Random
The Giant’s Fence by Michael Jacobson
The Opening Page
Amazon Description:
The Giant’s Fence (by Michael Jacobson) is a unique book. Instead of being filled with words, it gives you 80 pages of trans-symbolic script. Each page has several lines of linked, dancing symbols. They live, move, mutate, and die. The whole book could be interpreted both as the song of how we humans invented symbolic communication, and the telling of its slow disintegration. There are at least 2 ways to “read” The Giant’s Fence. You can begin at page 1, scan the first line, scan the second line, and so on, as you would read a regular book. You can also flip to a random page, and jump to a line which catches your eye. Some pages distort the rows of horizontal lines of symbols into curves, so you can’t exercise your usual reading habits. The Giant’s Fence stimulates new ways of reading and new ways of thinking. As the introduction says, “any meaning” the reader constructs “is a correct translation.” The book’s title is a translation of Finnish “Jatulintarha”, a name given to many of the stone labyrinths found in Finland. The only precursors to The Giant’s Fence are the hypergraphic novels of the Lettristes (such as Alain Satie’s Ecrit en Prose) and some of the more complex works of asemic poetry. If you want to step outside of language, and bathe in unmuddied waters, this book is for you.
So pleased to see this on here. Michael Jacobson’s work, and his blogzine ‘Asemic Writing: The New Post-Literate’ are amazing.
So pleased to see this on here. Michael Jacobson’s work, and his blogzine ‘Asemic Writing: The New Post-Literate’ are amazing.
John Cage and I are collaborating on a book called “320 Pages of 320 Pages” in which each page equals 320 pages of ordinary pageness and each page of sub-page equals a dollar’s worth of gibberish. It is my first collaboration with a dead celebrity and my millionth with an inanimate object. Purchase.
Yes, at long last, a book that will read you.
I’m not sure which is dumber: this book, me wanting to read this book, or me pissed off at how it just ends so abruptly, without resolution…..
This book looks like an heir to:
The Voynich Manuscript
Codex Seraphinianus
Une Semaine De Bonte
This makes me want colored pencils, maybe, to color it in, or fine tip markers in colors other than black to doodle into it. By approaching this text in this manner perhaps I would discover ‘story’, ‘life’, ‘movement’, ‘mutation’, etc. I’d have to have a lot of spare time on my hands, tho, and tunnel vision and OCD, which I don’t.
I am one quarter Finnish, by the way.
The Finnishness explains the worthy commenting.
John Cage and I are collaborating on a book called “320 Pages of 320 Pages” in which each page equals 320 pages of ordinary pageness and each page of sub-page equals a dollar’s worth of gibberish. It is my first collaboration with a dead celebrity and my millionth with an inanimate object. Purchase.
Isn’t that what books do, Peter?
Yes, at long last, a book that will read you.
Only if there’s nothing on Television.
I’m not sure which is dumber: this book, me wanting to read this book, or me pissed off at how it just ends so abruptly, without resolution…..
This book looks like an heir to:
The Voynich Manuscript
Codex Seraphinianus
Une Semaine De Bonte
This makes me want colored pencils, maybe, to color it in, or fine tip markers in colors other than black to doodle into it. By approaching this text in this manner perhaps I would discover ‘story’, ‘life’, ‘movement’, ‘mutation’, etc. I’d have to have a lot of spare time on my hands, tho, and tunnel vision and OCD, which I don’t.
I am one quarter Finnish, by the way.
The Finnishness explains the worthy commenting.
Isn’t that what books do, Peter?
Only if there’s nothing on Television.
I can’t read alien. Those of you who can must be destroyed.
I can’t read alien. Those of you who can must be destroyed.
Seems like asemic writing is unpopular.
It’s not as though being “unpopular” is the end of the world: http://progressiveboink.com/archive/aboutsnow.htm
Seems like asemic writing is unpopular.
Snow had a #1 single in like 10 countries and has sold millions of records. He’s not unpopular.
Being unpopular isn’t “bad.” I’m just saying.
It seems like asemic writing by definition (“without meaning/significance”) could never be popular. People like “meaning/significance.” That’s one of the main reasons that people read. It seems like asemic writing maybe occupies a category that isn’t strictly writing. It doesn’t seem to function like writing as it is conventionally understood. It seems like a different kind of thing.
Maybe I’m only saying that asemic writing could never supplant “writing proper” as “writing qua writing,” or something. If it is a separate category, I guess it could be popular in its own right, though.
:/
Maybe I’m only saying that asemic writing could never supplant “writing proper” as “writing qua writing,” or something. If it is a separate category, I guess it could be popular in its own right, though.
:/
Wow…concrete poetry was big, why not this?
Wow…concrete poetry was big, why not this?
It could stimulate new ways of spending!
It could stimulate new ways of spending!
Concrete poetry still has words in it, even if they’re pushed around on the page, I guess? Poetry readers like words, I think. Like, people don’t bump 4:33 in the Range Rove…
Concrete poetry still has words in it, even if they’re pushed around on the page, I guess? Poetry readers like words, I think. Like, people don’t bump 4:33 in the Range Rove…
Word… Get that poetry money.
Word… Get that poetry money.
(The Snow link was a gag but since you’ve taken the trouble to respond to it seriously, I owe you a comment…)
“If it is a separate category, I guess it could be popular in its own right, though.”
It’s just slap-worthily stupid, though, isn’t it? Just looking at a page of it reveals that it fails as a graphic design (I can type two pages of Webdings and produce something more interesting, visually; this looks like an aborted inner-sleeve proposal for a Led Zeppelin album c. 74) and it doesn’t even *qualify* as a text. It’s not even the visual equivalent of speaking-in-tongues because no speech-sounds are tied to the scribbles.
This is the work of someone who is Clever-but-not-Talented. It’s irritating because of the abyss-filling cluelessness it must represent and the sense of entitlement it implies. And that Amazon blurb is the kind of quintessential Artspeak mumbo-jumbo you’d expect to find on a plaque beside a plinth with a painted turd on it.
Will the Clever-but-Untalented please go back to law school and clear the field until it repopulates with oddball savants again? Thanks!
(The Snow link was a gag but since you’ve taken the trouble to respond to it seriously, I owe you a comment…)
“If it is a separate category, I guess it could be popular in its own right, though.”
It’s just slap-worthily stupid, though, isn’t it? Just looking at a page of it reveals that it fails as a graphic design (I can type two pages of Webdings and produce something more interesting, visually; this looks like an aborted inner-sleeve proposal for a Led Zeppelin album c. 74) and it doesn’t even *qualify* as a text. It’s not even the visual equivalent of speaking-in-tongues because no speech-sounds are tied to the scribbles.
This is the work of someone who is Clever-but-not-Talented. It’s irritating because of the abyss-filling cluelessness it must represent and the sense of entitlement it implies. And that Amazon blurb is the kind of quintessential Artspeak mumbo-jumbo you’d expect to find on a plaque beside a plinth with a painted turd on it.
Will the Clever-but-Untalented please go back to law school and clear the field until it repopulates with oddball savants again? Thanks!
It’s not as though being “unpopular” is the end of the world: http://progressiveboink.com/archive/aboutsnow.htm
“How long have you been painting triangles?”
“I was one of the first…”
“How long have you been painting triangles?”
“I was one of the first…”
i can testify that people do, in fact, bump 4:33 in the Range Rover.
i don’t feel that asemic writing intends to be approached by ‘readers’ in any sort of traditional ‘reading’ modality. it is not intended for codification or deciphering. it is not graphic text, it is not glyph.
rather i think that its purpose, and the purpose of this piece in particular, is more closely concerned with the wandering of the eye, conducting/manipulating visual space to suggest movement through ‘time’ — analogous to following the unfolding of a waveform with the ear. i think the trajectory here is transcendental, metaphysical, hypnotic: mind colonic. a bit yoga-pants for my taste.
i agree that the amazon blurb is pedantic and yucky (“the whole book could be interpreted both as the song of how we humans invented symbolic communication, and the telling of its slow disintegration.” i mean. really.) and i have seen lovelier examples of this form of work, but i don’t think that the asemic writers should be dismissed as “clever-but-not-talented”…but i would say that asemic writing fulfills the function of an art object more than a text object.
? CONCEPTUAL WERK H8.
i can testify that people do, in fact, bump 4:33 in the Range Rover.
i don’t feel that asemic writing intends to be approached by ‘readers’ in any sort of traditional ‘reading’ modality. it is not intended for codification or deciphering. it is not graphic text, it is not glyph.
rather i think that its purpose, and the purpose of this piece in particular, is more closely concerned with the wandering of the eye, conducting/manipulating visual space to suggest movement through ‘time’ — analogous to following the unfolding of a waveform with the ear. i think the trajectory here is transcendental, metaphysical, hypnotic: mind colonic. a bit yoga-pants for my taste.
i agree that the amazon blurb is pedantic and yucky (“the whole book could be interpreted both as the song of how we humans invented symbolic communication, and the telling of its slow disintegration.” i mean. really.) and i have seen lovelier examples of this form of work, but i don’t think that the asemic writers should be dismissed as “clever-but-not-talented”…but i would say that asemic writing fulfills the function of an art object more than a text object.
? CONCEPTUAL WERK H8.
Snow had a #1 single in like 10 countries and has sold millions of records. He’s not unpopular.
Being unpopular isn’t “bad.” I’m just saying.
Why call it ‘writing’ if it’s — urgh… — ‘asemic’ or ‘transliteral’ (or any other puffed-up word?)
Makes me want to throw some (very astute, useful, non-pretentious) Scott McCloud at the trans-semanticist.
These posts are making me cynical!
Why call it ‘writing’ if it’s — urgh… — ‘asemic’ or ‘transliteral’ (or any other puffed-up word?)
Makes me want to throw some (very astute, useful, non-pretentious) Scott McCloud at the trans-semanticist.
These posts are making me cynical!
It seems like asemic writing by definition (“without meaning/significance”) could never be popular. People like “meaning/significance.” That’s one of the main reasons that people read. It seems like asemic writing maybe occupies a category that isn’t strictly writing. It doesn’t seem to function like writing as it is conventionally understood. It seems like a different kind of thing.
Maybe I’m only saying that asemic writing could never supplant “writing proper” as “writing qua writing,” or something. If it is a separate category, I guess it could be popular in its own right, though.
:/
Wow…concrete poetry was big, why not this?
It could stimulate new ways of spending!
Concrete poetry still has words in it, even if they’re pushed around on the page, I guess? Poetry readers like words, I think. Like, people don’t bump 4:33 in the Range Rove…
Word… Get that poetry money.
(The Snow link was a gag but since you’ve taken the trouble to respond to it seriously, I owe you a comment…)
“If it is a separate category, I guess it could be popular in its own right, though.”
It’s just slap-worthily stupid, though, isn’t it? Just looking at a page of it reveals that it fails as a graphic design (I can type two pages of Webdings and produce something more interesting, visually; this looks like an aborted inner-sleeve proposal for a Led Zeppelin album c. 74) and it doesn’t even *qualify* as a text. It’s not even the visual equivalent of speaking-in-tongues because no speech-sounds are tied to the scribbles.
This is the work of someone who is Clever-but-not-Talented. It’s irritating because of the abyss-filling cluelessness it must represent and the sense of entitlement it implies. And that Amazon blurb is the kind of quintessential Artspeak mumbo-jumbo you’d expect to find on a plaque beside a plinth with a painted turd on it.
Will the Clever-but-Untalented please go back to law school and clear the field until it repopulates with oddball savants again? Thanks!
“How long have you been painting triangles?”
“I was one of the first…”
i can testify that people do, in fact, bump 4:33 in the Range Rover.
i don’t feel that asemic writing intends to be approached by ‘readers’ in any sort of traditional ‘reading’ modality. it is not intended for codification or deciphering. it is not graphic text, it is not glyph.
rather i think that its purpose, and the purpose of this piece in particular, is more closely concerned with the wandering of the eye, conducting/manipulating visual space to suggest movement through ‘time’ — analogous to following the unfolding of a waveform with the ear. i think the trajectory here is transcendental, metaphysical, hypnotic: mind colonic. a bit yoga-pants for my taste.
i agree that the amazon blurb is pedantic and yucky (“the whole book could be interpreted both as the song of how we humans invented symbolic communication, and the telling of its slow disintegration.” i mean. really.) and i have seen lovelier examples of this form of work, but i don’t think that the asemic writers should be dismissed as “clever-but-not-talented”…but i would say that asemic writing fulfills the function of an art object more than a text object.
? CONCEPTUAL WERK H8.
Why call it ‘writing’ if it’s — urgh… — ‘asemic’ or ‘transliteral’ (or any other puffed-up word?)
Makes me want to throw some (very astute, useful, non-pretentious) Scott McCloud at the trans-semanticist.
These posts are making me cynical!
pages 16 – 19 look like boobs
(i’m just joshing; i really dig this)
pages 16 – 19 look like boobs
(i’m just joshing; i really dig this)
if it’s more of an art object than text object, where is the crossover? (I think this is the crossover)
if it’s more of an art object than text object, where is the crossover? (I think this is the crossover)
“? CONCEPTUAL WERK H8.”
Only when the execution sux. The Artist who did this one ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4326340/ ) is a friend and I get where she’s coming from. Her breakthrough-piece was called Wall Fucking (http://www.artbook.com/9783832192211.html ) and I got that too: it was porny and funny but it was backed by a theoretical underpinning that she’d been working out (and continues to work out; she does a feminist critique of architecture) from her days in art school. Conceptual work that relies entirely on the affirmative action of the audience’s good will DEMANDS negative feedback… or how will the artist improve?
When did this improvised etiquette (in hushed tones: “well, it must be useful or why would I be seeing it?”) become common? It’s a new development (maybe from the rise of Therapy Culture and the misbegotten conflation of Art and Therapeutic Crafts: the Artist as a Nut with making Baskets). Let’s not treat artists like Loonies or five-year-olds with a moral right to encouragement. There’s not enough time in any one life to take all the bullshit out there seriously.
“? CONCEPTUAL WERK H8.”
Only when the execution sux. The Artist who did this one ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4326340/ ) is a friend and I get where she’s coming from. Her breakthrough-piece was called Wall Fucking (http://www.artbook.com/9783832192211.html ) and I got that too: it was porny and funny but it was backed by a theoretical underpinning that she’d been working out (and continues to work out; she does a feminist critique of architecture) from her days in art school. Conceptual work that relies entirely on the affirmative action of the audience’s good will DEMANDS negative feedback… or how will the artist improve?
When did this improvised etiquette (in hushed tones: “well, it must be useful or why would I be seeing it?”) become common? It’s a new development (maybe from the rise of Therapy Culture and the misbegotten conflation of Art and Therapeutic Crafts: the Artist as a Nut with making Baskets). Let’s not treat artists like Loonies or five-year-olds with a moral right to encouragement. There’s not enough time in any one life to take all the bullshit out there seriously.
i’m about 60% sure this book tells the story of a fish orgy gone horribly violent.
