as I walk in the dark
my feet are on fire
my whole back is on fire
lighting my present
foreshadowing
my future
ανοιγοκλείνω τα μάτια μου.μαύρο.ίσως είναι νύχτα ακόμη.ίσως ονειρεύομαι.όμως ο αέρας είναι εδώ.και νοιώθω τη γη ακουμπώντας τη με τα χέρια μου.
Monday, 29 December 2008
Saturday, 20 December 2008
amor veritas
He asked her "kiss me", and she leaned tenderly over his bed.
This Kiss.
after peanuts on the bench
after vermut and r&r parties
after protests and labor
after building houses and taking down walls
after dreams and failures
after divorce and realizations
after lies and truths
after life
and death
δεν είναι εύκολο να του δείξω πώς να φυσάει.τα μάτια του, γεμάτα λατρεία.
σκέφτομαι πως δεν υπάρχει άλλος τρόπος.πλησιάζω, φυσάω μέσα στο στόμα του.
This Kiss.
after peanuts on the bench
after vermut and r&r parties
after protests and labor
after building houses and taking down walls
after dreams and failures
after divorce and realizations
after lies and truths
after life
and death
δεν είναι εύκολο να του δείξω πώς να φυσάει.τα μάτια του, γεμάτα λατρεία.
σκέφτομαι πως δεν υπάρχει άλλος τρόπος.πλησιάζω, φυσάω μέσα στο στόμα του.
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
On Violence
In Arendt's own words:
The end of human action, as distinct from the end products of fabrication, can never be reliably predicted. The means used to achieve political goals are more often than not of greater relevance to the future world than the intended goals.
[T]here are, indeed, few things more that are more frightening than the steadily increasing prestige of scientifically minded brain trusters in the councils of government during the last decades [the 1950s and '60s] ... they reckon with the consequences of certain hypothetically assumed constellations without, however, being able to test their hypotheses against actual occurrences.
Arendt writes that it is "a rather sad reflection on the present state of political science that our terminology does not distinguish among such key words as power, strength, force, authority, and, finally, violence - all of which refer to distinct, different phenomena and would hardly exist unless they did." She makes the distinctions:
Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together.
Strength unequivocally designates something in the singular ...
Force ... should be reserved, in terminological language, for the "forces of nature" or the "force of circumstances," that is, to indicate the energy released by physical or social movements.
Authority can be vested in persons - there is such a thing as personal authority, as for instance, in the relation between parent and child, between teacher and pupil - or it can be vested in offices, as, for instance, in the Roman senate or in the hierarchical offices of the Church. (A priest can grant valid absolution even though he is drunk.) Its hallmark is unquestioning recognition by those who are asked to obey; neither coercion nor persuasion is needed.
Violence , finally, as I have said, is distinguished by its instrumental character. Phenomenologically, it is close to strength, since the implements of violence, like all other tools, are designed and used for the purpose of multiplying natural strength...
"Violence," she writes, "can always destroy power. Out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it [violence] is power." [For example, violence and threat of violence by the emperors Caligula and Nero did not enhance their power. It diminished their power.]
Arendt writes that "In a head-on clash between violence and power, the outcome is hardly in doubt" - as in a military against collective non-violent resistance (power). But, she adds, "Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us."
Violence, she sums up, "can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it." Writing at the end of the 1960s, Arendt was critical of the advocacy of violence by blacks critical of Martin Luther King's non-violent movement, and she took issue with the advocacy of violence by the Left in the 1960s. On Sartre she wrote:
Sartre with his great felicity with words has given expression to the new faith. "Violence," he now believes, on the strength of Fanon's book, "like Achilles' lance, can heal the wounds it has inflicted." If this were true, revenge would be the cure-all for most of our ills.
The rarity of slave rebellions and of uprisings among the disinherited and downtrodden is notorious; on the few occasions when they occurred it was precisely "mad fury' that turned dreams into nightmares for everybody. In no case, as far as I know, was the force of these "volcanic" outbursts, in Sartre's words, "equal to that of the pressure put on them."
In the third part of her book, pages 59 through 87, she describes her discomfort with social scientists trying "to solve the riddle of 'aggressiveness' in human behavior." She asks why we should ask humans to take their "standards of behavior from another animal species."
Under some conditions, writes Arendt, rage and violence are justified. Violence inspired by a short-term goal can be rational. The absence of emotions neither causes nor promotes rationality. "Detachment and equanimity" in view of "unbearable tragedy" can indeed be "terrifying." Violence, she writes, "...is rational to the extent that it is effective in reaching the end that must justify it. But, she adds, "we never know with any certainty the eventual consequences of what we are doing."
She is not saying that people should always refrain from taking a chance. But she warns that with violence there is a danger that the means will overwhelm the end.
The end of human action, as distinct from the end products of fabrication, can never be reliably predicted. The means used to achieve political goals are more often than not of greater relevance to the future world than the intended goals.
[T]here are, indeed, few things more that are more frightening than the steadily increasing prestige of scientifically minded brain trusters in the councils of government during the last decades [the 1950s and '60s] ... they reckon with the consequences of certain hypothetically assumed constellations without, however, being able to test their hypotheses against actual occurrences.
Arendt writes that it is "a rather sad reflection on the present state of political science that our terminology does not distinguish among such key words as power, strength, force, authority, and, finally, violence - all of which refer to distinct, different phenomena and would hardly exist unless they did." She makes the distinctions:
Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together.
Strength unequivocally designates something in the singular ...
Force ... should be reserved, in terminological language, for the "forces of nature" or the "force of circumstances," that is, to indicate the energy released by physical or social movements.
