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[+kanexfaucher + matinastamatakis + johnmoorewilliams+]
[A/Enac[T]lysis+]
[we</i\>we]
[me a[gen(e)ti]culpa!]
[fader oUT]
[3.14159265358979323846]
Afterword: Lysis
by Elizabeth Kate Switaj
InterView: matinastamakis+kanexfaucher
InterView: johnmoorewilliams+kanexfaucher
End:Notes
Shall our poetiglobin begin here, or work its way through the scat-
shoot?
e-scato-shooto.
[+!] 004
Perhaps even such an attempt at a method would also succumb to the
schizographic and anaclysmic ruptures of the very poetics it under-
takes to explain. Even strikethroughs that place terms and words under
erasure will not suffice, for all such acts will produce ever more meta-
static negation. It is, in some ways, a kind of pthisis bruiting throughout
the excursus, the threnody of language corrupted by its own codes.
Codework poetry operates by a series of proliferations and
condensations through the conduit of computer-specific languages in
hybridization with non-traditional poetics. What lysics proposes is the
construction of the occult machine, the computer in obsolescence,
the very decay of code as the machines break down. This is not to
say that we are attempting to outmode those intrepid ASCIInauts of
invention, but rather that we are exploring the gala of ruin, what that
portrait of an apocalypse of language would look like via de/re-coding.
We do this through several means, and in this “ruin” of language we
create anew, escaping what Jameson calls the prisonhouse of lan-
guage. That “carceral continuum” inherent in codes succumbs to a
virtual storming of its Bastille in a kind of revel – vertiginous and bac-
chanalian. And, just as the effect of cancer on the body, we use the
code against itself, co-opting and pirating linguistic function to effec-
tively “trick” language into a wild growth beyond its usual parameters.
This is the graft – or, perhaps more in line with the etymo-
logical pedigree of graphein, “grapht”. As per definition, graft comes
in two colours: the first is inducement of growth, and the other is
the abuse of power resulting in gain. “Graphting” entails textual
surgery. The power of the poetic code is corrupted, shifted into a
new domain advantageous to metastatic creation, and it can only
be done through a forced inducement to outgrow its coded limits.
There have been several attempts of differing methods for the conju-
ration of textual possibilities. The short story, “The Library of Babel”
by Jorge Luis Borges considers a vast library wherein are stored
every permutation possibility for books of uniform length (410 pag-
es) with the 22 sacred orthographical characters. Doubtless, Borges
was influenced by Raymundus Lullus whose “lullistic machine” pro-
duced an ars combinatoria of words with the use of three wheels
containing all the letters rotating on a central axis. This, averred
Lullus, would produce all the possible variations of text the human
mind could ever construct. This system would later be bastardized
by Athanasius Kircher, and would factor in some of the reasoning of
[+!] 005
Leibniz. Other such methods, from the directly mechanical, such as
the Babbage machine, to the somewhat inelegant founder’s meth-
od of surrealism’s cut-up method, would also weigh in as possible
ways of creating textual variations. But in none of these methods
is found the very possibility, in a somewhat Bataillean sense, of the
dissolution of language; a loosely programmed mechanism for de-
naturing or decomposing language in such a way as to make such
a decomposition the very foundation for composition. This inaugural
and modest attempt in the foregoing could be called our prima figura.
[+!] 006
of bonded amino acids, but these bonds can make a veritable infinite
number of chains. An amino acid, unbonded, can exist per se, but its
tendency is to bond. It is the same at the molecular level, especially
among atoms that do not have their electron shells filled and so have
a tendency to fill those shells through bonding in the environment.
However, perhaps if considered with more precision, the
“magic” of de/re-coding actually possesses a “codeme” exchange
of particulate code-elements that are co-transferred or donated.
A site that is decoded must first possess a capacity for affective
transformation, and the act of decoding-as-recoding must exceed
the resistance-factor of said site. If the de/re-coding occurs rela-
tively quickly, then the de/re-coding capacity for overcoming re-
sistance will be proportionately higher in that case than in another
instance where the exchange of codemes is slower due to a nar-
rower relationship between the capacities of affect and affecta-
tion. Also, changes in either the resistance-factor in site “x” and the
agent of de/re-coding “a” may also affect the rate of transformation.
Decoding, taken on its own, relies upon a capacity for nega-
tion or translocation of existing codemes in site “x” that is higher than
the resistance-factor of the site. But to take decoding on its own,
as a kind of in vitro phenomenon, is impossible since decoding is
synonymous with recoding. To decode is to perform a substitution of
codemes through addition, rearrangement, or displacement. Remov-
al by substitution, for example, automatically alters the code chain,
thereby reinscribing it in terms of its expression and function. A ge-
neticist can knock out a gene from a particular twist of helices, ef-
fectively decoding the former code chain, but such an action recodes
the chain insofar as new bonds develop, and the overall genetic
character of the organism is also made to alter in accordance with
the change (the recoding) of a particular code chain. The annulment
of one code chain is simultaneously the genesis of a new one. We
discover this in the deconstructive program in relation to text insofar
as the insertion, reinterpreting, appending or substitutive effects of
deconstruction upon a “stable” text results in the creation of a new
text, another layer or register that re(en)-codes the “original” text.
In the same way that decoding cannot exist in isolation be-
yond being an abstract idea, recoding follows the same order. To
re-code would mean that there was once a code chain that pre-ex-
isted the act of re-coding. Simply put, one cannot recode if there
is not a code chain in place within which the recoding can occur.
[+!] 007
Codemes from either the already coded chain or the agent
of de/re-coding have the possibility of trading off. For example, if
we consider the way in which a street gang can recode the relation-
ship to urban geographical space, we find that the gang can bor-
row certain codemes from the code chain “property rights”. In this
way, a gang can be said to feel a property entitlement to the area
they have reinscribe and defend without a) owning any property in
the formerly encoded traditional sense as guaranteed by a nation’s
system of law (the code frame), b) defense and territorial expan-
sion nascently inherent within the existing code chain is borrowed
(appointing gang members to substitute for the role of police, ter-
ritorial expansion hitched on a code chain of inter-gang conquests
rather than urban sprawl, etc), and; c) a sense of community and
belonging due to a consensus in values and goals. In the case of
the gang, the code chains are reinscribed, but are in many ways
borrowed codemes from the code chain they have de/re-coded.
When it comes to de/re-coding, there is never an equi-
librium. The act of de/re-coding depends on an anaclysm, a de-
gree of metastasis and apoptosis. It is the proportional difference
between de/re-coding and the site or object to be de/re-coded
that determines the capacity to be affected, and to what extent.
Code frames contain a complex series of interrelated code
chains. This provides the expressible “structure” of code chains taken
as a larger unity. Code frames are a means of increasing order and
resisting de/re-coding by aligning the code chains into rigid signifying
patterns. However, code frames are no more immune to transforma-
tion and de/re-coding than is the genetic structure of a body to cancer
due to internal or external influences. Code frames are idealized uni-
ties to protect against the potential for de/re-coding. Despite the ar-
rangement of code chains to best protect against alteration, it is akin
to building a dam with poor grade materials. The bigger the frame,
the more resistant it may be to alteration, but the code chains it con-
sists of are individually less resistant, and at times it only takes one
proverbial “weak link” in a chain to spur a widespread, metastatic de/
re-coding event. Within a code frame, there can be structural anoma-
lies that may help or hinder its overall integrity, areas where there is
“bunching”, overlayering, and, conversely, stress, resource scarcity,
and atrophy. Code frames may over-respond to the threat of invasion
by arranging tighter and more numerous code chains that, by their
strong resonance, may produce “code bulges”. These bulges may
[+!] 008
be constructed at the risk of shifting code chain resources from other
zones, making those zones deficient, more permeable, and suscep-
tible to a potential de/re-coding event. For example, if too much re-
source investment is given the philosophy of linguistic reference, and
more practitioners are allocated to promote and defend such a theory
against anticipated objections on the front-end, then that may mean
less defensibility if the same code frame of that philosophy were ques-
tioned on the validity of semantic rules in general on the back end.
