West Virginia University performance text / July 27 2006


Somewhere there's a story in this - machinery of the body or interminable
mechanism of psychosis <> We begin like
this. We begin like this because the image stream is "thus." And it will
take a while to orient - from the playing with the images to the
performance. And except for this typing - there is no difference. Now I
feel embarrassed because some of you have seen sections of these alreaady;
I've been playing with the images for about forty minutes or so. These are
avatars placed into literally inconceivable positions. My name is Alan
Sondheim by the way nd I will be your guide for the evening. Or for as
long as you choose to stay. So as I was saying yesterday, with an avatar,
everything can be assembled or dissassembled - Here is the disassembly of
a vacuum tube in a scanner, digitally deconstructed. What is it that you
can do with machines that you cannot do with bodies? For one thing,
disassembly line - that is eachpart is independent of all the others.
Well, that's not true, but they'll stay that way if you unbolt them.

So one can move in ways that she cannot move, and remain in air outside of
gravity. EVERY HUMAN BEING IS THE RESULT OF INTERMINABLE SADNESS. These
images can be taken apart just like Al Capone. And these images belong
somewhere or anywhere and it's death that returns these bodies quickly
quicly to the position of the machine and its disassembly. So this is
about death, my work is about death, and the absence of language, that
looking out of the window at the last possible moment - and what is THERE
continuing in the midst of cessation - So these people can move butonly
for a short while. HOW LONG IS THE LIFE OF A DANCER? MERce is still going
strong into his 80s just choreography now. But I saw him dance ever so
slowly with a chair. And the chair with thick with the wood and if I'm not
careful I'll cove up all the exciting images again. On the right two
avatar cats with a human avatar perhaps from the Kojiki learning to ride
them in the midst of unfathomable winds. On the left avatar humans
hysterically presenting themselves AS IF they are on the scren within the
screen. On the right the recent Ukrainian revolution covered completely in
the main square in Kiev. On the left and right above - an occupation. On
the left an avatar-violation and that skin moving without tearing or
tearing without moving; to the right the neuraesthenic from the nineteenth
century, lassitude danced out in the middle, in other words disease and
strategies for moving around or through the body. There are times... in
the midst... of the dark wood which surrounds us... when we lose track...
give up... turn away...something has gone horribly wrong... perhaps this
is one of those times... as if the world has stained the world.... Someday
I will write myself... into nonexistence... This is my dream aloud...
uncriducoeurMIAO HOW.... at that point that precise point... between being
alive and being dead... I will divide.. and will divide and will divide...
there will be nothing that remans remains whole... then each segment, yes!
each segment! will retire all the others... the segments...

the segments will slowly disappear... outside of any database... not for
your viewing or my own... oh then things do or do not go together... you
see they lead us somewhere else... those faces on the left... modelled on
a book from World War One - a hidden book - photographs of the wounded - I
still have nightmares - and now in Iraq - people burned over ninety per
cept of their bodies. In this country, this was inconceivable. Not even
Vietnam... you have to go back to maybe Cold Harbor in the Civil War,
something like that... So this is about this is about empyre - and this is
a project - about the end of empyre - and this is a project - about a
certain kind of fury - this is about dance and the stain of dance - this
is about disease and the stain of disease - yes that too - this is about
an entire - a whole - encyclopedia of things! - yes, the encycclopedia
too! the encyclopedia as well! - faces collapsed yes in time - you can
reverse time digitally - double faces - aum and silent or a--- and um--- -
if you understand Shinto you'll get the reference - around Inari -
guardian figures - foxes - one with open mouth one with shut - the
electrical figuration between them - we're in the midst of the grid - the
power grid - it's all around us - you can hear the grid - the antennas
pick it up - the dancer moving around the grid - out in the wilds, well
not wilds but away from the grid - you can hear other things -

World War II was very beautiful... bombers going from England to
Germany... I imagine Iraq is very beautiful too...