Authority can be vested in persons - there is such a thing as personal authority, as for instance, in the relation between parent and child, between teacher and pupil - or it can be vested in offices, as, for instance, in the Roman senate or in the hierarchical offices of the Church. (A priest can grant valid absolution even though he is drunk.) Its hallmark is unquestioning recognition by those who are asked to obey; neither coercion nor persuasion is needed.
Violence , finally, as I have said, is distinguished by its instrumental character. Phenomenologically, it is close to strength, since the implements of violence, like all other tools, are designed and used for the purpose of multiplying natural strength...
"Violence," she writes, "can always destroy power. Out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it [violence] is power." [For example, violence and threat of violence by the emperors Caligula and Nero did not enhance their power. It diminished their power.]
Arendt writes that "In a head-on clash between violence and power, the outcome is hardly in doubt" - as in a military against collective non-violent resistance (power). But, she adds, "Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us."
Violence, she sums up, "can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it." Writing at the end of the 1960s, Arendt was critical of the advocacy of violence by blacks critical of Martin Luther King's non-violent movement, and she took issue with the advocacy of violence by the Left in the 1960s. On Sartre she wrote:
Sartre with his great felicity with words has given expression to the new faith. "Violence," he now believes, on the strength of Fanon's book, "like Achilles' lance, can heal the wounds it has inflicted." If this were true, revenge would be the cure-all for most of our ills.
The rarity of slave rebellions and of uprisings among the disinherited and downtrodden is notorious; on the few occasions when they occurred it was precisely "mad fury' that turned dreams into nightmares for everybody. In no case, as far as I know, was the force of these "volcanic" outbursts, in Sartre's words, "equal to that of the pressure put on them."
In the third part of her book, pages 59 through 87, she describes her discomfort with social scientists trying "to solve the riddle of 'aggressiveness' in human behavior." She asks why we should ask humans to take their "standards of behavior from another animal species."
Under some conditions, writes Arendt, rage and violence are justified. Violence inspired by a short-term goal can be rational. The absence of emotions neither causes nor promotes rationality. "Detachment and equanimity" in view of "unbearable tragedy" can indeed be "terrifying." Violence, she writes, "...is rational to the extent that it is effective in reaching the end that must justify it. But, she adds, "we never know with any certainty the eventual consequences of what we are doing."
She is not saying that people should always refrain from taking a chance. But she warns that with violence there is a danger that the means will overwhelm the end.
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Yesterday was a million years ago
I crack and split my xerox hands
this earth seems obliviating
high and dead our skin is glass
the dogs slaughter each other softly
τα μάτια τους γυαλίζουν στο σκοτάδι.δεν ξέρω πόσα είναι.ίσως έξι επτά.ίσως παραπάνω.δεν πλησιάζουν.ακόμα.
this earth seems obliviating
high and dead our skin is glass
the dogs slaughter each other softly
τα μάτια τους γυαλίζουν στο σκοτάδι.δεν ξέρω πόσα είναι.ίσως έξι επτά.ίσως παραπάνω.δεν πλησιάζουν.ακόμα.
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Sunday, 23 November 2008
Paris
Though convoluted and filled with objects for sale, the arcades offered the common man or woman a brief subterranean escape from a city designed to keep all bodies visible and industrious. In this way, the arcades function more like Deleuze-Guattari's model for smooth space, the space in which "the points are subordinated to the trajectory" (ATP 478). Their structural composition lends way to a space which is conducive to nomadism, in which "dwelling is subordinated to the journey" (ATP 478), and thus these passages become the space of flânerie--of distraction--one of Benjamin's primary obsessions in The Arcades Project.
arcades
arcades
escapism
The Principle of Hope contains three volumes, divided into five parts, and fifty-five chapters. The three volumes roughly correspond to Hegel's division of his system into interrogations of subjective, objective, and absolute spirit. The first volume queries "Little Daydreams" (Part One), "Anticipatory Consciousness" (Part Two") and "Wishful Images in the Mirror" (Part Three). The latter studies analyze the utopian dimensions of fashion, advertising, display, fairy tales, travel, film, theater, jokes, and other cultural phenomena. The second volume (Part IV) depicts "Outlines of a Better World," focusing on social and political utopias, including technological, architectural, and geographical utopias, as well as quests for world peace and a life of leisure. Volume three (Part Five) discusses "Wishful Images of the Fulfilled Moment," including morality, music, images of death, religion, morning-land of nature, and the highest good.
Just as Hegel's philosophy articulated the odyssey of spirit through history and culture, so too does Bloch's philosophy chart the vicissitudes of hope. For Bloch, hope permeates everyday consciousness and its articulation in cultural forms, ranging from the fairy tale to the great philosophical and political utopias. For Bloch, individuals are unfinished, they are animated by "dreams of a better life," and by utopian longings for fulfillment. The "something better" for which people yearn is precisely the subject-matter of Bloch's massive The Principle of Hope, which provides a systematic examination of the ways that daydreams, fairy tales and myths, popular culture, literature, theater, and all forms of art, political and social utopias, philosophy, and religion -- often dismissed tout court as ideology by some Marxist ideological critique -- contain emancipatory moments which project visions of a better life that put in question the organization and structure of life under capitalism (or state socialism).
