Julie's invocation of the unconscious

[Julie Ingleton]

David,
...and what do you think it is that is occuring with your audience,? and
what is your audience response?  Is what you are doing representational of
something else?
Best wishes
Julie
-----Original Message-----
From: Divizio <d2d at PD.HIGHWAY.NE.JP>
To: DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU <DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU>
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 1999 4:35 PM
Subject: Re: Julie's invocation of the unconscious


>**********Divizio's invocation of the unconscious
>as provoked by
>David W. Samuels
>in reply to
>
>Jim and Julie,
>
>                                                                  To
>#/\/\/\/\
>On 1/12/99
>Divizio wrote all of the following,
>sequentially, alternating between pda and OED.
>
>doxa~
>        carafe 1 Corroon 1
>        Carole 1 carafe 1
>        area araf 1 Arab 1
>        oral 1 ouch unsafe
>
>glory~
>        jwafa mraga firafa
>        Sonya gwafa ginafa
>
>opinion~
>        warning weilding
>        warning MaRissa
>
>hexis~
>        mud I issued sided
>        issued sued I sined
>        joined Seiko mud I
>
>habitus~
>        Ratified butilarl
>        eatilarl sutilonl
>        Vatican nutilarl
>        metilarl warlord
>
>settled tendency or practice~
>        escrowing-Ra
>        gacmeanet beetles
>
>
>SCARABS ANYONE?  I like the late 20th C metaphor of us rolling our
>information around like dung beetles from one end of this life to the next.
>
>
>OK first the Introduction.
>I've been watching a while.  But I think this is worth posting.
>
>I am a Performance artist...cum poet.  Hahaha.
>
>I am trying to figure out WHY the following happens.
>Formally, I present a multi-media performance of a computer mediated poetic
>generation with a pda(character recognition computer-personal digital
>assistant)
>
>My credentials DNE......or is that NDE
>My background is shady...starting many things....finishing none....well,
>few.
>Five years of undergraduate meandering...and subsequently 20 years of "real
>life" experience gathering...punctuated with sporadic diverse
>reading....focused on whatever I needed to know for upcoming works
>(performance, etc, etc.).....OR trying to figure out WHAT's just happened
in
>works I've presented (performances, etc, etc)
>
>I am smoking my OED.
>
>Language has always fascinated me but =*as much as possible*=I have tried
to
>avoid it in my artworks......which come from a ritualistic base expressing
>my relationship with Place and Creature.
>
>A year ago I had a vision of a performance with a pda I'd come
>into.......hahaha.  It is very interesting work.  I've enjoyed and
benefited
>from reading along here.
>
>I'm not exactly sure HOW this is working........but I have some thoughts on
>the matter
>which are the *object* of my research.....
>
>NO....I want you to read the poems first.
>Please return to the top of this extravagant hypertextuality******
>/\/\/\/\#
>Thanks to David Samuels to stimulate this outburst.
>
>David 2 Divizio
>
>
>>I don't think it's an allergy to the notion of unconscious so much as an
>>allergy to the notion of depth psychology.  In my view the move to
>>"discourse" from "language" puts us in a positioin to ask some interesting
>>questions about the unconscious, such as:
>
>>(1) what is the relationship between consciousness and things that go
under
>>terms like "doxa," "habitus," "hexis," and so on.  This covers things like
>>the relationship between grammar and textual construction, the linking of
>>things like quantity, stress, intonation and gesture in performance, as
>>well as the question of linguistic consciousness and linguistic ideology.
>>I think that's what Greg Urban is trying to do, to use the Peirceian
>>trichotomies to empirically investigate how the things that people are
>>conscious they are doing are linked to the things they are not conscious
>>they are doing, even though those latter things have meanings; and how
>>features of discourse can move from one domain to the other.
>
>>(2) is a depth psychology model of the unconscious supported by the
>>empirical evidence of discourse?  For example, Freud and Wertheimer (not
to
>>mention Levi-Strauss, and let's add Hegel while we're at it, why not)
>>assert that there is a subconscious desire for resolution, tranquility,
the
>>good form.  Freud says that ambiguity creates anxiety, Levi-Strauss that
>>ambiguities are resolved in myth, and so forth.  Whereas I think it can be
>>argued from the evidence of discourse that people desire indeterminacy at
>>least as much as resolution.  So it's this area where "unconscious" slides
>>imperceptibly into "psychological motivation," and specifically
>>psychological motivation as a means of resolving our anxiety to find an
>>explanation for "behavior."  Discourse can help us unpack some of these
>>issues so that we're not held in thrall by the German aesthetic tradition
>>of holism.
>
>>So that's my opinion.
>
>>Best,
>
>
>
>>David W. Samuels
>>Assistant Professor
>>Department of Anthropology
>
>>212 Machmer Hall
>>University of Massachusetts
>>Amherst, MA 01003
>
>>VOX: (413) 545-2702
>>FAX: (413) 545-9494
>>email: samuels at anthro.umass.edu
>