Afternoon and Evening Online Viewing

As I am somewhat outside the community of scholars while I am on parent leave I rely on the Net as a way of continuing contact with interesting things. Today I will be watching two online streams of seminars that I would really like to have attended. Well one is in Ghent so I probably would not have been there anyway.
First is Mathias Klang in HUMlab (I am not happy about missing this):

[28 September, kl. 15:00]
Disruptive technology: Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy
Mathias Klang, Gothenborg University.
Social interaction is partly shaped by technology being used. Therefore technological innovation affects modes of social interaction. While gradual technological innovation is often assimilated, some changes can be more disruptive. This research examines the democratic impact of attempts to control disruptive technology through regulation. This is done by studying attempts to regulate the phenomena of online civil disobedience, viruses, spyware, online games, software standards and Internet censorship - in particular the affect of these regulatory attempts on the core democratic values of Participation, Communication, Integrity, Property, Access and Autonomy. By studying the attempts to regulate the disruptive effects of Internet technology and the consequences of these regulatory attempts on the IT-based participatory democracy this work shows that the regulation of technology is the regulation of democracy.

Live Stream:
http://www2.humlab.umu.se:554/ramgen/encoder/humlabseminariet/live.rm
(link only becomes active tomorrow at 15).

Then tonight at 9pm (CET) we have:

Lecture by Thomas Soetens and Kora Van den Bulcke at Homo Futuris. Sept. 27
Live stream available from 21:00 local time at:
www.workspace-unlimited.org/implant/streamwindow.htm

Vooruit Kunstencentrum, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 23, 9000 Gent, Belgium

Sept. 27 at 21:00 - 22:00 Domzaal
Homo Futuris: the influence of science & technology on tomorrows life. Homo futuris
is a collaboration between Unesco and Vooruit Kunstencentrum. For more information
about Homo Futuris visit: www.vooruit.be
During this lecture we will present a walk through of IMPLANT and the Common
Grounds Network and discuss how these projects connect to "The Virtual as interface
to Self and Society".

************************************************

Be thankful for the Net (and its still persisting freedoms)!!!!

Time and the Toddler

I relapse here as Digital Dad, on parent leave with Ben.
There seems to be different kinds of stress. The stress of being at home with a 1 year old baby who has a cold (second one this month) is physical but not really mental. I am starting to get a system going with being at home with Ben and it is becoming smoother and enjoyable. However, sleep is a thing of the past (for me anyway). It I want to have any sort of focus or activity outside being with Ben I have to do it at night or when he sleeps during the day. This is OK and gives me a window of around 5 or 6 hours a day to read or write (on a good day). Compared to full time PhD study the stress of being a full time parent is very different. When I am with Ben it is all happening NOW and I don't have to think so much beyond the hour or day which I am experiencing/dealing with. When studying my mind is not only in the moment, fully consumed (on a good day) with what I am reading, writing or discussing but I have to plan ahead with deadlines and time tables. Added to this is the need to be aware of other relevant research and texts on the subject which has been created over time. In the case of English Literature this can stretch back hundreds of years. With digital subjects it becomes the practice of keeping track of huge amounts of information flowing through email lists, new publications, online sources and seminars. The stress of being a PhD candidate really seems to go to the core of being who you are. It is not so much a job as a way of life. This is perhaps one commonality with being a parent at home, it is (hard) work but it is not really what I would call a job. Being a parent takes over your life (In most cases....I suppose there are parents who hold it at a distance for many reasons) and there is no real "quitting time" in the sense of coming back tomorrow and finishing up then ("No..I'll feed you tomorrow when I can schedule it with your bath"). However, the mind does not have to engage in the same way as with university work. I don't have to back up what I do with Ben with a reading list or provide examples from parallel sources. It is rather just done and then we move on to the next thing. Very little stays still in the world of a 1 year old. At university it sometimes feels like nothing moves (including me).
This has been some reflections on university and baby; "one of these things is not like the other one".......

