Subj: The concept of update, stasis vs. dynamism, the chiasmic image

Date: 6/6/99 9:46:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Daily Post for June 6, 1999

Robbin Murphy wrote:

> At 5:58 PM -0000 6/5/99, [email protected] wrote:

>

>>"Despite the fragmentation essential to contemporary culture, or >>perhaps specifically because of that fragmentation, today's artist >>must describe the situation; the situation of fragmentation."

>

>You're appropriating my quotation from Friedrich Kittler -- "Media

>determine the situation..." -- where he is "updating" McLuhan's idea >that we can understand media to include the fact that media not only >has the qualities of storage and transmission but now computability as >well. So, since media is now prone to constant update we can only >describe the situation of that updating, not a static media object.

There are some interesting issues here, based on Robbin's apparent impression that the situation of fragmentation cannot be equated with the situation of dynamic or constantly updated media. I intentionally equated the two in order to emphasize the similarity, and place the chiasmic image into focus, but my explanation has a few layers so perhaps I need to elaborate.

Kittler argues, in the quote "nevertheless, or for that very reason," that an understanding of the media in toto (and hence the meaning of artworks and artists) is impossible now that computability has rendered media dynamic rather than static. All that is left is to observe the process of update, and this is his manifesto (or situational observation) of the role of the artist.

How can we equate Kittler's addition of computability to transimission and storage, and the newly observational role of the artist, with the less opaque concept of fragmentation? Moreover, how can we implicate Kittler's work in a linear concept of history, and hence with the pre-chaotic cognitive models which are piled like wreckage at the Angel's feet? The key lies in a close scrutiny of the concept of media as entering a new phase called "update" because of the new variable "computability." Examining this concept will clarify Kittler's rationale for considering the updating media dynamic rather than static, and illustrate the dependence on linear time-patterns that prevent Kittler (and Murphy, it seems) from comprehending the chaotic dynamic that only appears static from a linear perspective.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Constant update, which is to say eternal update, is a necessary element of the media-concept favored by McLuhan. It is analogous to the Catholic concept of "approaching nearer, but never reaching," to which Daedalus objected and gained himself a beating with humiliation. McLuhan felt that the eternal update consisted of the advancement of mankind by an enlightened class, the artist class. However, as we have reached a crisis point in the credibility of art on any scale, the attention has turned to the new media of digital technology. Many hope to find the basis for approaching nearer but never reaching in perpetually obsolescing computer hardware.

Does the element of computability introduce a qualitatively new form of update to cognitive media? Back on Shock in the midst of the turbulent year 1998, we tried to resolve this question. (Simon Biggs was a key player, but I guess he didn't jump to Rhizome after Shock expired.) I think at this point there is no conclusive reason to believe that digital media are qualitatively different from other media (like Polaroids, typewriters, video, paint, the human voice, and CDs) simply because they involve the ill-defined and metaphysical cocept of computability. In fact, I think it can be argued with great success that even the human voice taken alone is as much in eternal update as any computerized medium.

Semantic quagmires are generally placed in quite strategic ways. This is one of McLuhan's chief insights, that monotheism is pure and singular marketing. Whether we grant Kittler and Murphy the point or not--that computers are a brand new dynamic media replacing outdated static media--the linear historical concept the proposition rests on is undeniable. Update is linear time, period; I can't why anyone would try to cover up this fact. Moreover, linear concepts of history depend now (as they always have) on the principle of update either in media or in the expert knowledge that controls media. Without update, there is no dynamism, no approaching nearer, only a crucifixion of the unwashed but innocent Daedaluses of the world. Thus the fixation of traditional models of cognition and history on update.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The linear worldview faces, in these conditions, two major threats. The first is the realization that update is not dynamic, but only fragmentary and administrative. (When one of the flock come to this conclusion, correctly or not, it is go time and heads will roll.) If we realize that cognition is not linear, but a chaos-based mapping that occurs within a refractory medium we call time, then updating becomes an obscenity despite its purported dynamism. Moreover, if the chaos-based interpretations of events--interpretations that are static from the perspective of linear time but infinitely dynamic in temporal-cognitive terms--are seen to render unnecessary the fiction of updating-as-dynamism, then the metaphysical dilemma itself crumbles into dust.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In this situation, the linear dynamism of update is in fact merely an administration of fragmentation; a fragmentation which is itself caused only by the incompetent observational capacity of the linear model in defense against chaos or mingling. To maintain the credibility of the administration is now and has been throughout the technological era the primary occupation of media systems. The chiasmic image, relevant only as the instant of transition from fragment to cognitive permutation (as concept and not event), has been the idol that diverts our attention from the need to blast apart linear history.

+++++++++++++++++++++

I hope this clarifies my intent in adapting the title of the recent thread, "nevertheless, or for that very reason." The concept of update cannot be separated from the preservation of linear history and its attendant models of cognition and artistry.

I also would like to ask that the editors--Alex, Mark, and Rachel--either call for a vote on whether or not to re-sub the unsubbed, or at least make some kind of official statement of why they will not call such a vote.

Max Herman

The Genius 2000 Project

Video Available Now

www.geocities.com/~genius-2000

>

>It would seem that dynamic forms would be better at this kind of

>description: generative music, rtmark, Electronic Disturbance Theater, >CN_9, net.art and even my own "Project Tumbleweed if I ever get >around to working on it. But I also think static representations can be >interesting especially since I felt a resonance between CN_9 and the >paintings of Christian Schumann that hung on the walls of the gallery >during the performance. It created a very baroque acoustic space. I >don't know if this juxtaposition was planned by Postmasters or just a >coincidence. Same thing happened when GH did his Soap Opera for >Laptops at the gallery last year though the relationship between the >static and dynamic wasn't quite so evident.> > Rob> > > > _____________________________________________________

> ROBBIN MURPHY

> [email protected]

> 73 East Second Street #9, New York, NY 10003 USA> <I> i o l a </I> http://artnetweb.com/iola/

>

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