Finnish Her?
as much as i’m with you on this: “Conceptual work that relies entirely on the affirmative action of the audience’s good will DEMANDS negative feedback… or how will the artist improve?”… this–“Let’s not treat artists like Loonies or five-year-olds with a moral right to encouragement. There’s not enough time in any one life to take all the bullshit out there seriously.”–sounds more like you’re encouraging people to put themselves on autopilot w/i/c/t addressing the merits of conceptual (art)work.
i could be splitting neither-here-not-theres, but as long as everyone is just damned honest with themselves in discussing abstracted, vague objects like whatever ‘story’ this ‘book’ is telling, Art (in general) will have generally served its purpose.
“…as long as everyone is just damned honest with themselves in discussing abstracted, vague objects like whatever ’story’ this ‘book’ is telling, Art (in general) will have generally served its purpose.”
The fact that you could apply the same rationale to *any object or gesture in the known universe* kind of undermines it as a defense. I’m doing the exact opposite of encouraging people to go on Critical Autopilot… reflex acceptance for *any and everything* that’s framed by the walls of an Art Gallery (or an Arty Blurb) is an auto-pilot move. I’m not advocating the burning of this bullshit, mind you: that would be different. I’m advocating Critical Frankness. Here’s my challenge: try to imagine an “Art Piece” that would deserve a critical drubbing on the terms of your cited-comment. If you can’t describe or imagine *any possible object or gesture* too vacuous/talentless to be rejected by your critical theory, it’s not a Critical Theory.
“…as long as everyone is just damned honest with themselves in discussing abstracted, vague objects like whatever ’story’ this ‘book’ is telling, Art (in general) will have generally served its purpose.”
The fact that you could apply the same rationale to *any object or gesture in the known universe* kind of undermines it as a defense. I’m doing the exact opposite of encouraging people to go on Critical Autopilot… reflex acceptance for *any and everything* that’s framed by the walls of an Art Gallery (or an Arty Blurb) is an auto-pilot move. I’m not advocating the burning of this bullshit, mind you: that would be different. I’m advocating Critical Frankness. Here’s my challenge: try to imagine an “Art Piece” that would deserve a critical drubbing on the terms of your cited-comment. If you can’t describe or imagine *any possible object or gesture* too vacuous/talentless to be rejected by your critical theory, it’s not a Critical Theory.
PS Are you writing from another Time Zone too or are you an insomniac? (laugh)
PS Are you writing from another Time Zone too or are you an insomniac? (laugh)
PS I enjoyed the material that I accessed on your page, Kristin. Dancing on the razor-wall between “meaning” and “no meaning” is the point, imo.
PS I enjoyed the material that I accessed on your page, Kristin. Dancing on the razor-wall between “meaning” and “no meaning” is the point, imo.
“I’m advocating Critical Frankness.” —> then we’re in complete agreement. i really wasn’t advocating any theory i/s/m as i was responding to what i thought you were advocating. re: ‘honesty’ or what-have-you, i just meant that if someone were to take issue with an Conceptual Work’s Validity as “Art” (as most are wont to do, most commonly expressed as: “I can do that!”), then by all means: don’t feel shy to tell people: you think it sucks, or whatever your thoughts are. if was i making a point, it’s that the role of Art is that of Discussion. … i know, a vaguely jerk-off-y academe-ic BS-thing to say, but to drive myself further down a cliche-de-sac: It is what It is.
and i’m precisely certain what this challenge this (though i’m certainly game for one…) … i’m meant to think of a “Work” that deserves to be eviscerated critically? and then justify why all the Negativity has merit?
typoratta: *i’m NOT precisely sure what this challenge IS
“if it’s more of an art object than text object, where is the crossover?”
is it fair to say that the liminal space between an art object and a text object is occupied by a question: on which plane of engagement does the thing hold significance? for instance, it seems that this specific object is an obsolete ‘read’ and a relevant ‘view’. i think that perhaps the most adroit suturing of this interstice comes as Kenneth Goldsmith’s Soliloquy. http://www.epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/soliloquy/index.html
steven, i like your friend’s mirror toilet box. i should have been more specific in that i was referring to conceptual written work; and while installations are often recognized as generative displays of conceptual discourse, when, as you say, the piece is well-executed, conceptual work that is written (however loosely we employ that term) seems to sour people for the most part. maybe seems cryptic and inveigling, and not what people want out of a thing that is a book?
“as long as everyone is just damned honest with themselves in discussing abstracted, vague objects like whatever ’story’ this ‘book’ is telling, Art (in general) will have generally served its purpose.”
yes.
all told, this particular thing, though a bit precious, is a nice meditative exercise, i think.
“if it’s more of an art object than text object, where is the crossover?”
is it fair to say that the liminal space between an art object and a text object is occupied by a question: on which plane of engagement does the thing hold significance? for instance, it seems that this specific object is an obsolete ‘read’ and a relevant ‘view’. i think that perhaps the most adroit suturing of this interstice comes as Kenneth Goldsmith’s Soliloquy. http://www.epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/soliloquy/index.html
steven, i like your friend’s mirror toilet box. i should have been more specific in that i was referring to conceptual written work; and while installations are often recognized as generative displays of conceptual discourse, when, as you say, the piece is well-executed, conceptual work that is written (however loosely we employ that term) seems to sour people for the most part. maybe seems cryptic and inveigling, and not what people want out of a thing that is a book?
“as long as everyone is just damned honest with themselves in discussing abstracted, vague objects like whatever ’story’ this ‘book’ is telling, Art (in general) will have generally served its purpose.”
yes.
all told, this particular thing, though a bit precious, is a nice meditative exercise, i think.
that is very kind of you to say, steven. thank you.
that is very kind of you to say, steven. thank you.
re: time zone … i’m always reticent to reveal much about who or where i am, lest i let my vanities invade my anonymity. i think the last time someone here asked me what time it was, i pointed them in the direction of this site and mumbled something about relativity. so, yeah.
insomniac + paranoiac = inparasomnoiac ÷ amnesiac = hi?
actually i meant: “Finnish It” … though yeah, would be a serious time-drain to see through to the end.
Zus: re: timezones: fair enough (and I know the feeling); re: the “challenge”… I meant it more as, “can you imagine the kind of object/gesture that you would feel *comfortable dismissing as shit*?” As a thought-experiment. Because my point is that if we *can’t* imagine such a work, then we can’t really critique. Or maybe I’m boxing myself in, conceptually, by conflating “rating” an aesthetic object/gesture with “critiquing” it. Maybe I just need to be able to call some stuff “magnificent” ( http://htmlgiant.com/snippet/versions-by-oliver-laric/ ) and some stuff “NOT!” I can cop to the limits of my investment in hierarchy but I also think that my best work (critically or as a producer) is grounded in it.
Kristin: you did the work; my compliment was the easy part
Zus: re: timezones: fair enough (and I know the feeling); re: the “challenge”… I meant it more as, “can you imagine the kind of object/gesture that you would feel *comfortable dismissing as shit*?” As a thought-experiment. Because my point is that if we *can’t* imagine such a work, then we can’t really critique. Or maybe I’m boxing myself in, conceptually, by conflating “rating” an aesthetic object/gesture with “critiquing” it. Maybe I just need to be able to call some stuff “magnificent” ( http://htmlgiant.com/snippet/versions-by-oliver-laric/ ) and some stuff “NOT!” I can cop to the limits of my investment in hierarchy but I also think that my best work (critically or as a producer) is grounded in it.
Kristin: you did the work; my compliment was the easy part
gorgeous: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KRVmvu8aedM/TB-HpPT3z9I/AAAAAAAAAF0/r8He_zQ9f2M/s1600/room.jpg
(i tried to post this once, the comment disappeared, then when i tried to re-post i got the “duplicate comment” warning)
gorgeous: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KRVmvu8aedM/TB-HpPT3z9I/AAAAAAAAAF0/r8He_zQ9f2M/s1600/room.jpg
(i tried to post this once, the comment disappeared, then when i tried to re-post i got the “duplicate comment” warning)
pages 16 – 19 look like boobs
(i’m just joshing; i really dig this)
if it’s more of an art object than text object, where is the crossover? (I think this is the crossover)
He calls it writing because it’s clearly a script. It’s written symbols that recur in rhythmical, grammatical, and semantic relation to one another. What else would you call it?
He calls it a ‘novella’ because it is clearly to do with narrative, to do with how sustained script develops over pages and pages of a book length work and because it’s a sustained investigation of the way meaning is made.The ‘characters’ in Jacobson’s book are typological characters. ‘Asemic’ writing is writing with ‘no specific semantic content’. My favourite content of the post is the one who said they look like boobs. Yes, they do, and eggs, and the barrel of a gun trained with a laser on your head, and weird eyes, and a compass-drawn-circle, and jelly fish. This is the great fun part of the book. It has an ‘anything goes’ appeal, but it doesn’t mean that there’s no point in reading. It just means that the kind of closure (if you want Scott Mcloud I’ll give you S.M) that you might want from certain books is put-off and avoided. I’m surprised people on this blog are so resistant to Jacobson’s work because it seems to me that a lot of the books reviewed etc. achieve the same kind of side-stepping closure and totality-of-interpretation.
Those jellyfish-target-breasts are the most action-packed part of the novella, (with the script above and below encroached upon- what gives those spacey circles superiority over the tangled lines either side and above and below. What is the grammatical system that suddenly calls for them when they’ve been absent before, and what is the narrative necessity that calls for them now?). The novel’s denouement is sweet, tense and perplexing too, where the tangled barbed wire of letters and symbols joins with the circle and wraps itself around it like ivy. Is this violent? Is this sexual union, is it just the way novels always wrap-up in this script, is it the way novels often wrap up in our script?
One of the most interesting (and kind of problematic, though I can live with a problem or two) elements for me is the relation between the title of the work and the work itself. I wonder why it’s titled at all. I would be interested to hear Michael Jacobson’s take on this, but I think the title is an important part of how the novel relates to the convention of the novel-form. It articulates the position of this book straddling the barbed wire, the electrical wire between meaning and lack of definite meaning. As far as Giant’s Fence, goes the title sounds pat, like some dumb novel, but its content is so shocking and so fence-like, so enjoyable to traverse and so indefinite to decipher.
Given most of the reactions here, it’s an HTMLGIANT’S fence, a fence of code, a fence you guys could jump on and rip the arse of your jeans if you’d like to.
He calls it writing because it’s clearly a script. It’s written symbols that recur in rhythmical, grammatical, and semantic relation to one another. What else would you call it?
He calls it a ‘novella’ because it is clearly to do with narrative, to do with how sustained script develops over pages and pages of a book length work and because it’s a sustained investigation of the way meaning is made.The ‘characters’ in Jacobson’s book are typological characters. ‘Asemic’ writing is writing with ‘no specific semantic content’. My favourite content of the post is the one who said they look like boobs. Yes, they do, and eggs, and the barrel of a gun trained with a laser on your head, and weird eyes, and a compass-drawn-circle, and jelly fish. This is the great fun part of the book. It has an ‘anything goes’ appeal, but it doesn’t mean that there’s no point in reading. It just means that the kind of closure (if you want Scott Mcloud I’ll give you S.M) that you might want from certain books is put-off and avoided. I’m surprised people on this blog are so resistant to Jacobson’s work because it seems to me that a lot of the books reviewed etc. achieve the same kind of side-stepping closure and totality-of-interpretation.
Those jellyfish-target-breasts are the most action-packed part of the novella, (with the script above and below encroached upon- what gives those spacey circles superiority over the tangled lines either side and above and below. What is the grammatical system that suddenly calls for them when they’ve been absent before, and what is the narrative necessity that calls for them now?). The novel’s denouement is sweet, tense and perplexing too, where the tangled barbed wire of letters and symbols joins with the circle and wraps itself around it like ivy. Is this violent? Is this sexual union, is it just the way novels always wrap-up in this script, is it the way novels often wrap up in our script?
One of the most interesting (and kind of problematic, though I can live with a problem or two) elements for me is the relation between the title of the work and the work itself. I wonder why it’s titled at all. I would be interested to hear Michael Jacobson’s take on this, but I think the title is an important part of how the novel relates to the convention of the novel-form. It articulates the position of this book straddling the barbed wire, the electrical wire between meaning and lack of definite meaning. As far as Giant’s Fence, goes the title sounds pat, like some dumb novel, but its content is so shocking and so fence-like, so enjoyable to traverse and so indefinite to decipher.
Given most of the reactions here, it’s an HTMLGIANT’S fence, a fence of code, a fence you guys could jump on and rip the arse of your jeans if you’d like to.
“can you imagine the kind of object/gesture that you would feel *comfortable dismissing as shit*?”
if you mean what i think you mean, then, yeah, that’s actually not so easy… holding something up on a pedestal inherently undeserving of the honor? busy now, but i’ll post later if something comes to mind.
“? CONCEPTUAL WERK H8.”
Only when the execution sux. The Artist who did this one ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4326340/ ) is a friend and I get where she’s coming from. Her breakthrough-piece was called Wall Fucking (http://www.artbook.com/9783832192211.html ) and I got that too: it was porny and funny but it was backed by a theoretical underpinning that she’d been working out (and continues to work out; she does a feminist critique of architecture) from her days in art school. Conceptual work that relies entirely on the affirmative action of the audience’s good will DEMANDS negative feedback… or how will the artist improve?
When did this improvised etiquette (in hushed tones: “well, it must be useful or why would I be seeing it?”) become common? It’s a new development (maybe from the rise of Therapy Culture and the misbegotten conflation of Art and Therapeutic Crafts: the Artist as a Nut with making Baskets). Let’s not treat artists like Loonies or five-year-olds with a moral right to encouragement. There’s not enough time in any one life to take all the bullshit out there seriously.
Oh, fuck. Did she just say ‘liminal’ space? Did you just say ‘liminal’ space? Well, there goes my very well- thought out response I had planned for that other fellow.
The problem with ‘liminal space’ is the problem with this piece is the problem with all art of this type. It means everything, and therefore nothing. (Or is it the other way around?) Liminal Space: a space of transition. Literal or figurative. High school, the liminal space between middle school and college. My doctor’s waiting room, the liminal space between sickness and health, inside and outside, heat and air conditioning and better air conditioning! My hairdo: between short and long, *where questions lie*. How *problematizing*, how radival!
How…incredibly facile. Boo. Guy makes squiggles. Intellectuals squint, see whatever’s on their minds, possibly buy. This is the easiest kind of art: Ooh, it’s breasts and eggs! Cuz he made circles! And people see different things!
‘Suturing’. The ‘interstice’. Between ‘art object’ and ‘text object’.
I’m sorry, people, but good god. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or try to sell you my wallpaper. (It too has recurring — but ‘asemic’ — patterns. You even might say it resists and interrogates the received suturing of liminal spaces created by squiggly-line books! Boom!)