Orstralia Orstralia

Being Australian outside Australia is very different from living in the land of my birth. In the days following the death of Steve Irwin I had several people offer their condolences to me regarding the demise of the TV star. Some of these people I did not even know, they offered their sympathy once they learned where I came from. One thing that the death of Irwin has provoked is an interest in what has been going on in Australia since the last news story that brought questions and comments from those around me here in the way way north. That story was the Tampa fiasco in 2001 and I was no wiser than anyone else regarding what the hell was going on.
Now the word "Australia" is in the air again and articles seem to cropping up regarding the great brown land. Last Saturday the largest circulating daily newspaper in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter (Daily News) published a long account of what it described as historical revisionist in the historical account of Australia. The title of the article is "The struggle for No One's Land", a reference to the terra nullius classification applied by the colonial powers to the Australian continents as it was gradually annexed by Britain. I am quite familiar with this story, although some of the texts are new to me. I first heard Henry Reynolds speak in 1997 and have been following the utterances of Keith Windschuttle since they emerged in the popular sphere in the early 1990's. What constitutes genocide and what is historical evidence seems to be two of the prongs this distant front of "the culture wars".
Australian conservative Prime Minister John Howard (described by Windschuttle as a "cultural warrior") and his peers sit firmly against the "black armband" view of history which uses ugly words like invasion, genocide and struggle. The recently deceased Steve Irwin, although no political philosopher and probably very much the "nice bloke" of his TV personae, described John Howard as "the greatest leader in the entire world".
Howard spoke at Irwin's memorial service and millions mourn the loss of this unique man (Personally, I have sympathy for his kids; fathers should be more careful). But what does the spectacle of nature as created by the powerful presence of Irwin and the wafer thin paper trail deemed by Windschuttle to be what makes history have in connection. I would say the depth of the dialogue.

Uncyclopedia

Click on it and enter a very strange world. The twilight zone of the mind.

archeology news story, poetic critical text and the hypertext work

The oldest writing in the western hemisphere?


“For the Nahuatl-speaking Mexica (whom we have come to know as Aztec) the boundary of text and image was artificial. They wrote in highly pictographic ways, providing specifics of when, where, who in text, and specifics of action through images. Similarly in hypermedia as I have said elsewhere the image again takes its place within the system of text, the word again takes its place within the universe of the visible and the sensual.”
Michael Joyce, Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture (Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, 2000) 124.

Convergence encountered today of archeology news story, poetic critical text and the hypertext work Sister Stories.

Earthdance 2006

This Saturday/Sunday I will be taking part in the first Earthdance gathering in Sweden. It is the 10th year the international gathering has been held. It is a creative convergence of music, dance and poetry that will be sent out as a webcast from HERE.

The Swedish earthdance features:

Ove Svensson, Flute Player and Healer, Council of the Elders
Jim Barrett, Didgeridoo player, Australian Living in Umea
Patrik From, Artist from Ersboda
Annika Bjurholm, Journalist, writer and drummer from Anumark
Peter Karlsson, Music therapist and taxi driver, drummer from Umea
Oscar Loncochino, Song, Flute, Earthdance arranger, from Ersboda

We will be gathering at 23:30 in the field with the open dance floor between west and east Ersboda. We will be lighting a large fire at 24:00 and then it will be music and song until 01:00. Please come and join us.

Sweden is Best in Sweden

Tonight in Umea Lars Cuzner will be setting up the artistic zone "Sweden is Best in Sweden". Lars asks important questions and challenges realities with his multimedia role playing installation works.
The opening is tonight at Galleri Verkligheten Pilgatan 16 Umea.
Lars has exhibited a viral space (common cold in a oxygen tent) so expect interesting stuff tonight. Doors open 19:00. Perception cleansed by 22:00.

Reading and the Poetics of the Link

Tomorrow I will be guest teaching in HUMlab for a seminar on Electronic Literature. The reason I am a guest is because I am officially on parent leave, but with the Literature Department holding a 3 hour seminar on Electronic Lit., centred upon Michael Joyce's Afternoon; A Story, I really wanted to come in and participate.
What I am planning on doing is discussing two points that are apparent in Afternoon and that are still relevant all these years later to hypertext and other forms of digital literature; The Reader and The Link. So here is my lesson plan/notes for my hour or so on the spot tomorrow (I am sharing it with Patrik and will be using this entry in the talk):

Reading and the Poetics of the Link

"A link in hypertext is, from the reader's perspective, a whole new literary joy, and, from the writer's perspective, an aspect of form and craft to be used along with other stylistic and formal tools."
The Poetics of the Link by Jeff Parker (http://www.altx.com/ebr/ebr12/park/park.htm)

As Parker points out in his essay The Poetics of the Link, the hypertext link is not just "merely a connector, a glorified page to turn". So what is it??