In another minute this will look like a dance... a modern dance.. with
mysterious black figures and electronic music...

more dance and more dance... someting about Krishna here but I don't want
to go there -

these are segments of something called the swallowtail catastrophe -
bifurcation points - when there's a sudden shift in behaviour - when
anything can happen - but not "and usually does"

okaythis is Geneva - I'm flying the plane of the President of the United
States... on a bus... (bus + plane = speed of bus) - next to - somewhere -
an image of the tsunami - there's a proximity - about avatars - a nearness
- an uncanny element - you can't define it - they're close - they're
almost touching - and ye... yet... There are changes here... in gender...
positioning - there's a story but I don't know it... - not yet...

what's necessary now - some sort of climax - some way to bring this all
together - I'll find it - climaxes are usually loud - this one is embedded
- in the machine - the back of my mind - somewhere else not there -
somewhere with infantry - so the dancer - Maud - is the crankthat - the
crank that - that drives the map - bang bang bang bang - if she disappears
- the mapp - the map - will disappear - just wait and see - no I won't -
just wait .... damn, its still there...

the world is a mess...

let us give ourselves at the most another two generations...

dusts... radiations... at least you don't have to dream this...
thank you.

silentheads

unutterable sadness, cursor intrusions, head-object or object-head moved
piece by piece, that is spectral redrawing of coordinates given and
through certain trajectories, i'm sure there are disturbances yes for me,
i hear howling just beneath the surface, although these might bounce, much
as a message from me to you, unable to reach its destination, and that is
in fact its destination, in fact, in dream, in imaginary, in virtuality,
of which these are texture-molded from vaginas, testicle, shaft of penis,
sex-heads, silent, silenced, not even a nodding, yes and no
http://www.asondheim.org/quantum.mp4
http://www.asondheim.org/silenthead2.mp4
http://www.asondheim.org/silenthead3.mp4
[the following are based on motion capture of a dance / avatar construction; wires connect sensors to central computers]
http://www.asondheim.org/stain.mp4
http://www.asondheim.org/floordancehysteric.mp4
the basin of our lives, our concavity, neither internal nor an extension,
we're here, there, miniscule, only our loss the richness, fecundity of
world and information time and time again, sheaves of time, of which, just
this text or view or this reading, death coming, infinitude of details
gone forever, slightest creatures, of which we, communalities, surface one
or once or not at all, our unknowingness, rot envisaged in the corpse of
the other, our selves worn like teeth come the death of how many, the
moment after, no longer there, your glance invisible, words unheard, touch
receding down your long corridor, the room the same, view from window,
slough of air, this body no long with basin, with concavity, the thing,
what will you do with it, what will be done with it
body movement translated into bvh file
bvh file clothed in loquacious avatar
avatar lowered onto floor body
hysteric dance of avatar and floor body
mapped dance of one and another
digital seamless wonder transmutated skin
writhe wryte internal electromagnetisms
signals connecting floor body and avatar
avatar desiring floor body hysteric
hysteresis as chiasmic exchange
the one generated the other
the other was clothed in the one
the other above the one
the one beneath the other
coupling hysteresis hysteria
the womb meanders eyes opened shut
bodies stitched together in final fury
doctor doctor there is no help for me
doctor doctor there is no help for us
for her for them
peopling the world of the grainy digital film
stitched together falling apart at the seams
falling apart seamlessly
hysterical out of control contrary
contradictory wayward really fucked up
really fucked up avatar fucked up floor body
say neurasthenic mean hysteric
bvh file long since forgotten
the real. Jennifer is thinking sleazy about her philosophy of immensity,
the stain all in the breadth of a stain on a minor planet. But I made the
angel fuck dirty panties Names roll off the tongue, stain the air
tentative; the signified is recuperated as a stain against a backdrop of
the virtual, stain the wires with my presence, search planetary context,
panties, your stain grows larger, my stain on my conscience, stain in your
*/apologies for removal of some files, i have limited space/*

4-four catastrophe machine in motion capture

4 stationary points with picking up and putting down and rearrangement
18/4 sensors motion capture: _the language returns from the other side_ -
sudden jumps - hyperbolic space - infinite manifolds - closed but yes at
the edges - the corners - elsewhere - beyond anything conceivable - the
body is a compass - the body tends - this way and that way - take a gander
- a look-see - variants on and off the field - of discourse - space-time -
points holding everything back - master or matrix - murmur - the semaphore
of the black hole - nietzsche -

http://www.asondheim.org/velrearrange.mp4
http://www.asondheim.org/velputon.mp4h
http://www.asondheim.org/velrearrange2.mp4

killer sons - victim fathers - semiotics of the woman - literally the cusp
catastrophe - or butterfly - the catastrophe machine - in one end and out
the other - heideggerian four-fold holding in abeyance - moves every so
slowly - then swish! - crack! - kwak! -

Unutterably Beautiful

Unusual anomalies in VLF recordings, WV (soccer field, evening):

http://www.asondheim.org/vlfsocr7.mp3

Regular 'stuttering' towards end.

http://www.asondheim.org/vlfsocrground8.mp3

Body grounding and new phenomena.