Bulges are not the only concern when it comes to code
frames. Firstly, code frames demarcate their zones rigidly and so do
not communicate as easily with neighbouring frames. Code frames,
tightly bound up with code chains, do not have very permeable mem-
branes. Secondly, they don’t alter or transition easily on their own
given the fact that the energy required to do so would also mean a
considerable alteration in either the arrangement of code chains or
a change in the individual codemes themselves. Lastly, despite their
apoptotic quality of resisting de/re-coding event threats, some code
chains are arranged in what can be called hollow code bubbles. Code
bubbles have the appearance of impenetrability, but a major portion
of the code chains are stitched together as a surface, and if that
surface breaks, it reveals a vulnerable space wherein a de/re-coding
event could more easily take place and cause more rapid alteration.
[+!] 009
between words in order to disrupt them, force new combinations,
cross-breed, or push certain connective tissues between words to
their exaggerated conclusion. Decomposition has to occur at the
very site of every word, applying the lysical rather than lyrical func-
tion behind the word itself as its generative motor. The word and its
components are vitalist, but they are ravenously so, like a derecho.
My initial inspiration, despite my overweening obsession with
etymology and a rank fascination with the history of words, was in be-
ing introduced to the code poetry of Mezangelle et al. As is my habit,
I long pondered the very word “code” and explored its variations in
language, thus coming to a notion (pirated and augmented from De-
leuze and Guattari) that I dubbed de/re-coding. Codes have flips and
reversals, and can be corrupted against itself: this was the genesis
of a de-composition that was, like Nietzsche’s critique-as-creation,
itself a composition. My initial attempts were slightly emulative, and I
produced a series of “code” poems in dedication to the code poetry
movement (published by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen’s wonderful site, for-
ward/text). By the time I had firmed up the “method”, I tapped a cre-
ative lit-aphasic poet by the name of Matina Stamatakis, and we set
to work on a book-sized collaboration entitled simply [+!], of which
selections have been appearing here and there. From this point, it
was only a matter of chance and time that I would encounter another
poet who was diligently looking to disrupt and disgorge the contents
of language, John Moore Williams - whose I discover i is an android
explored the intrinsic effects of consciousness in relation to language
and homunculi. As golems and cyborgs, androids and alchemical
matters are another obsession of mine, this set the tone for my in-
terview of him for ditch, Poetry, run by John C. Goodman. Owing to
our craven fascination for “theory”, all the conditions were in place to
dive into the sandbox and start inventing, pushing, and composing.
Granted, this kind of work is not easy to digest, and is a wide
departure from more “straight-talking” poetry. We could verily be ac-
cused of being pretentious, impenetrable, making art for art’s sake.
But this is our cacoethes scribendi, our graphomaniacal urge. Many
people close to me claim with exasperation that they “don’t get”
the work, nor see how it is poetry. Fair enough. For my part, I see
nothing pretentious in an act of play and experimentation, but re-
ception is an entirely different matter. I don’t perceive ourselves as
elitist in our production, and it is not as though my aim is to prove
intelligence by being abstruse and obscure. I don’t think work like
[+!] 010
this is somehow “better” than different types of poetry either - it
is just a different perspective, a different taste, and abides by the
structure of play. I am guided by the perennial maxim, “why not?”
The work is fun, and not intended to browbeat others with some
phantom image of intellectualizing. Lysic is free of bombast, and
its sole purpose is to engage in serious linguistic play in order to
create new connections, new “lines of flight”. Lysic, in the way that
we have performed it here, puts one in a kind of mood or mode,
a trance-like state in relation to language - it is a different way of
speaking. It is a language of alterity, yet installed within language
itself, like being a nomad or an exile traveling within the city walls.
Another fount of inspiration for this kind of work emerged
when I was commissioned to write an essay for the Metalo-
gos ensemble. Daring to go beyond the word itself were figures
like Christian Bök, Steve McCaffery, W. Mark Sutherland, Syl-
via Ptak and Francesca Vivenza (among others). In terms of re-
combinant variations, Bök’s Bibliomechanics was key, reminis-
cent of Raymond Lully and Jorge Luis Borges’ “Library of Babel.”
We must here open up on the question of economy and mem-
ory, suspending for a time the problem of “manifesto”. I have chosen
to name this the second attempt since I have written on this before.
This is not to say that I was or am dissatisfied with the first attempt,
but that there is more to say and this is my second outing to make
my explanations and decide on different problems, different ques-
tions. At the very center, wherever we may erroneously choose to
locate it, would be the essential question of decomposition. This, of
course, signals us to the baser question of what it means to com-
pose, what a composition “is” in its implication and sense, and if
de-composition is merely a negation or something other entirely.
Perhaps lurking at this nebulous center of (de)composition will
be two operators or guides that may ferry us to a provisional answer:
the economy of words (and poetics at large) as well as their “memory”
(mine, yours, theirs, the lexical, institutional, semantic, sociological,
historical etc). We know that the assigned title of one who composes
is “composer” (identical in appearance to the old French), but also
has an oblique link to the Latin “componere” - or, “component. The
variegation of light passing through a prism is broken down into its
component parts, these components etymologically meaning “a put-
ting together”, an arrangement, an ordering - according to Form, as
much in the Platonic sense perhaps as well as the less definitionally
[+!] 011
loaded derivatives in the aesthetic understanding of composition. If
de-composition were merely the negation, then this putting-together
would be a pulling-apart, a disorganizing, disordering, derangement
(this, of course, entails a “throwing” into confusion as if it were a target
whereas a pulling is centered on a subject that does the pulling, most
likely “toward itself”). To decompose carries the meaning of “decay”
since the prefix “de-” denotes a reversal. It also means simplification
into smaller constituent parts. The antonym of decaying would be
growth, and growth calls to mind something that becomes larger since
it is the merger of smaller parts into an organized whole. In Aristote-
lian terms, the opposition is expressed as generation and corruption.
But we must linger on decay, its loam. Decay is what
generally occurs to something already dead, but should
we decide to de-compose a composition, has the composi-
tion already succumbed to its own demise? If so, then we are
faced with the curious problem of the “dead composition”.
Aside 1:
Visual poetry has built within it the resistance to speech, or, rather
“being spoken”. In its being resistant to being spoken, it is regarded
as a visual phenomenon, an art that relies on light. To speak a visual
poem would be a bold failure, or else would be to describe it rather
than speak it. I can describe what I see in visual poetry, but I will for-
ever be blocked from conveying its full expression in spoken form. I
may narrate parts that are readable, or even attempt to verbalize the
contorted series of, say, a concatenation of consonants like “gfss-
drttnb”, but even so this is a violation of the visual intention of the
poem for it has been designed for the eye as an aesthetic production.
Aside 2:
[+!] 012
another in the flash of the instant. In some ways, it is physiocratic, and
in others psychological, but even these are unsatisfying signifiers that
will cause an infinite regress of explanations that need still further ex-
planations. Scale is referenced or indexed to something static, and
so the general understanding of the size of the geologist’s hammer
or a dime next to a schist assures the frame of reference, the scale
between the known object and the unknown in terms of size. The un-
known does not have the luxury (or the burden) to define the scale of
the known except by recursion, but such a recursion happens when
the known defines the unknown, and the unknown reflects back upon
the known. In either case, the reference point is the same, and so
the scale between the two is a comparative based on the knowledge
of the determined thing that can shed light upon the undetermined.
It is not that we agree with this way of thinking, but it is a
prejudice of our cognitive faculty. It antedates Hegel and his ratio-
centric way to knowledge; i.e., that we may come to know the un-
known by reference to that which we already accept as known.
Of course, for Hegel, there is the added level or layer of knowl-
edge in allowing the now newly determined object (courtesy of
the already determined) to re-determine with more detail the initial
term. A is A by virtue of the fact that it is not-B, but B is B by vir-
tue of the fact that is not-A (or C, D, etc.). We know A, and can
better use this understanding to figure out what B is, and we learn
more about A when we compare it to what it is not, namely, B.
Aims:
To deliver language into the hands of delirium, the aberrant, the mon-
strous, to bifurcate in such a way as to reveal its inner madness through
evocations and annunciations. This is to bring about the word’s in-
herent duotone. Borrowing from what Deleuze calls heterogenesis, it
is at the point that a style (or method of expression) splits, revealing
its shadow. This is not a push toward essentializing, for there is no
depth to discover - only surfaces, facets on a 2-dimensional plane.