Bloch urges us to grasp the three dimensions of human temporality: he offers us a dialectical analysis of the past which illuminates the present and can direct us to a better future. The past -- what has been -- contains both the sufferings, tragedies and failures of humanity -- what to avoid and to redeem -- and its unrealized hopes and potentials -- which could have been and can yet be. For Bloch, history is a repository of possibilities that are living options for future action, therefore what could have been can still be. The present moment is thus constituted in part by latency and tendency: the unrealized potentialities that are latent in the present, and the signs and foreshadowings that indicate the tendency of the direction and movement of the present into the future. This three-dimensional temporality must be grasped and activated by an anticipatory consciousness that at once perceives the unrealized emancipatory potential in the past, the latencies and tendencies of the present, and the realizable hopes of the future. Above all, Bloch develops a philosophy of hope and the future, a dreaming forward, a projection of a vision of a future kingdom of freedom. It is his conviction that only when we project our future in the light of what is, what has been, and what could be can we engage in the creative practice that will produce a world in which we are at home and realize humanities deepest dreams.
In his magnus opus, Bloch carries though both a thorough examination of the ways that hope and visions of a better world exist in everything from daydreams to the great religions, and cultural studies which trace throughout history anticipatory visions of what would later be systematized, packaged, and distributed as socialism by Karl Marx and his followers. Consequently, Bloch provides a critical hermeneutic of the ways that cultural history and socio-economic developments point to socialism as the realization of humanities deepest dreams and hopes, and that encourages us to look for the progressive and emancipatory content of cultural artifacts (rather than the merely ideological and mystificatory).
illuminations
Just as Hegel's philosophy articulated the odyssey of spirit through history and culture, so too does Bloch's philosophy chart the vicissitudes of hope. For Bloch, hope permeates everyday consciousness and its articulation in cultural forms, ranging from the fairy tale to the great philosophical and political utopias. For Bloch, individuals are unfinished, they are animated by "dreams of a better life," and by utopian longings for fulfillment. The "something better" for which people yearn is precisely the subject-matter of Bloch's massive The Principle of Hope, which provides a systematic examination of the ways that daydreams, fairy tales and myths, popular culture, literature, theater, and all forms of art, political and social utopias, philosophy, and religion -- often dismissed tout court as ideology by some Marxist ideological critique -- contain emancipatory moments which project visions of a better life that put in question the organization and structure of life under capitalism (or state socialism).
Bloch urges us to grasp the three dimensions of human temporality: he offers us a dialectical analysis of the past which illuminates the present and can direct us to a better future. The past -- what has been -- contains both the sufferings, tragedies and failures of humanity -- what to avoid and to redeem -- and its unrealized hopes and potentials -- which could have been and can yet be. For Bloch, history is a repository of possibilities that are living options for future action, therefore what could have been can still be. The present moment is thus constituted in part by latency and tendency: the unrealized potentialities that are latent in the present, and the signs and foreshadowings that indicate the tendency of the direction and movement of the present into the future. This three-dimensional temporality must be grasped and activated by an anticipatory consciousness that at once perceives the unrealized emancipatory potential in the past, the latencies and tendencies of the present, and the realizable hopes of the future. Above all, Bloch develops a philosophy of hope and the future, a dreaming forward, a projection of a vision of a future kingdom of freedom. It is his conviction that only when we project our future in the light of what is, what has been, and what could be can we engage in the creative practice that will produce a world in which we are at home and realize humanities deepest dreams.
In his magnus opus, Bloch carries though both a thorough examination of the ways that hope and visions of a better world exist in everything from daydreams to the great religions, and cultural studies which trace throughout history anticipatory visions of what would later be systematized, packaged, and distributed as socialism by Karl Marx and his followers. Consequently, Bloch provides a critical hermeneutic of the ways that cultural history and socio-economic developments point to socialism as the realization of humanities deepest dreams and hopes, and that encourages us to look for the progressive and emancipatory content of cultural artifacts (rather than the merely ideological and mystificatory).
illuminations
Friday, 21 November 2008
where is the story today?
I can't be impressed by anything wherein the story aspect has just completely disappeared and you're left to make it up yourself.I think that is cynical and it just reveals an inability to create a story.The story sensedisappears the more you're sunken in modern art.And that shouldn't be.There's no reason for that.Making a good story is not that difficult or fantastic.In the golden age of movies, every B movie had fascinating ingenious stories.
[Jack Smith, Historical treasures]
[Jack Smith, Historical treasures]
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Pavement Books Co.
Ethique, Spinoza /Editions Flammarion Paris 1920
Toute La Lyre, Victor Hugo /Editions J.Hetzel-Paris
Les Maladies de La Volonte, Th. Ribot /Librairie Felix Alcan-Paris 1920
La garconne, V.Margueritte/Editions Flammarion-Paris 1922
FEMME, Magdeleine Marx /Flammarion -Paris 1924
MISUNDERSTOOD, by Florence Montgomery/Leipzig:Bernhard Tauchnitz
I found them laying down around the corner, like tired junkies.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
What/we want from a trace
A vital experience
an imagination
an emotional release
all these & what we want
from life
Contact with something
we are not, know not,
think not, feel not, understand not,
therefor: An expansion.
αποσύρονται με κραυγές πίσω απ'τα δέντρα.ζεσταίνω τα χέρια μου.αναπνέω.νομίζω βλέπω ένα να ξανάρχεται.μένω ήρεμη.
an imagination
an emotional release
all these & what we want
from life
Contact with something
we are not, know not,
think not, feel not, understand not,
therefor: An expansion.
αποσύρονται με κραυγές πίσω απ'τα δέντρα.ζεσταίνω τα χέρια μου.αναπνέω.νομίζω βλέπω ένα να ξανάρχεται.μένω ήρεμη.
the love of flix
The primitive allure of movies is a thing of light and shadows.A bad film is one which doesn't flicker and move through lights and shadows, contrasts, textures by way of light.If I have these I don't mind phoniness (or the sincerity of clever actors), simple minded plots (or novelistic "good" plots), nonsense or seriousness (I don't feel non-sense in movies as a threat to my mind since I don't go to movies for the ideas that arise from sensibleness of ideas).