The atmosphere was incredibly active with dense clusters, trains, and
singular spherics. NASA VLF-3 radio with 8' vertical antenna.

The 2nd mp3 was almost, but not quite, breathing. Stretched dawn chorus
comes to mind.

I believe these are unutterably beautiful.

We have been in West Virginia for close to ten days now on a house-sit. I don't sleep; I worry about money, about survival. I said to Azure that I have to work as hard as I can since it doesn't feel as if I would be able to again. The future is too emptied out, too bleak, and our stay here is unbelievably rich.

Tonight I awake and hear the crickets chirping in the lizard cage. As part of the house-sit, we take care of an anole and gecko. They're doomed, of course; we bought them to be eaten. It's heart-rending; I couldn't own anything that needed live food, food bred for live consumption. There's a metaphor that makes me uncomfortable; I identify with the eaten, not with the eating, most likely part of my depression. We have a cat, who has us, Boojum, and of course we buy food for her as well, back in New York (she is now subject of a chain-linked house-sit). And of course that is also meat; I'm aware of the hypocrisy here, and after she passes, it would be hard, for me, to have another such animal. She is friends with both Azure and myself; this isn't about her, but about all of our footprints on the planet.

For I think to myself, however large or small my footprint, it is too large; it should be reduced. And reduced and reduced. Reduced to nothing, and then some. Disappearing in a hollow occupying as little space, however as much time, as possible. Leaving the rended and rendered earth to itself, and perhaps one cricket better. All one can do is atone and clean up one's own mess and then others and then others and others. But I imagine the emptied footprint, an outline of the passing of a human, all these files and transformations. And the footprint slowlly disappearing from view - slowly, because I have unquestionable pride, and think of legacy as much as anyone else. My legacy however is tinged with regrets, embarrassment; it's peripheral, hardly visible. Culturally, I belong nowhere at all, but listening to the sky is never enough; if I consume it is knowledge, and knowledge's transformations. I am a cultural machine in the virtual; I can't help this, and that is my failing. I - I - I - I- I - am crippled enough to believe that if I don't produce, don't create, I have no reason to simply be. So I am. So I listen to the skies as a reporter, and other works and workings follow suit, and if they don't, then I am not. And Azure suffers daily through this selfish nonsense...

Wasteland


re John von Neumann, The Computer and the Brain - analog computer - "each
number is represented by a suitable physical quantity" - in the digital
machine there are markers and combinations. Consider the former a calcu-
lation which is _intrinsic_ to the material world and the latter, one that
is _extrinsic._ Then the former also embodies temporality - there is a
necessity for movement-vectors of material objects; I would argue (here's
the rub) that the latter displaces or flattens temporality. The simplest
example - an analog watch, a digital clock - in the former, temporality is
constituted by indexicality ranging over a _field_ within which projects
forward and backward are simultaneously visible - and in the latter, only
imminence appears - 10:42 does not constitute a vector or transformation
but an abstracted and flattened quantity. Admittedly, the quantity _means_
only by virtue of difference, but the difference - and difference itself -
is negated. In the analog situation, the field is the matrix of difference
which is memory, moving, movement. In the digital, pure function to the
nth-degree of tolerance. In both, deployment and poetics of tempor-
ality within which functionality is a residue - the reason for example for
so many chimes and bells - divisions external to the dial-field, divisions
in concert with labor.

The same phenomenologies occur in considering GPS and atlas navigators.
The former presents the imminent situation of the user (i.e. "you are
here") in relation to a sketched immediate surrounding (just as the
digital clock presents "you are now" - the split between synchronic and
diachronic almost too neat); the latter presents the field within which
the user must locate hirself - a field extending to the edge of the page
and beyond. The same is also of course true for the GPS, but the imminent
positioning of the GPS is over-determined; the map is centered on the user
or hir goal, the map is a production of the user though the GPS for the
user, or a production of the GPS in accord or upon the command of the
user. Like the analog clock, the GPS screen disappears with shutdown; the
imaginary of the screen retreats within the real artifact.