(Also: sorry. I too have insomnia. I might be asleep right now….)
Oh, fuck. Did she just say ‘liminal’ space? Did you just say ‘liminal’ space? Well, there goes my very well- thought out response I had planned for that other fellow.
The problem with ‘liminal space’ is the problem with this piece is the problem with all art of this type. It means everything, and therefore nothing. (Or is it the other way around?) Liminal Space: a space of transition. Literal or figurative. High school, the liminal space between middle school and college. My doctor’s waiting room, the liminal space between sickness and health, inside and outside, heat and air conditioning and better air conditioning! My hairdo: between short and long, *where questions lie*. How *problematizing*, how radival!
How…incredibly facile. Boo. Guy makes squiggles. Intellectuals squint, see whatever’s on their minds, possibly buy. This is the easiest kind of art: Ooh, it’s breasts and eggs! Cuz he made circles! And people see different things!
‘Suturing’. The ‘interstice’. Between ‘art object’ and ‘text object’.
I’m sorry, people, but good god. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or try to sell you my wallpaper. (It too has recurring — but ‘asemic’ — patterns. You even might say it resists and interrogates the received suturing of liminal spaces created by squiggly-line books! Boom!)
(Also: sorry. I too have insomnia. I might be asleep right now….)
“…as long as everyone is just damned honest with themselves in discussing abstracted, vague objects like whatever ’story’ this ‘book’ is telling, Art (in general) will have generally served its purpose.”
The fact that you could apply the same rationale to *any object or gesture in the known universe* kind of undermines it as a defense. I’m doing the exact opposite of encouraging people to go on Critical Autopilot… reflex acceptance for *any and everything* that’s framed by the walls of an Art Gallery (or an Arty Blurb) is an auto-pilot move. I’m not advocating the burning of this bullshit, mind you: that would be different. I’m advocating Critical Frankness. Here’s my challenge: try to imagine an “Art Piece” that would deserve a critical drubbing on the terms of your cited-comment. If you can’t describe or imagine *any possible object or gesture* too vacuous/talentless to be rejected by your critical theory, it’s not a Critical Theory.
PS Are you writing from another Time Zone too or are you an insomniac? (laugh)
PS I enjoyed the material that I accessed on your page, Kristin. Dancing on the razor-wall between “meaning” and “no meaning” is the point, imo.
Ba-zinga.
Ba-zinga.
If you framed your wallpaper as a novel and published it as a book, you would most probably have a customer in me. I would be curious to see what narrative development that had. I’d be keen to see what occurred as we moved up your terrifying anxious heavily patterned staircase (a rose is a rose is a rose?) towards the bedroom, and into that squeeling-clean guest-bathroom for some idle blue waves, and across the stark pastel hall. But I’m not sure it would be as interesting as what Jacobson has done. The point with Jacobson’s book is not that the patterns recur automatically as a print does on wallpaper. The individual symbols recur and alter and in different directions and relations to one another. Exactly as language does. A black rectangular box changes meaning when placed beside a tangle of lines with a cross through them. Doesn’t it?
I steadfastly do not believe this is the easiest kind of art (though your response, the easiest response: anyone can do this, makes it so. The only thing I admire about your comment is the cute pun on ‘art of this type’, since type is precisely what this isn’t) I do not believe it is easy to come up with a new script, and develop that script across a novella which is both tense, and entertaining. Is funny, and sad.
This doesn’t mean everything and nothing. It means somethings, but those somethings are not total and are not the same for everybody. I don’t see why that’s such a problem and so facile according to you. I don’t see why Jacobson can’t write in a language of his heart or mind or genitals and get at something not immediately communicable in the same way in Roman script is for us, and it automatically to you doesn’t mean anything or means everything. Why do you say it means everything and nothing? Why doesn’t it mean what this sequence of symbols mean, to you? Jacobson’s book is restless and exciting precisely because it points to expressing something I can’t summarize. It points towards something sexual, violent, fishy, exciting and tangled that chimes with me.
Another aspect of this work is the relation it posits between language and social structures. It suggests a new script and therefore a new way of structuring society. It skews my eyes back to what our language reveals about us, while maintaining interest in the tensions and ambiguities of the novella itself.
If you framed your wallpaper as a novel and published it as a book, you would most probably have a customer in me. I would be curious to see what narrative development that had. I’d be keen to see what occurred as we moved up your terrifying anxious heavily patterned staircase (a rose is a rose is a rose?) towards the bedroom, and into that squeeling-clean guest-bathroom for some idle blue waves, and across the stark pastel hall. But I’m not sure it would be as interesting as what Jacobson has done. The point with Jacobson’s book is not that the patterns recur automatically as a print does on wallpaper. The individual symbols recur and alter and in different directions and relations to one another. Exactly as language does. A black rectangular box changes meaning when placed beside a tangle of lines with a cross through them. Doesn’t it?
I steadfastly do not believe this is the easiest kind of art (though your response, the easiest response: anyone can do this, makes it so. The only thing I admire about your comment is the cute pun on ‘art of this type’, since type is precisely what this isn’t) I do not believe it is easy to come up with a new script, and develop that script across a novella which is both tense, and entertaining. Is funny, and sad.
This doesn’t mean everything and nothing. It means somethings, but those somethings are not total and are not the same for everybody. I don’t see why that’s such a problem and so facile according to you. I don’t see why Jacobson can’t write in a language of his heart or mind or genitals and get at something not immediately communicable in the same way in Roman script is for us, and it automatically to you doesn’t mean anything or means everything. Why do you say it means everything and nothing? Why doesn’t it mean what this sequence of symbols mean, to you? Jacobson’s book is restless and exciting precisely because it points to expressing something I can’t summarize. It points towards something sexual, violent, fishy, exciting and tangled that chimes with me.
Another aspect of this work is the relation it posits between language and social structures. It suggests a new script and therefore a new way of structuring society. It skews my eyes back to what our language reveals about us, while maintaining interest in the tensions and ambiguities of the novella itself.
There is more to say than there is to know.
There is more to say than there is to know.
“if it’s more of an art object than text object, where is the crossover?”
is it fair to say that the liminal space between an art object and a text object is occupied by a question: on which plane of engagement does the thing hold significance? for instance, it seems that this specific object is an obsolete ‘read’ and a relevant ‘view’. i think that perhaps the most adroit suturing of this interstice comes as Kenneth Goldsmith’s Soliloquy. http://www.epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/soliloquy/index.html
steven, i like your friend’s mirror toilet box. i should have been more specific in that i was referring to conceptual written work; and while installations are often recognized as generative displays of conceptual discourse, when, as you say, the piece is well-executed, conceptual work that is written (however loosely we employ that term) seems to sour people for the most part. maybe seems cryptic and inveigling, and not what people want out of a thing that is a book?
“as long as everyone is just damned honest with themselves in discussing abstracted, vague objects like whatever ’story’ this ‘book’ is telling, Art (in general) will have generally served its purpose.”
yes.
all told, this particular thing, though a bit precious, is a nice meditative exercise, i think.
that is very kind of you to say, steven. thank you.
Thank you, Colin, for your thoughtful responses. I appreciate your advocacy for Jacobson’s work, which I find supremely interesting, intriguing, mesmerizing, and fun. I’ve resisted commenting because I’ve wanted to avoid the position of trying to explain or defend my having posted about The Giant’s Fence. For the most part, I think the discussions going on in this comment thread are productive and thoughtful. Many people (predictably) seem to have responded negatively – which I take only to be a sign of Jacobson’s success. Had this post solicited no response, I might have concluded differently, but the strength of negativity – especially that ushered forth by the raging philistine Pemulis, suggests to me a level of success. Art that engenders conversation (whether positive or negative) is valuable, the way I see it.
Contra Steven Augustine’s Hegelian desire to “get it” — here I’m referring to a comment above where he reacts to whether or not a work “sux” or not by his ability to access the work (to “get it” as he puts it) — I subscribe to the Kantian notion, which argues that the value of art is not found in whether or not one “gets it” but rather in one’s experiencing an excitation of the free play of their imagination. Jacobson’s work undeniably succeeds in exciting the free play of imagination in anyone willing to suspend their judgment — that necessary precursor for intellectual inquiry that far too few seem willing to perform.
Obviously this work succeeds based on the fact that it raises such broader theoretical issues — those raised by Colin, as well as the the stark division between those Hegelians who believe art should communicate and us Kantians who disregard communication as a value criteria. Also, I find Kristin’s insightful thoughts above about the ability of The Giant’s Fence to provoke a reexamination of the liminal space between art object and text object particularly salient.
At any rate, thanks to all for their participation in the conversation so far!
Thank you, Colin, for your thoughtful responses. I appreciate your advocacy for Jacobson’s work, which I find supremely interesting, intriguing, mesmerizing, and fun. I’ve resisted commenting because I’ve wanted to avoid the position of trying to explain or defend my having posted about The Giant’s Fence. For the most part, I think the discussions going on in this comment thread are productive and thoughtful. Many people (predictably) seem to have responded negatively – which I take only to be a sign of Jacobson’s success. Had this post solicited no response, I might have concluded differently, but the strength of negativity – especially that ushered forth by the raging philistine Pemulis, suggests to me a level of success. Art that engenders conversation (whether positive or negative) is valuable, the way I see it.
Contra Steven Augustine’s Hegelian desire to “get it” — here I’m referring to a comment above where he reacts to whether or not a work “sux” or not by his ability to access the work (to “get it” as he puts it) — I subscribe to the Kantian notion, which argues that the value of art is not found in whether or not one “gets it” but rather in one’s experiencing an excitation of the free play of their imagination. Jacobson’s work undeniably succeeds in exciting the free play of imagination in anyone willing to suspend their judgment — that necessary precursor for intellectual inquiry that far too few seem willing to perform.
Obviously this work succeeds based on the fact that it raises such broader theoretical issues — those raised by Colin, as well as the the stark division between those Hegelians who believe art should communicate and us Kantians who disregard communication as a value criteria. Also, I find Kristin’s insightful thoughts above about the ability of The Giant’s Fence to provoke a reexamination of the liminal space between art object and text object particularly salient.
At any rate, thanks to all for their participation in the conversation so far!
“Jacobson’s work undeniably succeeds in exciting the free play of imagination in anyone willing to suspend their judgment — that necessary precursor for intellectual inquiry that far too few seem willing to perform.”
Pompous, self-parodying, value-free twaddle; but that’s what you’re paid for, I suppose. The para-Derridian core of my argument, which you crypto-Lacanianly swerved around because you are unable to address it (in any but a highly post-Carrot Top manner), was the fact that you could apply exactly the same neo-Swiftian apologia to any object or gesture *in the known Universe*. Meaning: meaningless. It’s not so much a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes as the Dauphin’s Old Finger-Sniffing.
“Many people (predictably) seem to have responded negatively – which I take only to be a sign of Jacobson’s success.”
He sniffed, downing his truffles.
“Jacobson’s work undeniably succeeds in exciting the free play of imagination in anyone willing to suspend their judgment — that necessary precursor for intellectual inquiry that far too few seem willing to perform.”
Pompous, self-parodying, value-free twaddle; but that’s what you’re paid for, I suppose. The para-Derridian core of my argument, which you crypto-Lacanianly swerved around because you are unable to address it (in any but a highly post-Carrot Top manner), was the fact that you could apply exactly the same neo-Swiftian apologia to any object or gesture *in the known Universe*. Meaning: meaningless. It’s not so much a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes as the Dauphin’s Old Finger-Sniffing.
“Many people (predictably) seem to have responded negatively – which I take only to be a sign of Jacobson’s success.”
He sniffed, downing his truffles.
Zus: re: timezones: fair enough (and I know the feeling); re: the “challenge”… I meant it more as, “can you imagine the kind of object/gesture that you would feel *comfortable dismissing as shit*?” As a thought-experiment. Because my point is that if we *can’t* imagine such a work, then we can’t really critique. Or maybe I’m boxing myself in, conceptually, by conflating “rating” an aesthetic object/gesture with “critiquing” it. Maybe I just need to be able to call some stuff “magnificent” ( http://htmlgiant.com/snippet/versions-by-oliver-laric/ ) and some stuff “NOT!” I can cop to the limits of my investment in hierarchy but I also think that my best work (critically or as a producer) is grounded in it.
Kristin: you did the work; my compliment was the easy part
gorgeous: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KRVmvu8aedM/TB-HpPT3z9I/AAAAAAAAAF0/r8He_zQ9f2M/s1600/room.jpg
(i tried to post this once, the comment disappeared, then when i tried to re-post i got the “duplicate comment” warning)
Hi Steven,
Yikes! Not sure how Kant or Hegel are pompous twaddle. Neither am I sure how suspending judgment is pompous twaddle. Seems like you’re mad for the wrong reasons here.
Anyway, sorry you disapprove of my diction, or find it worthy of mockery. I’ll put it more simply: you are hung up on meaning — I contend that meaning is irrelevant when it comes to art. You are attempting to bring into the discussion a value which does not belong — as if you were watching a hockey game and your reaction was something like “there’s no ball — this game is worthless!” My argument is that a game can be valuable without a ball :: art can be valuable without meaning.
Hopefully my sports analogy wasn’t also pompous twaddle?
ps – I have been reading and enjoying “The Brotherland Miracles” — for what it’s worth.
Hi Steven,
Yikes! Not sure how Kant or Hegel are pompous twaddle. Neither am I sure how suspending judgment is pompous twaddle. Seems like you’re mad for the wrong reasons here.
Anyway, sorry you disapprove of my diction, or find it worthy of mockery. I’ll put it more simply: you are hung up on meaning — I contend that meaning is irrelevant when it comes to art. You are attempting to bring into the discussion a value which does not belong — as if you were watching a hockey game and your reaction was something like “there’s no ball — this game is worthless!” My argument is that a game can be valuable without a ball :: art can be valuable without meaning.
Hopefully my sports analogy wasn’t also pompous twaddle?
ps – I have been reading and enjoying “The Brotherland Miracles” — for what it’s worth.
“Yikes”
Canny move.
“Yikes”
Canny move.
Oh please. How predictable: someone who recognizes the sham (or intellectual bankruptcy) of squiggle art or the hilarity of the meanings some reach for (relating the most banal ideas in the recondite language of Theory) while patting themselves on the back is not a philistine. They are merely honest.
And, uh, really? These are the kind of air-tight endorsers you seek? Those curious to know, in all seriousness, how the ‘narrative’ of my wallpaper will unfold? as if it even could? (Of course they would first have to be told to view my wallpaper as a novel — another red flag that also undercuts the legitimacy of the whole ‘squiggles that make us question our notion of whatever’ crap. It’s only after being told what the art is questioning, what thoughts it is supposedly provoking, do you claim to feel questioned or provoked. Again: facile, easy.)
