Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- halló -- perhaps better late than never, the flow of late is a bit much for me to manage as I'm editing a book right now as well... too many words! dear all, one can only thank those who have joined so far, and welcome Olga and Pia, and those who like Ana write through their memory pain and evoke the death of hope for human civilization; the destructive character seems to favor the slow or continual, steady collapse of all infrastructures –but John, you don't subscribe to annihilation, do you? annihilation -- no -- I'm too much of a scientist and perhaps quasi-Taoist -- supplementing phenomenological observation with consultations of the I Ching. The dynamic between order and disorder fluctuates at all spatial and temporal scales across the cosmos. And there is neither 'pure' chaos or 'pure' order, only a movement cycling along the line that connects the two (abstract) extremes. so, if anything, annihilation becomes the kernel of coming-to-be. I think often we humans fixate on our own monumental culture rather than taking a long view (we've only been around a few million years, so far all species are more-or-less transitory according to the fossil record). Why in our puny-ness do we think that we are the pinnacle of being? etc... And, somewhere, outside of my spirit, I get suspicious that all the violence is simply what life does to make sure the 'best' survives, and the altruism is a blip on the radar of evolution. Sounds cynical, and it doesn't explain any spiritual sentiments, but if the spiritual is idiosyncratic conjecture unless it's happening internally to one's self, there's certainly no way to 'prove anything'. And so we are left with telling each other stories in order to build up a transitory clan here, by the hyper-mediated network constructed by the military-industrial complex... sigh... [Pia schreibt] But you can never say that you are close enough. All the journalists and observers are left behind, arrive late at the scene. To be close enoughto know you have to be the killer or the victim. I think I would take the opposite stance -- to be alive is to be implicated, but more than that, it is to be as close as anyone to anything... the absolute 'beautiful terror' of incarnation... peace, jh -- ++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD grounded on a granite batholith twitter: @neoscenes http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/ ++ ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- dear Ana only a short remark, when I am writing about my pain and my memories I am also using literary tools, the body remembers but the language or the brain don't. I read Butler's Frames of War, Agamben's Homo Sacer and The remnants of Auschwitz to trace the mechanisms and the forms to perform the pain. You all maybe remember we had a good exchange in -empyre with Monica Weiss about public lamenting and how to show the collective mourning as exorcism and catharsis. yes, I do remember our discussions on certain literary and performance techniques or tools, used in writing or speaking pain. I meant that when I made my comment, and it was a recognition of your work, your embrace, and yet also implicitly, a question and thus a comment on your lament for all, and whether this is an aspect of collective mourning that you, or others here, find effective or even possible, in the face of despair? the leveling field approach is what Pia objected to, no? when she argued that political contexts are different. The spectacle of the scaffold (Jon), does it not also differ from place to place? from place to media (and those Tv or youtube serials of humiliation)? I am now translating a short text written by my friend the Uruguayan writer Alicia Migdal. She was one of -empyre guests when I was moderating the list 2012. She is quoting Agamben as well. I will be back with her translated text, she writes in Spanish and I am just now translating it. dear Ana, why not send us the Spanish text of your friend? I have always encouraged, in debates I moderated, that any language is welcome and the more we are willing to listen to others, and try to translate, the more we engage. Johannes you are raised in Germany I assume you are familiar with Heinrich Böll's writing. For me his best book is [Billiards at Half Past Nine] , a very powerful novel about an elderly architect who builds a church (maybe a cathedral, I don't exactly remember it), his son, an architect and engineer who destroys the church because it's strategical value and the youngest of them, an architect who is rebuilding it. Shrines and churches and mosques and synagogues are built and rebuilt and they live in the memory, as in Calvino's Invisible Cities. I was several times in Damascus and visited the Omeya mosque it was a Christian church before a Roman temple and in the beginning a Babylonian sacred place. The gods chose always the same spot to be worshipped :) Ana Valdés Very interesting literary references you make, to Böll and Calvino, just as others here however reminded us of the annihilation attempts (in epic and mythic histories, such as Iliad or Mahabharata, and real histories of colonization) One could almost find hope in reading these poetic romances of the invisible cities we must imagine. Entonces, certain imaginations must be more privileged than others? warm regards Johannes Birringer dap-lab http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Gracias, Johannes, por alentarnos a escribir en nuestros idiomas identitarios y no en el omnipresente inglés, y por generar el compromiso de lectura y de escucha que es uno de los temas implícitos en esta situación de pensamiento colectivo atravesado por el terror al otro. alicia 2014-11-06 12:23 GMT-02:00 Johannes Birringer johannes.birrin...