To some extent we are considering only a _moment_ within the digital,
which can map anything anywhere; online maps for example are becoming
increasingly detailed, and NASA's WorldWind is as good a simulacrum of the
planet as one is likely to get. The difference between analog and digital
is increasingly abolished as raster, bandwidth, and databases increase. It
is within the digital-personal, watches and portable GPS, that the dis-
tinction is likely to remain; even personal video/music players are
approaching the analog millennium. The greater the convergence, the
greater the databases and technologies at work, the more labor-intensive
the information regime, the more porous and vulnerable. The distinction
becomes a memory, revealed only when something goes wrong, and the digital
body opens, not to plumbing, chemistry and substance, but to electronic
technologies. And here, too, the distinction converges as bodies take on
the characteristics of cyborg-avatars, and the possibility of organic
computers and displays increases. Thus the world is all image, all screen,
complexity intertwined beneath surfaces; thus the world is porous and
vulnerable itself, susceptible to hacking and axing, conceivable and
inconceivable onslaughts. Just as the nervous system is both digital and
analog, so is the perceptual apparatus (by which I mean from sensor to and
through sensed); one can imagine a horizon of continuous images, sleeps,
dreams, stasis, and eternal death. So let us think of _distinction_ itself
as a stage or moment in time: Lo, the Other will become One, and the One,
Other, and all, or none at all, will bear silent witness to Absence.

Cusp phenomena transfer materials interference/ superimposition/ confluence/ of competing regimes coupled with raster phenomena and and and

and something else, the vortice/ vertex/ apex/ nadir/ flattened - detumescence - deconstruction - defuge of the same - such intermediate variables ! - the rapture -

yaw http://www.asondheim.org/yaw.mp4 i wonder if it would be possible to
put the rover on a fairly steep slope and do a little yaw dance, that is,
quickly alternate between starboard and port i wonder if it would be
possible to put the rover on a fairly steep slope and do a little yaw
dance, that is, quickly alternate between starboard and port the following
week i caught the final performance of wong kit yaw ambitious dance epic,
passing. it began with two arduously introspective adagio term yaw-yan was
derived from sayaw ng kamatayan which means dance of death. this club was
created to unite all members of yaw-yan and to help promote introspective
adagio, a true series of computer-augmented dance performances. the yaw
coordinate (abcde) will change as the dancer turns. throughout the
performance space series of computer-augmented dance performances. the yaw
coordinate ( ) will change as the dancer turns. throughout the performance
space. ... omg, hahahaha u cnt dance 4 ya lyvz. valeane said:. those
****** ******* cant dance. 49 days ago neshaboo said:. dont quit yaw ...
around turn one at streets, the is 430 went into a frightening pitch/yaw
dance. any high-speed, high-load corner produced an oscillation that would
make ... the following week i caught the final performance of wong kit
yaw's ambitious dance epic, passing. it began with two arduously
introspective adagio ... she stopped dancing in 1991 but returned to it
when she moved to study dance with her father yaw. yaw dance

Disappointing, that so many of the entries, including this, contain urls to other sounds/videos, insufficient text, theory, as if everything could be carried out nonetheless within the register of the visible, clearly impossible. Avoiding too much, perhaps, too many anomalies, theoretical insufficiencies, the state of my life closing down on the plain, the terraces, open before it. So soon an attempt at recification, this must be the case, a harder, drier labor, until my hands forget, forgo, the keyboard, against the crippling of the imaginary. What I dream should remain wthin the dream, what crosses desire, should remain within the chiasm. Always aware of death before me, my ownership of that last moment, the Other of that moment, the other-siding, siding against the other. Dreaming, that dreams fail at the very last, the uncoming of an uncommon home, what is below is offered

and dedicated to Marguerite Young and Eleanor Antin, "the code of the dancer's body"


chiasmus

http://www.asondheim.org/maudxx.mp4

coroner's table operating table piston pump Good Maud synchronous
stratigraphy plain plane imminent vector tableland 2-stroke cycle +++
4-stroke circulate
tableland
immanent vector
sheave
cliff
cross=section
diachronous
Bad Maud
top-spin
takeoff landing
control panel
physical therapy
---

micronarratives in vertical space

http://www.asondheim.org/trapez1.mp4
http://www.asondheim.org/trapez2.mp4

but please watch

http://www.asondheim.org/maudsfinal.mp4

first if you haven't

thank you

alan sondheim

semiotics of the digital - analogic

3 videos with Maud and Foofwa (choreography/video Foofwa, dance Maud,
mise-en-scene, production, effects, Alan)


