Notes for a letter, 2

the creation of texts require
a system of writing, with a defined set of signs
a material medium or base (paper, ink, disks, etc.)
a tool or implement (printing machines, pen, typewriter, keyboard, etc)

the creation of meaningful texts require, apart from the items above,
a community of readers who share, to different extents, systems of writing AND
systems of reading.

texts have different levels of elaboration:
the basic string is a simple performance, using the basic encoding procedures of the system. let's call this level I elaboration.
Level II elaboration compounds the first by hyper-coding, that is creating secondary codes that accommodate poly-semantic reading.

Level I can be described by a metalanguage, as linguistics or semiology.
Level II can be described by a metalanguage, as rhetorics or criticism or hermeneutics.
Level III arises as meta-coding, as level II elaborations read through as codes.

what do we call the elaboration of reading level I? Grammatical competence?
what do we call the elaboration of reading level II? Literacy?
what do we call the elaboration of reading level III? as Meta-literacy?
what do we call the meeting of this complex with other systems of signs? Multi-media, Poly-semiotic art, Post-literacy, Hypertext, Intermedia?
what do we call the foregrounding of these levels and the procedures that they use? SCRIPTURAL FANTASY.

several approaches can be done in relation: parodic summaries, materialist immanence, minimalist scripts, proto-lexemic bindings, paragraphic exercises, etc. it can be technical, mechanical, intuitive, complex, reductionist, calculating, simplistic, caricaturist, etc. as exercises, some may fall, some may survive.

what is in the agenda? it is difficult to be argumentative without any DECLARATIVE slipping in. the language of intents and results is difficult in theory and practice. but we can always dramatize this fantasy, with all the implied VERTIGO of the exercise in METAPHORICAL ASSERTIONS (in various ways).

briefly: SUMMARY of scriptural fantasies or logics; REDUCTION to an immanent material & "literal" base; DISRUPTION of allegoric energies; and, REPETITION as core dynamic. plus, a little humor isn't so bad.

Notes for a letter

the LETTER is an argumentative base, not necessarily any specific letter, but the notion of letterness, i.e., SCRIPT. its ALLEGORIC richness as a term is an afterthought that accompanies the MATERIAL base. at one point its foregrounding would also be called upon. at any rate, whatever it is, the letter is simply a scriptural FANTASY at work, summoned by the scriptural act. we do not say it exists or not; merely, that it is part of what goes on in that act.

the TITLE cannot be a full DECLARATIVE. the TITLE does not present an OBJECT formed, but an iconic exercise in RECONNAISSANCE, that is, a pseudo-declarative. (and what is the real status of a pseudo-declarative if it can even be made?)

the allegoric echo is the hermeneutic wing of the SYMBOLIZING ENERGIES of scripts. this aspect is what we consider as a sort of epiphenomenon, but of what, we cannot say definitely. the relationship of CAUSE and EFFECT, what is primary or secondary, is always in flux.

in this case, the phrase "the letter as base" of this exercise is definitely a METAPHORICAL ASSERTION, already assuming the arrival of a positive form demanding immediate interpretation or reconnaissance: THIS as THAT, recognition as/and repetition.

(thus, the TITLE is of the same status. as a metaphorical assertion, it awaits its second term indefinitely. we can then add that a pseudo-declarative, too, is a metaphorical assertion, without a second term, which in this case would be the BODY of the TEXT under it. or, this second part is in a slippery slope. a metaphorical assertion simply mentions the notion of something, without committing itself to the real status of that something: indefiniteness.)

we can always dive further down, into asemic writing exercises, into the dawn of morphemes, but this would only drag the question into a different level. it would still require that we assume what is BEFORE and AFTER a reconnaissance.

the arrival of WORD, OBJECT, LINE, POINT: always in suspension, since they are what is essentially a question of.

the LINKAGES in SPACE or TIME are also a part of the question. as the attempt becomes more complicated, their roles would also be in the foreground. IMAGE and OBJECT are the same thing as far as this exercise is concerned.

