which
seem to be on the decline (as is art education in the US at least, another
matter) - are really important in the world.

Along with this, Peggy Gale edited Artist Talk, 1969-1977, NSCAD Press,
2004 - transcriptions of talks given at the school. Artists include
Acconci, Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars, Dan Graham, Lawrence
Wiener, Patterson Ewen, Daniel Buren, and so forth - all males, it should
be noted (which is one of its faults - Laurie for example also gave a
talk). I'm in this as well with 43 pages of strangeness.

Even more recently than Kennedy's book, Jason Weiss just edited Always in
Trouble: An Oral History of ESP-DISK, The Most Outrageous Record Label in
America, Wesleyan University Press, 2012. Again, I'm part of the oral.
This book documents the company, which for all intents and purposes
introduced the free jazz of Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and Guiseppi
Logan; Michael Snow is in this as well. Ayler died years ago; the people
interviewed include Sunny Murray, Amiri Baraka, Gato Barbieri, William
Parker, Burton Greene, Logan, Roswell Rudd, Marion Brown, Milford Graves,
Ishmael Reed, John Tchicai, Gunter Hampel, and Sonny Simmons, among
others. There's a large section on Bernard Stollman, who founded the
company. If you're interested in free jazz, new music, experimental music,
alternative-anything, this book, I think, is a must read, along with
Valerie Wilmer's As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz. And
the music (forget me here) is unbelievable; both books serve as reasonably
good guides.

Chris Funkhouser has published two books on electronic writing; the latest
is New Directions in Digital Poetry, Continuum, 2012. There's a section on
me, for which I'm grateful. This is the best book I've seen on the subject
- it follows up on Funkhouser's Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology
of Forms, 1959-1995, Alabama, 2007. I'm in this as well. What Chris has
done, in both, is present the works of a great number of people, along
with commentary/theory; the writers/poets/artists include David Daniels,
Jim Andrews, Philippe Bootz, mIEKAL aND, Laurie Anderson, Brian Kim
Stefans, Stephanie Strickland, John Cayley, Mez (Mary Anne Breeze), Talan
Memmott, Caitlin Fisher, Sandy Baldwin, Deena Larsen, and many others. New
Directions is divided into case studies, Prehistoric focuses on history,
but both volumes overlap past and present. I love Funkhouser's writing,
which is clear, energetic, amazingly lucid, and really useful for anyone
trying to follow the roots and current landscape of an incredibly messy
area of contemporary - what? literature, programming, poetry, thought,
culture, interactive work, new media? The books are exciting with numerous
examples.

The intensity of Maria Damon's art and writing is phenomenal; her
Postliterary America, 

nettime Aesthetics of Improvisation: Intermissions, Interruptions, and Digressions in Performance

[Alan Sondheim]

Aesthetics of Improvisation:

Intermissions, Interruptions, and Digressions in Performance


At the Sunday talk/video/dance given by Foofwa at the 92nd St. Y, he
talked about the relationship between complex choreography and inter-
ruptions in his piece based on Cage, THiRtEEn. We talked about this later
and I related the discussion to my own improvisation work, as well as
performances I'd done in Second Life, with other musicians, and so forth.
I began to think of a taxonomy of interruptions, realizing that I was
heading into muddy hermeneutics at the least, as well as splitting
epistemologies and fractured phenomenologies. I revived the idea of the
'fissure,' a break in the midst of A and A, which doesn't change the
entity; the split remains, temporary or permanent, as a glitch, but not -
as in negation, an ontological process.

So we begin with a choreography (which may also be a musical score,
theatrical text, etc.) which is absolute in the sense that the real is
absolute; it forms a foreground and background structure which the
performer follows to the best of hir abilities, without break, with a
sense of inhabiting the piece which is almost unconscious, and with a
repertoire of technique that, hopefully, can be taken for granted - a form
of tacit knowledge that allows the piece to flow smoothly, from beginning
to end. Think of this absolute choreography as an impossibility, as the
performer adjusts hirself throughout the presentation: nothing is or can
be perfect, because no choreography operates as natural law, and
interpretation is part of the very atmosphere of any performance.

We are talking about human performance here, not machine or program
performance, where choreographies may repeat themselves endlessly without
error, or with the repetition of the same error growing either linearly or
exponentially. Let us think, without error.

