[NetBehaviour] On Being Dead / On My Deadwork / My Work is Dead

[Alan Sondheim]

On Being Dead / On My Deadwork / My Work is Dead


Deadwork is invisible work; deadwork is virtual work. When there is
nothing but the image and the memory of the image, there is deadwork. When
the producing tribe cannot read, can only reinterpret, there is deadwork.
Deadwork does not enter the cycle of capital; it no longer exists; it
never has existed. Deadwork is deadly work; it is the death of the
producing culture. The culture knows it. The culture is ready for its
death.

My work is dead. It is not spoken. It is invisible in the building at
Eyebeam and disappears as a future anterior online. In the space, it
huddles. In the space it hides in cracks in crevices, in the remains of an
s/m parlor perhaps, in the remains of a parking garage perhaps, in the
remains if a silent film studio perhaps. The building is scarred; my work
devolves, unscars, dissolves. It is a shadow on a scar. It is the huddle
beneath the cicatrice.

If hug is a hut, it is also a huddle, memories huddle. It is the hulk of
memories in the huddle, the hull carrying forth the moon into the day. The
moon huddles in the wane of day; the moon is a building, is a shadow of a
scar. The moon is deadwork; we move into space to bear witness to the
shadows. We are the inconceivable of life. We are neither remnant nor
residue; we are its remainder.

The remainder of life is its divisor. It what occurs after the _cleave._ I
have meant to write about the cleave, to devolve it. When the windmill
generator cleaves the sky, you say that nothing is cut, nothing
disappears, and a pretty picture. But blades cleave hulls of birds and
birds die; birds die everywhere. In the cleaving of the birds we do our
deadwork.

For work to live it must be a word; it must be a spoken word. A spoken
word is acknowledged, it is communal. Deadwork is dead language; it
participates in the 'might as well,' 'might as well disappear,' 'might as
well not be there,' 'might as well collapse the building and the culture
that produced it.' The word is a world that inheres to violence; the word
cleaves. The word cleaves itself; always suicidal, it is always under
erasure, always dis-appearing. It is the appearance of disappearance and
that is why words are uncanny, why poetry is uncanny, why a scream
cleaves... and is uncanny.

My work is dead; it is unreadable, tends towards an uncanny death, begu,
the dead soul. It struggles for a home, for the pronunciation of an other,
an other mouth. I imagine fingers tracing in the air. I imagine
heterogeneity. It disappears; it goes away; it's gone.

But my work is dead; it pronounces. It is part of speech, grammar. It is a
category and it is not particular. By this it means it will announce,
anywhere and anytime. It refuses distinction (beyond the elementary
particles) (beyond dark matter); it is always collapsing. The building is
always collapsing but the building is a hearth where hearts murmur and
beings are born. Deadwork is an opposite; it is always dying. It insists,
insists on life (like a young child) (like a brat); it burns for this
life. But there isn't much time left and it's dead, yes, and dying.

I am Nikuko and I am Jennifer and I am Alan and I am Julu and these are my
words and they are _canny._


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Nikuko says:

The truth is, you're reading dead words on a dead screen, and there's
proper names are killed, our dead words spike us in our throats our
mouths

Jennifer says:

   dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu
honshu incense kamogami smoke, dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu
your dead words are your pens and pencils, skin and languages?
your dead words are fucked and blank?
dead words, these lips hardly move, names are just that, it's the force of
my dead words have no comfort, no comfort now, there was a moment, i re-
member, your dead words are your love?
proper names are killed, our dead words spike us in our throats our
mouths

Alan says:

   dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu
honshu incense kamogami smoke, dead words in beauty-smoke kyushu
your dead words are your pens and pencils, skin and languages?
my words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead.
words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead. falls
This is why existence is a dead word and sex is not; sex starts inside
my words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead.
words my i want to die. try dead words head. bones to old. my lead. falls
This is why existence is a dead word and sex is not; sex starts inside.

Julu says:


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