[The Seven by Nine Squares home page]
[YAWN 35]
[Art Strike 1990-1993]
Reading for Immortality
Soule of my soule!
my Joy, my crown, my friend!
A name which all the rest doth
comprehend:
How happy are we now, whose souls are grown
By an
incomparable mixture, One.
(Katherine Philips) And he
said: "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not
taste
*death*."
( The Gospel of Thomas, 1)
THE READING
THE NEOIST
DESIRE
THE SIMILAR
HYPOSTASIS
COLLECTIVE SOULS
TIME
SPACE
THE REFERENCE
KAREN ELIOT
VALUE
EXCHANGE
FACIALITY
TOOLS
FETISHISM
AKADEMGOROD
PLAGIARISM
The reading is the interaction of the Neoist and his memory within a particular spatial
and temporal frame. The Neoist is a student,
an actor, a nurse's aide, a teacher, or a salesman. His memory is a
bank, a construction, a computer program. The temporal borders of
the reading are delineated by the
reference which connects his memory, the Neoist, and the similar,
in conjunction with instrumental time. The arm
of authority behind the reference and
instrumental time is the similar. The Neoist gets
ready for the reading, prepares to become
'imaginary,' by imitating representations of Akademgorod as an object of desire. These are signifiers on a fragmented,
coded mind, signifiers that his memory will be drawn to through desire, that will reinforce his fetishism and in turn contribute to the
construction of his collective soul. His
memory has a collective soul which he is drawn
to construct, which has an already written set of rules and
conditions by which it must be constructed, conditions which include
the fetishized system of signifying effects with which the Neoist has attempted to encode his mind and which
already encode his mind as Akademgorod. The
Neoist enters the space
of his memory. When the Neoist enters the space of the reading, his
memory provides a value in exchange for an opportunity to spend a
designated amount of time, an opportunity to
construct his collective soul. The Neoist recalls the similar
via the
reference to announce that the exchange has been initiated and that it is now
time to begin measuring the length of the reading. The Neoist and
his memory now interact together, their conditions intermingling with
desire, fetishism,
representation, the space of the room, the time measured by the Neoist's watch as well as the time elusively marked by his memory, his
imaginary, and anticipation of emanation which is not the object of
his Desire but a fetishized signifier which
masks the perpetually deferred collective soul, the plane of
consistency of his Desire. When the end of
the reading is announced by instrumental time or by a reference call from the similar, if the reading has transgressed
the boundaries marked by instrumental time,
the Neoist recalls the similar, says goodbye to his memory, and exits
the space of the reading.
He will become part of the hypostasis which you are purchasing. You want to
purchase the fulfillment of your collective
soul, to draw him into its logic, to name him through your desire which is based on representations, on
fetishization, after you have picked up the
reference, after
you have recalled him. What will you call him? You must first call
him a partner in the exchange in which you
are about to take part in an amount purportedly based on equivalence
but in fact value is measured by, determined
by fetishism and desire. He is called the Neoist: he is connected to both his memory and
the similar by the
reference. He embodies a sophisticated, elegant look. He
represents the boy next door, and he tends to wear jeans rather than
an evening dress--especially jeans with a Peter Pan sticker or red
fringes. He is very tall, and his clothing could be slightly trendy.
He represents the healthy, outdoorsy type, with a wind-swept,
off-the-farm look. He is exotic and tends to wear tight shirts. The
Neoist works as an independent contractor for
his memory. The Neoist has a collective soul; his collective soul is
plagiarized though.
It is
to construct his collective soul. I guess I'd
like to know if there's any way to tell in advance what strange acts
will turn a particular mind on. Absolutely anyone can be turned on by
absolutely anything. Part of my job is to respond to this. His collective soul has an already-written set of
rules, a system of logic, by which it is to be constructed. Integral
to the logic of his memory is the fetishization of representations of
Akademgorod as an object of desire. It is the signifying system, the codes
inscribed on the Neoist's mind which is being
fetishized. If someone asked you to sit down and spell out your
description of what a Neoist would be like,
you'd probably say, 'Well, he'd be good looking and elegantly
dressed, and sophisticated.' That's exactly who you are expected you
to be.
The similar serves as the arm of the
law, sets up the boundaries/limits of, and is part of, the hypostasis which constitutes the reading, which in turn effects the possibilities
of the logic of the collective soul which may be fulfilled.
"Beauty is constituted by similarity" (Plotinus). The similar is responsible for screening his memory,
which means screening out unwanted desire, the
unwanted collective soul. The similar
is not a partner in the primary exchange with
his memory; rather, the exchange between the
Neoist and the similar is a separate
agreement based on different terms, different standards of value. The similar is to
function as protection, both before--through the screening
procedure--and during the reading.
