Alan, Quite on the contrary, I think I would enjoy your class very much. Seeing the full context of your definition for postmodernism was fascinating and I don't doubt it was a shared concept among a good contingent of intellectuals. I really liked :
> Semiotic emissions of symbols which appear sourceless and undirected > (Disneyland effect). > My, now quite meta, criticism was just that the word "postmodernism" is awash with many definitions and contexts in what I'll jokingly refer to as our "modern" times. Even modern-architecture is starting to fray as a concrete definition. I also teach and write, (usually techno babble) to cyberpunks, architects and engineers, "definitioning" of terms is a verb I often use to ensure the act of word grounding occurs in the realms of intellectual discourse. It's a practice that comes from writing code where word interpretation quickly leads to the mind-body problem and bugs. Re:apology I'm sorry to hear you're having rough times. I hope this too shall pass. Cheers, Brey > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2024 12:42:14 -0800 > From: Brey Tucker <brey.tuc...@gmail.com> > To: netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Leonardo vs. Machiavelli: The Mediocrity > of Evil and a New Saint Genevieve (Brey Tucker) > Message-ID: > <CAOFRKZ1Vb00Jms4VVrU21g7CRAPCqBwN2Y07qx9vF= > mpoce...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Greetings, > > I just wanted to follow up on Alan's criticism of the word use of > "postmodernism", which I found to be even more of a misuse of the word than > the more obvious use in Max Herman's piece. Semantic shifts are unavoidable > but just in case it's not widely experienced information... Postmodernism's > word use definitively started in art, as a way to define the departure from > French Impressionism by John Watkins Chapman back in 1870. Its most > agreeable definitions are in painting and architecture. > > Intellectually, in reference to society, I would argue that Max Herman's > use is still more applicable than South American favelas as the context of > the piece was centered on "modernity", especially with its identity in > European culture and democracy, etc. being much closer to the > original publication of Arnold J. Tynbee's 1939 essay that stated, "Our own > Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914-1918". > > I would argue any use of the word "postmodern" or such variation of > "modernity" would require time to define its context as the word use is > extremely varied now across topics such as hyperreality, simulacrum and > objective reality. I quite enjoyed the way Max took the time to define it > and use it, albeit a departure from how I generally conjure postmodernism > in my mind. > > Alan, you're rich with great ideas and interesting conversation but I would > have expected more of a criticism defending Machiavelli's positive > contributions to society with the need for acceptance of cruel realities > than this niche use of a common word. > > Cheers, > Brey > -- > > > > Message: 2 > > Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2024 12:58:07 -0500 > > From: Alan Sondheim <sondh...@gmail.com> > > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > > <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> > > Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Leonardo vs. Machiavelli: The Mediocrity > > of Evil and a New Saint Genevieve > > Message-ID: > > <CAO= > > pi2brr4caymwbe6dskawxhuleabmax87yvkwxboqxcv7...@mail.gmail.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > > Hi, > > > > Just want to point out I've taught and published and lectured on > > postmodernism, and videos I co-created with Dawja Burris dealt with the > > subject in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez and I have no idea how you're using > > the word or attacking it - it wasn't facetious, it was concerned among > > other things, with informal economies and South America favelas etc.It's > a > > complex socio-economic subject and its effects cover issues such as > > migration, homelessness, around the world. I just don't think you've read > > deeply into the subject; for example scientific methodology was an > integral > > part of the discussion. > > > > - Best, Alan > > > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2024 16:46:55 -0500 > From: Alan Sondheim <sondh...@gmail.com> > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> > Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Leonardo vs. Machiavelli: The Mediocrity > of Evil and a New Saint Genevieve (Brey Tucker) > Message-ID: > <CAO=pi2B1djAAyEjYCvvw0xntJxpDF=40X= > sr4trgmkyccsh...