[NetBehaviour] Some Simple Ideas (to the point of uselessness)

[Alan Sondheim]

Some Simple Ideas (to the point of uselessness)


http://www.alansondheim.org/P1060683.JPG
atomic weapon casing from the RAF Museum
http://www.alansondheim.org/P1060831.JPG
from the Petrie Museum of Egyptology

These motivate me and the currency of my work now -

1 Once digital imagery was created, it was clear that it was
possible to change a single pixel independent of the whole. This
irrevocably altered the nature of truth and facticity in everything
we do and think; it altered the very nature of the world for us.
Nothing would ever be the same. (No longer was there 'same.') The
single pixel transformed our very being in the world.

2 AI will produce great poetry from the viewpoint of someone in
pain or dying, great and artificial testimonies from the viewpoint
of genocide, scorched earth, annihilation to the limit. There is a
fundamental difference, however, between AI generation of a
literature based on these experiences, and a literature of the
testimony of bodies, from bodies to bodies, what in the future
might be called somatic literature (somatic thought, somatic being
in the world).

3 Combining 1 and 2, it is possible for the difference for the
reader to be annihilated, as if there were somatic ghosting at the
very root of culture, as if bone and pixel were lost, absorbed in
cyborgian neoliberalisms.

4 There is a moot state and stage when extinction of a species
occurs, the absolute end of a lineage - occurring as well when any
organism is killed.

5 There is a moot future when global extinction will occur; this
comes. Everything we do is necessarily in relation to this. A
complete transformation of human thought, technology, and behavior
would be necessary, now, to reverse the ongoing chaos and
desecration of the planet. There is no reason to be optimistic
about survival given this state of affairs. (In fact, populations
are increasingly dominated by absolutisms, strongmen, militias.)

(An aside - whether the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the rich
manage to survive through this is of no concern to me. The
fecundity of the planet is descending to degree zero, inexorably
dying off.)

6 My own work is based on the somatic/organic under siege; it is
it is based on the distinction between inscription (this and that)
and fissure (this and this); it is based on failure and inadequacy;
it is based on the distinctions among gamespace, edgespace, and
blankspace; it circulates around annihilation to the limit; but it
also makes space for workspace, createspace, networkspace within
and without the ruins.

7 And last, any analysis is always open, fissured, failing and
inadequate of course. Personal, individual death ends the process.
The most we can say now - the independent transformation of the
individual pixel changes everything.

(Of course the ideas are simple to state and deconstruct easily,
they devolve, etc.; however their consequences and relationships
are complex.)