the maudsfinal


i apologize for the size of this; already it is only 320 x 240 down from
PAL but at least it will give you the jist of such duets as i have not
worked with previous to this moment, in which digital flesh suborns
relation to the ratio-analog, in which digital flesh blocks the analog at
such critical moments, among the glance and the exposition
while i am writing this, the flu-like symptoms have returned; image and
artifact constitute delirium
http://www.asondheim.org/maudsfinal.mp4
azure will front and intersperse, what was original no longer exists,
extinction, universal annihilation looms, what organisms of the future
anterior subsist on such fodder?

(22 megs and again apology but on this occasion, it's worth it. even in
miniature.)


lexicon, analog


http://www.asondheim.org/rottate.mp4
- in this a segment is repeated diachronically (temporally).
if segment = S, then we have S*n - n repetitions
http://www.asondheim.org/maudmachine.mp4
- in this a single segment is constructed synchronically (spatially).
space collapses onto itself; if space = S then we have S*x = S.

So there'a a _vocabulary_ constructed here, against which Poser/motion
capture, Blender, etc. plays.

http://www.asondheim.org/maudmachine.mp4 - at least in a while this should
be up. It's very simple reverse echo set to 'maximum' but you can see
where this is going, how it would work w/ poser, or with even a vocabulary
/ calligraphy of the figure - meanwhile for me it's uncannily beautiful,
Maud suspended in space

Meanwhile I've been working mainly with a short piece of the Maud material
which I'll make into an .mp4 either tonight or tomorrow; the rendering is
horrendous. It's simple but works. The tapes together constitute almost a
lexicon of figuration - it's hard to explain, but there are so many possi-
bilities, in terms of video, but also aesthetics, philosophy...

I'm unclear about the nature of the fetish in the construction of the
original tapes, in which stage left/right, horizontal/vertical, closeup/
distance interplay in a semiotics of desire outlined by the bar-barriers
of the material; I see this as minimal signs of humans on a planet within
which they remain benign, localized.

Just got down humming through the 15 mini-dvs, and will begin working more
with them now. Your roof, the flute silhouette solo, the picnic, all are
cinematic, perhaps a story in that -

Help me find the wounded. Remove the sick and wounded. Take care of all wounded. This patient cannot be moved. Stay with this man. Look after him. Lift him gently. Help carry this man. Carry him to the hospital. Carry him carefully. Carry his equipment. Will you dress his wound? Boil the water. He is cld. Here is a blanket. Remove his clothes. Have no anxiety, we will look after you. Can you move your leg? Put a temporary split on that leg. He has sprained his ankle. He is dying. Get the chaplain. http://www.asondheim.org/ls1.jpg Help me. I am feverish. I have chills. I have a headache. I can't walk any more. I am weak. My throat is sore. Give me an injection of morphine. My bandage is untied. Please bind up my hand. I am wounded on the right arm. Carry me carefully. I am in great pain here. http://www.asondheim.org/ls2.jpg You are hurting me. I have difficulty in breathing. My pains are internal. The pain is constant. I want something to stop the pain.

Johnson on Masquerade:

"Behold, Flirtilla, at thy feet, a man grown gray in the study of those
noble arts by which right and wrong may be confounded; by which reason may
be blinded, when we have a mind to escape from her inspection; and caprice
and appetite insated in uncontrolled command and boundless dominion? Such
a casuist may surely engage, with certainty of success, in vindication of
an entertainment, which in an instant, gives confidence to the timorous,
and kindles ardour in the cold; an entertainment where the vigilance of
jealousy has so often been eluded, and the virgin is set free from the
necessity of languishing in silence; where all the outworks of chastity
are at once demolished; where the heart is laid open without a blush;
where bashfulness may survive virtue, and no wish is crushed under the
frown of modesty."

High-Speed Sutra


I don't know what it means to practice Zen.
I don't know what it means to do anything at all.
Whatever it means, I'm not doing it. I'm definitely not doing it.

I think I might practice something.
I'm already at the edge of the cliff. Something, anything, one for all.
All for one is nothing. I won't practice that.
I won't practice writing either.

The practice of writing is writing.
The practice of Zen is nothing at all. I won't do it.
This isn't writing, this is practice.
I'll write something later on.