@brunel.ac.uk: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- dear Ana only a short remark, when I am writing about my pain and my memories I am also using literary tools, the body remembers but the language or the brain don't. I read Butler's Frames of War, Agamben's Homo Sacer and The remnants of Auschwitz to trace the mechanisms and the forms to perform the pain. You all maybe remember we had a good exchange in -empyre with Monica Weiss about public lamenting and how to show the collective mourning as exorcism and catharsis. yes, I do remember our discussions on certain literary and performance techniques or tools, used in writing or speaking pain. I meant that when I made my comment, and it was a recognition of your work, your embrace, and yet also implicitly, a question and thus a comment on your lament for all, and whether this is an aspect of collective mourning that you, or others here, find effective or even possible, in the face of despair? the leveling field approach is what Pia objected to, no? when she argued that political contexts are different. The spectacle of the scaffold (Jon), does it not also differ from place to place? from place to media (and those Tv or youtube serials of humiliation)? I am now translating a short text written by my friend the Uruguayan writer Alicia Migdal. She was one of -empyre guests when I was moderating the list 2012. She is quoting Agamben as well. I will be back with her translated text, she writes in Spanish and I am just now translating it. dear Ana, why not send us the Spanish text of your friend? I have always encouraged, in debates I moderated, that any language is welcome and the more we are willing to listen to others, and try to translate, the more we engage. Johannes you are raised in Germany I assume you are familiar with Heinrich Böll's writing. For me his best book is [Billiards at Half Past Nine] , a very powerful novel about an elderly architect who builds a church (maybe a cathedral, I don't exactly remember it), his son, an architect and engineer who destroys the church because it's strategical value and the youngest of them, an architect who is rebuilding it. Shrines and churches and mosques and synagogues are built and rebuilt and they live in the memory, as in Calvino's Invisible Cities. I was several times in Damascus and visited the Omeya mosque it was a Christian church before a Roman temple and in the beginning a Babylonian sacred place. The gods chose always the same spot to be worshipped :) Ana Valdés Very interesting literary references you make, to Böll and Calvino, just as others here however reminded us of the annihilation attempts (in epic and mythic histories, such as Iliad or Mahabharata, and real histories of colonization) One could almost find hope in reading these poetic romances of the invisible cities we must imagine. Entonces, certain imaginations must be more privileged than others? warm regards Johannes Birringer dap-lab http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true/para empyre
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- [Alicia schreibt] Gracias, Johannes, por alentarnos a escribir en nuestros idiomas identitarios y no en el omnipresente inglés, y por generar el compromiso de lectura y de escucha que es uno de los temas implícitos en esta situación de pensamiento colectivo atravesado por el terror al otro. Hola, Alicia! muy bienvenida a nuestra mesa redonda... y gracias por tu mensaje. Hai visto una nueva película sobre la primera guerra mundial (curiosamente, como casualidad, el título italiano es difícil, así, en inglés = The grass will be back /They will return the meadows /Return the Lawns)... pero, yo tenía dos pequeñas preguntas: por favor explique lo que querías decir por: este actual universo de erotización aniquiladora por muerte y violencia thinking about this actual universe of annihilated erotization by death and violence? y la nuda vida, la biopolítica y el estado de excepción permanente (sobre los que ha pensado Giorgio Agamben) the bare life, the biopolitics, and the permanent state of exception (as adressed by Giorgio Agamben) Homo sacer de Agamben se define como aquel que puede ser asesinado y no sacrificó -- pero el militante yihadista se ofrece a ser un mártir, que puede ser sacrificado, pero no mató? ¿cómo ve el avant-garde del Estado Islámico?esto puede discutir que implica la ética del suicidio. * According to Agamben, the homo sacer is defined as one who can be killed but cannot be sacrificed? (not sure i fully understand the theory), but the militant Jihadist offers to be a martyr, who can be sacrificed, but not killed? How do you read the militant Jihadist avant-garde? saludos Johannes Birringer * por favor, comparar, Joseph Pugliese, Necroethics of Terrorism Law Critique, 21 (2010), 213-31. (Pugliese discute el testimonio del terrorista suicida (de Londres)) ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Hola yo he recibido solo en ingles. Si hay un espacio en español o francés, yo participo encantada! Vivian Fritz UFR des Arts Université de Strasbourg www.seuil-lab.