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Hi Brey, > > I'm sorry you found it a misuse. You'll find references to Toynbee and > social movements; I don't have the references here at this point, but some > were from Latin America. It was used widely to indicate social movements > and informal economies as well as cultural transformations. For you there > are agreeable definitions, they aren't for me. When I taught postmodernism > (and I'm sure you'd find the course a horror) we focused on art, yes - I > taught in art depts. - but the wider social movements were critical. The > "word use" started in a lot of different disciplines, I don't know what an > "agreeable definition" is - perhaps agreeable for you, perhaps we should > take a vote? In any case, I found Max Herman's piece dismissive and > conservative in a way that for me, and for the writers I was teaching, > would have been problematic. I did edit an issue of Art Papers way back > then (Art/crit mag from Atlanta still going strong) on Postmodernism, which > certainly went way beyond art per se; it might be available somewhere. If > you find I'm misusing the word, I'll defer to you at this point. I do > remember using Leotard among other theorists btw at the time - I might be > able to dig out the essay or biblio. > > Alan > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2024 16:59:17 -0500 > From: Alan Sondheim <sondh...@gmail.com> > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org>, NetBehaviour for networked > distributed creativity <netbehavi...@netbehaviour.org> > Subject: [NetBehaviour] Pomo > Message-ID: > <CAO= > pi2d7ygw5txxr9zcjt+3rxfl6o4aoqpiasozxbkbfvk0...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > For what it's worth, I found the following, which was used in courses and > talks I was giving on the subject way back then. I don't want to defend it > now; it's way out of date. Thanks, Alan > > ostmodern Checklist > > > (I used this for teaching - and still use versions of it; it's only an > outline but at least provides a basis for discussion - Alan) > > > >From modernity to postmodernity, the following processes occur, primarily > within post-industrial societies: > > > Transformation of society from industrial to service to information econ- > omy. > > Transformation from analog to digital processing technologies. > > Transformation from knowledge to knowledge management, and from knowledge > management to the articulation of fragmentary flows of information. > > Exponential growth of knowledge and emergence of the knowledge industry. > > Increased ad hoc attitudes towards labor, coupled with vocational disin- > vestment (i.e. flexiwork). > > Transformation from late capitalism to ad hoc transnational managerial > capitalism and bricolage entrepreneurialism in post-industrial nations. > > Weakening of the nation state and growth of bricolage governance (local > mafias). > > Replacement of essentialisms by constructivisms, combined with the hard- > ening of essentialist positions as a rearguard action (i.e. backlash to > the woman's movement). > > Breakdown of materialist/idealist distinctions. > > Increasingly reified ethnicities, political consciousness and symbolic > capital stressing 'traditional' geographic boundaries (homelands), at > times coupled with anti-development attitudes. > > Increased breakdown and reification of traditional models of public and > private (personal) relationships (sexual, civic, social, institutional). > > Proliferation of entertainment forms tending towards technological ef- > fect (representations, media, programming) and distribution channels re- > sulting in the breakdown of network hegemonies (Internet diffused gov- > ernance for example). > > Proliferation of information flows into the private spaces such as the > home, the body, etc. > > Semiotic transformations from inscriptive (hardened, maintained, stable) > processes to fissuring (weakened, stuttering, pre-oedipal/symbolic, de- > stabilized) and fissuring regimes. > > Likewise from classical matter (stabilized signifier/sememe demarcations) > to non-classical matter (problematic signifiers, significations). > > Increased leakage of the signifier (excesses, supplement). > > Increasing jostling of signifying regimes within information flows. > > Increased incommensurabilities, including languages, teleologies, and > scripts. > > Problematizing of space-time and stable categorizations. > > Development of mathematics of non-classical spaces (monster curves, frac- > tals, catastrophe theory, chaos theory, eccentric or abject spaces). > > Mathematico-physical inclusion of disorder. > > Development of "intermaths" (massive parallel processes (Bailey)), with a > tendency towards discrete, computational, digital, mathematical develop- > ment (four-color theorem, reliance on the computer, artificial life). > > Endocolonization everywhere, coupled with the manufacturing of romanti- > cisms (not only among minority ethnicities but also among the left - i.e. > the "radical" effect of Wired magazine). > > Increased gaps between richer and poorer, in terms of both economic and > cultural/informational capital. > > Emergence of subcultural-noise cultural