There is always the question, or the state, of the freedom of the
performer, who has agreed, often under contract and capital, to perform
and rehearse a piece, for perhaps a set amount of time, with various
riders attached, for example drowning as an act of God.

What can happen? Here we enter into the phenomenologies, the taxonomies,
of behavior in relation to structure: the coupling is always a loose coup-
ling.

The performer may repeat or elide a section or sections of the choreo-
graphy, This may be the result of forgetting the section or sections; it
may be a conscious decision; it may be the result of an other cue; it may
be the result of muscle strain or other sense of injury. It may also occur
as a result of play. All of these situations imply different intentions,
different intentionalities: forgetting can also connect to a suturing, for
example, so that the performer does not know s/he has elided something -
s/he remains within the aegis of the dance, inhabiting the dance, in spite
of (perhaps) the consciousness, from outside, of something amiss - as if
there were differing hermeneutics and strata of the same choreography:
someone performing, someone reading, someone watching. A sense of injury
or strain tends to foreground the body; if the pain is minor, the
performer may attempt to circumscribe it, detour 'around' the section, as
if the detour _were_ the section. If the pain is major, the performer may
slip into a phenomenology of the body, backgrounding the choreography
which is then only an inscription under erasure (a differend; the
choreography is no longer speaking, no longer in control, no longer _in_
inscription).

The performer may make a conscious decision not to do the section or
sections, or to repeat them, or transform them according to any number of
semiotic operations. This may come out of an inhabitation of the dance,
leading hir elsewhere/elsewise; it may come out of a sense of play, as if
the dance were temporarily objectified, thrown for a loop, thrown out of
kilter; it may come out of a sense of play in which the dance is forgotten
and the section becomes the horizon itself.

The forgetting of the section may be a conscious forgetting, as the per-
former does something else, or nothing at all: the performer might rest,
might decide to rest; the performer's body might 'seem' to rest or decide
to rest. The daily, the everyday, is foregrounded; the performer has an
itch, wants to rest, needs to go to the bathroom; has a sense of the
giggles; remembers a recent argument or sex; starts laughing; is furious
at hirself; and so forth.

For the audience, the conscious forgetting, the everyday, may well be part
of the performance: did s/he forget hir lines or is this part of the
choreography, the score? Is this Brecht, Pirandello, their descendents? Is
this revolutionary theater, Occupy?

It may simply be everyday, a relationship or communality among people -
performers, choreographers, audience, within or beneath the problematic
sign of capital. For the performer, there may _never_ be a return to the
choreography; for the audience, there is 

nettime Prisonhouse of Age

[Alan Sondheim]

Prisonhouse of Age

Something has to be said about age and ageism, which is so pervasive in
our culture, that we're held down, tied up, unable to move. I'm told I
look good for my age; that I play like a much younger person. In a
performance I hear that a dancer, who died at 68, was in the middle of the
end of her life. A friend says that his uncle dying at the age of 72, is
quite old. Grandfathers and grandmothers on tv always look to retirement
and playing with the kids. Television ads are increasingly aimed towards
drugging us, those over 60 say, because of a variety of ailments we don't
have. We're frightened of falling and not getting up. We're no longer
mid-career artists, but a dying generation. We're waiting for the end.
Friends say that now we're waiting for us to die off, that every day
brings news of new deaths and again this isn't true. The rhetoric is
hurtful and isn't meant to be hurtful. The rhetoric is made out of bits
and pieces of the 'natural' progression from birth to death. We're the
AARP generation. We're the baby boomers are are demanding to suck social
welfare dry. We don't do anything. We're not worth listening to. We're
hippies and repeat the 60s. We just love listening to 60s music which
formed us. We're part of the social welfare state. Some of us who fought
in Vietnam are an embarrassment. Some of us who didn't are an
embarrassment. On tv we're told that 'all we have is our stories.'