Images evoke feelings and ideas that are suggested by feeling.Nonsense on one given night might arouse contemptuous feeling and leave me with ideas of resolution which I might extend to personal problems and thus I might be left with great sense.It's a very personal process-thoughts via images and therefor very varied.More interesting to me than discovering what is a script writer's exact meaning.Images always give rise to a complex of feelings, thots, conjectures, speculations, etc. Why then place any value on good or bad scripts-since the best of scripts detracts most from the visual import.I suspect we are less comfortable in the visual realm than in the literary.Visual truths are blunt, whereas thots can be altered to suit & protect.
The eye falls into disuse as a receiver of impressions & films (images) mean nothing without word meanings.
[Jack Smith, Historical Treasures]
Images evoke feelings and ideas that are suggested by feeling.Nonsense on one given night might arouse contemptuous feeling and leave me with ideas of resolution which I might extend to personal problems and thus I might be left with great sense.It's a very personal process-thoughts via images and therefor very varied.More interesting to me than discovering what is a script writer's exact meaning.Images always give rise to a complex of feelings, thots, conjectures, speculations, etc. Why then place any value on good or bad scripts-since the best of scripts detracts most from the visual import.I suspect we are less comfortable in the visual realm than in the literary.Visual truths are blunt, whereas thots can be altered to suit & protect.
The eye falls into disuse as a receiver of impressions & films (images) mean nothing without word meanings.
[Jack Smith, Historical Treasures]
Friday, 7 November 2008
Thursday, 6 November 2008
It's time to take off amber
It's time to take off amber,
It's time to change lexicons,
It's time to put out the lantern
Above the door . . .
It's time to change lexicons,
It's time to put out the lantern
Above the door . . .
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Still. We are. Outside town.
Dense as a horse mane is:
rain in our eyes. And hills.
We have passed the suburb.
Now we are out of town,
which is there but not for us.
Stepmother not mother.
Nowhere is lying ahead.
And here is where we fall.
A field with. A fence and.
Brother and sister. Standing.
Life is only a suburb:
so you must build elsewhere.
Ugh, what a lost cause
it is, ladies and gentlemen,
for the whole world is suburb:
Where are the real towns?
rain in our eyes. And hills.
We have passed the suburb.
Now we are out of town,
which is there but not for us.
Stepmother not mother.
Nowhere is lying ahead.
And here is where we fall.
A field with. A fence and.
Brother and sister. Standing.
Life is only a suburb:
so you must build elsewhere.
Ugh, what a lost cause
it is, ladies and gentlemen,
for the whole world is suburb:
Where are the real towns?
Friday, 31 October 2008
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
what time is it
His mouth,like an earth cavity.He dreams of ben-hurian dreams.Stillness.White curtains separating bodies.His hand:warm.Skin color:ok.
"What is this smell?-the surgery room" like burning flesh.At the end of the corridor, a windowpane cutting the road traffic and a crane, working silently and consistently.
The outside invades him through tubes and needles.Him, he resides behind his eyelids, below his brain, deep inside his chest.I see his little home depicted on the surveillance monitor.
"What is this smell?-the surgery room" like burning flesh.At the end of the corridor, a windowpane cutting the road traffic and a crane, working silently and consistently.
The outside invades him through tubes and needles.Him, he resides behind his eyelids, below his brain, deep inside his chest.I see his little home depicted on the surveillance monitor.
V_tach/pulse_alert
That there
That's not me
I go
Where I please
I walk through walls
I float down the Liffey
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah it's gone
And I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
That's not me
I go
Where I please
I walk through walls
I float down the Liffey
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah it's gone
And I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Friday, 24 October 2008
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
Friday, 17 October 2008
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Baudrillard on Collectors
Collectors evade the challenge of seduction and seek complete CONTROL: "He [the collector] prefers the possessive spell cast by a collection of dead objects--the dead sex object being as beautiful as a butterfly with florescent wings -- to the seduction of a living being who would demand his love in return. He prefers the monotonous fascination of the collection, the fascination with dead differences, this obsession with the same, over the seduction of the other" (Baudrillard Seduction 123).
http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/collecting.html
http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/collecting.html
beyond control/behind the mirror
how can we own when
we don't see
but we are what is seen
when we don't think
but we are what is thought of
owing nothing, not even our
self
we don't see
but we are what is seen
when we don't think
but we are what is thought of
owing nothing, not even our
self
ownership
Chattel, broad term, derived from the word cattle, used to describe all kinds of personal property. In law, personal property is distinguished from real property, or real estate, which is generally characterized by immobility. Chattels are usually regarded as movable objects that may be taken from one place to another, such as money, clothing, jewelry, automobiles, and household goods. Real estate, on the other hand, comprises land, buildings and construction materials used in the buildings, and natural resources found on the land. Certain objects that are a part of real estate may become chattels when they are removed from the land, such as cut timber or mined ore.
Monday, 29 September 2008
Narcissistic disorder as a social trait
The narcissist is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion.
The narcissistic landscape is fraught with contradictions. The narcissist depends on people - but hates and despises them. He wants to control them unconditionally - but is also looking to punish himself savagely. He is terrified of persecution ("persecutory delusions") - but seeks the company of his own "persecutors" compulsively.