the visual aspect is a frivolous but necessary part of this exercise. DESIGN and SYMMETRY are conserved, not because there is BELIEF in their virtues, but that scriptural logics value them as eventual outcome, even though ENTROPY and NEGENTROPY are relativistic concepts. In the end, both Chance and Order are very difficult to reproduce.

as SUMMARIES (caricature) of scriptural logics: the current pieces attempt a simplistic (parodic) material immanence to undercut hermeneutical forces that sustain these SCRIPTURAL FANTASIES. further complications could employ other procedures to broaden this exercise in the next stages.

small stone

                                  Assume this is indeed a stone set apart from all others. (Lawrence Fixel)

     Imagine you’re holding a small stone in your hand. Imagination being fertile, you start having some thoughts. You come up with the following.

Like this small stone in the hand

holding secrets, you imagine

just a cold object, uselessly

lying around, this faceless sea.

     You hesitate about those commas, and the capital letter at the beginning, and the period at the end, elements that contribute to the idea that this is a sentence, which is true, and have the advantage of suggesting circularity and closure. But you want to replicate the act of imagining, and the kind of ambiguities it creates, for your reader, and to put the reader in the same bind that you find yourself in. So you do away with the comma, and relax the bond of syntax by putting spaces around the lines. Thus,

Like this small stone in the hand

holding secrets you imagine

just a cold object uselessly

lying around this faceless sea.

     Not content, feeling the syntax is still too strong that the ambiguities you wanted might not come off very well, you decide to get rid of this line altogether, and say:

Like this

small stone 

in the hand

holding secrets 

you imagine

just a cold object

uselessly

lying around

this faceless sea.

     You also think of running a permutation of this series to dramatize the irresolvable dialectic you were imagining, pushing the eye around so that it won’t settle in a fulcrum, or find an Archimedean point of reading. However, this is feeding everything to the fish, and it would have been probably better to let the syntax of a first glance dominate, and hope that succeeding glances would loosen the bonds, but at the same time, entrap the eye deeper and deeper into the Endless Bind, with or without the presence of syntax. (Or, probably it’s even enough just to say, “This faceless sea.”) 

     At any rate, that’s how you imagine it would be like.

?context, 2

"I've come to the conclusion that it's very hard to write a gesture completely devoid of meaning or to write a gesture that's completely filled with meaning." -- Michael Jacobson, asemic artist


This tension between meaningfulness and meaninglessness probably defines what language is all about. It is like being caught in the middle of two opposing traffic. This is not so different from the concept of reason. If you insist too much on the rationality of an idea, you will end up being irrational. Voltaire's Candide is a very good illustration. Humor, too, can easily degenerate into other things without a certain balancing act.

It is not, however, a simple binarism. If you move beyond a certain point towards one end, you will find yourself at the other end, and so on. Thus, what we actually have is an endless swing toward both ends, never really defining for us the pure state of meaningfulness and meaninglessness.

These two terms are not axiomatic givens, as if we knew what they were ahead of time. In any process that involves scripts, images, symbols, or signs, that is, any language game, everything seems to be moving by positing positive and negative values, or units and gaps, along the way. It is as if the very act of walking was creating the road itself, instead of walking over a prior constructed path. Each action creates its own space, or weaves its own path, instantaneously assigning poles of meaningfulness and meaninglessness as constitutive horizons that do not have absolute positions, nor absolute values.

The uncertainty of the real value of these poles even renders them mysterious. It is for a system or a game to decide which is which to set itself up. When that happens, a certain threshold is reached. Everything solidifies into a dogma, and becomes too signifying, too obvious. What was previously dismissed as meaningless starts making more sense.

What is interesting, from the point of view of literature, is to see many texts that play on these tensions through the use of different techniques (Ray di Palma's super-efficient syntax, for example, or Peter Ganick's voiceless, subjectless, objectless flux).

extract, 2

supported based on gradual allotropic
remote deniable adverbial stimuli
single barred other assortment

initial headcount film transaction
triple section of repetitive complex
processions dictate filial status

convey all occlusion max
ration recalling dispelled ejecta
basic lent boundary advice

limits failure of blanket proponent
summation pin altered nominated
station noeta over surface

anaphoric wear a potential sealant
detection emotive appeal essence
retains active set direction

adding imaginary control of terminal delay
ending descent into split range
sampling operations pass unity

demand leading to solely patterned
tendency end register possessive  
motions trading attention spills


...