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear Vivian, as Johannes so kindly pointed out we should be able to express ourselves in the language we feel more comfortable or at ease. Querida Vivian, como Johannes lo ha escrito tan simpáticamente, deberíamos poder expresarnos en esta lista en el lenguaje en el que nos sentimos más cómodos! Escribe en espanol o en francés y lo traducimos al inglés para los que no pueden leer o castellano o francés! Write in Spanish or French and we translate it into English for them who can't read Spanish or French! Ana 2014-11-07 3:32 GMT-02:00 FRITZ Vivian (SAC) vdfr...@unistra.fr: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Hola yo he recibido solo en ingles. Si hay un espacio en español o francés, yo participo encantada! Vivian Fritz UFR des Arts Université de Strasbourg www.seuil-lab.com ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu -- http://www.twitter.com/caravia15860606060 http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/ http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0 cell Sweden +4670-3213370 cell Uruguay +598-99470758 When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return. — Leonardo da Vinci ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- thank you Jon, for already joining in and for your comments! allow me thus to welcome Jon McKenzie to the table, he is amongst the guests we had invited for this month. * [bio] Jon McKenzie is Director of DesignLab, a digital composition center, and Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, where he teaches courses in performance theory and new media. He is the author of Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance (Routledge 2001) and such articles as “Global Feeling: (Almost) All You Need is Love,” “Performance and Globalization,” and “Towards a Sociopoetics of Interface Design.” He is also co-editor of Contesting Performance: Global Sites of Research (Palgrave 2011). Jon has also produced a number of experimental video essays, including The Revelations of Dr. Kx4l3ndj3r (2012) and This Vile Display (2006), and gives workshops on performative scholarship and smart media. His work has been translated into a half-dozen languages. + + + As was pointed out so eloquently in the book by Rustom Bharucha I cited yesterday, researching the theme of terror and performance made Rustom realize that the discourse on terror had hugely proliferated (especially after the Iraq wars and the 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center in NY), but the discourse on performance had also spread greatly As the category of 'performance' expands into new areas of investigation like Performance Management and Techno Performance, whose interdependent genealogies have been brilliantly mapped by Jon McKenzie, the older associations of 'performance' in performance studies drawn from the practices of theatre and ritual anthropology have come under considerable stress (p. xv). Thanks Rustom for introducing Jon in this way. And thank Alan for moving forward questions to our participants and stimulating the dialogue. Once again, we invite everyone to the table. warm regards Johannes Birringer + + + [Alan schreibt] (Erik.. A question in regard to the plays - What is the effect on the actors themselves, what do they take away? Is activism an issue? Can there even be activism 'around' terror? What would that be? But with the plays and actors, what happens internally? I remember at times students reduced to immobility at times... And Olga, I have two questions: Is there any way you can relate your work to ISIS and annihilation; does it relate? I'm thinking that the form of ISIS and many other groups is close to formless; on one hand, a caliphate, and on the other, a kind of formless and violent vandalism. The second question: Did the soldiers ever question, speak of resistance? During the Vietnam War, US military personnel became increasingly demoralized, and there was such. (Apologies for my naivete here.) ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- dear all, one can only thank those who have joined so far, and welcome Olga and Pia, and those who like Ana write through their memory pain and evoke the death of hope for human civilization; the destructive character seems to favor the slow or continual, steady collapse of all infrastructures – but John, you don't subscribe to annihilation, do you? the contemporary focus on, literally, digging up the past and preserving it has limits. (We probably only do so because we have such a glut of energy flowing around our 'developed' world, because re-organizing the past in any form (from library to archive to buildings) definitely takes energy!). this interested me (the limit, and the changes too, in contexts of preservation), also in relation to Erik's and Jon's ferociously provocative texts on the clichés (trailers all, of moves/choreographies and movies predictabled) and the spectacle of the scaffold. [Jon schreibt] Human rights are fraying, while democratic torture practices are being bootlegged and remixed in the global theater of cruelty. Infrastructurally, alongside the democratization of media technologies unfolds the democratization of reservoirs of violence, violence stored and reanimated from bodily repertoires, historical archives, and digital databases. Pia, human rights violation observer in Gaza and West Bank, tell us what human rights, then? what rights for the normalistas, people