Morphemic mutations, perhaps, splintering, fractalizing while devour-
ing its own genesis, its initial stage of the equation that convened the
process. Any attempt at grounding the “style” of lysic is to slip into
second-order descriptions which themselves may be dissolved by
the ravenous and indifferent (tyrannical) process of de-composition.
In the end, what does lysic “promise”, as if it is beholden to
[+!] 013
promise anything? The art of a future to come (avenir) will belong to the
monstrous, the aberrant, the vitalist surge of affirmative difference. It is
the same for a Grand Politics, a Grand Style: the people of the not-yet
owe their loyalties to that which de-compose the structures and sys-
tems in the same movement that recomposes them with more fluidity.
—Kane X. Faucher
[+!] 014
[+!] 015
Main Text: in the key of call & response
Kane X. Faucher
Matina Stamatakis
[logocolostomic anaclysm]
Is thIs Is /+thmus
6-packt nitemares
halcyancolourschemata(e) [rainbow’d tartuffery infra-DEA]
spectrumpet blast bad air blown out Buddy Holden
[+!] 018
(in rigor vita, the incompossible).
paroptessismal paroptessissima [grubsteak grillheretica]
no[u]vel = heretikana galilee
auralala mic-robed / calypsonic is as is rhythm deport-dance.
telerotic / telestesterone / testereo.
correction:
interrupt/us
asynchronosity
[+!] 019
t g t
e
a
r
t
m
a
a
m t
olus- a
m
e
tisingsic- t
m
sickicinglostlo- t
r
scrosschronocatak- a a a
phrastic t g t
ingrin
gringringr
ngr i ng
r in
gr i gr
gr
i
rin in
gr e
in
r in
a
g
ng
rin
gri
gr i
r
ringringringrin
ngr
t e t a t e t r a
ingringringring
g r a m m a t
t a m m a t a
ring
m
ing
r in
gr
gr
in
rin
a
g
g rin
in gr
gr
grin
gringringringri
ng
r in rin
ing
a
t g t
e m t
a
r
t
m
m e
a a a
m t
t
m e
a m
t
t
m r
t
r
a a a a a a
[as is]
-magentamagneticmangamanagement
[+!] 021
[hyponoia]
[+!] 022
[hypnotopicalia]
[+!] 024
c
db
ij
et
(‘)
ve
[+!] 025
[occidents happen in little dys-Orient]
db
Li(k)e: a visceratops in sino-commerzhub,
trafficSchlieffen planz
octagonad balk-joy / schlafenweedsalad,
vicecube squirrs the circe,
>that: to buy
>tou.r.is terra.error
Spadinosaur trompboot / a redoubt.
60Yence makes tobacco dreamtrue.
a
[+!] 026
[kleptokinetisis]
db
what little, [m]asked before the gravel--
lexiconologies embedded in the flesh [superimposed]
suprasensual [viscosity
way-for-way/tap for (communicables thwarted +
juxt oppose suprasensitiveontolo-
gees[e] in the muckrakr[y]
f-ire once into voidal obtuseries
misgluttonized/morphistc grapholology
the fundus-mess of angle/to/angle
[f]lit fluster spectral wake
[pgDn]
ject
[+!] 027
[Schlieffenplan]
[+!] 028
CadgerieCadretCoter / stratexture.
Clone + malefique + cabalistico.
Canned meat glamour mon gramour.
Pan-ic.
One host non pareil,
Ot/her host pious palavers,
T/hosts lionize in august terms,
Guests slooping sleeps on/for +links.
Webschmerz 2.0, or:
Chzulu Commodified.
[+!] 029
[Scat-tera Manifestival]
The abject in twice its forms: as shit and monstrousity. And so:
a scataphysics and a terato(nto)logy. Waste and monstrousity =
difference. Ejection is not rejection except by crudely archaic eco-
nomic models. Even cancer is a difference-machine. We raise that
cancer to the level of metaphysics, and bring the disjecta up into
the domain of the ‘pataphysical. We promote ekelogy: the study of
vomit as poetic speech act and quasi-political resistance. We pro-
mote a scatontology of the Sheissein. We promote the neologism-
powered hyperpolemic. We promote the Ur-Cloaca of the single
input/output system. We eschew the mesophysical media vita in all
its incarnations as Geist, middle class, and enter-taint-ment prop-
culture. We are the creatures of a new golemic, the metastatic
homunculation.
+!
[+!] 030
[//.ward noo decimalia]
/.//.///./\./\/./\//./\///./\////./\/\/./\/\// […] (i – ix)
<>.</>.<//>.<///>.</\>.</\/>.</\//>.</\///>.</\////>.</\/\/>.</\/\//> […] (x –
xix)
<<>.<</>. […] (xx – xxi)
<<>> (xxx)
<<<>> (xl)
<<<>>> (l)
[…]
[[Sierrafin /. Serafin /. CodeX //.-][0]]
<+!!!.!!!+>
[Dosh-dat.dat.-dosh./dish.-det-.dish-dish-.dish-det/.]
Codechain/codeframe/codebarrel/codebulge/codeme.
De/re+ code anaclypse, apocamorse.//.
Omphallible playlist: alchemeninas / corpicure / permunition / napo-
theon i-iii / lipidinal.
[+!] 031
[snolem+Hegel=]
Hi-[t]economic helot
Gnows coad(e) cums last.
Dolleuros cum first.
Hi-[poec/ode/conomical] gnows gnot in nots/
Jibbajabba is mesotype – [always line tilt make (w)horizon(e)].
Wikipederasty/eGay. // uptheirs. [!]
Erosicrucian pitter crater aeschylush.
[+!] 032
[oo]p[s]ie:[:]/[//]-frowny enormIcon produx.
No one beats E, less A. S is per-fect noo screwhead [Robertson s/
trips/s/lips]. [!]
X is always X, flipped qua coin on pan-axes.
J snags / D rolls / M undulates / A is geometric fortitude;
But: V is weakest, easiest to beat. [?] squarry crushes
[+!] 033
[Bile jamboree]
[+!] 034
[Galvanik]
[+!] 035
[Cometograph-e]
[+!] 036
[hi-tec(h)onomik helot]
[+!] 037
[chRonoSculptor-]
Art is not a/in space; it is space. Art is not a/in time; it is time –
All: as life is = expressive milieu panaesthetic.
Of Pure characture (which blends the false Manichean subdivide of
“character” & “structure”).—
One on false order of history, another on aesthetraditional expres
sive e-junct [tradition is
sedition].
Abjecture. Conceptesse Noblige. Make as process as document as
Overturn (an)aestheticaca into: anaclaesticacq.
A quorum:
[+!]!.
[+!] 038
[Z.Detka]
Bonafidepartisan:
Soubrette collideosco / hawkish rodomontade –
n.m.l.d purloin-steak (skullfu-q ‘ard)/egocclude.
-/kitschenware\-
-/d.canting glossat.r.shipp\-
-//catagrams 4 anascience\\-
[yr.encountenance]+
-eidose+extrospect(ion)+filet of combustion (comuburi platter_+
Wrungling in “theyspeak”)+sois jeunesse et tais toi]
/in one-crisis town, considerable heft, amidst furor of recall toys,
//kirpan-killingfields, immodern erogeneer – limprick viaggro-gar
baggio,
///stentorian vomitry reikiStar, Nietzsche v. Nurture on a pilgrimace
////a social armistice d.clar(ifi).d, telorganik, subconcupiscibility+
////\strafe ballet jewtopian btw. Hilton & Hell, Shopping and Sheol:
////\/wildfire tourism comacratic postamp Shih-Tzu daca nu merg:
Ala-pata-atter(ratatara-slam-antra)!
(alo ala all is in +!)
[+!] & [+!]
Kle.lyr.apa.noo.cata.ana.ADBCE.era.ero.entro.atto.femto.pop.
[gala.mala.inca.inva.tata.ele.ver.titro.cem.chthono.chropo.poli.]
inCha/iresis/table
loyaleatory Punkt [.]
