Body II: Structures, Bodies, and Space

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Electronic media is a field of relations that is becoming a vital part of what academics do.
We are not simply caught in one web of relations. We are caught in disciplinary
structures, architectural structures, bureaucratic structures, interpersonal/communal
relations and structures, and now we can simply add the internet to the mix as another
web of relations. All these structures are superimposed upon each other and upon our
bodies. The potential complexity of flow and relation between all of the structures is far
beyond any logocentric explanatory model. We know these structures and relations are
there, but we a have a difficult time trying to conceptualize them all coming to bare on us
at one time. Every person is caught up in similar webs of significance and intertextual
meaning just like the academic. Steven Holtzman outlines a history of trying to
conceptualize structure and its relation to the human in an attempt to deal with the way
new technology will influence this continually expanding interlinked space in which we
are caught. In _Digital Mantras_ he claims "we are on the verge of a new age in creative
expression" (vii): new ways to express ourselves, communicate, and create will
accompany the computer/digital age. His goal is to create an aesthetic based on the
application of structure to language, music, art, and computer technologies. As a hyper-
structuralist, he sees computers as the ultimate manipulators of "abstract structures." They
have the ability to manipulate/alter the structures of all human expression in ways the
unaided human cannot. Holtzman situates this coming age of creativity in a long tradition
of formalism from early Indian grammar to Saussure and Chomsky, linking them to
modern abstract music and visual art.

In order to lay the general historical foundation for his structuralist position, Holtzman
traces a structuralist view of language back to Indian linguist Panini, some time around
the fourth century B.C. Panini is important for Holtzman not only because he was the
first to develop and document a phonetics and grammar to describe language (Sanskrit),
but primarily for his theory's ability to be utilized as a generative or creative grammar.
Part of the reason it can be used in this way is because it remains "the most consciously
formalized [theory] of the Indo-European languages" (emphasis Holtzman, 13). Probably
more interesting is the fact that this tradition lead to more theoretical debates. From
Panini sprung the Mirmamsa school, a Vedic version of Plato which saw meaning
inherent in ideal prototypes, and the not so surprising counter-point the Nyaya school,
which saw "the relationship between words and meaning as purely conventional" (35).
Around 150 A.D. Nagarjuna formed a new school under the premise that nature and
language are based on differentiation and "are said to be devoid of an intrinsic [value],
and hence, empty" (qtd, 36). From this position another theorist, Dignaga, was able to
posit a theory of meaning based on negation, what something is not. Interestingly enough
it was a double negation (cow=not-not-cow). With theoretical ease Holtzman jumps to
the 20th century and Saussure. Saussure studied Indo-European languages for over 20
years, and Holtzman doesn't have to spend much time to make the case that he was
influenced by these early Indian thinkers. The important point of linguistic analysis for
Holtzman is that it develops the notion of a system that is based on its own internal
relationships.

This notion of meaning through internal structure carries over to the discussion of music.
Holtzman takes the reader through a discussion of The Circle of Fifths, the early
foundation for structuring musical compositions based on tonality, in order to
demonstrate the traditional connection between structuralism and music. The technical
aspects of the circle of fifths are an important point in the development from this
structural tradition to a more complex notion of structure in the 20th century. Around the
turn of the century, composers Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern develop a new method for
constructing compositions based on a full 12 note scale rather than the traditional 7 note
scale. This approach can be used on pitch in conjunction with other traditional structures
for rhythm and meter, or it can be applied to all aspects of music.

In terms of the visual arts, Kandinsky becomes Holtzman's archetypal figure. During the
early part of the 20th century he became very interested in the Serialist movement in
music because he saw a connection between their work and his own. Kandinsky was
interested in color and form/composition in relation to their psychic or emotive effect.
This position lead him to privilege subjectless painting. In his work the "subject was
missing"(71); there was no subject, and thus no object, only relationships. For him
"Subjects lost their representational function"(72). In his book _On the Spiritual in Art_
he claims "we have before us the age of conscious creation" (qtd, emphasis mine, 76).
What this conscious creation affectively creates is unconscious feeling, emotions, and
reaction in the audience. With Kandinsky, Holtzman is able to see the potential for
conscious, structured aesthetic creation, which opens the way for the arts to be formalized
and programmed into a computer, yet retain human feel and emotion. This becomes the
role for Chomsky's "generative grammar." Holtzman wishes to use this rejuvenated idea
from ancient India as a model for a computer generative grammar. The contested site of
the subject in structuralism/post-structuralism leaves the door open for him to bring
computers into the space of a "creative" subject.