?context, 1

It is not easy to speak too generally, without referring to particular pieces as examples. Then again, the example is not easy to explain in terms of an obvious proof or evidence or as a paradigm, as if there was an easy bridge between the explication and the object so-called being explained. It is a tricky dance, and pursuing it in itself can become an objective illusion.

To simplify to a ridiculous level, to write something is first of all to raise a question, fundamental perhaps, on the nature of relationships with scripts.

The working relationship that I pretend to project is not towards the exemplification or creation of semantic, aesthetic or scriptural models. The organic phantasm I would like to deploy--if vertigo can be paused, involves the temporal suspension of knowing that I am pretending, so that something could arise: scripted or not, marginal or central, in letter or in spirit. Whatever arrives, it would carry traits that destabilize so many times that--far from leading to a thematics or a message--would seem to take on these very functions by default: short-circuited, delayed, suspended, lost, blocked, interrupted, altered, rerouted, split, disrupted, etc.

Definitely, or maybe definitely, one procedure cannot be used forever; that is, it can only be pursued so long, since it would eventually satisfy its own stylistic inertia, even if it may be torn within by its own syntactic and logical contradictions. One solution can delay this by inserting a circle of instability into a bigger circle of instability.

At any rate, that can probably sum up the whole idea of contexts for me.

Indeed, it has become a big question why a text like that needs to be produced at all, when we have so many approaches already around explored by many brilliant individuals, some subsumed under "nonlinear" writing, an idea which in itself is not a given, but another question. (Or, any idea is already a question.)

So there you go: to make these texts is probably closer to a form of asking a question, than to a form of giving an answer, or an example. It is not so different from asking What is a human being? or What is love? and getting tragedy or sonnets.

Finally, if you ask me what a text is, then probably you would hear something like: at the moment we don't know what it is, sorry. But are you any better asking what time it is?

...

extract, 1

dominant order input if impression 
dilation behind  arrived before totality
at the counter external directive risk

tiny emitting a sequence background
secure bypass preview turn out panel
further provided by time with emphasis

correlate assumptions before process
bisect redundant overlay transfer
obvious upper chances beyond simple

installed organized brevity periodic angle  
returns negation media decision quickly
by many estuary radiating effacement

invalidate operation superstition field
surplus together with potent legend 
barely begun notation expenditure spike

companion secondary delay induced 
elevation terminal passing of mass-form
precedent terms ordinate recovery

inside involve junction creating where
inspire the moment obvious property
inquisitive pushes implicit cycle

determinate bulk inclusion assembly
attraction of undeniable employ delivery
extended measure chemical prowess

 ...

comic tension

Comedy that exploits physical traits is often the lowest type of humor, and probably has mythic roots (Odysseus as beggar). The twin faults of physical deformity and economic misery combine to highlight the divisive valuations of a master class.

Character and personality satires, caricatures, or spoofs are less physically oriented humor, and could be seen as trademarks of a different, more socialized, or politically-conscious groups. A moral or philosophical dimension is added, but still hinting at ideals that have not been properly met.

Situational comedy has ancient roots too, and exploits the malentendu, confusion, or mix-ups resulting from accidents beyond human control. It may not be hard to say that absurdist comedy has roots here, although with this type, any master context allowing the comedy to be defined is already missing. Thus, any discussion of "roots" becomes misplaced here...

The first represents the breakdown of a cosmic order (reversals); the second one can only point out the impossibility to identify a point where that is possible. The baseline, in fact, is a kind of metaphysics of poverty, but which is haunted by the echo of order, meaning and language. This is why the play of language, and its tendency to break down, dramatizes this irreparable tension.

A table of dissociations

Before the message or form, object or subject, theme or argument, there is the brute script, an artifact caught in histories of symbolic processes.