[+!] 039
[spore]
001AC:<spor.>
001CC: haplomatic antecessor.<monocode>
002FF: thinkbot algorhythm stimulation-psychback
00300: top-down marketfield+
[peripheral product cues / rhizomarketing +
[“small(er)talk”+
[soc-net protocol.r].
003A2: Geist as menagerine
Halla ménage in twexted twinnel
Bo halla loas emoticonte moodoo.
[fin.d.creche+double-plus+].
Oh(pink) agglutinade gristles under collar.
[+!] 040
[NilZerO]
[+!] 041
[sine wave ooeticae]
[+!] 042
[gypse dixit]
[+!] 043
[O redivivius codetrap]]+]
[+!] 044
[sy.n.crete]
La womanesk naometrico:
//-comp/[n.ions]+-//analogii temp/
Ex ori.n.t lux prima figura+
(patio essendi)/syndicators…
=org.nihilizing principe lull
a/s u. m/e/d
analot: analogies are temporary companions, the organizing prin-
ciple in the cabinetry of the mind. They eventually deviate on their
path, become solo protagonists, die heroic deaths, are buried in
proverb graveyards with headstone clichés. Their logical consis-
tency is never beyond analytical reproach. They must buddy up or
face the sword alone. They attempt to win glory by Hera, but are
denizens of Zeus.
Replet.r +
[in.hi.fo.a/s.]-//-sl.esh.et/mi.hoo.
The -!- Great -!- Codeon -!-
[+!] 045
[de/re/fe/pre/en/per/ly/syn/sur/ana/cata]
Swab[ian]-dec[k]adence.
InforMatina Stam-Cell@aKizz-z copraphagucci/
clocKane Rechaufe = fauchere
Halifaxes non resurgam :: homeoccident.
-mir(tact)@Ur-cuss+
mint@AK/is
MKis@@kachiss
(poetessor (+y) v (+ship) v (+ial)
-matina non ciabatta.
[+!] 046
[(O)riginarrative Organationz]
/-(o)-/mph[+]
/[+]aloESSE
Ori(D)jinn (o)f
W((-o-))rld.
Bullybut+
Ton//.__
Omphallus
Billybaton
Labialrynth ear/belly (k)not
Oreille-gen of the whorld.
//<tip2top+>+<tipt.(o).tap2T2.top>\\
In summapapamama: (-Urtaud)
Either/origenesis =
Disjungul(ar) bearth.
So: = o, (o), ((o)), (((o))), (ooo), (o(o)o),
(o)((o))(o), ((o))(((o)))((o)), (((o)))(ooo)(((o))),
(ooo)(o)(o)(o)(ooo)…ad infinitum, ad mit(o)sis.
That is the way we add our (o)rigin,
Through the fold,
Through the (o)rdo (o)rigami
From [+!] to [++!] (-the f(o)rmula)
+Brancusian.
Inchit
(viandelion.)
Lemon //.
shallow
orphaned
<<choo>>
[+!] 047
Ratsour (o' entropy)
y֜޻¿ýùsócó;vmà b,f_gÿÿõ
§úÆ7lÚHÛi2(un)curable
--------//neurosis3à &ÊÜîà WêUØ(c)ÜÕÃ
ý›vm±åÔµ4À²otjì(c)ÇIe¤eà È(à r!ñ"Hƒ½]
Z›:•¥`â„¢ÃTÂHU8/ýäÅÿü‡ïMNMx^‹
9 x middle-sized sext
livesà žkÅkÅ»'ŒÄp1ÈU˜¾ÙyK(R)
W6mªÊ:6cK¥…¢
Õøà —à ^Nùâ fig hers of guinea
pigsÔÞ¿@ÕôäâÌÌ´'à Š°b››‹ª‹ƒá(Ü
ëquiets"!ÔN|%â™[džΰ:O[à ]minus
one
…'¢ËÕûî¼ÓŽ[ee] canthi typical vasectomy-pusher
¥…¢ Õøà —à ^Nùâ fig hers of guinea
pigsÔÞ¿@ÕôäâÌÌ´'à Å
°b››‹ª‹ƒá(Üëquiet
bipedal ¢h6±H±â€
suction
cup^&€v'g—V×é'ˆ¯scallion-nerveõHzJ(R)_¾|(c)ìÃ
à ü¢Ô
¹hèaaîWºlY†—-O¤rš rancor-deluxe ª"(c)ÕÃ&
2ûæÆöúûJà Æ×½ 'lìŽ8çà \z~–CÕpΚ
Sä¶%G
Z »òö¢MòˆÛÑâ¦rjiggly Aphrodite takes
a swim(¶¼üpeé¿iÙ|§'(c)ê¥uåðª áð*ìì?Ã
ů
èIƒôÄò +ºÃ~#¸½—ÕèÞ]Tmï»úﻯÛkçÕ
µ à ¿G/n× (R)Éy{qcE2Y]š&éÿmŒÚ1'
[+!] 048
á=9Ra¯3ßhñ”in my marmalade ‹7[T2y#
?µ~Bñ¤wCa($r€2 à ш._ÓOtONy´ºo”(§ªcëG
:'Šú¹'ŒŽK•ÊaxjxbQæ‹°ØÅX¤»Oà ÚX~ Ó
y7|fΡÞõsL×-pussy hFµ.goad-damnit
M˜Ö¢ë¼~ùjoO¯D&U¨&ßúÎß>õ¹à .,/
I made love to him€à ƒÂ¹ÂÕ`ÖAô¤
Ó>óôgDZ!ÊzVñ"à ï@jôú=as any woman
€½Je6;˜Þp¶-!K2¸should; ¡Eª"9|äà ÕÞÂV»
ï¾{›´P£ÄÒ–dì'¹D"wýô54òQ—ÿâ¹
s C4ÔÔ±¤XT H ¯on her hands ãõx
{zºïܼuôƒCo¾òand kneesæñCÇ.Ÿ»üÞ;
üï¯õà à CÈÒ=üÞGï½úöGï
or =RlˆW…G,breastplateà ËéÕ¢O3CôªHÑj
swingingB±üð’c0?Q+eØðCáà †Â›from a leather
:rýÒµ¹¹…‰™‰ÃÛvüðÇ?ܱs‡V‰”{ttdÃ
ëlà Ö
¶gà .n$}ôà ƒ]•ùô§Æ chandelier
‘FŽ:.RÅ k bone[êêš«jöZx-ɉ#à ƒ\¨ì99¶œÜâ€
æzà £q¡`‰<51”‰ÄÂFK,Éunhinged¿u£Ã
¹¶Ò´±•ø
@]eà ž½ûêª*m%ù€ hÅ“`t`†Ã
[+!] 049
à à ÖAf3ø¸¬¬{¿€•„PP‹Éê_ÂÎñê´°b-
-she felt small,
organically
ð{(R)ž¾xáÈù;–æU¯à Öbà •ÕÔÖ
Ô6Ôcrˆžexaggerated pseudo-
love
“idiota” & mor[m]on
Z
(c)
ü
[+!] 050
[-n%]
Cellulysic >>
One goat. 2 goat.
No coasting infraTAKK…
<”1”> Mann – 0/
% SacchrylnoMO//+-inKlar-cj//[- -]…||-
& in excretorum van fand – cho++<..>
Favel<U>ureUrUr+//-//-%=
+steppe
+d <”4”>
-/zinktoPPe -Klaupt <”2”>
En<”3”>
d: d d d d d
in search of an e .KN.
+lyp o
-Lach “2>> >-Wolle-<
Ryp / apo +lyr @/-||-\4
stik ca <…_>>
./SemIhypnoTikkala –
[strangent]
[+!] 051
neurosomia
>
>
> & the "ha!" published>o<ejacultio praecox signified
> nerve-statement abduxtee(my insistance leper
> sue-doh aggression *pfui* so once comatoz
> {omitted} a rubbed-at testament declaring artifice
> in the off-couse (?) --dah & dit & dah ^barbarant
> skintopia oral(e) (a)spermic pro-track ed. 20
> year regression bugs--yer Cowpers in daylight--
> some quick-lip repartee in the panties / with-al
> ointments vividized cow & recently she started
> eating her furs o' bustilian wench yer[[ garters
> & pantingly ululating the prostitutory fleshes
> of refusers! Mizers! Bone-transtextual exciterz
>
> (((guard your querulous vapors, Judas(s) I see
> thee helmet of your--look the bull--intercores
> vis a tergo::so quickly disperse (tZarist monkey
> )))yer observating scrotum doth lengthen with each
> judgment weighted mechanizm sized-oop & 's more
> pitious than(k) superego cruelty sublime <passivity>
> dons <passivity> threefold
[+!] 052
ab
ab oa lrig in
origine pic
al a n
epic thus
an
thus thee
the aw
e wfu
aw full
full etc
etc
[+!] 053
[apeiron]
[+!] 054
[eponymous rex + gutterbunny = linguano scatö]
/.[+!]