There are so many holes in the above reasoning, you don’t even know where to start. With the contradictions? (It’s not a language, man, it’s a new language. They’re not symbols, they’re just…symbols. That make a narrative. Without language. But they have grammar and function exactly like language. Man.)
Or how ’bout this:
“A black rectangular box changes meaning when placed beside a tangle of lines with a cross through them. Doesn’t it?”
Well, yes. Yes it does. But do I really need to point out that drawings of boxes and crosses are in fact symbols, drawings that point to something outside themselves? And function in a way that — what was it now — ‘asemic’ line-drawings do not? You can juxtapose two, three, however many asymbolic line drawings, and the result will always be the same — meaningless squibbles. That refer to nothing but themselves. If one of them is round and reminds you of a breast, swell. It has just reached the lofty status o. *every other object ever*.
More thoughtfulness:
“Another aspect of this work is the relation it posits between language and social structures. It suggests a new script and therefore a new way of structuring society.”
I mean, what is the appropriate here, other than, “Dude, really?” Could anyone please elaborate on this? Maybe start by defining the posited relation? Mentioning whether the argument about social structures would be strengthened or weakened by rearranging pages 26 and 32? Yes? No?
Higgs, it’s really not my intention to dump on work you find mesmerizing. In fact, I adore all sorts of free play, random mish-mash, take-what-you-will art –(including Pavement lyrics, Oulipian hijinx, Fence Magazine -style antics, and even image-based work) — it’s just that you have to argue for the good stuff. Not *all stuff*. The squiggles, for a variety of reasons, strike me as *all stuff*. That’s all.
But, if you find it comforting, you go ahead and chalk-up any resistance as bourgeoise stupidity. I call that easy, you call it bold. Different strokes.
Oh please. How predictable: someone who recognizes the sham (or intellectual bankruptcy) of squiggle art or the hilarity of the meanings some reach for (relating the most banal ideas in the recondite language of Theory) while patting themselves on the back is not a philistine. They are merely honest.
And, uh, really? These are the kind of air-tight endorsers you seek? Those curious to know, in all seriousness, how the ‘narrative’ of my wallpaper will unfold? as if it even could? (Of course they would first have to be told to view my wallpaper as a novel — another red flag that also undercuts the legitimacy of the whole ‘squiggles that make us question our notion of whatever’ crap. It’s only after being told what the art is questioning, what thoughts it is supposedly provoking, do you claim to feel questioned or provoked. Again: facile, easy.)
There are so many holes in the above reasoning, you don’t even know where to start. With the contradictions? (It’s not a language, man, it’s a new language. They’re not symbols, they’re just…symbols. That make a narrative. Without language. But they have grammar and function exactly like language. Man.)
Or how ’bout this:
“A black rectangular box changes meaning when placed beside a tangle of lines with a cross through them. Doesn’t it?”
Well, yes. Yes it does. But do I really need to point out that drawings of boxes and crosses are in fact symbols, drawings that point to something outside themselves? And function in a way that — what was it now — ‘asemic’ line-drawings do not? You can juxtapose two, three, however many asymbolic line drawings, and the result will always be the same — meaningless squibbles. That refer to nothing but themselves. If one of them is round and reminds you of a breast, swell. It has just reached the lofty status o. *every other object ever*.
More thoughtfulness:
“Another aspect of this work is the relation it posits between language and social structures. It suggests a new script and therefore a new way of structuring society.”
I mean, what is the appropriate here, other than, “Dude, really?” Could anyone please elaborate on this? Maybe start by defining the posited relation? Mentioning whether the argument about social structures would be strengthened or weakened by rearranging pages 26 and 32? Yes? No?
Higgs, it’s really not my intention to dump on work you find mesmerizing. In fact, I adore all sorts of free play, random mish-mash, take-what-you-will art –(including Pavement lyrics, Oulipian hijinx, Fence Magazine -style antics, and even image-based work) — it’s just that you have to argue for the good stuff. Not *all stuff*. The squiggles, for a variety of reasons, strike me as *all stuff*. That’s all.
But, if you find it comforting, you go ahead and chalk-up any resistance as bourgeoise stupidity. I call that easy, you call it bold. Different strokes.
He calls it writing because it’s clearly a script. It’s written symbols that recur in rhythmical, grammatical, and semantic relation to one another. What else would you call it?
He calls it a ‘novella’ because it is clearly to do with narrative, to do with how sustained script develops over pages and pages of a book length work and because it’s a sustained investigation of the way meaning is made.The ‘characters’ in Jacobson’s book are typological characters. ‘Asemic’ writing is writing with ‘no specific semantic content’. My favourite content of the post is the one who said they look like boobs. Yes, they do, and eggs, and the barrel of a gun trained with a laser on your head, and weird eyes, and a compass-drawn-circle, and jelly fish. This is the great fun part of the book. It has an ‘anything goes’ appeal, but it doesn’t mean that there’s no point in reading. It just means that the kind of closure (if you want Scott Mcloud I’ll give you S.M) that you might want from certain books is put-off and avoided. I’m surprised people on this blog are so resistant to Jacobson’s work because it seems to me that a lot of the books reviewed etc. achieve the same kind of side-stepping closure and totality-of-interpretation.
Those jellyfish-target-breasts are the most action-packed part of the novella, (with the script above and below encroached upon- what gives those spacey circles superiority over the tangled lines either side and above and below. What is the grammatical system that suddenly calls for them when they’ve been absent before, and what is the narrative necessity that calls for them now?). The novel’s denouement is sweet, tense and perplexing too, where the tangled barbed wire of letters and symbols joins with the circle and wraps itself around it like ivy. Is this violent? Is this sexual union, is it just the way novels always wrap-up in this script, is it the way novels often wrap up in our script?
One of the most interesting (and kind of problematic, though I can live with a problem or two) elements for me is the relation between the title of the work and the work itself. I wonder why it’s titled at all. I would be interested to hear Michael Jacobson’s take on this, but I think the title is an important part of how the novel relates to the convention of the novel-form. It articulates the position of this book straddling the barbed wire, the electrical wire between meaning and lack of definite meaning. As far as Giant’s Fence, goes the title sounds pat, like some dumb novel, but its content is so shocking and so fence-like, so enjoyable to traverse and so indefinite to decipher.
Given most of the reactions here, it’s an HTMLGIANT’S fence, a fence of code, a fence you guys could jump on and rip the arse of your jeans if you’d like to.
Sometimes I feel like “post-literate” is a pretty good description of the direction our culture is moving in.
I too wish someone would explain the terms of their critique for a work like this. If this is an excellent work of art, what separates it, in your opinion, from a shoddy work of art made in the same vein? Some fleshed-out descriptions of how you find it to be beautiful would be helpful. I promise you’ll have no sarcasm/anger/bile in response from me. Just curious.
I find it insane that you would claim oulipo as an example of ‘free play, mish mash, take what you will art’. I can’t think that if that’s your reading of oulipo, we can ever approximate agreement on this.
Sometimes I feel like “post-literate” is a pretty good description of the direction our culture is moving in.
I too wish someone would explain the terms of their critique for a work like this. If this is an excellent work of art, what separates it, in your opinion, from a shoddy work of art made in the same vein? Some fleshed-out descriptions of how you find it to be beautiful would be helpful. I promise you’ll have no sarcasm/anger/bile in response from me. Just curious.
I find it insane that you would claim oulipo as an example of ‘free play, mish mash, take what you will art’. I can’t think that if that’s your reading of oulipo, we can ever approximate agreement on this.
“The point with Jacobson’s book is not that the patterns recur automatically as a print does on wallpaper. The individual symbols recur and alter and in different directions and relations to one another. Exactly as language does.”
Is this really exactly what language does?
“I contend that meaning is irrelevant when it comes to art.”
Expound/explain please?
“The point with Jacobson’s book is not that the patterns recur automatically as a print does on wallpaper. The individual symbols recur and alter and in different directions and relations to one another. Exactly as language does.”
Is this really exactly what language does?
“I contend that meaning is irrelevant when it comes to art.”
Expound/explain please?
I don’t think the point is, or should be, that “everything is a text,” because, well, duh. If anything whatsoever is potentially a text, read it.
I don’t think the point is, or should be, that “everything is a text,” because, well, duh. If anything whatsoever is potentially a text, read it.
Insane? What? I think the fact that you two know Oulipo well enough to make broad claims about it is basis for a conversation.
Insane? What? I think the fact that you two know Oulipo well enough to make broad claims about it is basis for a conversation.
Colin, Oulipo did a whole bunch stuff — some of which included the (meaningless?) surreallllly juxtaposition of words/images that allowed for a whole spectrum of readings particular to each reader. Which is very similar to what I thought you were getting at. No?
Colin, Oulipo did a whole bunch stuff — some of which included the (meaningless?) surreallllly juxtaposition of words/images that allowed for a whole spectrum of readings particular to each reader. Which is very similar to what I thought you were getting at. No?
I am not saying anything like I know it well enough to make a broad claim, unless you think this is a broad claim:
The description of oulipo as ‘free play, random mish-mash, take-what-you-will-art’ feels to me like a horrible misreading of oulipo.
I am not saying anything like I know it well enough to make a broad claim, unless you think this is a broad claim:
The description of oulipo as ‘free play, random mish-mash, take-what-you-will-art’ feels to me like a horrible misreading of oulipo.
O.k. I don’t know exactly how language works. I mean to only describe the way I experience language in texts I love and get a thrill from. In the example of Jacobson’s book, he brings certain things about language and meaning-making into focus by using a script that doesn’t have specific semantic content definitively attached.
The way I experience language when I’m reading is sort of like I describe it there, I think; letters and words and punctuation recur, and by being next to other things alter in meaning and singnificance. Texts are tense and interesting because of the rhythms of these patterns and the meaning that becomes attached to them. I am just trying to say what I think about how language works which is I am sure different to how other people think and experience language and meaning.
O.k. I don’t know exactly how language works. I mean to only describe the way I experience language in texts I love and get a thrill from. In the example of Jacobson’s book, he brings certain things about language and meaning-making into focus by using a script that doesn’t have specific semantic content definitively attached.
The way I experience language when I’m reading is sort of like I describe it there, I think; letters and words and punctuation recur, and by being next to other things alter in meaning and singnificance. Texts are tense and interesting because of the rhythms of these patterns and the meaning that becomes attached to them. I am just trying to say what I think about how language works which is I am sure different to how other people think and experience language and meaning.
Why?
Was oulipo ever only doing one thing?
Why?
Was oulipo ever only doing one thing?
dear Pemulis-friend,
i hope you can forgive me for using the term ‘liminal’. i have been hungry to trot out the vocab i learned during the four years i spent at art school in chicago undergoing extensive training to engage critically with giant pinecones made from condoms and naked people eating cupcakes and whatnot. it appears ‘liminal’ is a kind of trigger word. would you have preferred ‘interstitial’? Cuz i can back that one up with a lot of PROTO-THEORETICAL, HYPER-META-HERMETIC SUPRA-TEXTS from Homi Bhabha.
i truly believe that to each his own, so if you’d like to throw a “useful” book at my head or smother me with wallpaper feel free.
though: if discussing the placement of a challenging and compelling and divisive piece of work that forces people to think about fundamental questions relating to the properties of art and writing and the places where art and writing intertwine or diverge — and further, forces people to interact with the notions of good and bad, of meaning and futility-of-meaning — if this is the hallmark of pretentious discourse…well, i suppose i can think of worse things than being pretentious.
also, obviously we are all insomniacs.
dear Pemulis-friend,
i hope you can forgive me for using the term ‘liminal’. i have been hungry to trot out the vocab i learned during the four years i spent at art school in chicago undergoing extensive training to engage critically with giant pinecones made from condoms and naked people eating cupcakes and whatnot. it appears ‘liminal’ is a kind of trigger word. would you have preferred ‘interstitial’? Cuz i can back that one up with a lot of PROTO-THEORETICAL, HYPER-META-HERMETIC SUPRA-TEXTS from Homi Bhabha.
i truly believe that to each his own, so if you’d like to throw a “useful” book at my head or smother me with wallpaper feel free.
though: if discussing the placement of a challenging and compelling and divisive piece of work that forces people to think about fundamental questions relating to the properties of art and writing and the places where art and writing intertwine or diverge — and further, forces people to interact with the notions of good and bad, of meaning and futility-of-meaning — if this is the hallmark of pretentious discourse…well, i suppose i can think of worse things than being pretentious.
also, obviously we are all insomniacs.
Hi Pemulis,
The problem I have with your response is this: “it’s just that you have to argue for the good stuff. Not *all stuff*.”
The point I am trying to make here is the point I am always trying to make, which is that there is no such thing as “the good stuff”. “Good” does not apply to art. “Good” is the purveyance of an entirely different order or category of value. To say that one work of art is “good” and another work of art is “not good” is like saying “this shade of green is good and this other shade of green is not good” — or, “this sidewalk is good, but this other sidewalk is not good.” Do you see? There is no such thing as a good green or a good sidewalk. Sidewalks and colors cannot be valued good or bad. Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves. The same thing goes for art. Art objects cannot be valued good or bad. The fact that “the squiggles” strike YOU as “not good” is completely irrelevant to the objective measure of whether or not the work is “good” — you may also find moss green “not good” while you find emerald green “good,” but that distinction is purely subjective and therefore cannot be useful as a criteria for objective evaluation. What CAN be useful as a criteria of objective evaluation is the ability or lack of ability to excite the free play of imagination. Perhaps you look upon this text and find that it does not excite the free play of your imagination. That does not mean that the work is “good” or “not good” it simply means that the work fails — at this moment in time — to excite the free play of your imagination. If you’ll allow one more analogy: a car is neither “good” nor “not good” — instead, it either functions or does not function. Similarly, art either functions or does not function. It seems like you are trying to say that this work of art does not function for you. I can fully respect that position. I just wish that position could be distinguished from the value judgment “good” or “not good”. Especially because I believe ALL art has the capacity to function, not just “good” art.
To appreciate all art as valuable in and of itself, to move beyond “good” and “not good,” to consider that all art possesses the potential to excite the free play of the imagination, is a challenging endeavor, for sure. But I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor, nonetheless.
Finally, I think it’s of paramount importance to always remember that nothing is gained when one judges a work of art “not good”. When one makes that kind of value judgment they are shutting the door to any and all possibilities/potentialities. Why would anyone want to limit their lives in such a way? Why would anyone want to shut doors rather than open them? Why would anyone willingly choose to deny a possibility or destroy a chance to experience something, for the simple pleasure of rendering value judgment when in fact such value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life? Such a position has always struck me as very odd.
Hi Pemulis,
The problem I have with your response is this: “it’s just that you have to argue for the good stuff. Not *all stuff*.”