The narcissist is the victim of incompatible inner dynamics, ruled by numerous vicious circles, pushed and pulled simultaneously by irresistible forces. A minority of narcissists choose the schizoid solution. They choose, in effect, to disengage, both emotionally and socially.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Friday, 19 September 2008
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Friday, 12 September 2008
Before the anathema
deeping the needle in
substantia nigra, makes
a spider web tattoo
the eye is a keyhole
I try to see through
the pattern woven
and the pattern undone
one needs an outline
a frail path to run
rules against new rules
yet blaming the fools
locked outside
the key on the door
forgetting our coppe
working overtime
substantia nigra, makes
a spider web tattoo
the eye is a keyhole
I try to see through
the pattern woven
and the pattern undone
one needs an outline
a frail path to run
rules against new rules
yet blaming the fools
locked outside
the key on the door
forgetting our coppe
working overtime
Monday, 25 August 2008
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Friday, 22 August 2008
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Saturday, 2 August 2008
Friday, 1 August 2008
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Monday, 28 July 2008
A mini parallel project
[Σκηνή 2, πλάνο 3, λήψη 1]
Μου είπες ¨Θα σε πάω εκεί που τελειώνουν οι δρόμοι”
(και μου χάρισες ένα φτερό απ΄τις πάπιες)
Πού είσαι τώρα (medium shot)
Ώρα
-Διάλεξε χώρα
Χθες, άναψα μια μεγάλη λάμπα στο τραπέζι.
-Είπες “θέλω να ταξιδέψω μαζί σου”
έλα
από εδώ ως εκεί
Πού πάμε
Έλα
Εσύ
-“Και τί θα πάρουμε μαζί μας”, είπα.
Χθες, άναψα μια μεγάλη λάμπα στο τραπέζι.
Την άφησα να καίει ώσπου πήγα να ξαπλώσω.
“In the innermost part of me” (κοντινό στο κινητό της)
εκεί να πάμε
Οταν ξύπνησα, δεν ήξερα
Αν είχε ξημερώσει ή αν ήταν νύχτα,
Ή αν είχα δει ένα όνειρο.
Πώς περπατάμε;
Η γλώσσα μου έγινε κινούμενη άμμος.
Ηταν σπίτι του, κι ήθελε να ΄ναι στους δρόμους.
Ηταν στους δρόμους και ήθελε ένα σπίτι.
Ηθελε μια γυναίκα κι έβλεπε μια πόλη.
My intimate stranger.
Πάμε.
Παντού ένα δέντρο να το λυπάσαι.
-Πες μου βουνά.
-Ουράλια, Καύκασος, Ταύρος-Αντίταυρος
Ιμαλάια, Αραράτ, Στανοβόι, Καρά- Κουρούμ.
-Ποτάμια.
-Ευράτης, Τίγρης, Ινδός, Γάγγης
Βραχμαπούτρας, Γιάνγκ Τσε Κιανγκ
Χοάνγκ Χο, Λένας, Ιενεσέης, Οβις.
-Λίμνες.
-Κασπία Θάλασσα, Αράλη, Βαγκής, Βαικάλη.
Ναι, I'll call you.
-Πρόσεχε, το χέρι σου μέσα.
Do you remember?No, I don't.
“Πέντε λεπτάκια ακόμη” σου είπα.
Στον ύπνο του ονειρευόταν το ρολόι
Και το ψάρι.
Εσπαγε το ρολόι
Ετρωγε το ψάρι.
Θυμάμαι. (voice over)
Του είπε κάτι σαν, ύπαρχουν χειρονομίες
που σ΄αρέσουν επειδή τις έχεις κάπου ξαναδεί.
Εβγαλε τα ρούχα της κι έμεινε ακίνητη.
Ελα, είπε.
-Γιατί;
-Δεν μπορούσα.
-Ψέματα.
-Ακουσε.
(ήχος από τζάμι που σπάει)
(γυναίκα φεύγει. dissolve)
Θα μείνω εδώ, είπε το ψάρι κι έκατσε.
Κι εγώ, είπε η φωνή του.
In the heart of my heart,
my eye remains.
Ησυχία
Σύννεφα
Ορίζοντας
Μια πέτρα
Θα με πας εκεί που αρχίζουν οι δρόμοι;
Μου είπες ¨Θα σε πάω εκεί που τελειώνουν οι δρόμοι”
(και μου χάρισες ένα φτερό απ΄τις πάπιες)
Πού είσαι τώρα (medium shot)
Ώρα
-Διάλεξε χώρα
Χθες, άναψα μια μεγάλη λάμπα στο τραπέζι.
-Είπες “θέλω να ταξιδέψω μαζί σου”
έλα
από εδώ ως εκεί
Πού πάμε
Έλα
Εσύ
-“Και τί θα πάρουμε μαζί μας”, είπα.
Χθες, άναψα μια μεγάλη λάμπα στο τραπέζι.
Την άφησα να καίει ώσπου πήγα να ξαπλώσω.
“In the innermost part of me” (κοντινό στο κινητό της)
εκεί να πάμε
Οταν ξύπνησα, δεν ήξερα
Αν είχε ξημερώσει ή αν ήταν νύχτα,
Ή αν είχα δει ένα όνειρο.
Πώς περπατάμε;
Η γλώσσα μου έγινε κινούμενη άμμος.
Ηταν σπίτι του, κι ήθελε να ΄ναι στους δρόμους.
Ηταν στους δρόμους και ήθελε ένα σπίτι.
Ηθελε μια γυναίκα κι έβλεπε μια πόλη.
My intimate stranger.
Πάμε.
Παντού ένα δέντρο να το λυπάσαι.
-Πες μου βουνά.
-Ουράλια, Καύκασος, Ταύρος-Αντίταυρος
Ιμαλάια, Αραράτ, Στανοβόι, Καρά- Κουρούμ.