[-?]/.
[+!] 055
[Sein Sof]
[
e> pliquante /
mesocrates types white on black.
chalk on construction paper
"the gutter'd grids & mudflats on isle loan, sloughed hides
skeinswap on my body tablature Lethe, hung sacks making their
own meniscus. Be careful with that, Johnny Footbinder!"
In retorture:
Wiv kippahs as narsty inall fo' in wut Tobbar and Guibald ha' say'd,
scupper'd wutnot ve haff ta tug 'n ve beardos 'n fold 'em up wut
nawce.
chiffron_chiffrison (and all as cold lock'd scent, wintry resoluble)...
me
[+!] 056
p
[]
p
a
nt
rt [+!] 057
[I...I]
[+!] 058
[ammunication]
[+!] 059
[die noopoetry]
[+!] 060
[title bout in Tbilisi]
[+!] 061
[baldynamo]
dima[m-usliminal]
dumanche.
hor+
.//. rendum &
pud + endum ./ [errandum] -
l'eglissande homibile
<<we [+!}ists...lysicist-ik melodestone>>
<<they [-/-]iatrists...a codemic>>.
[+!] 062
[DADA-DNA-DA-DENADA]
fåčéţîõüşľŷ (diacriticaca):
has all the vowels in alpha-beta ordo.
NTH:
is a three-letter word rejoicingrejecting the vowel insurgence.
petrologos – quidditasia (/?)
-//commodificarnivale//-
O Stalinotype come obliquefy me, gulaggardly pogromenate!
[+!] 063
Meropic[tw>itch]
thenced,
iii
[+!] 064
jective. nothery gounameting
go,
..ers inessnealmose]
&
abolingle. flimat
skind--
fromith;
barae nausto
i clor &
wines, godigm sight to-
the wands
gracon saint
ensconce
und.]
[infacomed lovergods'
tines,
of ma.
ales empty sow,
ons
[+!] 065
[dobre-<a>-more con matinasia]
erratico.errandu.errandata.erra.terrata.terror.error.eratio.ratio. (co-
gnoscendi).
ferratico.ferranda.veranda.fier.funf.sechs.ferrous.ferrustule.
Novocaine misfit luv
poenix-lyrkicks 4 rockstars&rockstripes (,of all, f/or).
phthisis[trata] - / di-oikestral bringeth cunning reason to apoplexi-
con.
plz fwd
plz fwd fwd fwdirect
/--von diokesis zu diocese,
/--ratio effendi
/--ratio decognoscendi
/--ratio montendi
/--ratio deccelerandi
/--era non sequitur (plz fwd)
n.8/err-4chUn.\
urzoic/ae
[+!] 066
[+!] 067
[+!] 070
D e
Cataco-
luthonis
k a n e
x.
f a u c h e r
&
j o h n
m o o r e
w i l l i a m s
[+!] 071
De Catacoluthonis
A/Enac [T]lysis+
anacoluthon / a
cth
cthano s iAN
lys teria
hysteriatriae
hysteriarch.
.
enter 'stobbias / Stobaeus.
catacoluthon / b
de cathodinage
implet/us non forma forme a lis.
port
w/ rait/h
ur/e einFace -
crasstill inche,
pharmaco-on.
pure chifrisson.
[+!] 072
A filth orchestra
rubber bullet stew auction
beach ball antics
mud flaps pissoiree.
fragolade/.-+//>>
where/at language skill etiolates we resort to sword&fist./
outsofar as/tatine Verbs vanish
left only with staticaca nouns
nouns nouns nouns!
Aristotle uber (vous) allez
stuck stick in froze grund go nowheres.
quasaurbraten complodes.
[+!] 074
we</i\>we
sile otude en myr assail – blankout (den)[i](al) – sense ore min ethiccity
no Tlaloc in micity – a gore adore foresere you tan
sere mustant choose sap,
Lucite negatithe
poi(g)n(an)t is li(n)e
don’t put a per I
od(d) where iS placed a com(m)a,
and geo
metrically speaking it ’sobvious, any per I od(d) is only
a poorly p(i)erc[eiv]ed li(n)e, extending
through a myr(roar)iad other
more -or(e)-
lessterminal sen(sed)tenses
fix(ate)d/li(n)e/po’ I e’ent?
the war’s always dandy
‘s innit? coxcombed and ho[r]n(ey)éd
&I’s incunabulated mitalb(l)umen j(uv)e(n)hov|ash|aaah!
<i-mage_spatialreengineeringcon(in)sul(a)t(e)ants=hypertrop
hictransfurProToCall://FrankGoLem my peeOpal>Ime(an)we</
i\>OmysweatsempiternaI, nevolute compactdis, do
hush named or sung, the nude lid your rejecta, his (Ill)id pills collects to
heap a goldpink SinAI (which in time will echolate a babebelle), lense
recursive De(mon)Natur(st)e®, theSUicide Omni(de[i])cides
sedulous loam, edificated aid, odious reticule, hot egotether, our variable
woad ELkackle, I(n)te-gratedTechnay rapacious, nightbile we e(const)ruct
yer(I)t al(low)[ou](e)d moddom insouciant Ici irradiant lube at (s)natch
[+!] 076
me a[gen(e)ti]culpa! suck (sh)out
my cathar sis,
u(n)known Pro(lapsed)Zac,
his reups the most
inhibited of sere tones
all s[I]m/ilies were his
emoticons—deplo®yed nanabytes
to swarm the fac(swarm)ing pages of “friends”—he all
pearly gleams
from reams of lectricseams: he bears his own overs
in lines of code
den(eye) you
this you liv’in
condensed as dark
logos—
mat(t)er—
ring
[+!] 078
[Fader] o u t ré, that art in heave, i-half agreed to be thy nome, i-cumulative,
so be an earth e
, ; an airt,
also we for 3 if et
[+!] 079
oure guilty gul{fs’} tare, and ne{‘er[r]} led ows nowth into fondingge,
auth{or
I [l] al } ales {thes [e] e [s] cows of harme.
Sobe
it.
[+!] 080
[3.14159265358979323846]
fatherson{w}holyspirit one
father{all[ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]}
the[o]{e}l{e}[o]gy base[sic] el e-mea[n]ts2 4right ang{el}[le]s
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
+1
[t] spear[i]t[he] pect[oral]s pent A gram[auto]{mate on} pent A[{u}n]kle fi[
v. ]e an
sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick!sick! SECHS
“then the devil is six” and we five, we palm outstretched, we splayed, we fam[hom][we l]ily are looking
4 6
5
[+!] 081
[+!] 082
[+!] 083
[+!] 084
Afterword: Lysis
by Elizabeth Kate Switaj
[+!] 085
and seeds not authorized by linguistics. In [hyponoia], for instance, we get
caCOPhonies. What such noises have to do with cops is a matter of imagi-
nation and the creation of new flow. It also serves as a reminder that it is
by folk etymology, more than by expert interpretations, that language is
perceived and changed.
Theory, though it appears as part of the project's ground in the ear-
ly manifesto, is among the cells that disintegrate in [+!]. Early on, in the
exchange that initiated the project, the Cartesian divide is taken on with
questions of poetics phrased in terms of the body: Shall our poetiglobin
begin here, or work its way through the scat-shoot? In [snolem+Hegel=],
the boundaries between theory and poem are broken down, as the language
of the manifesto is recycled. Lysical here is both self-referential and inter-
textual (another arbitrary border broken down). "The Hegelian diabetic"
replaces the dialectic. Similarly, anaclysm appears both in the manifesto
and the title of a poem. [Scat-tera Manifestival], with its suggestive name,
resorts to the paragraph. The paragraphs of [ammunication] discuss "lysi-
cological law" and "the lysicological pedifesto". These are terms that work
(play) to change both the living tradition of theory as well as the living tra-
ditions of poetry.