The point I am trying to make here is the point I am always trying to make, which is that there is no such thing as “the good stuff”. “Good” does not apply to art. “Good” is the purveyance of an entirely different order or category of value. To say that one work of art is “good” and another work of art is “not good” is like saying “this shade of green is good and this other shade of green is not good” — or, “this sidewalk is good, but this other sidewalk is not good.” Do you see? There is no such thing as a good green or a good sidewalk. Sidewalks and colors cannot be valued good or bad. Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves. The same thing goes for art. Art objects cannot be valued good or bad. The fact that “the squiggles” strike YOU as “not good” is completely irrelevant to the objective measure of whether or not the work is “good” — you may also find moss green “not good” while you find emerald green “good,” but that distinction is purely subjective and therefore cannot be useful as a criteria for objective evaluation. What CAN be useful as a criteria of objective evaluation is the ability or lack of ability to excite the free play of imagination. Perhaps you look upon this text and find that it does not excite the free play of your imagination. That does not mean that the work is “good” or “not good” it simply means that the work fails — at this moment in time — to excite the free play of your imagination. If you’ll allow one more analogy: a car is neither “good” nor “not good” — instead, it either functions or does not function. Similarly, art either functions or does not function. It seems like you are trying to say that this work of art does not function for you. I can fully respect that position. I just wish that position could be distinguished from the value judgment “good” or “not good”. Especially because I believe ALL art has the capacity to function, not just “good” art.
To appreciate all art as valuable in and of itself, to move beyond “good” and “not good,” to consider that all art possesses the potential to excite the free play of the imagination, is a challenging endeavor, for sure. But I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor, nonetheless.
Finally, I think it’s of paramount importance to always remember that nothing is gained when one judges a work of art “not good”. When one makes that kind of value judgment they are shutting the door to any and all possibilities/potentialities. Why would anyone want to limit their lives in such a way? Why would anyone want to shut doors rather than open them? Why would anyone willingly choose to deny a possibility or destroy a chance to experience something, for the simple pleasure of rendering value judgment when in fact such value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life? Such a position has always struck me as very odd.
huzzah, well-played.
huzzah, well-played.
Your asking me to do a strange thing, Alec. You’re acting as if I’ve been spouting grandiose statements about oulipo when all I have said is that I don’t think summing it up as ‘free play random mish-mash take-what-you-will-art’ is a pleasant reading, a productive reading.
Naturally, oulipo was not only ever doing one thing. My statement in no way says that.
I offered no alternative reading because it wasn’t what I was talking about. I simply said that that reading of oulipo feels dreadful, reductive, and to miss a lot of what oulipo does, in my reading of those writers. i also got the sense that someone who reads oulipo in this way, is unlikely to appreciate where i’m coming from when I advocate this work, because just as i think that’s a mis-summation of oulipo, i think it’s a misreading of this book. and i stick 100% by it and 110% by the conviction that that is about as far from a broad claim as you can get.
free-play and randomness and mish-mash aesthetics (I wish I didn’t have to use these terms, but they’re the ones you’re asking me to justify why I don’t like them as a summation of oulipo, as though you think they’re just fine and dandy which I find hard to believe which is why i find your interrogation of me a bit weird, on this unrelated to the original post point) miss out what is happening, in, say, 100 million poems or A void which are atleast as much about constraint and a certain ultimate law of chaos than ‘free play’.
Your asking me to do a strange thing, Alec. You’re acting as if I’ve been spouting grandiose statements about oulipo when all I have said is that I don’t think summing it up as ‘free play random mish-mash take-what-you-will-art’ is a pleasant reading, a productive reading.
Naturally, oulipo was not only ever doing one thing. My statement in no way says that.
I offered no alternative reading because it wasn’t what I was talking about. I simply said that that reading of oulipo feels dreadful, reductive, and to miss a lot of what oulipo does, in my reading of those writers. i also got the sense that someone who reads oulipo in this way, is unlikely to appreciate where i’m coming from when I advocate this work, because just as i think that’s a mis-summation of oulipo, i think it’s a misreading of this book. and i stick 100% by it and 110% by the conviction that that is about as far from a broad claim as you can get.
free-play and randomness and mish-mash aesthetics (I wish I didn’t have to use these terms, but they’re the ones you’re asking me to justify why I don’t like them as a summation of oulipo, as though you think they’re just fine and dandy which I find hard to believe which is why i find your interrogation of me a bit weird, on this unrelated to the original post point) miss out what is happening, in, say, 100 million poems or A void which are atleast as much about constraint and a certain ultimate law of chaos than ‘free play’.
(This must be where the sports analogy comes in)
(This must be where the sports analogy comes in)
Ryan: “If this is an excellent work of art, what separates it, in your opinion, from a shoddy work of art made in the same vein?”
It has been my experience that you are unlikely to get a response to this question.
@Higgs: “Why would anyone willingly choose to deny a possibility or destroy a chance to experience something, for the simple pleasure of rendering value judgment when in fact such value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life?”
Which dovetails neatly with my point about “…the rise of Therapy Culture and the misbegotten conflation of Art and Therapeutic Crafts.” From page 101 of the “Famous Middlebrow Fallacies Handbook”.
@Higgs: “Finally, I think it’s of paramount importance to always remember that nothing is gained when one judges a work of art ‘not good’.”
The sublime irony being that I find myself, in this thread, arguing the same position I was arguing recently against… King Wenclas. Christopher is a bizarro Wenclas, with leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, sucking a Meerschaum, advocating the sovereignty of the artifact-qua-artifact (as is; *worthy-because-it-exists*) without the bourgeois intervention of Talent.
This kerfuffle is the wading-pool version of one that the actual Art World dispensed with a while ago, with: “if there are buyers for it, we’re interested.” That’s how the Pros dispense with the question of Talent, and now we know how the amateurs do it.
Ryan: “If this is an excellent work of art, what separates it, in your opinion, from a shoddy work of art made in the same vein?”
It has been my experience that you are unlikely to get a response to this question.
@Higgs: “Why would anyone willingly choose to deny a possibility or destroy a chance to experience something, for the simple pleasure of rendering value judgment when in fact such value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life?”
Which dovetails neatly with my point about “…the rise of Therapy Culture and the misbegotten conflation of Art and Therapeutic Crafts.” From page 101 of the “Famous Middlebrow Fallacies Handbook”.
@Higgs: “Finally, I think it’s of paramount importance to always remember that nothing is gained when one judges a work of art ‘not good’.”
The sublime irony being that I find myself, in this thread, arguing the same position I was arguing recently against… King Wenclas. Christopher is a bizarro Wenclas, with leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, sucking a Meerschaum, advocating the sovereignty of the artifact-qua-artifact (as is; *worthy-because-it-exists*) without the bourgeois intervention of Talent.
This kerfuffle is the wading-pool version of one that the actual Art World dispensed with a while ago, with: “if there are buyers for it, we’re interested.” That’s how the Pros dispense with the question of Talent, and now we know how the amateurs do it.
Oh, fuck. Did she just say ‘liminal’ space? Did you just say ‘liminal’ space? Well, there goes my very well- thought out response I had planned for that other fellow.
The problem with ‘liminal space’ is the problem with this piece is the problem with all art of this type. It means everything, and therefore nothing. (Or is it the other way around?) Liminal Space: a space of transition. Literal or figurative. High school, the liminal space between middle school and college. My doctor’s waiting room, the liminal space between sickness and health, inside and outside, heat and air conditioning and better air conditioning! My hairdo: between short and long, *where questions lie*. How *problematizing*, how radival!
How…incredibly facile. Boo. Guy makes squiggles. Intellectuals squint, see whatever’s on their minds, possibly buy. This is the easiest kind of art: Ooh, it’s breasts and eggs! Cuz he made circles! And people see different things!
‘Suturing’. The ‘interstice’. Between ‘art object’ and ‘text object’.
I’m sorry, people, but good god. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or try to sell you my wallpaper. (It too has recurring — but ‘asemic’ — patterns. You even might say it resists and interrogates the received suturing of liminal spaces created by squiggly-line books! Boom!)
(Also: sorry. I too have insomnia. I might be asleep right now….)
Briefly (I do have to be brief here), I try to evaluate books in terms of how well they meet their own objectives. If I think they fail, and there are whole legions of consumery alternatives that do achieve their aims, then yeah: by those standards, I’ll call some good and some bad. And I can’t help but to think that you do, too (preferring, say, The Wire over The Wire fan fiction, or suspenseful suspense novels over non-suspenseful suspense novels — noting that the degree of suspense will be impacted by the enormity of suspense novels you’ve already read, the rarifications of your own tastes, etc.) I don’t think that’s in error or at all unreasonable.
Here, I might just be mostly at odds not with the work itself, but the claims people here have made about the work (and sometimes, how they’ve chosen to make them). I mean, the cover description (or how we’re instructed to view the text) seems extremely at odds with many comments, esp w/r/t whether the drawings function symbolically or not. Otherwise, the book strikes me as mildly interesting, perhaps inflated and self-important (though that might just be the marketing text, who knows), and beating long-beaten drums as if they’ve somehow never been heard. Plus, I’d argue the symbols are ‘motivated’ (in the linguistic sense), and therefore interesting, but not as interesting in what can and is accomplished by other ‘free-play’ types of work. In my view, not an extreme position.
I’d like to hear more about your anti- ‘good/bad’ view… It is intriguing…but I don’t see how it’s sustainable. Are you an editor? (Is every blog member an editor?) Seems like you would have to make those kind of judgments each and every day….
Briefly (I do have to be brief here), I try to evaluate books in terms of how well they meet their own objectives. If I think they fail, and there are whole legions of consumery alternatives that do achieve their aims, then yeah: by those standards, I’ll call some good and some bad. And I can’t help but to think that you do, too (preferring, say, The Wire over The Wire fan fiction, or suspenseful suspense novels over non-suspenseful suspense novels — noting that the degree of suspense will be impacted by the enormity of suspense novels you’ve already read, the rarifications of your own tastes, etc.) I don’t think that’s in error or at all unreasonable.
Here, I might just be mostly at odds not with the work itself, but the claims people here have made about the work (and sometimes, how they’ve chosen to make them). I mean, the cover description (or how we’re instructed to view the text) seems extremely at odds with many comments, esp w/r/t whether the drawings function symbolically or not. Otherwise, the book strikes me as mildly interesting, perhaps inflated and self-important (though that might just be the marketing text, who knows), and beating long-beaten drums as if they’ve somehow never been heard. Plus, I’d argue the symbols are ‘motivated’ (in the linguistic sense), and therefore interesting, but not as interesting in what can and is accomplished by other ‘free-play’ types of work. In my view, not an extreme position.
I’d like to hear more about your anti- ‘good/bad’ view… It is intriguing…but I don’t see how it’s sustainable. Are you an editor? (Is every blog member an editor?) Seems like you would have to make those kind of judgments each and every day….
Kristin:
Ha. Yes. Sorry. I was going for the lulz (that word does drive me insane) so sorry if that was too caustic. Not your ideas I took issue with, but the massive over-piling of theory words. Three’s my limit. Any more, and I start having nightmares/flashbacks.
Kristin:
Ha. Yes. Sorry. I was going for the lulz (that word does drive me insane) so sorry if that was too caustic. Not your ideas I took issue with, but the massive over-piling of theory words. Three’s my limit. Any more, and I start having nightmares/flashbacks.
Ba-zinga.
@Kristin
“i can testify that people do, in fact, bump 4:33 in the Range Rover.”
(You said other things and then other people said other things, but I only really want to address this sentence.)
I guess a meant a couple things when I wrote “people don’t bump 4:33 in the Range Rove…” “People” here could mean literally “all people,” or it could mean colloquially “most people,” or it could mean the mythical “average people.” “Range Rove” is like a synecdoche or something for “car,” but a “populist” car. There is the literal meaning where I’m saying that no one listens to 4:33 in their cars. There is also the metaphorical meaning where I’m assuming tacitly that most people are “average people,” and saying that the “average person,” who consumes art in a “conventional” way, doesn’t like asemic writing and conceptual art or whatever.
I understand that there is ambiguity in your sentence, too, and I wanted to clarify things. Are you speaking metaphorically and saying that some people like asemic writing and conceptual art or whatever in an enthusiastic and “populist” way? Or, are you speaking literally and saying that you have witnessed people playing 4:33 in their cars or something?
If you are speaking metaphorically, everything is fine. If you are claiming that most/”average” people listen to 4:33 in their cars, I am in disagreement. That doesn’t seem to be true.
That’s all…
@Kristin
“i can testify that people do, in fact, bump 4:33 in the Range Rover.”
(You said other things and then other people said other things, but I only really want to address this sentence.)
I guess a meant a couple things when I wrote “people don’t bump 4:33 in the Range Rove…” “People” here could mean literally “all people,” or it could mean colloquially “most people,” or it could mean the mythical “average people.” “Range Rove” is like a synecdoche or something for “car,” but a “populist” car. There is the literal meaning where I’m saying that no one listens to 4:33 in their cars. There is also the metaphorical meaning where I’m assuming tacitly that most people are “average people,” and saying that the “average person,” who consumes art in a “conventional” way, doesn’t like asemic writing and conceptual art or whatever.
I understand that there is ambiguity in your sentence, too, and I wanted to clarify things. Are you speaking metaphorically and saying that some people like asemic writing and conceptual art or whatever in an enthusiastic and “populist” way? Or, are you speaking literally and saying that you have witnessed people playing 4:33 in their cars or something?
If you are speaking metaphorically, everything is fine. If you are claiming that most/”average” people listen to 4:33 in their cars, I am in disagreement. That doesn’t seem to be true.
That’s all…
Right. Sorry for making you write such a big post, Colin. I guess I was feeling a little antagonistic this morning? And yeah, I don’t even think there is such an aesthetic as “randomness and mish-mash.” “Free play” can be such a catchword when it really doesn’t mean a whole lot.
Right. Sorry for making you write such a big post, Colin. I guess I was feeling a little antagonistic this morning? And yeah, I don’t even think there is such an aesthetic as “randomness and mish-mash.” “Free play” can be such a catchword when it really doesn’t mean a whole lot.
If you framed your wallpaper as a novel and published it as a book, you would most probably have a customer in me. I would be curious to see what narrative development that had. I’d be keen to see what occurred as we moved up your terrifying anxious heavily patterned staircase (a rose is a rose is a rose?) towards the bedroom, and into that squeeling-clean guest-bathroom for some idle blue waves, and across the stark pastel hall. But I’m not sure it would be as interesting as what Jacobson has done. The point with Jacobson’s book is not that the patterns recur automatically as a print does on wallpaper. The individual symbols recur and alter and in different directions and relations to one another. Exactly as language does. A black rectangular box changes meaning when placed beside a tangle of lines with a cross through them. Doesn’t it?
I steadfastly do not believe this is the easiest kind of art (though your response, the easiest response: anyone can do this, makes it so. The only thing I admire about your comment is the cute pun on ‘art of this type’, since type is precisely what this isn’t) I do not believe it is easy to come up with a new script, and develop that script across a novella which is both tense, and entertaining. Is funny, and sad.