I look to George Landow's recent Hypertext 3.0 for some classifications of hypertext links:

1. Lexia to Lexia Unidirectional
Direct link from one screen image to another without a return link. The return button on most web browsers makes this a difficult classification.
Lexia refers to a single node of text in a digital artefact, the boundaries of which may be at times difficult to determine but generally rest upon a single observable visual field. The term has been widely adopted in the digital theory context from Roland Barthes' Image Music Text (1977): "lexical unit or lexia (of the same image)" Roland Barthes. "Rhetoric of the Image" Image Music Text Trans. Stephen Heath (New York, Hill and Wang, 1977) 46.

2. Lexia to Lexia Bidirectional
Because of the return function on web browsers this is usually the case with World Wide Web (W3) links. Afternoon has: One L) mouse click foward two clicks back, the History button that opens a list of lexia visited and permits the return to each, the Return button (as is the case with web browsers) and the Bookmarks funtion that allows a point to be marked for latter reference.

3. String (word or phrase) to Lexia
This is the situation with Afternoon. Each linked word or phrase opens a new lexia to the one that contains the link. According to Landow (2006):
"Advantages: (1) Allows simple means of orientating readers; (2) permits longer lexias (3) encourages different kinds of annotation and linking." George Landow Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization(Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2006)12-14.

Landow discusses other types of linking strategies but these three are a good enough start. So the link moves the reader through the text. In doing this it creates:
1. An illusion of movement (and as a consequence a sense of space and place) as the text unfolds with an authored/designed intention. This "movement" is guided by the postioning and content of links.
2. It provides a rhythm for navigating the text. Uniform links in easy to find spots allows for a uniform reading pace. Hidden and trick links makes things more "playful".
3. A link can create a phrase which begins with the clickable point (the first sign in the phrase) and then continues over into the opened link. One example is "Do you want to hear about it?" of the opening lexia of Afternoon. Each of the words of the "Do you want to" of the phrase "Do you want to hear about it?" are linked to the following lexia; "I want to say I may have seen my son die this morning." The word "hear" is linked to a lexia of the story of Lolly and Nausicaa. The final "about it?" returns us to "I want to say I may have seen my son die this morning." This is a narrative arrangement constucted in the authoring of the text. Katherine Hayles writes that

"In Michael Joyce's hypertext novel Afternoon, all the textual nodes have equal claim to being "primary". In a narrative such as this, there is no predetermined plot. Rather, there are potential pathways that are actualized when a user traverses them. The actual narrative comes into existence (emerges globally) in conjunction with a specific reading." N. Katherine Hayles, "Artificial Life and Literary Culture" in Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory, Marie-Laure Ryan (Ed) (Bloomingdale: Indiana UP. 1999) 213.

In applying Hayles' horizontal model of the text the link becomes the structuring principle of the narrative. It allows the narrative to be built by providing the illusion of movement through the text. There is only a beginning when the reader engages with the text and the end when the reader leaves the physical text. In between are the paths of the links, the narrative spaces opened with each click.

Now I would like to discuss something else unique to such electronic literature as Afternoon, the End User Licence Agreement (EULA). This is the EULA for Afternoon, by today's standards it is very simple but the manner of address and rules are basically the same:

LICENSE AGREEMENT:
=================

Eastgate Systems, Inc., grants you a non-exclusive license to use this copy of the program on the following terms:

YOU MAY:
I) Use the program on any ONE computer.

YOU MAY NOT:

I) Allow the program or any other document created by the installer into the possession or use of any other individual or organization, without prior express written consent of Eastgate Systems, Inc.;
II) Modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, create derivative works based upon, or copy the program or the accompanying documentation;
III) remove any proprietary notices, labels, or marks on the program and accompanying documentation;
IV) use this program, or permit this program to be used, on more than one computer at any one time.

Non-compliance with any of the above restrictions will terminate this license.
This license is not a sale. Title and copyrights to the program and accompanying documentation and any copy remain with Eastgate Systems, Inc.
This agreement is the entire agreement. If any provision of this agreement is held invalid, the remainder of this agreement shall continue in full force and effect.

afternoon, a story_ copyright © 1987 by Michael Joyce. All Rights Reserved. Software copyright © 1992-2001 by Eastgate Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Installation:
============

To install _afternoon, a story_ for Windows, follow the instructions given by this installer.