Commercial language, that tongue of growing dominion, disrupts
and is disrupted elsewhere. Consider "CODirect" in [logocolostomic ana-
clysm]: codirect is overwhelmed by the CODs so many TV offers won't ac-
cept, though even without that shift we wouldn't easily understand how sins
can be rendered so. In [as is], the language of pharmacological advertising
is played with and dispersed with word combinations (and words combin-
ing roots and affixes) that do not belong:
Pfaxes from Pfizer to level comradementia:
love redux / microburst orgasms on the installment plan
so many mg of alchemotherapy
so many litres of lick-cure
Note too that the very medium by which Pfizer is said to communicate
this is annihilated by the logic of Pfizer's name. By contrast, in [I...I], the
language of pharmacological advertising and the language of literature in-
terrupt each other: "Open palm s(o)po(rifies)ts capsules o' Xanaxadu." In
Xanax(a)du did Kublai Khan. . .
In breaking down the boundaries, especially between jargons,
the lysic becomes an escape from thesis-antithesis-synthesis, as well
as a way to battle (and break) monsters without risking becoming one.
Rather than opposing, for example, the propagandistic language of ad-
vertising directly, a temporary autonomous space is created in which
[+!] 086
that language cannot exist as an isolated and powerful phenomenon. This
is the fantasy and the promise of play: the creation of a space in which a
world without negative and limiting systems can be imagined.
A world without nationalistic and linguistic boundaries can
similarly be imagined. The focus on etymology, revelatory of the origins
of English in Latin, Greek, and other tongues, facilitates the use of new
loan words. Greek and pseudo-Greek appear not as foreign objects in the
text but, rather, words being introduced into the tongue. Take "omkairos
umpstitalate impossession" in [logocolostomic anaclysm].
It is more than linguistic boundaries that fall apart in this work.
The line between process and product is crossed, too. The work begins
with a description of the process and an early exchange between the
contributors under the title "Genesisyphus of uphill project:". [logocolo-
stomic anaclysm] concludes with a correction, though this is admittedly
not an innovation. Other poems, [occidents happen in little dys-Orient]
and neurosomia, use markings along the left margin that suggest quoted
text in an email reply, as if the text or portions of it were still in the pro-
cess of being passed between the poets. Indeed, a reader, to understand
anything of this work must read actively—must play just as the original
collaborators have. This is an erasure of finality and author-ity that does
not require the author's death.
[+!] 087
[+!] 090
Interview with Matina Stamatakis
MLS:
There’s always an element of desire that can be found in words;
the desire to copulate with other words in a way that brings on
a manifestation of bodies that coalesce, like in the art of dance
and lovemaking. A brush stroke to canvas. Yet, it’s done with
lightheartedness at times, or childish wonderment. Other times
it morphs into a voyeuristic tango steaming with debauchery
and fuck. Words can be brutal or beautiful. Sometimes both.
Sometimes neither. Sometimes contradictory and metaphysical.
Yet they all communicate with the body in a way that signifies the
body exists and is able to use voice as an operative means of
expression. When I write, there is a moment where I lose parts
of myself to ambiguity. The terseness of my mind is elongated
by words. I wouldn’t say it’s mystical, or I lose my sense of
“self”, but it is definitely a way to bring out what I cannot say
vocally. Because of vocal repression, there is a need to use
every word delicately and meaningfully.
Not many people know this, but I am an aphasiac. My
condition is most extreme when I suffer from fatigue. I forget
how to pronounce certain words, their order and meanings. It
has made me self-conscious in social situations. But when it
comes to writing, what I want to say is registered, planned, not
under so much scrutiny. It is the only way--along with music and
art--that I can communicate with ease. So I treat it with utmost
respect, yet allow myself to breathe within it. To not take it too
seriously, but appreciate and realize its diversity.
KXF: The fact that you use poetics as the conduit to express
[+!] 091
the inexpressible, especially given that your aphasia seems to
border on affecting both brain areas - Broca’s and Wernicke’s
- is admirable. But beyond admirability, which seems only
to inspire the “overcoming despite condition x” that merely
masks pity and arranges the discourse to view the “afflicted”
with the label of that “despite of”, it actually makes your poetic
productions interesting. It calls to mind the work of Felix Guattari
in his founding of schizoanalysis. But, from the sounds of it,
and beyond clinical designations, your writing process would
be rather close to that of the anagogical and ecstatic mode -
that rare transportation from the anchors of space and time
that attended the inspired productions of those like St Francis
of Assisi and Hildegaard von Bingen (but sans the theological
palaver). Could you say more about this intriguing tension
between terseness and elongation, as well as how ambiguity
seems to an instance of liberation? If you could say that you
“fetishize”, would this be more on the order of that freeform
ambiguity or on the side of the “inner editor” that polices the
selection of words?
[+!] 092
in accord with analytical thought. My writing tends to be more
fluid, less stifled. At least, I’m hoping. It’s hard to interpret, yet
not so hard it becomes intangible or fails to at least provoke
some sort of emotion.
[+!] 093
like and vulnerable.
As writers, we undress ourselves, sometimes only
revealing the good parts we want others to see. Sometimes
we reveal the things we don’t want people to see. Sometimes
we expose without realizing, and in this exposure take on new,
almost frightening, forms.
To focus on your second question, I would classify
my work as having both an element of disbandment and an
element of bodily cohesion. When I find myself about to
romanticize the elemental, I switch to making statements about
my vagina. Usually, I find out of sexual frustration, there is an
almost present hymenia which blankets my consciousness
and causes me to impregnate myself with words, unsettled
emotions, hermaphroditic sex tapestries. It’s all rather asexual,
and less about some cosmic vortex. Unless you’re referring to
the cervix--romantically, of course.
[+!] 094
those are few and far between.
I’m not sure what is going on, Kane. Maybe it’s a lack
of public interest. Maybe it’s the fact that poetry is no longer
uber-elitist, or for the uber-elites. Maybe it’s the fact that we,
as a whole, are constantly being raped of our knowledge and
independence of free-thought; we are hurting because we are
unaware of it. Maybe it’s all farcical; a seething cesspool of
unmotivated, unoriginal dullards with PhDs in bullshit. There
are a lot of maybes. My guess would be there’s a waning public
interest.
Most of today’s poetry is being read by poets. Which
is not completely bad because we’ve systematically (and
unintentionally) created this monster poetry community, where
we basically feed off of each other’s metaphorical entrails.
There is something truly amazing about where the current
state of “underground” poetry is heading. I do not see this virtual
womb as a breeding ground for stagnancy, or the root of poetry’s
demise. It is just the beginning, the start of something that lives,
and will one day cause a great stir. Maybe even a revolution. I
feel it is already starting...
And I do think there is something to be learned from
contemporary poetry, --learned, applied, rearranged, then
fucked into disorientation. Then fucked again for effect. Yet it’s
not my goal to constantly strive for and achieve shitting in the
face of contemporary poetics. There are others out there who
do it far more effectively.
[+!] 095
Interview with John Moore Williams
[+!] 098
even anticipate, those changes. Moving from the analog to the
digital certainly initiates a radical transmutation of humanity, but
it’s not a schism from the older forms. I feel like many people
assume there’s an unnatural aspect to all human advancements,
as if any form of artifice were not, by extension, a product of
nature, and I’m repulsed by that idea. To me any form of artifice
is just the progression of a process of personification that’s
been taking place since what we might call the beginning of
civilization. Once we made inanimate forces into divine, but
essentially human, entities – now we’ve simply grown up just
enough to make the inanimate a bit more like us (and hopefully
avoid the traps Shelley, Dick and Herbert suggested might lie in
wait at the end of that road).
As for how I approached the composition of an android-
ic poetry, I have to admit that I began with what might be very
stereotypical attitudes. One tends to associate the robotic with
mathematics, with algorithmic, iterative practices; hence, I tried
to think of the most analytically rigorous mode I could think of.