-Ποτάμια.
-Ευράτης, Τίγρης, Ινδός, Γάγγης
Βραχμαπούτρας, Γιάνγκ Τσε Κιανγκ
Χοάνγκ Χο, Λένας, Ιενεσέης, Οβις.
-Λίμνες.
-Κασπία Θάλασσα, Αράλη, Βαγκής, Βαικάλη.
Ναι, I'll call you.
-Πρόσεχε, το χέρι σου μέσα.
Do you remember?No, I don't.
“Πέντε λεπτάκια ακόμη” σου είπα.
Στον ύπνο του ονειρευόταν το ρολόι
Και το ψάρι.
Εσπαγε το ρολόι
Ετρωγε το ψάρι.
Θυμάμαι. (voice over)
Του είπε κάτι σαν, ύπαρχουν χειρονομίες
που σ΄αρέσουν επειδή τις έχεις κάπου ξαναδεί.
Εβγαλε τα ρούχα της κι έμεινε ακίνητη.
Ελα, είπε.
-Γιατί;
-Δεν μπορούσα.
-Ψέματα.
-Ακουσε.
(ήχος από τζάμι που σπάει)
(γυναίκα φεύγει. dissolve)
Θα μείνω εδώ, είπε το ψάρι κι έκατσε.
Κι εγώ, είπε η φωνή του.
In the heart of my heart,
my eye remains.
Ησυχία
Σύννεφα
Ορίζοντας
Μια πέτρα
Θα με πας εκεί που αρχίζουν οι δρόμοι;
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Thursday, 17 July 2008
"More human than human" is our motto
Deckard: She's a replicant, isn't she?
Tyrell: I'm impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don't get it, Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn't it?
Deckard: [realizing Rachael believes she's human] She doesn't know.
Tyrell: She's beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
Deckard: Say "Kiss me".
Rachael: I can't... rely on... my memories...
Deckard: Say "Kiss me".
Rachael: Kiss me.
Deckard: I want you
Rachael: I want you.
Deckard: Again
Rachael: I want you.
[pauses]
Rachael: Put your hands on me.
Tyrrel: We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all, they are emotionally inexperienced, with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them with a past, we create a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, and consequently, we can control them better.
Deckard: Memories! You're talking about memories!
Deckard: Do you love me?
Rachael: I love you.
Deckard: Do you trust me?
Rachael: I trust you.
Tyrell: I'm impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don't get it, Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn't it?
Deckard: [realizing Rachael believes she's human] She doesn't know.
Tyrell: She's beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
Deckard: Say "Kiss me".
Rachael: I can't... rely on... my memories...
Deckard: Say "Kiss me".
Rachael: Kiss me.
Deckard: I want you
Rachael: I want you.
Deckard: Again
Rachael: I want you.
[pauses]
Rachael: Put your hands on me.
Tyrrel: We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all, they are emotionally inexperienced, with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them with a past, we create a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, and consequently, we can control them better.
Deckard: Memories! You're talking about memories!
Deckard: Do you love me?
Rachael: I love you.
Deckard: Do you trust me?
Rachael: I trust you.
Friday, 11 July 2008
A Deleuze note
The thing has become independent of its “model” from the start, but is also independent of other possible personae who are themselves artists-things, personae of painting breathing this air of painting. And it is no less independent of the viewer or hearer, who experience it after, if they have the strength for it. What about the creator? It is independent of the creator through the self-positing of the created, which is preserved in itself. What is preserved - the thing or the work of art - is a bloc of sensations, that is to say, a compound of percepts and affects.’ (‘What is Philosophy?’ p. 164)
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
Procreation/reproduction
Procreation is a mechanism by which two living beings, a male and a female, create a third living being that is different from both the father and the mother. In contrast to reproduction by cloning , which results in an organism essentially identical to the parent organism, procreation is a source of innovation. It has contributed to the diversification of life forms throughout evolution .
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Monday, 30 June 2008
Wolf, whom do you love?
Me loves non-me. Othelo loves Desdemona.But Desdemona loves the black thing as well.The round goes on.The lamb loves its wolf.The wolf turns all white and starts quivering out of love for the lamb.The lamb loves the wolf's fragility, and the wolf loves the frail one's force.The wolf is now the lamb's lamb and the lamb has tamed the wolf.Love blackens the lamb.
Wolf, whom do you love?
If only I knew!...
Love-that's it.That's id.That idself [ca meme].And it/id loves me [Ca m'aime].And the fable is called the Wolf is the Lamb.
Wolf, whom do you love?
If only I knew!...
Love-that's it.That's id.That idself [ca meme].And it/id loves me [Ca m'aime].And the fable is called the Wolf is the Lamb.
The Wolf is the Lamb
Knowledge from experience: the heart goes blind because the need is stronger than anything else.Your ego is blind, your id is eager.It will get to the point of smashing everything.When there is a danger from outside, you bolt, but when the danger comes from inside, how can you bolt?The danger from inside is that complicated thing , the love of the wolf, the complicity that attaches us to that which threatens us.
We love the wolf.We love the love of the wolf.We love the fear of the wolf.We're afraid of the wolf: there is love in our fear.Fear is in love with the wolf.Fear loves.Or rather: we are afraid of the person we love.Love terrorizes us.Or else the person we love we call our wolf or our tiger, or our lamb in the manger.We are full of trembling and ready to wolf down.
[H.Cixous, Love of the Wolf]
We love the wolf.We love the love of the wolf.We love the fear of the wolf.We're afraid of the wolf: there is love in our fear.Fear is in love with the wolf.Fear loves.Or rather: we are afraid of the person we love.Love terrorizes us.Or else the person we love we call our wolf or our tiger, or our lamb in the manger.We are full of trembling and ready to wolf down.