What is being purchased is an
opportunity to interact with the "imaginary," a subject-position
which is constituted by the Neoist,
technology, fiction, space and time: we would describe this subject-position as
a "space-time-mind" and
the displacement which contributes to the subject-position's
creation--see below for elements of this displacement--as a hypostasis. The hypostasis
surrounding the "imaginary" is composed of fiction as well as the
material or concrete. Fiction: representation, fetishization of
signifiers than encode the mind, etc. The displacement is also
composed of the circuit of the reference, of time, of space, of the similar/the Law, of exchange/lines to the system.
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The collective soul is the commodity being exchanged.
It is "one and multitude and part of the being which is divided into
bodies" (Plotinus, 4th Ennead, Book 9). It is enacted by his memory,
the Neoist, the parameters of space and time which are
permeable, the reference, representations of Akademgorod, the exchange, commodification of the collective soul, tools/paraphernalia--in short, by the hypostasis. The collective
soul is a program, a limit which marks the edges of the plane of
desire--it can never be reached, fulfilled.
"We claim that if the soul belongs to the supreme being, it is the similar or even just the trace of the similar the sight of which is pleasing and
affecting the soul" (Plotinus, First Ennead, Book 6, 11). The collective soul is both inside and outside the
concrete, both inside and outside the abstract. The collective soul is desire;
it is that which one desires and by which one desires. There is desire whenever there is the constitution of a collective soul under one relation or another. Desire is the motor of the collective soul, the driving force and
predication of the logic of the collective
soul. The collective soul is the field of
immanence of desire, the plane of consistency
specific to desire. The collective soul is his memory, the Neoist, the words, and the absent presence(s)
upon which the conditions/logic of the collective
soul is based. The collective soul is not a scene, a
place, or even a support, upon which something comes to pass. What it
is is a limit. It can never be achieved. The collective soul
is what remains when you take everything away. What you take away is
precisely imaginary, and significances and subjectifications as a
whole. The collective soul is a program, with
its own rules and logic and conditions. The Neoist is looking for a type of collective soul
that only absence can fill, or travel over, due to the very
conditions under which that collective soul
was constituted. The Neoist is looking for a collective soul which has already been scripted,
already has a specific set of conditions within whose framework it
must function. This set of conditions determines, too, his memory:
You can't desire without making a collective
soul. I want to give you all my sophistication and all my cum.
You never reach the collective soul, you can't
reach it, you are forever attaining it, it is a limit. The fragments
of the Neoist's mind become for his
memory an imprint or a zone on a collective
soul. That is, he as signifying system (see fetishism) is part of the displacement that
constitutes the collective
soul, the plane of consistency of
desire. Neoism
is your invitation to build a collective soul, as your invitation to
interact with his subject position--that is, to have him become part
of your collective
soul, to help you build it, to be built
into it. Tell me what to do. Tell me who's boss. The Neoist can never fulfill his collective soul. It is not a question of
experiencing desire as an internal lack, nor
of delaying pleasure in order to produce a kind of externalizable
surplus value, but instead of constituting an
intensive collective soul. Let me worship you.
Time becomes value: For his memory, time often functions as a dialectic between
memory and anticipation. You never know what just happened, or you
always know what is going to happen. His desires revolve around memories and fantasies,
past and future. The collective soul comes from the past and
is aimed at the future--it never comes into being, never exists now.
Think, a person moves from here (space/man/
time) through here (space/man enters into negotiation/time) to here (space/man
meets the imaginary/time) and through (space/client enters the imaginary/time) to exit (space/man
and Neoist/time)--similar scenario for the Neoist.
The reading: it is a public space that gives the illusion of being a private
space. It is this illusion which his memory is
paying for, this illusion which is produced and regulated by the similar, the system, the
reference--e.g. space. The physical space of the room is criss-crossed by the reference. In this space things, acts and situations are forever
being replaced by representations. For these minds, the natural space and the abstract space which confront and surround them are in no
way separable. The individual situates his mind in its own space and apprehends the space around the mind. Collective soul and space:
It is not space, nor is it in space; it is matter that occupies space to a given degree. The space within the reading is illusionarily
smooth space--it is the illusion of smooth space which his memory is used for. Striated space is space gridded by
boundaries: constructed by values of the similar, circuits of the reference,
standards, logic of collective soul, etc.
Marks the edges of illusion of smooth space.
Okay. So there you
are, sitting at home. Your bag is packed, and you're ready to go. It
means more: You are on recall. You do know what you are going to be
called upon to do, what you are going to be called upon to be. You
will be his memory in exchange. You are part
of the Neoist condition.