This doesn’t mean everything and nothing. It means somethings, but those somethings are not total and are not the same for everybody. I don’t see why that’s such a problem and so facile according to you. I don’t see why Jacobson can’t write in a language of his heart or mind or genitals and get at something not immediately communicable in the same way in Roman script is for us, and it automatically to you doesn’t mean anything or means everything. Why do you say it means everything and nothing? Why doesn’t it mean what this sequence of symbols mean, to you? Jacobson’s book is restless and exciting precisely because it points to expressing something I can’t summarize. It points towards something sexual, violent, fishy, exciting and tangled that chimes with me.
Another aspect of this work is the relation it posits between language and social structures. It suggests a new script and therefore a new way of structuring society. It skews my eyes back to what our language reveals about us, while maintaining interest in the tensions and ambiguities of the novella itself.
I agree with Christopher here above almost to the letter (or, if you must, squiggle).
I agree with Christopher here above almost to the letter (or, if you must, squiggle).
Like, most people (over 50% of the living population of the world/America) haven’t listened to John Cage. Of the ones who have, it seems like the only time someone has listened to 4:33 in their car is as a joke or something. It doesn’t seem like it happens very often at all.
Like, most people (over 50% of the living population of the world/America) haven’t listened to John Cage. Of the ones who have, it seems like the only time someone has listened to 4:33 in their car is as a joke or something. It doesn’t seem like it happens very often at all.
There is more to say than there is to know.
“There is no such thing as a good green or a good sidewalk. Sidewalks and colors cannot be valued good or bad. Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves.”
I am still resoundingly gobsmacked by the sophistry of this “argument”. I’ll send my 4-year-old over to put her idea of a sidewalk in front of your semi-detatched and *then* we’ll talk. There are skill sets involved in making a sidewalk that actually-functions-as-one. Likewise, there are better, vs less-advised, uses of “green” (good pool tables, bad as a genital-tint prior to the all-important third date). A sidewalk does not enjoy an objective reality as a “sidewalk” if it can’t be used as a sidewalk: in this case, as in many, function overlaps identity to a profound degree. Unless you’re an undergraduate Art student, of course. Ever eaten a “bad” hamburger? Of course not: not *you*. Ditto with “bad” music: never heard any! “Bad” poetry? Never! It just is. Such is the Tao of the Undergraduate Buddhist.
“Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves.”
You mean a croquet mallet can have a broken handle but not be “bad” in the Theological sense of the word, then.
“…you may also find moss green “not good” while you find emerald green “good,” but that distinction is purely subjective and therefore cannot be useful as a criteria for objective evaluation. What CAN be useful as a criteria of objective evaluation is the ability or lack of ability to excite the free play of imagination.”
Aha, the former is subjective, but the latter (as determined, recently, at CERN) is *objective*. I suppose that this is the demarcational strategy you use to discriminate between the book under discussion and a plate of irradiated vomit under some expensive track-lighting. I regret to inform you that more than one Performance Artist will beg to differ.
If I’d read any of this comment of yours before leaving my first comment on this thread, I wouldn’t have bothered.
“There is no such thing as a good green or a good sidewalk. Sidewalks and colors cannot be valued good or bad. Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves.”
I am still resoundingly gobsmacked by the sophistry of this “argument”. I’ll send my 4-year-old over to put her idea of a sidewalk in front of your semi-detatched and *then* we’ll talk. There are skill sets involved in making a sidewalk that actually-functions-as-one. Likewise, there are better, vs less-advised, uses of “green” (good pool tables, bad as a genital-tint prior to the all-important third date). A sidewalk does not enjoy an objective reality as a “sidewalk” if it can’t be used as a sidewalk: in this case, as in many, function overlaps identity to a profound degree. Unless you’re an undergraduate Art student, of course. Ever eaten a “bad” hamburger? Of course not: not *you*. Ditto with “bad” music: never heard any! “Bad” poetry? Never! It just is. Such is the Tao of the Undergraduate Buddhist.
“Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves.”
You mean a croquet mallet can have a broken handle but not be “bad” in the Theological sense of the word, then.
“…you may also find moss green “not good” while you find emerald green “good,” but that distinction is purely subjective and therefore cannot be useful as a criteria for objective evaluation. What CAN be useful as a criteria of objective evaluation is the ability or lack of ability to excite the free play of imagination.”
Aha, the former is subjective, but the latter (as determined, recently, at CERN) is *objective*. I suppose that this is the demarcational strategy you use to discriminate between the book under discussion and a plate of irradiated vomit under some expensive track-lighting. I regret to inform you that more than one Performance Artist will beg to differ.
If I’d read any of this comment of yours before leaving my first comment on this thread, I wouldn’t have bothered.
If I could pick up the ball for a sec: meaning is wholly dependent on the reader; there is an unnavigable gulf between creator and reader, in that the creator had a certain picture or idea in his head but he can’t pass that picture directly to the reader. the creator can only float symbols across the gulf for the reader to pick up and interpret.
in a very banal sense, I read The Epic of Gilgamesh recently and I had no idea what they were getting at. still, I found a lot to like, interpret, and “mean” from it.
“There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing,” said Mark Rothko.
(Of course, there are other problems with meaning too)
If I could pick up the ball for a sec: meaning is wholly dependent on the reader; there is an unnavigable gulf between creator and reader, in that the creator had a certain picture or idea in his head but he can’t pass that picture directly to the reader. the creator can only float symbols across the gulf for the reader to pick up and interpret.
in a very banal sense, I read The Epic of Gilgamesh recently and I had no idea what they were getting at. still, I found a lot to like, interpret, and “mean” from it.
“There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing,” said Mark Rothko.
(Of course, there are other problems with meaning too)
Thank you, Colin, for your thoughtful responses. I appreciate your advocacy for Jacobson’s work, which I find supremely interesting, intriguing, mesmerizing, and fun. I’ve resisted commenting because I’ve wanted to avoid the position of trying to explain or defend my having posted about The Giant’s Fence. For the most part, I think the discussions going on in this comment thread are productive and thoughtful. Many people (predictably) seem to have responded negatively – which I take only to be a sign of Jacobson’s success. Had this post solicited no response, I might have concluded differently, but the strength of negativity – especially that ushered forth by the raging philistine Pemulis, suggests to me a level of success. Art that engenders conversation (whether positive or negative) is valuable, the way I see it.
Contra Steven Augustine’s Hegelian desire to “get it” — here I’m referring to a comment above where he reacts to whether or not a work “sux” or not by his ability to access the work (to “get it” as he puts it) — I subscribe to the Kantian notion, which argues that the value of art is not found in whether or not one “gets it” but rather in one’s experiencing an excitation of the free play of their imagination. Jacobson’s work undeniably succeeds in exciting the free play of imagination in anyone willing to suspend their judgment — that necessary precursor for intellectual inquiry that far too few seem willing to perform.
Obviously this work succeeds based on the fact that it raises such broader theoretical issues — those raised by Colin, as well as the the stark division between those Hegelians who believe art should communicate and us Kantians who disregard communication as a value criteria. Also, I find Kristin’s insightful thoughts above about the ability of The Giant’s Fence to provoke a reexamination of the liminal space between art object and text object particularly salient.
At any rate, thanks to all for their participation in the conversation so far!
“Jacobson’s work undeniably succeeds in exciting the free play of imagination in anyone willing to suspend their judgment — that necessary precursor for intellectual inquiry that far too few seem willing to perform.”
Pompous, self-parodying, value-free twaddle; but that’s what you’re paid for, I suppose. The para-Derridian core of my argument, which you crypto-Lacanianly swerved around because you are unable to address it (in any but a highly post-Carrot Top manner), was the fact that you could apply exactly the same neo-Swiftian apologia to any object or gesture *in the known Universe*. Meaning: meaningless. It’s not so much a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes as the Dauphin’s Old Finger-Sniffing.
“Many people (predictably) seem to have responded negatively – which I take only to be a sign of Jacobson’s success.”
He sniffed, downing his truffles.
Hi Steven,
Yikes! Not sure how Kant or Hegel are pompous twaddle. Neither am I sure how suspending judgment is pompous twaddle. Seems like you’re mad for the wrong reasons here.
Anyway, sorry you disapprove of my diction, or find it worthy of mockery. I’ll put it more simply: you are hung up on meaning — I contend that meaning is irrelevant when it comes to art. You are attempting to bring into the discussion a value which does not belong — as if you were watching a hockey game and your reaction was something like “there’s no ball — this game is worthless!” My argument is that a game can be valuable without a ball :: art can be valuable without meaning.
Hopefully my sports analogy wasn’t also pompous twaddle?
ps – I have been reading and enjoying “The Brotherland Miracles” — for what it’s worth.
“Yikes”
Canny move.
Oh please. How predictable: someone who recognizes the sham (or intellectual bankruptcy) of squiggle art or the hilarity of the meanings some reach for (relating the most banal ideas in the recondite language of Theory) while patting themselves on the back is not a philistine. They are merely honest.
And, uh, really? These are the kind of air-tight endorsers you seek? Those curious to know, in all seriousness, how the ‘narrative’ of my wallpaper will unfold? as if it even could? (Of course they would first have to be told to view my wallpaper as a novel — another red flag that also undercuts the legitimacy of the whole ‘squiggles that make us question our notion of whatever’ crap. It’s only after being told what the art is questioning, what thoughts it is supposedly provoking, do you claim to feel questioned or provoked. Again: facile, easy.)
There are so many holes in the above reasoning, you don’t even know where to start. With the contradictions? (It’s not a language, man, it’s a new language. They’re not symbols, they’re just…symbols. That make a narrative. Without language. But they have grammar and function exactly like language. Man.)
Or how ’bout this:
“A black rectangular box changes meaning when placed beside a tangle of lines with a cross through them. Doesn’t it?”
Well, yes. Yes it does. But do I really need to point out that drawings of boxes and crosses are in fact symbols, drawings that point to something outside themselves? And function in a way that — what was it now — ‘asemic’ line-drawings do not? You can juxtapose two, three, however many asymbolic line drawings, and the result will always be the same — meaningless squibbles. That refer to nothing but themselves. If one of them is round and reminds you of a breast, swell. It has just reached the lofty status o. *every other object ever*.
More thoughtfulness:
“Another aspect of this work is the relation it posits between language and social structures. It suggests a new script and therefore a new way of structuring society.”
I mean, what is the appropriate here, other than, “Dude, really?” Could anyone please elaborate on this? Maybe start by defining the posited relation? Mentioning whether the argument about social structures would be strengthened or weakened by rearranging pages 26 and 32? Yes? No?
Higgs, it’s really not my intention to dump on work you find mesmerizing. In fact, I adore all sorts of free play, random mish-mash, take-what-you-will art –(including Pavement lyrics, Oulipian hijinx, Fence Magazine -style antics, and even image-based work) — it’s just that you have to argue for the good stuff. Not *all stuff*. The squiggles, for a variety of reasons, strike me as *all stuff*. That’s all.
But, if you find it comforting, you go ahead and chalk-up any resistance as bourgeoise stupidity. I call that easy, you call it bold. Different strokes.
Sometimes I feel like “post-literate” is a pretty good description of the direction our culture is moving in.
I too wish someone would explain the terms of their critique for a work like this. If this is an excellent work of art, what separates it, in your opinion, from a shoddy work of art made in the same vein? Some fleshed-out descriptions of how you find it to be beautiful would be helpful. I promise you’ll have no sarcasm/anger/bile in response from me. Just curious.
I find it insane that you would claim oulipo as an example of ‘free play, mish mash, take what you will art’. I can’t think that if that’s your reading of oulipo, we can ever approximate agreement on this.
“The point with Jacobson’s book is not that the patterns recur automatically as a print does on wallpaper. The individual symbols recur and alter and in different directions and relations to one another. Exactly as language does.”
Is this really exactly what language does?
“I contend that meaning is irrelevant when it comes to art.”
Expound/explain please?
I don’t think the point is, or should be, that “everything is a text,” because, well, duh. If anything whatsoever is potentially a text, read it.
Insane? What? I think the fact that you two know Oulipo well enough to make broad claims about it is basis for a conversation.
Colin, Oulipo did a whole bunch stuff — some of which included the (meaningless?) surreallllly juxtaposition of words/images that allowed for a whole spectrum of readings particular to each reader. Which is very similar to what I thought you were getting at. No?
I am not saying anything like I know it well enough to make a broad claim, unless you think this is a broad claim:
The description of oulipo as ‘free play, random mish-mash, take-what-you-will-art’ feels to me like a horrible misreading of oulipo.
O.k. I don’t know exactly how language works. I mean to only describe the way I experience language in texts I love and get a thrill from. In the example of Jacobson’s book, he brings certain things about language and meaning-making into focus by using a script that doesn’t have specific semantic content definitively attached.
The way I experience language when I’m reading is sort of like I describe it there, I think; letters and words and punctuation recur, and by being next to other things alter in meaning and singnificance. Texts are tense and interesting because of the rhythms of these patterns and the meaning that becomes attached to them. I am just trying to say what I think about how language works which is I am sure different to how other people think and experience language and meaning.
Why?
Was oulipo ever only doing one thing?
dear Pemulis-friend,
i hope you can forgive me for using the term ‘liminal’. i have been hungry to trot out the vocab i learned during the four years i spent at art school in chicago undergoing extensive training to engage critically with giant pinecones made from condoms and naked people eating cupcakes and whatnot. it appears ‘liminal’ is a kind of trigger word. would you have preferred ‘interstitial’? Cuz i can back that one up with a lot of PROTO-THEORETICAL, HYPER-META-HERMETIC SUPRA-TEXTS from Homi Bhabha.
i truly believe that to each his own, so if you’d like to throw a “useful” book at my head or smother me with wallpaper feel free.
though: if discussing the placement of a challenging and compelling and divisive piece of work that forces people to think about fundamental questions relating to the properties of art and writing and the places where art and writing intertwine or diverge — and further, forces people to interact with the notions of good and bad, of meaning and futility-of-meaning — if this is the hallmark of pretentious discourse…well, i suppose i can think of worse things than being pretentious.
also, obviously we are all insomniacs.
Hi Pemulis,
The problem I have with your response is this: “it’s just that you have to argue for the good stuff. Not *all stuff*.”