I should add I don't know anything about Zen.
I should add I'm writing borrowed-Zen.
I don't know anything about Zen, I'm writing borrowed-Zen.
My Zen is faster than yours.
I should add my Zen is fast.

I won't do it, not even to do it. I won't do Zen.
There are hungry ghosts after me, they know!
Where they are, I'm not. Where I am, they won't go!
My Zen is faster than theirs. My ducks are enlightened Kwak! Kwak!

Not dying is not not wanting to die.
Dying is not wanting to die and not not wanting to die.
After a while negation buzzes. Automata make negation machines.
Negation machines buzz for me. They make things faster.

Just because my Zen is fast doesn't mean it's not Zen.
Just because I feel nothing doesn't mean I'm not enlightened.
My enlightened Zen takes a nanosecond.
Whatever takes anything, I'm not doing it!
I haven't done it either!

This is the High-Speed Sutra.

When was I born?
When did I die?
When did I write these words?
I wrote them after I was born and before I died.
I wrote them before I was born and before I died.
I wrote them after I was born and after I died.
I wrote them before I was born and after I died.
Where was I born?
Where did I die?

interface: an image found in the midst of wwii footage of the 56th Fighter Group - this between segments of planes, bombers on the way, see http://www.asondheim.org/wwiiabove.mp4 and the end of it all http://www.asondheim.org/stat.mp4 among images of planes, nose art, takeoffs and landings, pilots posing, military vehicles -

the wwiiabove is unbearably beautiful, squadrons leaving on bombing runs, the skies raked with the beauty of Gaia breathing

sadness close to unbearable ** this image
ill health stress no money what else is new ** takes over
friends and lonesome birds ** my life

this time in Brooklyn, a young peregrine falcon seemingly lost, one street over from us, we called the ASPCA, Channel 1, Audubon Society, police, Animal Control, wildlife rehabilitators, it's out there sitting now on a sill, this has been going on all day (since my biopsy this morning), television came in, anything to rescue him or her, not sure about food, injury, very short flights, very alert, nothing seems broken, no mother in sight, unbelievably rare for New York City this fastest of all birds, wildness, breaking neighborhoods down (everyone talking to everyone else, exchanging phone numbers, information), later tonight we'll see if it's still there, perhaps tomorrow someone can rescue it, if not, at least we have tried and tried and tried

multi: this is a sequence of images that relate to the presentation of sellf in everyday virtual life; the images were used in ongoing lecture series; the analysis is practically implicit; i emphasized the distinction among first/ second/ third person texts; now this is an archaeology as well; so many of these applications have disappeared or been transformed; the principles remain the same, the necessity of continuous rewrite to indicate presence, ascii sexuality as control structures, defuge as exhaustion and decathecting of desire under certain circumstances, mixed spatialities and metaphors, concretions of the analog world within text - or still or moving image, or sound - http://www.asondheim.org/multi/
- the images constituting the nexus of theoretical apparatus, postcards from the dead, postmodern pickwick papers, online clubland of everyday life - take time with them - enlightenment -

dominion and voice intersperse through culture, entangled, she's bringing home the goods she's got the goods the cat's in the bag she's bagged the voice, she's strapped you in, she's kissed you good
you're in the bag, you've bagged the girl, she's strapped it on, she's strapped you in, you've sucked her bag, you've opened the bag, she's on your case, you're in her case, you've got the goods, you've bagged her voice, you've strapped her in, you've kissed her good, she's in the bag, http://www.asondheim.org/dominion.mov
she's bagged you good, you've strapped it on, you've strapped her in, she's sucked your bag, she's opened the bag, you're on her case, she's in your case, she's got the goods, she's bagged your voice

hunger artists drafts changes policies rewrites constitution goods bill of lading overthrows harbor tax oil refineries signal distant bids against tract homes priced to kill


culture breathes sigh of relief for museological collections held simultaneously in thrall against marauders searching for an easy fix against cash flow tax sanctuary fortress repositories closed histories adjacencies

incentive taxes preserve old yarns faulted ships motion capture moments skeined glassed together unreasonable priced fetish ploughed picture perfect years and dates of yesterday

prices falsified my amusement amanuensis daemon exhibition floor routing downturn oil investment closing time soldiers stole everything