on the ground, to one side of the wall or border, and for those who cling to survival, or fear the imagined coming-to -be-experienced (tales of) tortures? Pia the last line of your doubled post left me speechless; and so I wish not to continue here, also needing to reflect on Olga's findings and strategies to speak to combatants and those for whom killing is just a job, not even a banality (of evil), but mere professonalism (not to be talked about, not worth mentioning?). Olga you had mentioned to me a trailer of your Soldiers of the Last Empire -- do you wish us to see it, after what Erik wrote? Your performance techniques of self interest me a great deal, in your context (and I want to read Judith Butler's Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable [Verso 2010] to see whether performance of precarious being is a workable theory). [Pia schreibt] But you can never say that you are close enough. All the journalists and observers are left behind, arrive late at the scene. To be close enough to know you have to be the killer or the victim. regards Johannes Birringer ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Johannes, only a short remark, when I am writing about my pain and my memories I am also using literary tools, the body remembers but the language or the brain don't. I read Butler's Frames of War, Agamben's Homo Sacer and The remnants of Auschwitz to trace the mechanisms and the forms to perform the pain. You all maybe remember we had a good exchange in -empyre with Monica Weiss about public lamenting and how to show the collective mourning as exorcism and catharsis. I am now translating a short text written by my friend the Uruguayan writer Alicia Migdal. She was one of -empyre guests when I was moderating the list 2012. She is quoting Agamben as well. I will be back with her translated text, she writes in Spanish and I am just now translating it. Ana On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 8:17 PM, Johannes Birringer johannes.birrin...@brunel.ac.uk wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- dear all, one can only thank those who have joined so far, and welcome Olga and Pia, and those who like Ana write through their memory pain and evoke the death of hope for human civilization; the destructive character seems to favor the slow or continual, steady collapse of all infrastructures – but John, you don't subscribe to annihilation, do you? the contemporary focus on, literally, digging up the past and preserving it has limits. (We probably only do so because we have such a glut of energy flowing around our 'developed' world, because re-organizing the past in any form (from library to archive to buildings) definitely takes energy!). this interested me (the limit, and the changes too, in contexts of preservation), also in relation to Erik's and Jon's ferociously provocative texts on the clichés (trailers all, of moves/choreographies and movies predictabled) and the spectacle of the scaffold. [Jon schreibt] Human rights are fraying, while democratic torture practices are being bootlegged and remixed in the global theater of cruelty. Infrastructurally, alongside the democratization of media technologies unfolds the democratization of reservoirs of violence, violence stored and reanimated from bodily repertoires, historical archives, and digital databases. Pia, human rights violation observer in Gaza and West Bank, tell us what human rights, then? what rights for the normalistas, people on the ground, to one side of the wall or border, and for those who cling to survival, or fear the imagined coming-to -be-experienced (tales of) tortures? Pia the last line of your doubled post left me speechless; and so I wish not to continue here, also needing to reflect on Olga's findings and strategies to speak to combatants and those for whom killing is just a job, not even a banality (of evil), but mere professonalism (not to be talked about, not worth mentioning?). Olga you had mentioned to me a trailer of your Soldiers of the Last Empire -- do you wish us to see it, after what Erik wrote? Your performance techniques of self interest me a great deal, in your context (and I want to read Judith Butler's Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable [Verso 2010] to see whether performance of precarious being is a workable theory). [Pia schreibt] But you can never say that you are close enough. All the journalists and observers are left behind, arrive late at the scene. To be close enough to know you have to be the killer or the victim. regards Johannes Birringer ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu -- http://www.twitter.com/caravia15860606060 http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/ http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0 http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/ cell Sweden +4670-3213370 cell Uruguay +598-99470758 When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return. — Leonardo da Vinci ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] language/discourse on terror, reporting the virtually true
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- On 05/Nov/14 15:17, Johannes Birringer wrote: regards Johannes Birringer -- ++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD grounded on a granite batholith twitter: @neoscenes http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/ ++ ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