Not being much for math, I immediately thought of the anagram
as a starting point. It seemed very algorithmic to me, as one
begins with a defined function and then creates a number of
variable outputs based upon the nature of the input. So I decided
that each poem would work as a function with the title defined
as the input, and each line being an output of the process of
anagrammizing the title. Of course, given that the android is
essentially an organic computer, a strict adherence to anagram
seemed too rigid, too mechanical. So I then decided to make
the anagrammizing process one that was as associative as
it was iterative, letting the recombination of letters set by the
form of the title suggest new words, deviations from the norm
established by the title. The title became a sort of Rorschach
blot that I would interpret and re-interpret until the process was,
for me, exhausted. I’ve also related it, at times, to the process
of reading a tarot spread, in which the range of possible
meanings is set by the initial layout, but varies based upon the
reader’s interpretation. Thus, I began to view myself as much
the reader of my book as its writer. For me, making the iterative
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function into a personal, associative process helped to retain
the mathematical element while giving the eventual output a
certain amount of ‘fuzziness,’ a human element obfuscating the
elegant rigor of the algorithm.
So, Kane, as you might imagine from the foregoing, I’d
say that I’m trying to foster a unity between the analog and digital
rather than indicate a radical schism. As the “i” of “I discover…”
writes in the prose section of the first poem, “I am nothing but a
database encased in flesh.” I suppose I’m trying to suggest the
ways in which our technologized culture has already managed
to manufacture a rather ‘android-ic’ citizen, and that, when we
do achieve the creation and/or mass production of androids,
these figures will very much resemble ourselves. However, I
do think that the ways in which such an ‘alien’ consciousness
might approach language – the ways in which we ourselves
might come to view language – will be radically different than
the prevailing paradigm in which even fiction must contain easily
digestible bits of information, must be easily ‘thinkable.’ I think
that contemporary poetry, by which I mean the so-called ‘post-
avant’ (and not folks like Mr. Collins), is really leading the way
in rethinking language, and the android poems are my humble
attempt to contribute. But no matter how ‘digital,’ the work might
become, I think that there is, as Brent Cunningham points out
in the blurb on my chapbook, a very human element to the
book, an almost romanticist side, a feeling that no matter how
‘incomprehensible’ the poems might get, there’s still something
to read out of them. I’m personally fascinated by this tendency
of people to approach even what appears to them as absolute
babble with a resolute conviction that there is meaning there,
and that with enough effort, something can be wrested out of
the text. I suppose that’s my abiding concern with the function
of human consciousness – to see how far out I can go and still
have people try to attack the piece as if it means something. I
wonder how far along the spectrum between nature and artifice
we can place this tendency.
I think your reference to the possible ‘backdoor unity’
between the robot and the golem is illuminating here. After
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all, when you think about it, both the robot and the golem are
nothing but lumps of inanimate material until they encounter
language – or it is thrust forcibly upon them. The golem is but
a clay statue until a word is inscribed upon its brow – until
language mediates the translation of mere matter into life. And
the robot is the same: nothing but a bundle of circuits and wires
and pistons until a programming language shapes electrical
energy into a facsimile of life. Despite their distance from each
other in time, both homunculi are symbolic of our feelings about
ourselves: that without language we’d be nothing but lumps of
dumb matter.
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in the moment, collapsed into one ego aggrandizement. S/he
who declares the end of something wins the prize, much akin to
those who impose upon the temporal order their version of the
end of history (millenarians, apocalypticists, et al).
In returning to the golem, what you say about the anagram
as the rigorously logical starting point as an input seems to
resonate with the referentiality of the golem itself, brought to
life by that Hebrew word for life/truth (EMET) and resolved
into death by placing the “e” under erasure. Had Wittgenstein
constructed a golem out of his own Tractatus, it would certainly
be marked indelibly without a fail-safe mechanism, more akin to
the kind of “brass man” that lore attributes to Albertus Magnus’
creative hand. In Wittgenstein’s case, “spare the ladder, spoil
the golem.”
The parallel of the anagram and the permutation always
stirs in me the same reminiscence; Borges’ story of the Library
of Babel which offers up an allegory for the impossibility of
generating a single, unified, and totalizing interpretation on the
basis of a library that contains every possible permutation of
letters in books measuring a homogeneous 410 pages each.
Of course, Borges’ narrator muses that it may only be possible
to derive the full meaning of the vast and conceptually infinite
library if one had the time and access to each book. The Cabalist
overtones are not subtle, and the permutations are crunched in
order to find god.
What you say about babble and the derivation of meaning
is rather astute, and shows fidelity to what Brent Cunningham
says about the “human element” to your work. The human
element slips in at the very moment where something generated
- no matter how much it may be on the order of glossolalia
or glyptolalia - comes to be imposed upon by our perhaps
inveterate habits as humans to construct an order. If some kind
of sequential order cannot be imposed upon the text, then we
tend to default to a kind of Aristotelian impulse to categorize
where if we cannot understand the particulars, we try to impose
a rational understanding of the whole to better reign in those
incomprehensible particulars (this is also the Hegelian mode
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of sacrificing the particular “this” for the fat and largely empty
“Begriffe”). In this case, the baffled and confused can still repose
under the sign that, yes, this is a book since it has the form of
book, its contents are book-like for the most part, etc. Such
differences are usually sublimated or sentenced to the slaughter
bench of a larger conceptual category, running roughshod over
the affirmative and auto-generating difference.
I did notice that you make frequent reference to that
flagship of language as being a kind of necessary prerequisite
for what we will loosely call “sentience”. Would these “android-
ic poems” be an attempt to infuse life into the inanimate? What
do you make of what also appears to be an installed binary
distinction between life and non-life? Arguably, zombies do
not possess language (as we understand it), but still ambulate
with purpose (perhaps on a quest to acquire language through
anthropophagy?).
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without its analogues amongst other animals.
I do think that a looping back to the idea of the golem
and the robot here is helpful, because, if we accept that they
are representations of the human self given consciousness
via language, we have to admit that they are fairly poor
manifestations of identity. In popular representations, both are
but shambling mounds of material requiring direction from an
external speaker, and even if capable of generating language
themselves, can only do so in a highly constrained manner.
And when they do become capable of independent thought (as
with Dick’s skinjobs and Herbert’s computers), they become
extremely dangerous to the society that created them. If we view
society as a manifestation of and structure for language, then the
golem (of whatever technological level), immediately threatens
the preconceived notions encapsulated in the language. This
suggests that there has to be something else beyond language
requisite to the development of a more ‘human’ sentience.
Moving on, then, I’d have to say no, these poems aren’t an
attempt to infuse life into the inanimate. They are merely my, no
doubt highly inaccurate, attempt to speak for what, to my mind,
already possesses a form of sentience, though our standards
of language might only render an impoverished picture of that
consciousness. They’re also an attempt to speak in a way that
represents an already burgeoning form of consciousness, as I
suggested above – a mode of thinking developing out of and
through emergent technologies. Again, I still think I’m speaking
for a human consciousness rather than an ‘inanimate’ one, if
only because we can’t help but view an alien sentience through
the prism of our own. It’s for this reason that I didn’t worry when
my work on the android poems veered away from standard
syntactical and semantic norms. Regardless of the possibility
for error any imposition of artificial order upon apparent chaos
introduces, it’s an attempt that must be made, and, as with any
attempt to ‘read’ an aleatoric process, has much to say about
the ‘reader.’
I think, though, that the question itself reflects an odd
tendency in language and theory surrounding poetry. The
question is rather magical, suggesting that I might, through the
agency of language, somehow impart consciousness on a new
golem (even if only intellectual). I think it’s an all-too-common,
and somewhat anachronistic, view, and it forces me to wonder
if our thinking about language has really moved as far as we
seem to think it has. Granted, it has only been a few hundred
years since it was a commonplace to assume that the correct
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words correctly spoken (or inscribed) might wake a statue to life,
but the implication remains that language somehow eclipses
the boundary between life and non-life. It’s the same process
of personification I spoke of earlier. I think the steps we’ve
taken with language away from the magical viewpoint – i.e., the
realization that language modulates the individual reality, rather
than reality as such – are dramatic, but preliminary.