[H.Cixous, Love of the Wolf]
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Components of gender
There are actually four components of gender: identity, presentation, performance, and role. Gender identity concerns how you think about yourself, gender presentation describes how you look physically and sartorially, gender performance pertains to how you act or comport yourself, and gender role refers to what you do for a living and what you contribute to the domestic sphere. Taken together, the last three components comprise gender expression. Gender identity is internal, whereas gender expression is external.
There are actually four components of gender: identity, presentation, performance, and role. Gender identity concerns how you think about yourself, gender presentation describes how you look physically and sartorially, gender performance pertains to how you act or comport yourself, and gender role refers to what you do for a living and what you contribute to the domestic sphere. Taken together, the last three components comprise gender expression. Gender identity is internal, whereas gender expression is external.
Plato_Symposium excerpt/myth of the Androgynous
...for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were
not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was
man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding
to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now
lost, and the word "Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach.
In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides
forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with
two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely
alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond.
He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased,
and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his
four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and
over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast.
Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because
the sun, moon, and earth are three;-and the man was originally the
child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the
moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and
moved round and round: like their parents. Terrible was their might
and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they
made an attack upon the gods;
...At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He
said: "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve
their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in
two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in
numbers.
...And when one of them meets with his other
half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or
a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love
and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other's sight,
as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their
whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire
of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards
the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse,
but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and
cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment
..human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.
not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was
man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding
to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now
lost, and the word "Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach.
In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides
forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with
two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely
alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond.
He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased,
and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his
four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and
over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast.
Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because
the sun, moon, and earth are three;-and the man was originally the
child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the
moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and
moved round and round: like their parents. Terrible was their might
and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they
made an attack upon the gods;
...At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He
said: "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve
their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in
two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in
numbers.
...And when one of them meets with his other
half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or
a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love
and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other's sight,
as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their
whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire
of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards
the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse,
but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and
cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment
..human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.
Sunday, 22 June 2008
phase_a/the limbic lobe
perirhinal area_recognition memory
hippocampus_spatial memory
amygdala_emotional memory
Cortical organization
The sex differences described by MacCoby and Jacklin have often been described as a “spatial” advantage for males and a “verbal” advantage for females, but more recent research has indicated that this dichotomy is too simple; there is a broader pattern of differences that cannot be labeled easily as verbal and spatial. Thus females excel at both perceptual speed and visual memory, whereas males are better at perceptual closure, the disembedding of visual patterns from complex arrays, map-reading, and target-directed skills such as guiding or intercepting projectiles…males appear to excel at chess and musical composition.In music, women appear to be as competent in performing as men, but fewer excel in composition.It has been suggested that men have an advantage in these fields, as well as in mathematics, because all involve spatial ability.
There is evidence that at least four significant cognitive differences are sex-related:verbal differences, visuospatial differences, differences in mathematical ability and differences in aggression.Although the causes of cognitive sex related differences are unknown, it is likely that they are at least partly biological. Consider the following data. Harshman and his associates, in a very ambitious study of the interaction of sex and handedness in cognitive abilities, report a significant interaction between sex and handedness; that is, sex-related differences in verbal and visuospatial bahavior varied as a function of handedness.It is difficult to imagine how social or environmental factors alone could account for this type of result.It is thus very plausible to account for sex-related differences at least partly by neurological factors that may be modulated by the environment.
[Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology, ch.10 Variations in cerebral asymmetry/ Kolb, Whishaw]
The Stage backdrop_Human Brain and Architecture
Core themes
Neurophysiology and architecture
The social construction of gender
Ideology and spatial patterns of built environments
Gender, sexuality and space
Neurophysiology and architecture
The social construction of gender
Ideology and spatial patterns of built environments
Gender, sexuality and space
The Love of Lies
L'Amour du mensonge
When I see you pass by, my indolent darling,
To the sound of music that the ceiling deadens,
Pausing in your slow and harmonious movements,
Turning here and there the boredom of your gaze;
When I study, in the gaslight which colors it,
Your pale forehead, embellished with a morbid charm,
Where the torches of evening kindle a dawn,
And your eyes alluring as a portrait's,
I say within: "How fair she is! How strangely fresh!"
Huge, massive memory, royal, heavy tower,
Crowns her; her heart bruised like a peach
Is ripe like her body for a skillful lover.
Are you the autumn fruit with sovereign taste?
A funereal urn awaiting a few tears?
Perfume that makes one dream of distant oases?
A caressive pillow, a basket of flowers?
I know that there are eyes, most melancholy ones,
In which no precious secrets lie hidden;
Lovely cases without jewels, lockets without relics,
Emptier and deeper than you are, O Heavens!
But is it not enough that you are a semblance
To gladden a heart that flees from the truth?
What matter your obtuseness or your indifference?
Mask or ornament, hail! I adore your beauty.
When I see you pass by, my indolent darling,
To the sound of music that the ceiling deadens,
Pausing in your slow and harmonious movements,
Turning here and there the boredom of your gaze;
When I study, in the gaslight which colors it,
Your pale forehead, embellished with a morbid charm,
Where the torches of evening kindle a dawn,
And your eyes alluring as a portrait's,
I say within: "How fair she is! How strangely fresh!"
Huge, massive memory, royal, heavy tower,
Crowns her; her heart bruised like a peach
Is ripe like her body for a skillful lover.
Are you the autumn fruit with sovereign taste?
A funereal urn awaiting a few tears?