The symbol or script in itself is not signifying; there are super-signs deployed that circulate to organize other signs: master concepts, idées-forces, key terms, sign-posts…

To subtract the symbolic energy from the line: the symbol with the minus sign;

There is always a question of the problematic link between the practice of the idea and the idea of the practice;

Any species of the declarative (explanation, illustration, etc.) is suspect as a device of coherence. Any argument moving towards the defense of an idea or process is a declarative;

Can we start writing without any master discourse or subject taking charge, no thematic conducting the mass, or rhetorical order whatsoever sculpting the flow of thought and emotion?

Although consistent with argumentation, it would be too declarative to cement this announced objective with a coherent practice, or overload it with the physics of illustration or execution, as if there was a seamless medium between idea and practice, and that it would just take some technique and effort to demonstrate it.

That would just replicate or reinstate a center for the discursive production, overlaying the negative symbol with a positive film of meaning that super-intends all the series…

It would restore the symbolic energies of scripts as the primary field of events. This may be unavoidable, with the symbolic always resurging like an echo or after-effect;

This is the tension that tugs us back and forth from meaning-effects and their material processes. The entry-point is always already at risk.

Using the logic of intention and purpose: I would say, “I want to start a table of dissociations.”

It begins with the dissociation of symbolic energies from scripts, that is, both in associative and constitutive levels. I don’t claim that scripts should not have these functions, but that the significance of scripts is a temporary product. There is an actual management of scripts within an economy of significations, a connection we foreground by dissociations.

First, I would like to place myself at the level of the scriptural item: language as artifact.

Next, this scriptural gesture is managed by a host of thematic attractors: subject, topic, argument, key idea, source, destination, etc.

The process is not analytically pure: the practice is a see-saw of contradictions, erasures, postulation and cancellation. This explanation is an example, another declarative…

This dissociative practice of scripts entails the suspension of major associative items, patterns, and principles: syntax, attribution, description, allusions, imagery, rhyme, and other language forms.

In short, a re-view of actual and personal intertexts, or of various thematic attractors: lyricism, humanism, idealism, movements, aesthetics, schools of thought, literary forms, discursive styles, rhetorical patterns…

In any case, neither in a clear commentary nor in an applied practice can this whole idea, purpose, or intention be unified. Both terms (commentary, practice) become master concepts themselves, immediately taking over the sense of events.

But that opens a moment where dissociations can be launched again, in dispersive bursts I can probably call "sidelances..."

Fantastic machines

A man was looking for some fantastic machines to impress his in-laws with. And in this room, sir, we have Machine A and Machine X. “I don’t understand. They look quite identical.”

True, sir, but that is what it seems on the surface. Let me explain as objectively as I can. When you push this button on Machine A, it proceeds to unfurl a world for you in an unexpected series. Let’s say it starts with 1, it can come out with 973, but not necessarily. There is no absolute rule that governs the series that it spurts. In any language event, it may follow 1 with gold or cow or never, or any nonsense symbol like ∞ or µ, a vegetable salad, or roof of Italian villa in case, or even a human human child, a supernova and a preposition.

“Interesting, but I have no great need for this child or that supernova. How about Machine X?”

This is the most fantastic machine of all, our prototype. When we push this button, it generates a series following strict rules. For example, 1 is followed strictly by 2, then by 3. The word it is followed by a singular verb in the third person, and this apple is always eaten by Eve before Adam. Archaic can always rhyme with ecstatic but not with dice. Now you have 6209, a seemingly random number, but represents 17 solar earth years. You can opt to push this other button if you find yourself unable to divine the rules, which in your case, dear sir, would be quite rare, I believe. Well, my in-laws would be in great need of this kind, then.

Amazed, the man said, “You’re right. This is the most fantastic machine you have. Look how as if it had read my mind completely.” It doesn’t surprise me, sir. If I may add, with full sincerity, that before you came into the store, I heard the same machine say A man was looking for some fantastic machines. I simply took that to mean you.

“What a very fitting and necessary way to end. Well, my in-laws would be in great need of this kind, then. I’ll take X.”