phenomena, simultaneously using > micro-technologies (pirate radio) and abjuring technology altogether. > > Ecological destabilizations and managerial or fundamentalist responses. > > Intensification of apocalyptic and survivalist subcultures. > > Increasing rhetorical/idiolectical emissions and distorted communica- > tions. > > Increased problematic or property in general (including the technology of > reproduction, birthing; intellectual property; farmlands). > > Increased development of _discursive fields_ and their receptors, and > their interpenetrations (hypertext, punk rock). > > Simultaneously totalization of universal (computational) languages and > functional idiolectical autonomies, the commodification of idiolects > (rants, serial murders, dualities). > > A = A (Shelling's identity, totality) replaced by 0 = {X: x not-= x} (the > null set as equivalent to the set of those x not equal to themselves - > displacement and slippage). > > Semiotic emissions of symbols which appear sourceless and undirected > (Disneyland effect). > > Stabilized "rigid" objects replaced by part-objects, incompletions, > fragments. > > Transformation from cultural hegemonies taken for granted (with their > associated margins) to competitive multiculturalisms within hegemonic > regimes. > > Advent of microelectronics expanding the tacit environment of the body, > tending towards full (seamless) virtual realities. > > Seamless virtual realities as the current _horizon_ of the technological > subject. > > Destabilization of world economies coupled with exponential population > growth. > > Increased reduction of DNA variability, increased toxicity of the planet. > > Massive plant and animal extinctions. > > Deep pollution of local and usually urban environments. > > Increased "natural" catastrophies as the result of human interference > (Mississippi flooding). > > Proliferation of shack cities (favellas, colonias) without sewage, water, > electric, and the growth of world-wide shack cultures. > > Emancipation increasingly tied to communication and communicative strat- > egies - including weapons and weapon technology as media - the void (of > power, territory, language) becomes integral to the emancipated society > which is cast adrift. > > World-wide growth of the Internet, including dark-net domains. > > Tendency towards "technology with a human face" by the development and > proliferation of increasingly higher-level languages - tendency towards > cyborg-regimes. > > Elimination of _master narratives,_ replaced by situational micro-narra- > tives (Lyotard). > > Backlashing through an insistence on non-transcendentalist ethics among > tight subgroups (survivalists, fundamentalists) coupled with a freezing of > inscriptions (reliance on biblical word). > > Confluence of genders, transgressive sexualities operating within an > _engendered field._ > > Increased problematizing of gender within queer/theory/feminist debates. > > Institutionalized transgressions, abjections. > > However, circumscribed abjections and alienations replaced by irreducible > abjections. > > Traditional rites and rituals transformed into simulacra, combined with > the exhaustion of tradition (interior horizons of tradition, and _tradi- > tion_ replaced by _traditions_). > > Growth of technological vulnerabilities and parasitologies (manufacture of > illegal domain names on the Net, hacking, cracking, pirate radio and > television, phone phreaking, etc.). > > Art replaced by techne, and an exhaustion of traditional artistic/cultural > notions of progress and development. > > Questioning of historic, geographic, anthropological methodologies and the > emergence of self-reflexive discourses (Mike Davis, Michael Taussig). > > Increased serialities (manufactured "inauthentic" relations beneath and > within the sign of capital). > > Increased cultural tourisms, relativisms, equivalences, beneath and within > the same. > > Increased splitting of academic fields, discourses, languages. > > Commercialization of the university, alliance of business and education - > i.e. _the business of education,_ _education of business._ > > The simulacra of desire's liberation and the potential of infinite choice. > > Replacement of the spectacle by the simulacrum (no longer strings to pull) > (Baudrillard). > > Replacement of the body by the cyborg-body, of the symbolic by the imag- > inary masquerading as the symbolic, of the real by the symbolic. > > Replacement of the televised real by the symbolic-real, the real-symbolic > by the real. > > The perception of life as the _condition_ of the real (Mars-life, diffu- > sionist theories). > > -------------------- > > A split among _postmodernisms_ themselves into _apartment postmodernism_ > characterized by wealth, personal telecom terminals, and a mobile urban- > ism; and a _postmodern poor_ characterized by nomadicisms, urban inten- > sifications, information economies (de Soto), available