<nettime> Information

[Alan Julu Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

(This goes out periodically to the lists I co-moderate - Alan)
-----------------------


Internet Philosophy and Psychology -                           6/8/97


This is a somewhat periodic notice describing my Internet Text, available
on the Net, and sent in the form of texts to various lists. The URL is: 
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html and the
mirror URL is http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/ - the mirror has
some additional materials.

The changing nature of the email lists, Cybermind and Fiction-of-Phil-
osophy, to which the tests are sent individually, hides the full textual
body itself, since new readers will not be aware of the continuity. For
them the text appears fragmentary, created piecemeal, splintered from a
non-existent whole. On my end, the whole is evident, the texts extended
into the lists, part or transitional objects.

So this (periodic) notice is an attempt to recuperate the work as a total-
ity, retard its diaphanous existence. Below is an updated introduction.


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


The "Internet Text" currently constitutes around eighty files, or 2300
printed pages. It was started in 1994, and continues as an extended
meditation on cyberspace. It began with a somewhat straightforward
theoretical outline, and has expanded into "wild theory," utilizing
numerous "ghosts" (alive, quasi-alive, dead) - most recently, "jennifer," 
and "julu," the locus of investigations into virtuality, performativity,
ontology, and gender. 

Almost all of the text is in the form of "short-waves, long-waves." The
former are the individually-titled sections, written in a variety of
styles at times referencing other writers/theorists. The sections are
heavily interrelated; on occasion "characters" appear, _actants_ possess-
ing philosophical or psychological import. They also create and problema-
tize narrative substructures within the work as a whole. (Such are Clara
Hielo Internet, Tiffany, Alan, Travis, Honey, Jennifer, and others. Jen-
nifer-Julu, in particular, has been the subject/object of recent work, a
blurring of epistemological/ontological distinction. Jennifer-Julu is me,
not an alter-ego. Jennifer split into Julu; Julu is julu-of-the-scripts,
and both reside as avatars in my linux machine.)

The long-waves are fuzzy topoi on such issues as death, love, virtual em-
bodiment, the "granularity of the real," and physical reality, which
criss-cross the texts. The resulting fragmentations and coagulations owe
something to phenomenology, deconstruction, linguistics, prehistory, the
philosophies of science and programming, etc., but more to the functions
of sites or nodes on the Net itself.

I have used MUDS, MOOS, talkers, Perl, html, Javascript, Qbasic, and Cu-
SeeMe, all tending towards a performativity of thought, texts which _act_
and engage the subject beyond the traditional phenomenologies of reading. 
Currently, I am working through issues of performance/scripting, Net arch-
aeology, subjectivity, ontology/epistemology; the "work" or "working" can
take numerous forms.

There is no binarism in the Internet Text, no series of protocol state-
ments. Virtuality itself is considered far beyond the ASCII text/Webscape
that is most prevalent now, at the end of the twentieth century. The vari-
ous issues of embodiment that will arrive with full-real or true-real VR
are already in existence as embryonic, permitting the theorizing of pre-
sent and speculative future sites, "spaces," nodes, and modalities of
body/speech/community.


Please check the INDEX to find your way into the body of the work on-line. 
It is helpful to read the first file, Net1.txt, in the beginning, and/or
to look at the latest files (js, jt, etc.) as well. The INDEX lists the
files in which a particular topic is described; you can do a search on the
file, or simply scroll down (the files range in length from 30 to 50 pages
in print). 

In addition, there are a few graphics, javascript pages (at the mirror
site), and a resume. Further graphics can be found at:
http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/

Thank you.

Usage: The texts may be distributed in any medium - indeed, I urge you to
do so - provided I am credited with authorship. I would appreciate in re-
turn any comments you may have.

Alan Sondheim,   432 Dean St., Brooklyn, NY, 11217   718-857-3671

mail to: sondheim@panix.com 


____________________________________________________________________
URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html 
MIRROR: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/ and Javascripted
text/webpages -- Tel. 718-857-3671, 432 Dean St., Brooklyn, NY 11217 
IMAGES: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/  Editor, BEING ON LINE





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