If this happened to anyone at any age, the result would be unbearable.
We're not taken seriously. We're all waiting for us to pass away. We have
to prove ourselves repeatedly. We're the result of hidden prejudice. We're
on the way to dementia. We're on the way to Alzheimer's. We're told our
short-term memory isn't what it used to be. In the most well-meaning areas
of popular culture, we're forgetful. Our bones are weak and ready to
fracture. We have to exercise more. Our family has to be everything. We're
not eligible for grants and for jobs. We're eligible to die and the sooner
we do that, the less the embarrassment. In fact embarrassment is the key
to everything; we embarrass others. If we're sexual it's a joke. If we
remarry it's a joke. If we refuse our assigned place in the family it's a
joke.

I first ran into ageism at the age of 30, applying for a job as editor of
an art mag in Los Angeles. I've always been sensitive to it because I've
always been told I look and act 'younger than my age.' Now the violence of
age, an assigned number, a number we can't do anything about - almost but
not quite like the color of our skin - is foregrounded. I get turned down
for jobs because of it, illegal but of course there are always ways around
it.

My own feeling? If I can't do something now, just as if I couldn't do
something at 20, then so be it; I don't belong where doing that thing is
impossible. But otherwise, leave me alone, judge me on what I make, what I
say, and leave goddamn age out of it. Don't call me a generation and don't
tell me my best days are behind me. Don't tell me I'm in my golden years.

This may all seem minor, idiotic, to you. You have no idea, at least in
the US, how pervasive this is. There are pockets of resistance - Eyebeam
for example, where I was resident until a week or two ago, is a healthy
exception. But almost everywhere, the codes are in place, they're
suffocating. I'm offered seats on the subway - because of age, not because
I need them. People condescent, smile at me, since apparently I'm no
longer sexual, have no desires, know my place. I'm told I'm a child again,
that the elderly are child-like. I'm told I'm living on borrowed time. I'm
told there's not much time left. I'm told I should be grateful. I'm told I
have a loving family. I'm told my grandchildren are my future. I'm told my
children are my future. I'm told I have no future.

I'm told about generations, that I'm of this or that generation, that it's
now the turn of a new generation. I'm told what our generation thinks and
I can't recognize that. I'm told repeatedly that we were born before the
digital age, that we think differently. The fact this isn't true, none of
this is true, with people I know and I'm sure millions of people in this
country, is irrelevant. I'm lectured _to._ I'm talked _to._ I'm taken out
of the realm of instrumental thinking, consigned to a real which is a
total mirage, told to act my age and behave myself. People don't tell me
to retire, but they assume I'm headed that way. My theoretical work is
assumed dated, somewhere back probably with existentialism or Bateson. My
mind is supposedly elderly. Am I repeating myself? Did I forget something
here? Should I send a birthday gift? Should I ask a grandson or daughter
to drive for me, since I'm constantly running off the road? Should I start
preparing for the end? Should I become a consumer of culture, preferably
old tv shows and books, instead of a producer? It's remarkable how well I
look for my age! It's remarkable I haven't had any 

nettime Information Week discovers anonymous

[Alan Sondheim]

This articles, composed of ten panels, fascinates me in its illustration 
of the somewhat clandestine; Information Week tends to remain corporate 
from top to bottom but makes for interesting reading.


Mathew J. Schwartz 02/07/2012 Anonymous 'hacktivists' aim to expose what 
they call government and establishment hypocrisy. Take a closer look at 
the group, its offshoots, and its infamous attacks.


http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/security/attacks/232600322?cid=nl_IW_daily_2012-02-07_htmlelq=618b922918214eaeb02d72afd9040891

- And take a look for a style of presentation based on listing 10 key 
facts - a style adopted by any number of online magazines. Everything 
gets sewn up in the process, which is also entertaining and related (I 
think) to the hunt.


- Alan


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nettime two essays on memory and annihilation

[Alan Sondheim]

==



From performance with Monika Weiss, text written over six hours, at

Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, Feb 6, 2012:


flying blind means working without network or planning
this is flying blind. this is a broken network.
what collapses is the software, the timing, the indication
that things aren't going to continue in this fashion, that what
is here is irretrievable
skies don't last forever
pain is what happens when the network collapses.
then there is nothing but bangu, the drum
there's nothing else but absence, exhaustion
there's no inscription, emptiness or depletion
depletion is what happens when the words disappear
when the words disappear, there is nothing more to be said.
there are no hearers, no listeners. there is the blank wall.
i am living in the blank wall.
software collapses. these pilots are dead. these pilots have all 
died. they died NOW when the film was shot.