Installation creates a new program group named "afternoon", containing three items:

- _afternoon, a story_

- "Reading _afternoon, a story_" -- a brief manual on reading the hypertext. To best enjoy _afternoon_, please have a look at this manual.

- A free coupon for your next purchase of an Eastgate publication.

If you do not specify otherwise during instalLation, the "afternoon" program group is added to the HYPERTEXTS program group.

Installation places all the files it creates in a new directory named "AFTRNOON".

The manual and the coupon are in PDF format, for Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Microsoft®, Windows®, Windows 95®, Windows 98®, Windows 2000®, Windows me®, and Windows NT® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Apple is a registered service mark and Macintosh(tm) and Mac OS(tm) are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Adobe(tm) and Acrobat(tm) are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Other product names mentioned in this document may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Product names are used for identification only, with no intent to infringe. Mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation Eastgate Systems, Inc., assumes no responsibility with respect to the performance or use of these products.

In the early years of hypertext theory the catch cry was:

"Hypertext demands an active reader; it blurs the distinction between author and reader."
(Landow, Hypertext, 178-79, 184; Lanham, The Electronic Word, 6, 76; Bolter, Writing Space, 29, 117, 153-59.)

I am not so sure about this statement. What I think instead is that hypertext, and what has developed from it, has blurred what is a reader and an author, both in old and new media. The EULA is a document lending weight to the idea that authorial power is still asserted in the text, that the reader is guided in how she is expected to read, and what he is allowed to do with the text. Of course, acting against these expectations are the many deviant forces of digital media; the remixer, the hacker, the copyist, the parody and plagiarist. It is this sense that the distinction between author and reader may be considered blurred, but not to the point, thus far, where one threatens the other. The Law sees to that.

Banksy on Paris

British information artist Banksy has "replaced 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut album in 48 different [42 according to Banksy] UK record stores with his own parodical remixes and cover art. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?" The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption 90% of success is just showing up." (from the Wikipedia)

According to the BBC:

No customers had complained or returned a doctored version, said a spokesman for HMV .

"It's not the type of behaviour you'd want to see happening very often," he said.

"I guess you can give an individual such as Banksy a little bit of leeway for his own particular brand of artistic engagement.

"Often people might have a view on something but feel they can't always express it, but it's down to the likes of Banksy to say often what people think about things.

"And it might be that there will be some people who agree with his views on the Paris Hilton album."

A spokesman for Virgin Megastores said staff were searching for affected CDs but it was proving hard to find them all.

"I have to take my hat off - it's a very good stunt," he added.

The images from the CD are on Sharl's Flickr page (Thanks Robert). Does any one have a copy of the CD they would like to share (they are selling on eBay for £800 each now)?????

The video of the action:

Don't Mess with Site Tracker

A word of warning to anyone who has made the huge lump of a site tracker button (see bottom of page) a little smaller:

ATTENTION REPORTS OFFLINE
You are violating our Terms and Conditions you agreed with when signing up.

NOTE: The report pages of the Free Tracker are indeed open to your site audience, only editing is password protected. Hiding the button, sizing down the button or removing the link is NOT allowed.

If you do not want a button on your site or if you do not want to have your report pages freely available to your site audience then please get the Non Public Tracker.

In order to restore access to your Free Tracker reports please correct the violation immediately at your My Account.


Until I can remember my password for the damn thing I cannot repair my transgression. I do not want to loose my site records....ouch!

Digital Bookends for Swedish Election Campaign

On the 17th September Sweden is going to the polls for local, province and national governments. It has been an interesting election campaign. One that did not really build up momentum (from my - foreigner - perspective) until the nation came back from summer holidays in August. But since then it has been at times frantic, that is in a relative sense.
Something that I have found very interesting are the 'digital bookends' that frame the election campaign:
On 31st May 2006 50 members of the Swedish National Criminal Police raided and confiscated the property of the Pirate Bay and the Pirate Bureau in Göteborg/Gothenberg. This made headlines in the Swedish press and seem to boost the popularity of the Pirate Party which is standing many candidates in the coming election. Last week, just over one week before the election, it emerged that members of the Swedish Folk Party Liberal had somehow gained access to the internal computer network of the ruling Social Democrat party. Over a period of months they had access to the information therein.
The place of these two events in history is yet to be established. They both concern rights of access to information. They both focus on intellectual property being equated with physical property. Issues of privacy are as well being contested. When the government attempted to close down the Pirate Bay they claimed right of access to the materials archived there. When the same governing party discovered that it's database was being accessed without their permission they reported the matter to the police (and the media). Property rights are being asserted in both cases.