The point I am trying to make here is the point I am always trying to make, which is that there is no such thing as “the good stuff”. “Good” does not apply to art. “Good” is the purveyance of an entirely different order or category of value. To say that one work of art is “good” and another work of art is “not good” is like saying “this shade of green is good and this other shade of green is not good” — or, “this sidewalk is good, but this other sidewalk is not good.” Do you see? There is no such thing as a good green or a good sidewalk. Sidewalks and colors cannot be valued good or bad. Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves. The same thing goes for art. Art objects cannot be valued good or bad. The fact that “the squiggles” strike YOU as “not good” is completely irrelevant to the objective measure of whether or not the work is “good” — you may also find moss green “not good” while you find emerald green “good,” but that distinction is purely subjective and therefore cannot be useful as a criteria for objective evaluation. What CAN be useful as a criteria of objective evaluation is the ability or lack of ability to excite the free play of imagination. Perhaps you look upon this text and find that it does not excite the free play of your imagination. That does not mean that the work is “good” or “not good” it simply means that the work fails — at this moment in time — to excite the free play of your imagination. If you’ll allow one more analogy: a car is neither “good” nor “not good” — instead, it either functions or does not function. Similarly, art either functions or does not function. It seems like you are trying to say that this work of art does not function for you. I can fully respect that position. I just wish that position could be distinguished from the value judgment “good” or “not good”. Especially because I believe ALL art has the capacity to function, not just “good” art.
To appreciate all art as valuable in and of itself, to move beyond “good” and “not good,” to consider that all art possesses the potential to excite the free play of the imagination, is a challenging endeavor, for sure. But I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor, nonetheless.
Finally, I think it’s of paramount importance to always remember that nothing is gained when one judges a work of art “not good”. When one makes that kind of value judgment they are shutting the door to any and all possibilities/potentialities. Why would anyone want to limit their lives in such a way? Why would anyone want to shut doors rather than open them? Why would anyone willingly choose to deny a possibility or destroy a chance to experience something, for the simple pleasure of rendering value judgment when in fact such value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life? Such a position has always struck me as very odd.
huzzah, well-played.
marshall,
my assertion is literal.
i have truthfully listened to 4:33 in my car, though my car is not a Range Rover. 4:33 was a track on a birthday mix cd (when those were relevant artifacts) made for me by a friend. ’twas sandwiched between tracks from To Live and Shave in LA and Nurse with Wound and made a nice cushion between them.
though if we are talking about a broad cross-section of humanity, i would concur that most people do not listen to 4:33 in their car.
marshall,
my assertion is literal.
i have truthfully listened to 4:33 in my car, though my car is not a Range Rover. 4:33 was a track on a birthday mix cd (when those were relevant artifacts) made for me by a friend. ’twas sandwiched between tracks from To Live and Shave in LA and Nurse with Wound and made a nice cushion between them.
though if we are talking about a broad cross-section of humanity, i would concur that most people do not listen to 4:33 in their car.
Your asking me to do a strange thing, Alec. You’re acting as if I’ve been spouting grandiose statements about oulipo when all I have said is that I don’t think summing it up as ‘free play random mish-mash take-what-you-will-art’ is a pleasant reading, a productive reading.
Naturally, oulipo was not only ever doing one thing. My statement in no way says that.
I offered no alternative reading because it wasn’t what I was talking about. I simply said that that reading of oulipo feels dreadful, reductive, and to miss a lot of what oulipo does, in my reading of those writers. i also got the sense that someone who reads oulipo in this way, is unlikely to appreciate where i’m coming from when I advocate this work, because just as i think that’s a mis-summation of oulipo, i think it’s a misreading of this book. and i stick 100% by it and 110% by the conviction that that is about as far from a broad claim as you can get.
free-play and randomness and mish-mash aesthetics (I wish I didn’t have to use these terms, but they’re the ones you’re asking me to justify why I don’t like them as a summation of oulipo, as though you think they’re just fine and dandy which I find hard to believe which is why i find your interrogation of me a bit weird, on this unrelated to the original post point) miss out what is happening, in, say, 100 million poems or A void which are atleast as much about constraint and a certain ultimate law of chaos than ‘free play’.
(This must be where the sports analogy comes in)
Ryan: “If this is an excellent work of art, what separates it, in your opinion, from a shoddy work of art made in the same vein?”
It has been my experience that you are unlikely to get a response to this question.
@Higgs: “Why would anyone willingly choose to deny a possibility or destroy a chance to experience something, for the simple pleasure of rendering value judgment when in fact such value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life?”
Which dovetails neatly with my point about “…the rise of Therapy Culture and the misbegotten conflation of Art and Therapeutic Crafts.” From page 101 of the “Famous Middlebrow Fallacies Handbook”.
@Higgs: “Finally, I think it’s of paramount importance to always remember that nothing is gained when one judges a work of art ‘not good’.”
The sublime irony being that I find myself, in this thread, arguing the same position I was arguing recently against… King Wenclas. Christopher is a bizarro Wenclas, with leather patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, sucking a Meerschaum, advocating the sovereignty of the artifact-qua-artifact (as is; *worthy-because-it-exists*) without the bourgeois intervention of Talent.
This kerfuffle is the wading-pool version of one that the actual Art World dispensed with a while ago, with: “if there are buyers for it, we’re interested.” That’s how the Pros dispense with the question of Talent, and now we know how the amateurs do it.
Briefly (I do have to be brief here), I try to evaluate books in terms of how well they meet their own objectives. If I think they fail, and there are whole legions of consumery alternatives that do achieve their aims, then yeah: by those standards, I’ll call some good and some bad. And I can’t help but to think that you do, too (preferring, say, The Wire over The Wire fan fiction, or suspenseful suspense novels over non-suspenseful suspense novels — noting that the degree of suspense will be impacted by the enormity of suspense novels you’ve already read, the rarifications of your own tastes, etc.) I don’t think that’s in error or at all unreasonable.
Here, I might just be mostly at odds not with the work itself, but the claims people here have made about the work (and sometimes, how they’ve chosen to make them). I mean, the cover description (or how we’re instructed to view the text) seems extremely at odds with many comments, esp w/r/t whether the drawings function symbolically or not. Otherwise, the book strikes me as mildly interesting, perhaps inflated and self-important (though that might just be the marketing text, who knows), and beating long-beaten drums as if they’ve somehow never been heard. Plus, I’d argue the symbols are ‘motivated’ (in the linguistic sense), and therefore interesting, but not as interesting in what can and is accomplished by other ‘free-play’ types of work. In my view, not an extreme position.
I’d like to hear more about your anti- ‘good/bad’ view… It is intriguing…but I don’t see how it’s sustainable. Are you an editor? (Is every blog member an editor?) Seems like you would have to make those kind of judgments each and every day….
Kristin:
Ha. Yes. Sorry. I was going for the lulz (that word does drive me insane) so sorry if that was too caustic. Not your ideas I took issue with, but the massive over-piling of theory words. Three’s my limit. Any more, and I start having nightmares/flashbacks.
@Kristin
“i can testify that people do, in fact, bump 4:33 in the Range Rover.”
(You said other things and then other people said other things, but I only really want to address this sentence.)
I guess a meant a couple things when I wrote “people don’t bump 4:33 in the Range Rove…” “People” here could mean literally “all people,” or it could mean colloquially “most people,” or it could mean the mythical “average people.” “Range Rove” is like a synecdoche or something for “car,” but a “populist” car. There is the literal meaning where I’m saying that no one listens to 4:33 in their cars. There is also the metaphorical meaning where I’m assuming tacitly that most people are “average people,” and saying that the “average person,” who consumes art in a “conventional” way, doesn’t like asemic writing and conceptual art or whatever.
I understand that there is ambiguity in your sentence, too, and I wanted to clarify things. Are you speaking metaphorically and saying that some people like asemic writing and conceptual art or whatever in an enthusiastic and “populist” way? Or, are you speaking literally and saying that you have witnessed people playing 4:33 in their cars or something?
If you are speaking metaphorically, everything is fine. If you are claiming that most/”average” people listen to 4:33 in their cars, I am in disagreement. That doesn’t seem to be true.
That’s all…
Right. Sorry for making you write such a big post, Colin. I guess I was feeling a little antagonistic this morning? And yeah, I don’t even think there is such an aesthetic as “randomness and mish-mash.” “Free play” can be such a catchword when it really doesn’t mean a whole lot.
I agree with Christopher here above almost to the letter (or, if you must, squiggle).
Like, most people (over 50% of the living population of the world/America) haven’t listened to John Cage. Of the ones who have, it seems like the only time someone has listened to 4:33 in their car is as a joke or something. It doesn’t seem like it happens very often at all.
“There is no such thing as a good green or a good sidewalk. Sidewalks and colors cannot be valued good or bad. Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves.”
I am still resoundingly gobsmacked by the sophistry of this “argument”. I’ll send my 4-year-old over to put her idea of a sidewalk in front of your semi-detatched and *then* we’ll talk. There are skill sets involved in making a sidewalk that actually-functions-as-one. Likewise, there are better, vs less-advised, uses of “green” (good pool tables, bad as a genital-tint prior to the all-important third date). A sidewalk does not enjoy an objective reality as a “sidewalk” if it can’t be used as a sidewalk: in this case, as in many, function overlaps identity to a profound degree. Unless you’re an undergraduate Art student, of course. Ever eaten a “bad” hamburger? Of course not: not *you*. Ditto with “bad” music: never heard any! “Bad” poetry? Never! It just is. Such is the Tao of the Undergraduate Buddhist.
“Their usefulness or their utility or their implementation can, of course, be valued good or bad, but not the objects themselves.”
You mean a croquet mallet can have a broken handle but not be “bad” in the Theological sense of the word, then.
“…you may also find moss green “not good” while you find emerald green “good,” but that distinction is purely subjective and therefore cannot be useful as a criteria for objective evaluation. What CAN be useful as a criteria of objective evaluation is the ability or lack of ability to excite the free play of imagination.”
Aha, the former is subjective, but the latter (as determined, recently, at CERN) is *objective*. I suppose that this is the demarcational strategy you use to discriminate between the book under discussion and a plate of irradiated vomit under some expensive track-lighting. I regret to inform you that more than one Performance Artist will beg to differ.
If I’d read any of this comment of yours before leaving my first comment on this thread, I wouldn’t have bothered.
If I could pick up the ball for a sec: meaning is wholly dependent on the reader; there is an unnavigable gulf between creator and reader, in that the creator had a certain picture or idea in his head but he can’t pass that picture directly to the reader. the creator can only float symbols across the gulf for the reader to pick up and interpret.
in a very banal sense, I read The Epic of Gilgamesh recently and I had no idea what they were getting at. still, I found a lot to like, interpret, and “mean” from it.
“There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing,” said Mark Rothko.
(Of course, there are other problems with meaning too)
marshall,
my assertion is literal.
i have truthfully listened to 4:33 in my car, though my car is not a Range Rover. 4:33 was a track on a birthday mix cd (when those were relevant artifacts) made for me by a friend. ’twas sandwiched between tracks from To Live and Shave in LA and Nurse with Wound and made a nice cushion between them.
though if we are talking about a broad cross-section of humanity, i would concur that most people do not listen to 4:33 in their car.
zuuuuuuush-yee-
hi
I once asked you if you were in Portugal. This was after I commented that my sticker said “I Voted” and then you commented that your sticker said “Yo Vote’ ” and to me “Yo” is Spanish and “vote’ ” seems French but I don’t know, so I melded them and went with Portuguese……
Or maybe you are in the Azores?
In any case, I respect your anonymity as much as I coddle my own.
zuuuuuuush-yee-
hi
I once asked you if you were in Portugal. This was after I commented that my sticker said “I Voted” and then you commented that your sticker said “Yo Vote’ ” and to me “Yo” is Spanish and “vote’ ” seems French but I don’t know, so I melded them and went with Portuguese……
Or maybe you are in the Azores?
In any case, I respect your anonymity as much as I coddle my own.
memes- i never got a chance to see your question! i do remember posting the yo voté quip, so i must not have come back to the thread afterwards… “yo voté” is all spanish; though all french would be “j’ai voté”, so yeah, similar. apparently portuguese would just be: “votei”. 我投. though check out welsh, yikes: “yr wyf yn pleidleisio”.
anyway. what were we talking about?
zuuuuuuush-yee-
hi
I once asked you if you were in Portugal. This was after I commented that my sticker said “I Voted” and then you commented that your sticker said “Yo Vote’ ” and to me “Yo” is Spanish and “vote’ ” seems French but I don’t know, so I melded them and went with Portuguese……
Or maybe you are in the Azores?
In any case, I respect your anonymity as much as I coddle my own.
The “4:33” debate between Kristin and Marshall, in this thread, is the best thing about it; it was the humorous Mini-Me of the thread in general that the thread in general should have been. I hope we aren’t all still mad at each other… and, gosh: it’s kinda nice that debates like this are possible. And, what the Hell, maybe I’ll just, uh, buy a copy of… um… the… uh…
In closing: “In July 2002, composer Mike Batt was accused of copyright infringement by the estate of John Cage after crediting his track “A Minute’s Silence” as being written by “Batt/Cage”. Batt initially vowed to fight the suit, even going so far as to claim that his piece is “a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and thirty-three seconds.” Batt told The Independent that “My silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence.” Batt eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed six figure sum in September 2002.[25]”
The “4:33” debate between Kristin and Marshall, in this thread, is the best thing about it; it was the humorous Mini-Me of the thread in general that the thread in general should have been. I hope we aren’t all still mad at each other… and, gosh: it’s kinda nice that debates like this are possible. And, what the Hell, maybe I’ll just, uh, buy a copy of… um… the… uh…
In closing: “In July 2002, composer Mike Batt was accused of copyright infringement by the estate of John Cage after crediting his track “A Minute’s Silence” as being written by “Batt/Cage”. Batt initially vowed to fight the suit, even going so far as to claim that his piece is “a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and thirty-three seconds.” Batt told The Independent that “My silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence.” Batt eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed six figure sum in September 2002.[25]”
i think these kinds of things are really great. my only gripe about this one is i wish it were longer for some reason. like why not make it 1000pg? i feel like if you’re going to do this kind of thing, like really *do* it, make some noise with it.
i think these kinds of things are really great. my only gripe about this one is i wish it were longer for some reason. like why not make it 1000pg? i feel like if you’re going to do this kind of thing, like really *do* it, make some noise with it.
it’s been done, and done better, imho
ha. that’s really amusing.
i am not mad. i feel very pleased with this thread and the thoughts and arguments generated therein. i feel like we lapsed into silence and then fished around in a big cooler for capri suns, and now we are sitting in a circle in a forest coppice drinking capri suns and staring at one another, and maybe marshall has just made a well-contained bonfire with his bare hands, and steve, maybe you just killed a really large bear and wrote a composition with john cage, and colin and i are examining wallpaper (provided by Pemulis) for potential narratives, and chris higgins is reading kant aloud to us, and everyone feels pretty good.
mad props to chris for this post, and an honorable mention to jacobson for accepting my facebook friend request.
ha. that’s really amusing.
i am not mad. i feel very pleased with this thread and the thoughts and arguments generated therein. i feel like we lapsed into silence and then fished around in a big cooler for capri suns, and now we are sitting in a circle in a forest coppice drinking capri suns and staring at one another, and maybe marshall has just made a well-contained bonfire with his bare hands, and steve, maybe you just killed a really large bear and wrote a composition with john cage, and colin and i are examining wallpaper (provided by Pemulis) for potential narratives, and chris higgins is reading kant aloud to us, and everyone feels pretty good.
mad props to chris for this post, and an honorable mention to jacobson for accepting my facebook friend request.
shit, i meant higgs. not higgins. fuck. sorry sorry.
shit, i meant higgs. not higgins. fuck. sorry sorry.
if i had any authority whatsoever, i’d “comment of the day” you, Kristin.
if i had any authority whatsoever, i’d “comment of the day” you, Kristin.