tech/telecom > strategies, and_electric media_ (loudspeaker, telephone, telegraph). > > The development of _postmodern geographies_ which include nomadic and > telecom geographies (electromagnetic spectrum for example), body/gender > territories, and noise culture domains. > > The development of telecommunications as a _third space_ beyond the > _second space_ of time and the _first space_ of traditional geographies. > > Appearance of the _postmodern body,_ part-object, cyborgian, simulacra > appearing as _transgressive logics_ across and within its surfaces, the > new frontier corrupted by violent social/environmental decay (appearance > of immune deficiency and other diseases, increased medical technologies, > disappearance of the dead (Gulf "War," etc.). > > Entrepreneurship within the digital realm, realm of the body - the sub- > tending of the real. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > The postmodern remains unnamed; what drives it, its drives, are unnamed. > Names reproduce within the modern; their semantics are Kripkian, held in > place as rigid designators true in all possible worlds (counterfactuals). > In the postmodern, rigidity is problematic, deconstructed; worlds them- > selves are fuzzy, interwoven, partial. Communication at the speed of light > (Virilio) brings time to a standstill. > > (Postmodern poor: Postmodernism occurs within a critical space, a space of > the catastrophic, emptied of symbolic legitimation and stability. Because > of capital flow, emigration, and struggles for individual survival and > autonomy, the space begins to "fill up," creating a cacophony of (infor- > mal) regimes competing for cultural and economic power, gaslines, water, > labor, prostitutions, and so forth. The resulting struggle produces com- > peting domains in which the symbolic itself is at stake; nothing, not even > communication, can be taken for granted. The zone is a chaotic accumula- > tion of intensities, condensed matter and languages, a dead or deligimi- > ized zone. The planet itself is becoming an accumulation of such zones. > > Poor postmodernism is life which skips modernism, and heavy industry, > jumping when possible to radio, television, Internet - just a short dis- > tance from the maquiladora poisoning the environment - the early post- > industrial revolution of electronic assembly plants, tourisms, and small > manufacturing. (But here too is a myth (and where is "here"?); unemploy- > ment also grows, scarcity and desertification increase; but here, too, > a telenovella...)) > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20240212/5730e0c4/attachment-0001.htm > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 01:23:00 -0500 (EST) > From: Alan Sondheim <sondh...@panix.com> > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> > Subject: [NetBehaviour] apologies > Message-ID: <7d56768e-cf9b-b8ae-7639-2265a538b...@panix.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII > > > > apologies to everyone, it's been a very rough couple of days > > best, alan > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 06:56:58 +0000 > From: IJAD Dance <joum...@ijaddancecompany.com> > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> > Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] apologies > Message-ID: > <bf4901b5-4a33-428b-8fe2-c27b44303...@ijaddancecompany.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Sending you positive energy, and lots of kindness. > I hope rough times evaporate?.. > > Joumana Mourad > Digital performance specialist > Artistic Director > > ? > > joum...@ijaddancecompany.com > IJAD Dance Company > Registered Charity: 1080776 > www.ijaddancecompany.com > @IJADdance > Facebook: IJAD Dance Company page > Curator:http://www.openonlinetheatre.org > > Support IJAD > https://www.giveasyoulive.com/join/IJAD > > To join our mailing list please subscribe at: > https://ijaddancecompany.com/newsletters/ > > > On 13 Feb 2024, at 06:23, Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour < > netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote: > > > > > > > > apologies to everyone, it's been a very rough couple of days > > > > best, alan > > _______________________________________________ > > NetBehaviour mailing list > > NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20240213/dd1a160d/attachment-0001.htm > > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: > AIorK4ywqylXMWDt-xceLEqW-Igmti2DkWJXdzY_cTkuNaSgCiEapxPqLzD7QnOYB83Y_7hyA7ksYFI-6.jpeg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 9001 bytes > Desc: not available > URL: < > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20240213/dd1a160d/attachment-0001.jpeg > > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > > ------------------------------ > > End of NetBehaviour Digest, Vol 2035, Issue 1 > ********************************************* >
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