these people can't stand up.
these people are in the network.
these people are out of the network, these people are the ends of 
it.
if you want to know where the internet goes, it goes here, it ends 
here.

it ends with these people HERE.
it ends with their dance-distortion, their ecstatic dance-distortion
but the network, the network is gone
so they fly apart
if we knew what to say we wouldn't be so numb with pain
get your stem cells today! 
get your stem cells today!

do you know your skin is your largest organ?
MEN YOUR SKIN IS YOUR LARGEST ORGAN
we apologize for that intrusion.
you see, when you talk about your SKIN, you're talking about 
inscription, what can be said here, what's going on here, what's your 
history, you're still talking or at least you're yelling, you're 
doing something, you're not silent. but then -

you're not just music either, you're something else
if you could hear me -
I'd go so far as to make the claim that art has nothing to do with 
pain, at least abject pain, that pain from which there is no return. 
at that point, form and structure, inscription and discourse, 
disappear: so this presentation is an anomaly, senseless, this 
presentation cannot touch the subject AT HAND, it can only avoid the 
subject by necessity, it steers you elsewhere, as if there were 
something other than pain, as if there were AN OTHER.
it's certainly not located in the virtual, no matter how distorted 
the bodies appear.
they're appearances. they don't have the flesh, the interiority, 
tissues

they don't live where you expect them to
virtuality always gets a black eye.
the image always already disappears, it's this disappearance that 
permits the onset of pain. pain is the disappearance of the image; 
pain is welcomed by the disappearance.
time seems to find its way into errors, give time enough time, and 
errors will appear.
the errors are the first harbinger of pain, when time disappears; 
when you die, when you disappear, you will not know it, you will think 
your last thoughts, projects, that there is something in the corner 
of the room

god has commanded your stem cells
god has commended your stem cells
pray to god. your stem cells pray to god.
that requires a doing, not a speaking only
tenacity! determination! it's what ERIKA IS ABOUT!
she has sons and daughters!
sometimes we take a deep breath and organize
and then we are ready to begin again, but we find ourselves
without limbs, we find outselves silenced by God and our mouths
are stuff with some unknown substance, we cannot breathe, 
we can only whisper, our whispers take us nowhere, there is a moment

when we begin to know, just for a second, that our lives are ending,
that we are on the way out, and that second is extended, as is the
universe itself, until matter is blown apart, until nothing is left,
perhaps isolated protons or electrons, memory will be gone when data
is gone and data will be gone when the bases are goneI WILL END YOU 
I WILL FINISH YOU OFF I WILL ANNIHILATE YOU I WILL DESTROY YOU I WILL 
KILL YOU I WILL WOUND YOU I WILL CAUSE YOU UNUTTERABLE PAIN I WILL 
CREATE WOUNDS AMONG YOU AND PESTILENCE I WILL MURDER YOU AT MY WILL 
AND UNTOWARD DESIRE I WILL PERMIT MY WAYWARD BALANCE TO GET THE BETTER 
OF ME I WILL TURN AGAINST MYSELF I WILL TURN AGAINST ALL BELIEFS I 
WILL KILL YOU I WILL GIVE YOU UNUTTERABLE PAIN I WILL CREATE 
PESTILENCE AMONG YOU
YOU SEE WHEN ONE DISAPPEARS ANOTHER APPEARS. THE SERIES IS FINITE, 
CONTROLLED BY ENERGY, BY CAPITAL, BY MATERIAL WEARING-OUT, 
DISSOLUTION

THIS IS MY BODY IN REAL LIFE. THIS IS ALL THERE IS.
IT CAN'T TALK AND IT CAN'T THINK. ITS PAIN WILL KILL IT IN THE END.
NOW WE HAVE a new topic, one of the plague, of viral connections, 
memes gone wild, girls gone meme, language is a virus, we'll all make 
bacteria at eyebeam, the old animals and plants are disappearing but 
they're not patented (for the most part) and there's little room for 
them, they have to make way for newer models. so many shows to see!