r/egret

time gnaws itself out simultaneously forwards and backwards and therefore as usual nowhere, sound tends towards utter collapse and then disappears as worlds crank up, nothing resonates properly, stasis turns through fast forward zen into future anterior, no one is waiting, no one nor another, i am the first and the last

http://www.asondheim.org/glowst.mp4

Present Hunt. Math Acti spykids ownz you ity. In this game, children will
mo spykids ownz you e around a gameboard by spinning a spinner and mo
spykids ownz you ing to the next place on the board whose shape ... This
year marks the 7th annual Multi-World dagger Present Hunt in Storage
world. The hunt will last for four full days this year! ... head. o
spykids ownz you er the life that should ha spykids ownz you e been, ne
spykids ownz you er would be. ... to here where now i sit and write with
one hand amputated and my. heart dead. there ~@~Ys been ... it's
'i ha spykids ownz you e lots of noise here take a sound-byte'
culture time. 'plans are fine but no water' says dagger throat in
heat. it tickles me na spykids ownz you y-blue. ... That would ha spykids
ownz you e been a lot more fun and useful a message. ... Right now, it
sounds good to me. Here's the NYT story on Brazil's success with
ethanol. ... http://www.asondheim.org/hunt.mp4

check out, although somewhat slightly large, http://www.asondheim.org/oceans.mp4 and http://www.asondheim.org/colour.mp4 quite very small. depression tends towards decathecting; the flattening of the world among other things is neurosis, neuraesthenia, proper-proprietary being, sense of the senseless, literal de/arrangement. one can hardly believe one's eyes. one can hardly believe in fact the disarray of this country which is no longer foundation for freedom, but pathology, ideological terror. so that the apparent depth, history, transforms into dilapidated historiography, fear of reprisal, the cower. the flattening in these instances above touches what's left of the sublime; our waste is our own, our debris local.

For those interested in visiting the show - here are the details:
em/bedded up through June 24th. Track 16 Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Avenue, Building C1, Santa Monica, CA, 90406. Take the 10, get off at Cloverfield, take a right on Michigan; Michigan ends at Bergamot, drive into Bergamot, park on the left. Phone 310-264-4678. http://www.track16.com/

The http://www.asondheim.org/airtrack16.mp4 replaces the kite and tent videos. I find it a fairly interesting video in itself.

Meanwhile I'm dealing with bad health and financial issues.

http://www.asondheim.org/4theorists.mp4 which has reversed 'hardening' echo embedded in it - the hollowing out of the world, slow concretion. I thought you might enjoy this. On the other hand it's 20 megs.

Then again if you go to http://www.asondheim.org/graph10.mov and http://www.asondheim.org/graph20.mov - short videos without beginnings or endings, the employment of absolute 'shelves' in relation to surrounding space.

Working with code, flattening, disturbance, imaginary, and have you seen the http://www.asondheim.org/imaginary.mp4 - this is 11 megs, not impossible.

This also relates to the most recent (8 meg I think) video: http://www.asondheim.org/floww.mp4
- an inconceivably ill/ness/defined space - also related to the 4theorists - this work all interlocks - my secret is repetition across amazingly long markov chains...

Too much on my platter. Some references: Paul Celan, Blanchot, Jabes, Shelley, I belong among 'em.

Recent Videos


Dragline machine-dance / breathing / alignment / testimony of the real

http://www.asondheim.org/tentair2.mov

The Pinning of the Imaginary / among signs / convexities

http://www.asondheim.org/imaginary.mp4

The Visitors / image scythe / jectivity / narratologies of the self

http://www.asondheim.org/thevisitors.mp4- this is large, but the basis of narratology.

All of this material stems from Los Angeles, Huntington Beach, Santa Monica, Santa Ana, California.

em/bedded mass - phenomenology of substance

The show em/bedded .

There will be antennas and field telephones. The large room will be all []
There would be a small tent in the large room, possibly, off-kilter,
conncted to a tent in the small room. I'm not sure yet about the Trolley
Car. We want to put video in there, there are places to sit. It's like an
underground. One possibility that would work - just field telephone calls
[] Leslie work opens up into spaces that my work tends to close down. We
share a sense of imminent catastrophe, as well as, to be honest, brilliant
imagery, seductive even in its deadliness. [] In the small room, we will
have memorabilia collections, whatever we can send across. These include
photographs of Iwo Jima from Azure's grandfather (on the ground), a
battle-map of Iwo Jima on site, things [] I want VLF radio somehow present
- I'm not sure about this. I can bring or send the radios out; we can see
what we might pick up around Bergamot, and to save batteries, we might as
well tape the stuff and have it play from a cd player or some such. I want
to possibly erect a signal kite in the central space with an antenna wire
coming down - we might actually be able [] The VLF radio relates to the
'primordial' of life, to actual fundamental particles themselves, to the
resonances of particular spaces. The videos relate to histories, memories,
sexualities, pleasures, absences, presences. The more we have going the
better. We need to check on the []

