Julie's invocation of the unconscious

[Divizio]

Julie,
Thanks to question.

>Is what you are doing representational of
>something else?

No it's presentational.  I *present* my immediate, arbitrary
consciousness......perception......to the computer.....which transforms the
*information* (writing and other cursive, energetic
*scribbles*).........into text (usually)...[though some VERY strange
images....patterns.....video noise..... sudden interruptions ..... long
pauses...... have generated .......figures ...sketches .....curious
shiftings of scale (varying intensity of image)].....that seem to bear a
contextual relationship to the mediation......both  temporally and
spatially.  The video documentation of the performance reveals curious
....to the point of.......profound associations.  The process is
ambivalent.......I have no expectation.
Let me describe an example.

The first performance I did with this mediation process, I took the stage
wearing a small video camera that I could adjust to watch the computer
screen I held in my hands.  I explained only that we (myself and two
Japanese ...dancer/musician) were going to create a kind of shamanic
audience participation poem.

At the outset the girls spray painted in English, Japanese, and other
graffitti ...what they perceived of the imagery projected onto the
projection video screen from the camera I wore. One *sang* and one *danced*.
For a "moment", late in the performance, none of us were on the stage
......we'd all moved into the audience.


The audience were about 100.  It was in a nightclub in Tokyo, rented for the
book launch of a local poet's new compendium ......of Tokyo poets.  Many
performances, readings, and music.

It was pretty noisy....the party was well under way.

I listened...
I heard someone say "Time" (not to me...I simply heard it)
I wrote it on the computer screen.....it transformed accurately into fonted
text "Time".

I listened....
I heard someone say "Paints" (I think this was projected at me.....perhaps
composed)
"Paints" appeared on the screen next to "Time" accurately transformed.

>From the back of the room I heard someone call out "MORE Challenging".....
indeed it was going a little slow.......I *was* a little anxious.  I wrote,
"more challenging".  (It's clearly legible in the documentation video)  What
appeared on the screen however, was...... "mere challenge".

Now the poem read, "Time Paints mere challenge".  Wow.  Cool huh?

The performance continued another 12 minutes......

Later, I was surprised to hear on the video documentation the man's voice
who had called out "MORE challenging".  He happened to have sat next to the
documentation camera.  He gives a running commentary about what we were
doing onstage throughout the performance.  Some very interesting comments.
He kept referring to what we were doing as
"Bleak!"....."Pessimistic"......then comparing it to Beckett.......and
Rimbaud..."then declaring NO NO NO this guy is missing the point!"

BUT, the *truly* interesting thing is ....on the documentation video it is
clear that this unknown commentator did not call out "MORE
challenging"........he called out "MORTALITY".

"Time Paints mere challenge" is, I think, a pretty optomistic statement
about
"MORTALITY"

Does that answer your other questions, Julie?

I've done Five such performances..each unique...each with similar results.

I've been researching biosemiotics to try and evolve an understanding of
what's going on.

I'm really looking for some leads on figuring out how to talk about what's
happening in this performance.

Any ideas?

d2d

·ol : Julie Ingleton <julieip at DIESEL.NET.AU>
ˆ¶æ : DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU <DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU>
“úŽž : 1999”N1ŒŽ12“ú 19:19
Œ–¼ : Re: Julie's invocation of the unconscious


>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
>>
>