Anja in preparation for 

nettime sondheimogram [x8]

[Alan Sondheim]

   [digested @ nettime == mod (tb)]

Alan Sondheim sondh...@panix.com

 PAIN.TXT: On (severe) Pain 
 War Against War, Krieg dem Kriege 
 in silence here 
 the idiotic poverty of pain 
 For Occupy Wall Street, Jesus' Third Way *
 Eyebeam Window Gallery Installation 
 Pompeii (the proper name, pompeii) 
 Quick reviews - recommended books - 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 04:36:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim sondh...@panix.com
Subject: PAIN.TXT: On (severe) Pain 

PAIN.TXT

On (severe) Pain

(dialog between Sandy Baldwin and Alan Sondheim)

In relation to pain:

Inexpressibility occurs because of the difficulty of expressing interior
states that might not have a clearcut symptomology (as thirst does, for
example) - and also because severe pain derails speech and language and
thought, as the internalized horizon of the flesh is muted or screams in
abeyance. All of this touches on the _pain of the signifier_ and its
inexpressible relation to death - (Alan)

=

I really like your phrase pain of the signifier in that final
installment on unprintability. I'm not sure how we think about it,
however.

On the one hand, pain is all that the signifier negates and forecloses.
So, there's a numbness to the signifier, an anaesthesia.

On the other hand, the signifier in the place of pain, as a kind of bad
suture, a bandaid.

On the third hand, is the real gamble, the crying or trembling of the
signifier, in its negation, trembling with the world that it is holding
off. How to show this? Or is it simply what shows up?

Sandy

=

Hi Sandy, doesn't pain negate and foreclose the signifier? The pain of the
signifier for me is the pain of the _incision_ accompanying inscription;
the world simultaneously expands and narrows. In Buddhism, I'd imagine
(I'm fuzzy at the moment) all signifiers equal and empty; suffering and
attachment imbues distinction with intentionality, capture.

The signifier's sharp; the numbness is what's created in the act of
distinction. So the signifier's x^-x, that stuff I wrote about a while
back about the intersection of a set and its complement relativized in
relation to the 'content' of the set; if x = apple, then 0-sub-apple is
the intersection of x^-x. So classically this is very sharp, 'smeared' out
in the real via abjection.

The signifier's not in the place of pain except for the observer; for the
person undergoing (severe) pain, there is no place at all: that's the
numbness. The signifier's the report; the distance between the report and
the pain is also painful...

Could you elaborate on the third hand? Not sure I understand - (Alan)

=

I'd say I was thinking about the signifier as something read, as an object
that I read into. Whereas I see in your reply the signifier as something I
write.

In the case of the reader, of myself as reader of the signifier of pain,
the incision is for you, the pain is yours. This fact makes pain *your
pain*, makes it witnessed, validated for me by that big other. The
signifier is communicated and read. You and I share in the signifier of
pain.

I would say it is beyond reading or non-reading to realize that the
emptiness of all signifiers. Every reading fictionalizes this, tells a
story of it, but it is only in non-reading that I really approach the
alterity of your pain.

So, I agree that for the person undergoing the pain there is no place; I
would go further: it is this inarticulate boundary that concerns me. The
signifier of pain as your pain - can I feel this? Only as reversibility,
as my pain (which in a Cartesian sense I would see as like your pain)?

As reader or receiver, I can push reading to impossible limits. I can
strip everything away from the report of the pain, every connotation,
every signification, to the point where I touch at the incised flesh of
the signifier and find the continuous flesh of the world, the great
surface where we all feel. And here it is no longer your pain / my pain.
Here signification is a kind of perturbation, wherein pain and pleasure
blur and float, pleasurepain.

Or - and this may not be an alternative but a supplementary dimension -
reading your pain must be already framed, consensually, as they say of
communicational domains. There must be pain before and beyond, which is to
say, beyond otherness, beyond the ultimate fact that the signifier is a
structural fact in the communication circuit. (The validation, the
implication of the big other I wrote of above. (In communication, the
price of signification is that it is always the others pain I read, never
yours, and the other's pain I write, never mine.)

I think, I think the beyond where I feel your pain no longer is
determined by the symbolics

nettime Interview with Katherine DiPierro, re: my Eyebeam residency

[Alan Sondheim]

Interview with Katherine DiPierro, re: my Eyebeam residency

http://eyebeam.org/blogs/katherinedipierro/eye-to-eyebeam-a-conversation-with-alan-sondheim
(her other interviews are excellent as well)


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