Elections in Australia can verge on the hysterical at times. I remember attending the last rally staged by John Hewson in Brisbane for the 1993 Federal election and as he spoke in King George Square punches were being thrown and fights breaking out in the crowd between government and opposition supporters . Things are more peaceful in Sweden and much more technological.

WORLD DIDGERIDOO VIBES volume one

I have had a track accepted for a compilation of didgeridoo music; WORLD DIDGERIDOO VIBES volume one

Harvard teaching law in Virtual World

"My project is the Berkman Center. It's my best shot at addressing the problems of the world. I think of it as a project for the world, for my country, for Harvard, for my community, my family and myself.

I am eon, d of c. I founded the Berkman Center to promote a cyber society built on principles of openness and sharing. I hold the Center to this vision. I feel its force. May the Force be with you."

So says Charles Nesson, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He and his computer scientist daughter Rebecca will be teaching a course entitled CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion beginning next week. The video above is a summary of the course which will be taught in Second Life, in a "virtual courtroom is situated in a community called Berkman Island, a nod to Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society".

The course will as well use wikis, blogs, streamed inworld video, chat rooms, podcasts and forums. For those of us not doing a term at Harvard this Fall:

"All of our videos and lecture materials will be freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. We’ll also be broadcasting select video on Cambridge Community Television, for residents of Cambridge, Massachusetts."

The Days as they Go

So it is number 2 of daddy days (117 to go) and I thought I would write something. Two kids at home both with colds. It is not as bad as it sounds. Elder son is turning into a screen junky with TV and computer his preferred environment. His is currently obsessed by The Return to the Milkyway (Tillbaka till Vintergatan), a clever Swedish TV series about space adventure, love, danger and excitement (so he tells me). There is also a game of the show which came out in 2000. We have set up an old computer for him with Windows 98 and no internet where he plays old games and does not mind it taking 30 seconds to load a screen (I could not cope with it). The game at the moment is Tillbaka till Vintergatan.
Younger son sleeps a lot.
I have been reading Sonia Katyal's essay from the Washington U. Law Quarterly (Autumn 2006), "Semiotic Disobedience" which provokes much thought. Although I am not sure I agree with "the phenomenon of semiotic disobedience aims to create dialogue where there isn't one" (Katyal 2006: 12). Perhaps a better word would be "acknowledge" or "outline" as dialogue seems to be difficult to create after the fact. It must have always be present in order to be found. But maybe I have the wrong idea as I have only managed the first 15 pages of the text. It was online up until yesterday as a 75 page document but it has been taken down (Why??). There is a draft version HERE.
Finally some cool links of late:

ThoughtAudio.com
ThoughtAudio.com is proud to present an audio classic line-up of MP3 downloads for your entertainment. Each title selection is part of a well-rounded, intelligent view of classic literature, history and philosophy. Segments of each title are easily downloadable and all of our audio books are free.

Global Text Project (Engaging many for the benefit of many more)
The goal is to create a free library of 1,000 electronic textbooks for students in the developing world. The library will cover the range of topics typically encountered in the first two years of a university's undergraduate programs. The global academic community and global corporations will be engaged in creating and sponsoring this library

Resonance 104.4 fm
Arts radio project broadcasting to the South Bank and Bankside in London. Run by the London Musicians Collective. The best radio station on the web. Includes listings, project and station information.

Totems without Taboos: The Exquisite Corpse
By Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid
Database aesthetics, collaborative filtering, musical riddles, and beat sequence philosophy aren't exactly things that come to mind when you think of the concept of the "exquiste corpse." But if there's one thing at I want to you to think about when you read this anthology, its that collage based art - whether its sound, film, multimedia, or computer code, has become the basic frame of reference for most of the info generation. We live in a world of relentlessly expanding networks - cellular, wireless, fiber optic routed, you name it - but the basic fact is that the world is becoming more interconnected than ever before, and it's going to get deeper, weirder, and a lot more interesting than it currently is as I write this essay in NYC at the beginning of the 21st century.

