[879]
I think new manifestations of each of our kinesics
will eventually emerge: verbal constructs replacing eye-contact, for instance.
PLANET Teleconference (November 1978 - February 1979)
Page 3: PLANET messages numbered
between 879 and 965
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Table of Contents
[879]
I think new manifestations of each of our kinesics
will eventually emerge: verbal constructs replacing eye-contact, for instance.
[893]
To quote the great Ray Johnson: "Collage or perish!"
Gillette
[940]
The following "random" points are intended to serve as a radical-traditional prolegomenon for cybernautics:
1. The teleconference is characterized as
meta-theater (theater in the sense of a place of action; a field of operations)
in which various methodologies employ paradox and inversion in seriatim.
2. What is necessary is that, in a natural variety of ways, the work
embody, accord with, and represent the precise experience upon which it
depends. Its "communicative" efficacy is not a separate concern,
and if treated as such it would risk a fatal effect upon serious work.
3. Each player (or conference) represents a private "world"
or perceptual/cognitive activity, the activity is displayed and demonstrated
in the process, not reported. Two central questions are: How does this
technological system generate its own distinct aesthetic milieu? What is
the common particularity novel to the experience?
4. The teleconference can be defined as a network of multiple connections,
involving complexity, order, and hierarchy. Any private world of perceptual/cognitive
activity depends upon self-defined comprehension of the whole. It can function
as the theater for establishing root metaphors and analogies introduced
by the unique conceptual pressures encountered in the teleconference itself.
For instance, adapting ordinary language, in addition to various specialist
lexicons and argots, to the novel purposes of this activity. For instance,
translating certain mythical forces from their lost redemptive power to
a redefined descriptive power.
5. Taking off from the physicist Margenau's concept of the "Requirement
of Multiple Connections" the premise is that through their definitions,
constructs enter into relations with each other. The interest here leaves
aside, at least for the moment, the origin and focuses on the character
of the connections which constructs may enter (each conferencee represents
a constellation of such constructs). These may be of two types,
formal and epistemic.
5.1 A formal connection is one which sets a construct in a purely
logical relation with another construct (construct can be read here as
any message which defines a distinct point of view). They are in a sense
hypothetical judgements. Classic examples of formal connections: a) the
relations between geometric quantities and their axiomatic sources, or
b) between the golden mean and its expression in a particular set of angles
in a picture plane. One peculiarity of formal connections is that their
formal character becomes less obvious (even transparent) when and if they
are empirically verified.
5.2 An epistemic connection is equivalent to and arises from a rule
of correspondence which links the construct with data or evidence. Examples
of epistemic connection: a) the relation between a tree and the perception
of it b) between a force and an awareness of muscular exertion. One of
the terms is a construct, the other is in nature. Connections are also
both formal and epistemic in equal degree, as in any graduated experience,
from empirical to ideational and back.
6. The divisions of formal and epistemic can be applied to the ordering
of messages exchanged in this system. In some sense a new distinction between
art and science may be defined when each is considered as a mental domain
in the search of descriptive modes. To do so also raises questions as to
the validity of the standard distinction of objective and subjective. For
example, absorption in the immediacy of perception/cognition is generally
recognized as an essential characteristic of art, whereas the instrumental
use of perceptions to infer and confirm theories is the typical mark of
science. This system of exchange and hypothesis has the potential of synthesizing
these two distinguishing attitudes.
7. The teleconference can be said to have a metabolism of its
own. A sort of optimum harmony of process in exchange and synthesis achieving
possible tiers of novelty with discontinuous "quantum" shifts
establishing essential internal divisions.
O'Regan
[963] Re: 940
1. Yes, teleconference as meta-theater.
Any methodology is employed so that communication occurs in this medium.
How do the terms "paradox" and "inversion" attach to
specific modes of operation?
2. Where is the tautology here? We only go so far with the problem
of a system describing itself. I am reminded of an old question in brain
research: what are the limits of a system in terms of understanding itself?
This point of view pre-supposes identity of mind and brain.
3. This is differently distributed kind of intelligence, different
from almost any found in nature. One of the most novel particularities
of this system is the existence of exponential channels of simultaneously
operating dialogues. Our task will be to use, characterize, stimulate and
display parallel-processing modes. 4. Complexity, order, and
hierarchy: These three terms are minimal coordinates by which one
defines simultaneity in the system. All three become involved, as the "themes"
of any conference emerge, in addition to layers of sub-themes, some of
which recur as others disappear. In the piece to date, the initial theme
has been/is the piece itself, with the house-keeping theme of how to support
it institutionally and financially. Various sub-themes have emerged and
would be interesting to analyze, particularly time-lapse events. Multiple
participation on several channels is a necessary threshold through which
to pass in order to properly use the system.
5. The system abounds in formal connections, which are mostly transparent.
Hence the difficulty in describing them or in not simply obliterating their
significance by succession. I submit that this terrain is virtually devoid
of metaphor.
6. Immediate and/or remote perception: This is one of the
keys to the system. All the things we can think of applying the system
to at this stage have probably already been done by conventional means.
Depending on the order of complexity generated, we may arrive at new forms
by linking this system for a new purpose.
On Being Formal--The Virtues of the Opaque in Times of Immediacy
In discerning the nature of inter-communicational forms in the medium of teleconferencing, it is necessary to distinguish three basic modes. These are:
The Formal Communication Mode:
The tortuous path, referenced and annotated, serves to stimulate the indigestibility of the formal mode. It is, nevertheless, the mode of considered substance, no matter how stilted it may seem upon recall. It is also the stuff of legend and synthesis, all of which matter to the modus operandi of genius at work. We have all been victims of this delicious infection. Even now I can hardly resist a reference or two myself!
The Live Communication Mode:
It is serially exhilarating to a degree unexpected in advance of the experience. There is the sense of quadrophonic logic, stage whispers, asides (!) not in the script-the excitement of interchange, the challenge of response, the threat of real time.
The Polite Interim Response Mode:
But what to do when called to the cry of the hunt?
Etc. Or at the arrival of ten feet of Wittgensteinian condensation? The
polite--interim response mode allows the receiver to punctuate the sender's
demand with a holding pattern and absorb the urgent message.