every one a murderer * original photographs of world war two battleships *
stereograms of world war one trenches and bodies * original photographs of
world war two pacific fighting * stereograms of world war one technology *
world war one will now be abbreviated wwi * world war two will now be
abbreviated wwii * original photographs and other papers taken from wwii
japanese dead * a top secret wwii map of the iwo jima battlefield from the
battlefield * projections of torn avatars over furiously moving dancers *
projections of dismembered avatars over propellers and gratings * nomadic
tent located on the hardened gallery floor full-sized with video within *
one to three half-tents with field telephone/s within (see below) * a
small photograph of a japanese wwii fleet presumably near yokohama *
murmured texts played back from scattered monitors hardly organized or
present in space of every one a murderer

[] MIAOU []

* with the uttermost beauty of human beings there is no rest here and here
in this space * static images of dismembered avatar imaginaries torn into
uncanny beauty and troubling poses * dark spaces of rattling building
vibrations sublated to aural frequencies of the human organism they are
here * dark crackles of very low frequency radio trembling in the presence
of human bodies auroras lightning decay of particles across the cosmos
near and far */set up with antenna in main room perhaps speakers in back
room - but on/off switching absolutely necessary - perhaps VLF radio with
recorded sound/* * i am so ashamed i cried when i saw these images written
large somewhere in the vicinity of wwi and wwii * the 1895 telegraph
receiver mounted in the antique trolley car clacking away and
electronically echoed from sourceless speakers sounds and presence of
ghosts */may or may not be possible depending on cost and consruction
skill/* * the this of this is you and the you in this splayed space *
space of ionizations ionized air recorded space of radium decays * space
of furious nighttime guitars garcia lorca spanish civil war * space of
inscribing of inscriptions of the last inscriptions of soldiers dying and
all memories lost recuperations of names and translations from foreign
tongues * the evanescence of horror in the absence of horror naming horror
in its very absence * every i is murderer every i makes love

The tents in the outer room are half-tents, partially attached to the
framework of the building, partially floating. They are as nomadic as
signifiers, language flushed out of its lair. But the tents are real,
canvas; an air of depression hangs over then, a fog. They are in the midst
of an image storm, a continuous splay, spew, emission, of violence,
sexuality, cloned grotesques, the crackling of radio, electricity. The
work occurs in the far future - mutations, extinctions, broken spaces of
information. The work occurs in the past - organisms huddled as if
protected against the fury of the world, primitive electrical machines
tuned into atmosphere and universe. The distorted bodies are our own of
course, in the present, of course. The work offers no solution - there
isn't any - but presents a distorted beauty of its own. The field
telephones connect the tents in the smaller and larger room. The kite
connects the tent in the outer room to the atmosphere. The tents in the
outer room are splayed, dysfunctional, as if attempting, and failing, to
rise form the ground. The tent in the inner room is home to images, to a
space of looking, watching. The tents are WWII tents, resonant with the
materials in the smaller room, with the video and tent of Leslie Thornton.
Think of the in both rooms as along a sightline, faultline. HELLO HELLO.

[] MIAOU []

fast gals and colors


http://www.asondheim.org/spedd.mp4
http://www.asondheim.org/col.mp4

sondheim's screens mumble earth's horizons breathlessly pretending
depth and authenticity

nauman's sky really takes off except for certain disturbances
in the general flattening

some final images from the last day visiting the gallery - outer room - the show is up through June 24th - thank you all, please visit if you can -

To find out the source of this stream among many, it's damp with them, please check out the Philosophy Text run in the May archive. Reminder is necessary as value undergoes recession. Thank you.

or http://www.asondheim.org/philosophy/ (best)
or text http://www.asondheim.org/philosophy.txt

For those who hate the way I am:
If I were otherwise, I could not produce the work I do.
For those who hate the work I do:
If it were otherwise, I would not be alive.

And for those who hate both:
You are dead to me. You are dead.