| Nmherman on 27 Feb 2001 05:16:41 -0000 |
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| [Nettime-bold] Please post to Raw, Al.///////Hot Bowl of Texas Chili |
Subj: Re: Manifesto Contribution Request
Date: 7/7/99 11:13:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: [email protected] (Max Herman)
Sender: [email protected] (The Genius 2000 Project)
Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">
[email protected]</A> (The Genius 2000 Project)
To: [email protected]
In a message dated 7/6/99 10:22:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
> I used to write fiction. Now I can't. Anyone have any thoughts on the
> relationship between the political and the poetic?
In Greek tragedy, heroic narrative was used to generate collective thought.
The chorus of course was the symbol of this transition: the hero's actual
life becomes an image, an artifact, a document of official value for use in
the cultural economy.
In other words, Greek tragedy is also about blasting open the myth of
individual genius, and the myth's decomposition into a group ethic, felt
immediately, of the forces of nature and life. Post-heroic concepts of time
(i.e. narrative) differ from the chthonic in that cognition is seen to
originate in the human brain and not in quasi-supernatural spirits of earth
and blood.
So there ya go. It makes one hundred percent total sense, but not a single
English professor in the world will agree with it until it is thrown in their
face like a hot bowl of Texas chili.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
In other news, I have decided to do the obvious and put the manifesto on
line. I think it was the last infrimity (sic) of noble mind that made me
think of an agent, the agents of darkness. I'll start transcribing the video
today, and that will be the first chunk of the manifesto. This will also
make it easier for those people who don't want to get a tape to find out more.
Then I want to add some explanations of the references--exegesis if you
will--to round out the Waste Land comparisons. I also see no problem with
allowing the manifesto to grow over time: essays, reviews, new interviews,
visuals and audio. As long as it is relatively straightforward in its
presentation--i.e. navigable and not a swamp of mysterious webology--I'm
happy to have a document of say a few thousand pages, a library of the
Project to date.
So, first thing on that is to locate a server. I think we should also have
mirror sites if possible. I'm going to try ftping the manifesto--which I
would prefer to call a book, actually--to my geocities site, but maybe Eryk
and others can host too.
Let me know the situation. We can also do sound clips, video, images, etc.
I've been a little too sanctimonious about the Video and that has, I think,
prevented me from doing the same thing (more or less) with the giant videocam
called my computer. Not that I don't like the Video anymore, on the contrary
I quite love it.
I think I have embarked
> on a
> crusade, and
> now the fiction is merely propaganda for it.
There are more happy reconciliations than this. For example, Wally Stevens
and the Supreme Fictions; Surges of Personality (my own phraseology); Godard
who said, "we don't get to see the film we would like to make, or be in."
Because, as we all know, everything is media. Period.
To repeat: I would like to call the book a book. This is for my own selfish
psychological reasons; I always wanted to create a book so that I can be on a
par with other bookmakers. But of course it will be a manifesto, we just
won't label it that. Let those who have ears to hear, hear.
Max Herman
The Genius 2000 Project
Video Available Now
www.geocities.com/~genius-2000
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