What role the zombie might play in this discussion
depends, of course, upon the type of zombie we’re discussing.
The fact that the popular representation of the zombie depicts
it as being devoid of language as well as consciousness points
once again to that supposedly intrinsic link between the two.
But it’s the opposite case from that presented in the golem and
cyborg; here we have once-animate flesh rendered into what
should be ‘inanimate’ by the erasure of consciousness, and
thus, language. But it still moves! To me this reflects our phobic
relationship to our own bodies, our fear that they possess
some animate force alien from the ‘soul’ we prize so deeply.
The zombie is nothing but flesh animated by hunger alone, and
even those physical urges we lend some sort of metaphysical
quality (such as the desire for sex) are voided. I think this shows
that what might seem the most solid of binaries is actually quite
vague to us, that we sense a concrete division there but are at
a loss to define its boundaries. It’s as if the remnants of a binary
ethos lingered within our brains, convincing us that the physical
forces we deem ‘base’ – those which not only implicate us in,
but identify us with, death, as the agent of the processing of the
once-living into decay, into matter – possess a metaphysical
dimension on par with that of the ‘positive’ soul. Thus, I read the
zombie not as longing for language, for logos, but seeking to
erase it, to reduce it from its mythical dimension back to mere
sound, the “uh-uh” grunt of the primitive.
There also seems, to me, to be an odd political dimension
to the zombie myth. The zombie’s a kind of figure of a nightmare
capitalist utopia: There’re never any conflicts between zombies
in the movies because each individual zombie is focused entirely
on the fulfillment of its own visceral needs; the only time conflict
arises is when a body – a scarce resource – turns up, and even
then the momentary struggle subsides once the body has been
depleted, and never escalates into a fight over the scraps. It’s
the invisible hand working in perfect harmony.
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one of the functions of language is to differentiate some-x
and communicate this via linguistic transfer, DNA could be
considered the biological language primer. The concepts “bone
cell” and “skin cell” are decided early, and once these concepts
are biologically fixed, there is no means of de-differentiating
them. Cancer is an exception, but that more parallels Derrida’s
notion of the necessary law of possible communicative failure.
The way you suggest language “modulates” individual
reality as opposed to some baggy concept of a pan-reality is
remarkably perspectivist - and then you go on to wag a finger
at an endemic hatred and willful misunderstanding of the body.
There is something particularly Nietzschean lurking here. But
let’s trouble the waters here and put zombies on hiatus (since,
presumably, like history, they ain’t going anywhere). What
seems to be the case is that you have somewhat “resolved”
that tricky binary of the analog and digital by writing of the digital
in an analog fashion - And here I do not mean according to
the content, but the packaging of the work into its book-form
where the boustrophedic plough moves left to right (and the eye
takes us right to left again). Are your poetic “androideae” analog
with digital urges, or haplessly pointing digits in search of the
referential analogy?
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author and the reader, the way it attempts to force the reader
to stitch the fragments together rather than presenting a whole
cloth. There’s an automatic sympathy between the android and
the reader here: both are forced to deal with new forms of input,
to internalize a seemingly arbitrary set of codes and navigate
through them. The android’s consciousness is forced upon the
reader’s. The circumstances of the book’s production (as book,
rather than e-book, Flash object, PowerPoint presentation, etc.)
recapitulate this forced conflation: the reader has, ostensibly, a
power over this text, the freedom to play with it interpretively, but
is bound to follow the programmatic unspooling of lines from left
to right, then the carriage return down and left. This interpretive
freedom and programmatic reader-guidance are of course not
new to the text, but I like to think of them as immanent features
of this text. I remember Lisa Robertson once reminding a class
that a book is a form of technology, and a rather remarkable
one at that, as it gives language a sensual form which doesn’t
rely on the auditory faculty. I’m perhaps guilty of the paranoia
I spoke of a moment ago – I love books, the smell, texture
and weight of them, the thought that physical space has been
devoted to containing thought. There’s a sense of ephemerality
to digital objects, despite their potential longevity, endemic to
their lack of physical substance. I guess I was hoping to make a
mortal object when I decided to submit the piece for publication
as a physical book.
But to be a little more direct in my answer, I suppose I’d
position my androids on the digital side of the split, reaching
towards an analogy that can create a coherent referent for
their new consciousness. This belies the underlying narrative
structure of the book though, which places the individuated
“I” suddenly discovering, through unknown stimuli, his/her/its
i-ness, its submergence in what appears to an identity-loving
culture to be an undifferentiated mass of ‘personalities’ devoid
of so-called human capacities. As much as I’m often moved to
decry the encapsulation of human beings in ‘pages’ and ‘sites’
that occurs in most of the networking sites of the internet –
what a friend calls “fill in the blank in a dropdown menu world”
– I can’t help but wonder if the destabilization of our identity-
obsessed ontology might not be a good thing – if the thought
that a personality could be expressed in code as simple as
binary might not be of some benefit.
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an ekstasis. As ekstasis goes, it transcends any measure of
time, and this being surrounded by loosely connected objects
that are accessed via codes sounds like the late-night feature
of St Francis of Assisi meets Judah Leow and the Cabalists.
Analogies collapse as anagogies take the stage.
Another interesting parallel drawn here is that cybernetic
Christ (we see this, in part, as a “ghost in a machine” or an Akira
phenomenon at its meanest). Strangely enough, the Christian
doctrine truly begins from the moment of its legitimization of
the impossible: the resurrection, whereas all the other parlour
tricks of multiplying loaves and fish (reminds one of a Zeno’s
paradox), walking on water, etcetera, are but seemingly post
facto insertions to lend that act of resurrection some narrative
credibility. What I am getting at here is that Christ may in fact be
the first zombie. In one of the apocryphal writings, we find Christ
making an animal golem when he breathes life into a lump of
clay and it turns into a bird. I suppose golem-makers have to
start small before moving on to the more complex organisms.
This notion of the book-as-machine is ripe. Indeed, the
book has many of the hallmarks one comes to expect from
any techno-gadgetry that gains in popularity on the basis of
its functionality (rather than its PR): portability, energy efficient
since it doesn’t need a power source, a retrieval system such
as an index and table of contents, and a storage system if one
decides to write in the margins.
I guess what I am aiming at with these questions is to see
if the split between analog and digital is justified. At first blush,
analog machines wear their functions on their sleeves: there
is no mistaking the purpose and function of a butter churner;
whereas a digital machine nests its function within itself virtually.
A cube with a few buttons may access the internet or do your
taxes, but its function is not visually apparent since it is imbued
with binary rather than social code. One of the examples I like
to turn to is the Terminator movies: “Ah-nulled” Governeggor’s
function is rather obvious: a hypertrophied monster with the
sole purpose of killing Sarah Connor. In the sequel, we are
introduced to the next model, T-1000, whose function is not
so obvious, but rather more virtual and modulating. Arnold is
analog, a kind of metal golem, whereas T-1000 is more on the
level with the digital and cyborg scenario.
Ah, golems, androids, cyborgs, analog, digital, virtual
epistemologies, “I”dentities, Christ, and zombies - this has
been quite a roundup. From poetics to all the fixings required
for an epic B-flick. So my final question is what comes after the
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android for your writing? Will you still be exploring this notion of
codes and consciousness, or will you be striking out on different
terrain?
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it more concrete than the vis – pieces where the content is
synechdochic to a suggested image, without sort of naively
reproducing the image in the tradition of pictorial realism. I’m
trying not to reproduce an image, but to make the text as a whole
an image. That aside, I am most interested, in this very second,
in trying to conceive ways in which the body can immanantized
through the text in a more concrete manner than in the ‘line as a
unit of breath’ concept. Sometimes the post-avant seems all too
clinical and academic to me, and inspired by people like Acker,
Bellamy and Artaud, I want to make it dirty again.
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End Notes
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About the Authors
John Moore Williams is a poet and visual artist who occasionally gets his
wires crossed, generally to effects he finds pleasing. He is the author of
three chapbooks, one in collaboration with Matina Stamatkis. An artist’s
book is coming soon from Tonerworks. You can view other works and find
links to a variety of electronic publications at fissuresofmen.blogspot.com.
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