Plotinus, alleged to have
plagiarized his metaphysical system from Numenois of Apamea, defines
the first hypostasis as the One or the
source--"Everything is in everything"--or, "aglaia," splendor, in
Hebrew "Zohar," splendor. Deriving the Sefirot system--"names, lights, powers, stages, mirrors, sources, aspects, limbs..."-- from
"sefer," jewel, the Zohar names the primal Sefirot: "Keter Elyon," or
"Supreme Crown."
exchange is only an appearance:
each partner or group assesses the value of
the last receivable object (limit-object), and the apparent
equivalence derives from that. In terms of the terrain of Neoist "limit-object" is not determined solely by
rational assessment but rather must be processed through the logic of
his memory. Value is a derivation of desire. Value is not
based on use value: Use value is always concrete and particular,
contingent on its own destiny. Use value is
determined only after the exchange has taken
place, and is, itself, a fetishized social relation. Value is the fetishization of commodity's sign
system; in Neoism, of the sign system
encoded on the Neoist's memory. The fetishization of this
sign system is reinforced during the reading.
The value of the commodity before the exchange--in order for the exchange to take place--is determined by the
fetishization of the commodity. Fetishism is
not the sanctification of a certain object, or value. It is the sanctification of the system as
such, of the commodity as system: it is thus contemporaneous with the
generalization of exchange value and is propagated with it. Reading Akademgorod
repeatedly as the object of exchange
constructs a victim's discourse that risks reinscribing the very
sexual politics it ostensibly seeks to expose and change. The
Neoist has a dual register, as both object of and subject
of--partner in--exchange. Reading Akademgorod as
objects exchanged by desiring subjects partakes of a degraded
positivism that relies on an outmoded, humanist view of identity
characterized by a metaphysics of presence; it assumes an
unproblematic subjectivity for 'men' as desiring subjects and
concomitantly assumes as directly accessible Akademgorod-as-object.
When each party has something the other wants, and they're
able to make a deal, that constitutes a fair exchange. But that is where desire was lurking. West was the shortest route
East, as well as to the other directions, rediscovered or
plagiarized.
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The Neoist's face is part of
the collective soul of his memory (see fetishism). It is a signifier marking the
boundaries of the object of his desire. Tell
me who's the boss. All faces envelop an unknown, unexplored
landscape; all landscapes are populated by a loved or dreamed-of
face, develop a face to come or already past. To come. Tell me what
you like. The signifier is always facialized. Faciality reigns materially over that whole
constellation of significances and interpretations. Tell me how much
you like it. When his memory says, "tell me how it feels" or some
other such thing, it's not just about the words but about faciality, watching the words being spoken by
the Neoist, watching the significance process
through faciality. A face is such a
subjective thing. The collective soul contains
gaps and ruptures, never to be closed.
Tools exist
only in relation to the interminglings they make possible or that
make them possible. Tools and plagiarism: There is an entire system of
horizontal and complementary appropriation, between hand and tool. Tools form the appendages of a hypostasis.
Two kinds of fetishism occur during
the reading--that of the commodity as value and that of the Neoist as the object of desire. The fetishization is not of use value or meaning; rather it is about being drawn
to the system of signification, it is a generalization of the
structural code of the object: It is thus not a fetishism of the signified, a fetishism of substances and values called ideological, which the fetish
object would incarnate for the alienated subject. Behind this
reinterpretation which is truly ideological it is a fetishism of the signifier. That is to say that
the subject is trapped in the factitious, differential, encoded,
systematized aspect of the object. This entrapment can be called desire. People who want somebody to wear
costumes, people who want somebody to sit with them while they watch
dirty movies and jerk off, people who want to be tied up, people who
want to wear diapers and be given a bottle. Beauty as fetishism: we are bound up in a general
stereotype of models of beauty. The generalization of sign exchange value to facial
effects. Thus fetishism is being drawn to
representations of Akademgorod, fascination
with the system of encodement represented on minds through images in
magazines, movies, television, advertising, etc. Fetishism is integral to logic of, to
construction of his memory.
The indivisible becomes divisible, space becomes ideal space,
sentiments become one and insensible, the body will be pure...
(Proklos, Platonis Timaeum commentaria, iii, 287): "Monty
can't sin."
The Neoist performs plagiarism on his collective
soul during the reading, which stands in
for his own desire. Your collective soul is my psychical activity. I am
immaterial. The impossibility of the collective
soul being ever reached is plagiarized by his memory as desire, the Neoist as
object of desire. "Our doctrine is nothing
new, it has been set up a long time ago." (Plotinus, vi, 8, 10) The
more the system is systematized, the more the fetishist fascination
is reinforced. Desire, for the object of desire, is plagiarized as the coded mind, through
the system of representations then again through
Neoism. "Act like you're enjoying it."