In music the general move was also toward a dissolution of personality (the human,
body?) for form. The inclusion of postwar composers Boulez, Stockhausen, and Cage
make this explicit. "Once Boulez had defined the rules, the 'mechanism' could run its own
course. The process of composition was effectively automated" (91). Stockhausen and
Cage also open the way for Holtzman to potentially bring in chance/chaos theory into
computer generated art. In opposition to a the strictly controlled formalism of Boulez,
Stockhausen saw the potential for "controlled chance" through the "random ordering of
segments" (94). Though Cage was more radical in his desire for happenstance, Holtzman
claims that "All music can... be viewed as a formal abstract system. Even music that may
seem like noise or that is based on randomness and chance must have an underlying
system" (67). For him, "this reflects directly on the mind's ability to derive meaning by
differentiating. Perception itself is a process of differentiation" (52).
Holtzman goes beyond structuralism in a reductive sense. It is not limiting. It is open. For
him subjectivity/agency is not internal to the human. It comes from outside, because there
is technically no distinct inside. The center is empty in that its content is predicated on the
structure of the relations around it. Holtzman goes all the way back to Nagarjuna to show
that this idea is not new. The fact that nature and language are based on differentiation
and "are said to be devoid of an intrinsic [value], and hence, empty" (qtd, 36) is not
something new to poststructuralism or Derrida. The opening created by the structure of a
web of relations is the generative space. It not only generates discourse, thought, and art,
it also generates the notion of the subject, the individual, and identity. What Holtzman
suppresses in his discussion is the fact that there is something in this center. Its not the
subject, but the body. What is caught in the web is a physical body. Bodies are immersed
in structures and they interact with other bodies that are caught up in interconnected webs
of relations. Once immersed in structures, the structures dictate what inter-relationships
with other bodies are possible. They thereby determines/define the subject position, the
potential individual character traits, and the possibilities for combinations of identities.
But the structures cannot determine how bodies will interact once given the opportunity.
The structures still cannot account for the element of chance. There is always an excess.
Even if there is an underlying system, the system cannot know precisely how bodies will
interact as long as there is more than one possibility for interaction. This is the post-
structuralist paradox- everything is determined but remains open.

This is the paradox of Derrida's reading of the term chora which he gets from Plato's
Timaeus. "Chora receives everything or gives place to everything, but Plato insists that in
fact it has to be a virgin place, and that it has to be totally foreign, totally exterior to
anything that it receives. Since it is absolutely blank, everything that is printed on it is
automatically effaced. It remains foreign to the imprint it receives; so in a sense, it does
not receive anything- it does not receive what it receives nor does it give what it gives.
Everything inscribed in it erases itself immediately, while remaining in it. It is thus an
impossible surface- it is not even a surface, because it has no depth" (Derrida, qtd.
Heuretics, 65). The chora is the open space that is neither present nor absent. It generates
yet it has no formal substance. This is the space that the body inhabits within webs of
interrelations. The body is not the chora. The chora has no substance. But the chora is the
force that arises from the interaction between structures, and the force is then expressed
through the bodies that are immersed in the structures. What Holtzman must be calling
for is to replace the "human" body with the computer as a body. As long as we immerse it
in the proper structure and give it the ability to interact with that structure, the computer
will become productive. It will become the medium of the chora. But what Holtzman
cannot account for is the excess of the unconscious. The choric space that cannot be
codified because it has no presence in the traditional sense. With the aid of computers we
can calculate and conceptualize our structures more thoroughly, but we cannot account
for excess. For absence.