Perfume that makes one dream of distant oases?
A caressive pillow, a basket of flowers?
I know that there are eyes, most melancholy ones,
In which no precious secrets lie hidden;
Lovely cases without jewels, lockets without relics,
Emptier and deeper than you are, O Heavens!
But is it not enough that you are a semblance
To gladden a heart that flees from the truth?
What matter your obtuseness or your indifference?
Mask or ornament, hail! I adore your beauty.
Arcades Project excerpt_4
Baudelaire, in the section, "Les Femmes et les filles" in his essay on Guys, cites the words of La Bruyere: "Some women possess an artificial nobility which is associated with a movement of the eye, a tilt of the head, a manner of deportment, and which goes no further." Compare Baudelaire's "Le Mensonge."-In the same section, Baudelaire cites the concept of the "femina simplex of the Roman satirist" (L'Art romantique [Paris],p.109)
[Z2a,2]
Baudelaire, in the section, "Les Femmes et les filles"
[Z2a,2]
Saturday, 21 June 2008
Monday, 16 June 2008
Quartett
Valmont I thought your passion for me extinguished. Whence this sudden rekindling. And with such youthful violence. Too late in any case. You will no longer set my heart aflame. Not even once. Not anymore. I’m telling you this not without regret, Valmont. In any case there were minutes, perhaps should I say moments, a minute, that’s an eternity, where I was happy thanks to your company. I speak on my behalf, Valmont.What do I know of your feelings. And perhaps I should rather speak of minutes, in which I could use you for this, you, that was your capacity to feel something in the operation of my physiology, which seems in recollection to be a feeling of happiness. You haven’t forgotten how to operate this machine. Don’t take your hand away. Not that I would feel anything for you. It is my skin which remembers.
[by Heiner Mueller , 1980 ]
Arcades Project excerpt_3
In his study "La Mante religieuse:Recherches sur la nature et la signification du mythe"
Sunday, 15 June 2008
arcades project excerpt
Baudelaire_ Fusées2
Throughout Baudelaire's writings, from the early novella La Fanfarlo, to an article on Mme Bovary, published in 1857, to the intimate journals, Fusées, and the prose poems, Le Spleen de Paris, there are allusions to fluid or mixed gender identities in contexts that are themselves a mixture of approval and anxious fascination. The motifs of androgyny and hysteria are intermixed and associated with heightened capacity for imagination, hypersensitivity, various forms of impotence and an inclination to excess. The hysterical or androgynous figure, whether male or female, is thus paradoxically assumed to have an increased capacity to enter into expanded states of consciousness that nourish the poetic imagination and to suffer from the inability to give them verbal form through the exercise of the "male" imagination and its "voice."
Throughout Baudelaire's writings, from the early novella La Fanfarlo, to an article on Mme Bovary, published in 1857, to the intimate journals, Fusées, and the prose poems, Le Spleen de Paris, there are allusions to fluid or mixed gender identities in contexts that are themselves a mixture of approval and anxious fascination. The motifs of androgyny and hysteria are intermixed and associated with heightened capacity for imagination, hypersensitivity, various forms of impotence and an inclination to excess. The hysterical or androgynous figure, whether male or female, is thus paradoxically assumed to have an increased capacity to enter into expanded states of consciousness that nourish the poetic imagination and to suffer from the inability to give them verbal form through the exercise of the "male" imagination and its "voice."
Arcades Project excerpt_2
At a certain point in time, the motif of the doll acquires a sociocritical significance .For example : ”You have no idea how repulsive these automatons and dolls can become, and how one breathes at last on encountering a full-blooded being in this society.” Paul Lindau , Der Abend (Berlin, 1896) [Z1,5]
Metamorphosing the Automaton to Medusa to a human being
Cixous explains that if women dare to "look at the Medusa straight on," female explorations will result in the discovery that the Medusa "is not deadly, she's beautiful and she's laughing."
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/English295/albright/monster.htm
Z_ The Doll, The Automaton
Arcades Project excerpt_1
From the Ombres Chinoises (Chinese Shadows) of the Palais-Royal: “A…demoiselle gave birth on stage, and the children could immediately scamper about like moles . There were four of them, and they danced together a few moments after the birth in a pleasant quadrille . Another young woman started tossing her head vigorously, and in the twinkling of an eye a second demoiselle had stepped fully clothed from out of her head . This latter at once began dancing but, the next minute, was seized in turn with head –shaking; these were labor pains, and a third demoiselle stepped out of her head . She, too, immediately began dancing but soon took to tossing her head like the others, and out of her arose the fourth demoiselle .It continued in this manner until eight generations were there on the stage-all related to one another through spontaneous generation, like lice.” J.F.Benzenberg, Briefe geschrieben auf einer Reise nach Paris (Dortmund, 1805 )
[Z1,4]
From the Ombres Chinoises (Chinese Shadows) of the Palais-Royal: “A…demoiselle gave birth on stage, and the children could immediately scamper about like moles . There were four of them, and they danced together a few moments after the birth in a pleasant quadrille . Another young woman started tossing her head vigorously, and in the twinkling of an eye a second demoiselle had stepped fully clothed from out of her head . This latter at once began dancing but, the next minute, was seized in turn with head –shaking; these were labor pains, and a third demoiselle stepped out of her head . She, too, immediately began dancing but soon took to tossing her head like the others, and out of her arose the fourth demoiselle .It continued in this manner until eight generations were there on the stage-all related to one another through spontaneous generation, like lice.” J.F.Benzenberg, Briefe geschrieben auf einer Reise nach Paris (Dortmund, 1805 )
[Z1,4]
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