Digital Dad Logs On

I am in the beginnings of 5 months "father leave", when I will be staying at home with my 11 months old son, Benyamin. During this time I will be still writing and reading, but much of my contact with the digital community will be online. This will be an interesting time. So, I want to blog as much as possible on being a "digital dad". With this in mind I have been thinking abut ways to expand the content of this blog to reflect my 'mediated' state over the coming months. Something that plays a huge role in my life but that I do not blog so much about is the many books I enjoy reading (something I have my own dad to thank for). At the recent DIRN workshop I found that book tips are appreciated all round, so here is what is on my shelf, floor, shoulder at the moment.


Can one ever go wrong with a Katherine Hayles text? Even if you don't agree with it at the very least it provokes thought on the big issues. I finished My Mother was a Computer yesterday after taking my time with it in between other reads. This book covers a lot of ground, from the ontological implications of cellular autonoma to the metaphorical significance of self-disembowelment. I recommend it for anyone interested in digital textuality, narrative, materiality, and how we are what we are today and possibly tomorrow. One negative thing I can however say about the edition I have is that the index is terrible. A quote:

"In these complex reconfigurations of agency, the significance of envisioning the unconscious as a program rather than a dark mirror of consciousness can scarcely be overstated, for it locates the hidden springs of action in the brute machinic operations of code. In this view, such visions of the unconscious as Freud’s repressed Oedipal conflicts of Jung's collective archetypes seem hopelessly anthropomorphic, for they populate the unconscious with ideas comfortingly familiar to consciousness rather than the much more alien operations of machinic code." (Hayles 2005:191)

Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames, Chris Bateman (Editor) has 2007 as the year of publication so we are reading the future here. I only picked this up yesterday but I am impressed so far. I have managed to browse the Contents and read the first chapter. It starts simple; Definition of terms, Story, Character and so on. But it builds up nicely to a practical and theoretical guide to what constitutes writing for video games. What particularly impresses me is Chapter 9 Writing for Licences by James Swallow. So often the nitty gritty of getting things published is sacrificed for the glamour of the craft of the pen (ha ha ha). But here we have Swallow introducing us the minefield of Intellectual Property Rights. With the visual rhetoric of games being essential to story line, its best if everyone understands that it is "the texture of IP, which is the core of a licensed game, the ephemeral look and feel of a franchise that must be translated to the game world if the title is to have any chance of success" (Swallow 2007: 172). By success Swallow mean $$$$ and this is a very commercially orientated text, but it is a fine introduction and well worth the wait until 2007...only kidding its on sale now.

Moira Roth is big-time. She personally knew John Cage and Marcel Duchamp was the subject for her 1974 thesis dissertation. The text Difference/Indifference: Musings on Postmodernism, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage is a collection of what Roth has published since the 1970's on Postmodernism, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage. In terms of my own interest this text would come under the classification of proto-hypertext or ubiquitous textuality. What is so nice about it is the way so much of the context is provided for the works we all know, such as The Large Glass (The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even) and the truly amazing Étant Donnés . Plus Cage is placed in relation to Jasper Johns, the McCarthy trials, European diaspora of the early 1940's, music, and the role media played in the show trials of the 1950's and the execution of the Rosenbergs. Anyone interested in pursuing the line of Cage, Stein, Beckett, Joyce and so on would be interested in this text.


My final book for the moment is Parables for the Virtual by Brian Massumi. This text has changed my life.....is that enough? When the majority of us perceive something we fix it into some sort of stationary understanding. It crossed our path at a particular moment, we know it by a certain name, or the event occurred at such and such a place. Much of our understanding of this 'reality' lies woven into the media with which we have told our stories and recorded our truths for a very long time. But something is now changing. Massumi takes the perceptual theories of Henri Bergson and stains them with the philosophies of difference and subjectivity of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. This is heady stuff:

"Perception, even before its thinking is out, is a limited selection, an actualization of potential plug-ins. There is more in the "thing" than in the perception of it. The feeling of anticipation as such - as enveloped in action under way in all its mixity, and as distinct from the alternatives it can think out into - is a registering of potential. This pending feeling of being selectively plugged-in to forces, this registering of a nextness betokening always more: this may be called sensation. Sensation is the registering of the multiplicity of potential connections in the singularity of a connection actually under way. It is the direct experience of a more to the less of every perception." (Massumi 2002:92-93)

This is taken from a chapter on Stellarc. I have only read 100 pages but this will be the next book I finish. I may even pick up some Camus or a couple of Shakespeares in the next few months.