One time when I was traveling through Wales I saw a sign in a little town with an arrow (the sign had the arrow, the town had the sign) pointing the way to the “pwle” (swimming pool). The “w” had rounded bottoms (hey, like a rounded bottom) not pointy ones like here so the “w” really looked like a double-u, not like a double-v which is what it looks like here.
I translate “yr wyf yn pleidleisio” as “your wife is in that kind of awe one feels when looking at that group of seven stars that you have to glance at sideways in order to fully see”. Am I far off?
One time when I was traveling through Wales I saw a sign in a little town with an arrow (the sign had the arrow, the town had the sign) pointing the way to the “pwle” (swimming pool). The “w” had rounded bottoms (hey, like a rounded bottom) not pointy ones like here so the “w” really looked like a double-u, not like a double-v which is what it looks like here.
I translate “yr wyf yn pleidleisio” as “your wife is in that kind of awe one feels when looking at that group of seven stars that you have to glance at sideways in order to fully see”. Am I far off?
ack yes. it just means ‘i voted’. they all mean i voted!
goddamnit. i’m invisible!
Howso, Zus?
Howso, Zus?
Uh oh… opening that Can of Pandora’s Worms again… ! (laugh)
Uh oh… opening that Can of Pandora’s Worms again… ! (laugh)
“steve, maybe you just killed a really large bear…”
I think I’d rather openly disdain a bear than kill one but I do like appearing in the scenario.
“steve, maybe you just killed a really large bear…”
I think I’d rather openly disdain a bear than kill one but I do like appearing in the scenario.
The “4:33” debate between Kristin and Marshall, in this thread, is the best thing about it; it was the humorous Mini-Me of the thread in general that the thread in general should have been. I hope we aren’t all still mad at each other… and, gosh: it’s kinda nice that debates like this are possible. And, what the Hell, maybe I’ll just, uh, buy a copy of… um… the… uh…
In closing: “In July 2002, composer Mike Batt was accused of copyright infringement by the estate of John Cage after crediting his track “A Minute’s Silence” as being written by “Batt/Cage”. Batt initially vowed to fight the suit, even going so far as to claim that his piece is “a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and thirty-three seconds.” Batt told The Independent that “My silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence.” Batt eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed six figure sum in September 2002.[25]”
i think these kinds of things are really great. my only gripe about this one is i wish it were longer for some reason. like why not make it 1000pg? i feel like if you’re going to do this kind of thing, like really *do* it, make some noise with it.
ha. that’s really amusing.
i am not mad. i feel very pleased with this thread and the thoughts and arguments generated therein. i feel like we lapsed into silence and then fished around in a big cooler for capri suns, and now we are sitting in a circle in a forest coppice drinking capri suns and staring at one another, and maybe marshall has just made a well-contained bonfire with his bare hands, and steve, maybe you just killed a really large bear and wrote a composition with john cage, and colin and i are examining wallpaper (provided by Pemulis) for potential narratives, and chris higgins is reading kant aloud to us, and everyone feels pretty good.
mad props to chris for this post, and an honorable mention to jacobson for accepting my facebook friend request.
shit, i meant higgs. not higgins. fuck. sorry sorry.
if i had any authority whatsoever, i’d “comment of the day” you, Kristin.
One time when I was traveling through Wales I saw a sign in a little town with an arrow (the sign had the arrow, the town had the sign) pointing the way to the “pwle” (swimming pool). The “w” had rounded bottoms (hey, like a rounded bottom) not pointy ones like here so the “w” really looked like a double-u, not like a double-v which is what it looks like here.
I translate “yr wyf yn pleidleisio” as “your wife is in that kind of awe one feels when looking at that group of seven stars that you have to glance at sideways in order to fully see”. Am I far off?
Which can lead to the opening of a Can of Pandora Whoop-Ass.
Zusya- Your pink done link reminds me of the handwritten offerings written in marker on pieces of colored construction paper and hung with tape all over the totally authentic and totally groovy dim sum restaurant I ate at in Oakland Chinatown yesterday morning, (theirs having the additions of ‘$2.99’, ‘$3.99’ etc.)
I of course had no idea what they said, and instead pointed and nodded at carts going by.
Which can lead to the opening of a Can of Pandora Whoop-Ass.
Zusya- Your pink done link reminds me of the handwritten offerings written in marker on pieces of colored construction paper and hung with tape all over the totally authentic and totally groovy dim sum restaurant I ate at in Oakland Chinatown yesterday morning, (theirs having the additions of ‘$2.99’, ‘$3.99’ etc.)
I of course had no idea what they said, and instead pointed and nodded at carts going by.
Howso, Zus?
Uh oh… opening that Can of Pandora’s Worms again… ! (laugh)
“steve, maybe you just killed a really large bear…”
I think I’d rather openly disdain a bear than kill one but I do like appearing in the scenario.
i have only ever made it through 20 pages of homi bhabha’s writing and it probably took me like 6 hours and gave me a severe headache
i have only ever made it through 20 pages of homi bhabha’s writing and it probably took me like 6 hours and gave me a severe headache
Which can lead to the opening of a Can of Pandora Whoop-Ass.
Zusya- Your pink done link reminds me of the handwritten offerings written in marker on pieces of colored construction paper and hung with tape all over the totally authentic and totally groovy dim sum restaurant I ate at in Oakland Chinatown yesterday morning, (theirs having the additions of ‘$2.99’, ‘$3.99’ etc.)
I of course had no idea what they said, and instead pointed and nodded at carts going by.
maybe you just give the bear a good “kerfuffling.”
zusya17 brought the capri suns, so zusya17 is the most popular person in the coppice.
maybe you just give the bear a good “kerfuffling.”
zusya17 brought the capri suns, so zusya17 is the most popular person in the coppice.
i wonder if michael jacobson has read this post and the (currently) 90+ reactive comments. i wonder how he feels about the divisive reception of his book.
i wonder if michael jacobson has read this post and the (currently) 90+ reactive comments. i wonder how he feels about the divisive reception of his book.
i have only ever made it through 20 pages of homi bhabha’s writing and it probably took me like 6 hours and gave me a severe headache
tis a fine beverage
maybe you just give the bear a good “kerfuffling.”
zusya17 brought the capri suns, so zusya17 is the most popular person in the coppice.
i wonder if michael jacobson has read this post and the (currently) 90+ reactive comments. i wonder how he feels about the divisive reception of his book.
what a Pandora Worm might look like.
I think HTML Giant needs to get themselves one of them there ‘regular’ boards, where we could all like post our comments in neatly organized threads and so forth…
Bloggy comments are kind of a chore…
I think HTML Giant needs to get themselves one of them there ‘regular’ boards, where we could all like post our comments in neatly organized threads and so forth…
Bloggy comments are kind of a chore…
Ooh: also: do fonts not already inhabit the liminal space betweenwritten and visual art?
Was thinking about this today while watching Wes Anderson unfurl his white Futura Bold like nobody’s business. (Well, nobody’s business like 1960’s French auteurs, anyway).
Ooh: also: do fonts not already inhabit the liminal space betweenwritten and visual art?
Was thinking about this today while watching Wes Anderson unfurl his white Futura Bold like nobody’s business. (Well, nobody’s business like 1960’s French auteurs, anyway).
I think HTML Giant needs to get themselves one of them there ‘regular’ boards, where we could all like post our comments in neatly organized threads and so forth…
Bloggy comments are kind of a chore…
Ooh: also: do fonts not already inhabit the liminal space betweenwritten and visual art?
Was thinking about this today while watching Wes Anderson unfurl his white Futura Bold like nobody’s business. (Well, nobody’s business like 1960’s French auteurs, anyway).
[…] HTMLGIANT “the internet literature magazine blog of the future” turned me on to Michael Jacobson and his advocacy of asemic writing – a form of writing with no semantic content. Jacobson published a book called The Giant’s Fence; the sales copy states: “If you want to step outside of language, and bathe in unmuddied waters, this book is for you.” […]
“[some particular] value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life”
Steven, you’ve quoted one of the arguments in Christopher’s flaw: The criterion “benefiting one’s life” already indicates “value judgment” – the hierarchy of evaluation depending on the definiendum of ‘to benefit’ (and, more vitally albeit more obscurely, on what values define and conduct “one’s life”). Christopher claims purely to discover “art” – via the instrument of an “open mind” -, but he (?) imposes on each piece of “art” the precondition, the value-generating condition, of ‘benefaction’.
Which orientation-indicating-already-having-been-compelled-to-judge (by virtue of understanding whether something “benefits one’s life”) is mimicked in another of Christopher’s arguments:
“[Art is] neither ‘good’ nor ‘not good’ – instead, it either functions or does not function.”
This aesthetic pragmatism neglects a deferral similar to that of metaphysical pragmatism: whatever the criteria are for deciding or disclosing or partaking of function or not function are, in other words, value generators (and, in conversation, terms of judgement). It’s an obtuse sophistry to say that a poem, say, “does not function” but, at the same time, that that inergativity is “neither ‘good’ nor ‘not good'”, but rather, is simply, um, a sign of failure.
So Christoper wants a) not ‘to destroy the chance to experience something’ by “judging” a piece of “art” – EXCEPT by the criterion of whether it “benefits one’s life”; and b) to take in “art” freely from restrictive dichotomies like “good” or “not good” – EXCEPT in the case of whether each particular piece of “art” “functions or does not function”.
– which unselfconscious (?) having-it-both-ways one could call “pompous twaddle” . . .
“[some particular] value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life”
Steven, you’ve quoted one of the arguments in Christopher’s flaw: The criterion “benefiting one’s life” already indicates “value judgment” – the hierarchy of evaluation depending on the definiendum of ‘to benefit’ (and, more vitally albeit more obscurely, on what values define and conduct “one’s life”). Christopher claims purely to discover “art” – via the instrument of an “open mind” -, but he (?) imposes on each piece of “art” the precondition, the value-generating condition, of ‘benefaction’.
Which orientation-indicating-already-having-been-compelled-to-judge (by virtue of understanding whether something “benefits one’s life”) is mimicked in another of Christopher’s arguments:
“[Art is] neither ‘good’ nor ‘not good’ – instead, it either functions or does not function.”
This aesthetic pragmatism neglects a deferral similar to that of metaphysical pragmatism: whatever the criteria are for deciding or disclosing or partaking of function or not function are, in other words, value generators (and, in conversation, terms of judgement). It’s an obtuse sophistry to say that a poem, say, “does not function” but, at the same time, that that inergativity is “neither ‘good’ nor ‘not good'”, but rather, is simply, um, a sign of failure.
So Christoper wants a) not ‘to destroy the chance to experience something’ by “judging” a piece of “art” – EXCEPT by the criterion of whether it “benefits one’s life”; and b) to take in “art” freely from restrictive dichotomies like “good” or “not good” – EXCEPT in the case of whether each particular piece of “art” “functions or does not function”.
– which unselfconscious (?) having-it-both-ways one could call “pompous twaddle” . . .
Pemulis, a fairer quotation of what Kristin said would be “liminal space between”.
To my amateur ear, Kristin marshals the jargon pretty well – as well as you argue for this thread’s pro-squiggle arguments’ (at least sometime) mere ‘facility’. But if you want to appear less “raging[ly] philistine”, you could – instead of incredulously sputtering – ask:
What’s the difference between “liminal space between” and ‘space between’ (or ‘limen between’)? Is there an example of a “space between” which is not a limen?
Liminality as a way of picturing – to put it crudely -, and so of understanding, difference is useful; extra words, less so.
Pemulis, a fairer quotation of what Kristin said would be “liminal space between”.
To my amateur ear, Kristin marshals the jargon pretty well – as well as you argue for this thread’s pro-squiggle arguments’ (at least sometime) mere ‘facility’. But if you want to appear less “raging[ly] philistine”, you could – instead of incredulously sputtering – ask:
What’s the difference between “liminal space between” and ‘space between’ (or ‘limen between’)? Is there an example of a “space between” which is not a limen?
Liminality as a way of picturing – to put it crudely -, and so of understanding, difference is useful; extra words, less so.
“It’s written symbols that recur in […] semantic relation to one another.”
Colin, is the squiggling that constitutes the printed part of The Giant’s Fence, in your view, “semantic” or, as the Amazon intro claims – and others on this thread agree -, “asemic”?
“It’s written symbols that recur in […] semantic relation to one another.”
Colin, is the squiggling that constitutes the printed part of The Giant’s Fence, in your view, “semantic” or, as the Amazon intro claims – and others on this thread agree -, “asemic”?
“[some particular] value judgment does nothing to benefit one’s life”
Steven, you’ve quoted one of the arguments in Christopher’s flaw: The criterion “benefiting one’s life” already indicates “value judgment” – the hierarchy of evaluation depending on the definiendum of ‘to benefit’ (and, more vitally albeit more obscurely, on what values define and conduct “one’s life”). Christopher claims purely to discover “art” – via the instrument of an “open mind” -, but he (?) imposes on each piece of “art” the precondition, the value-generating condition, of ‘benefaction’.
Which orientation-indicating-already-having-been-compelled-to-judge (by virtue of understanding whether something “benefits one’s life”) is mimicked in another of Christopher’s arguments:
“[Art is] neither ‘good’ nor ‘not good’ – instead, it either functions or does not function.”
This aesthetic pragmatism neglects a deferral similar to that of metaphysical pragmatism: whatever the criteria are for deciding or disclosing or partaking of function or not function are, in other words, value generators (and, in conversation, terms of judgement). It’s an obtuse sophistry to say that a poem, say, “does not function” but, at the same time, that that inergativity is “neither ‘good’ nor ‘not good'”, but rather, is simply, um, a sign of failure.
So Christoper wants a) not ‘to destroy the chance to experience something’ by “judging” a piece of “art” – EXCEPT by the criterion of whether it “benefits one’s life”; and b) to take in “art” freely from restrictive dichotomies like “good” or “not good” – EXCEPT in the case of whether each particular piece of “art” “functions or does not function”.
– which unselfconscious (?) having-it-both-ways one could call “pompous twaddle” . . .
Pemulis, a fairer quotation of what Kristin said would be “liminal space between”.
To my amateur ear, Kristin marshals the jargon pretty well – as well as you argue for this thread’s pro-squiggle arguments’ (at least sometime) mere ‘facility’. But if you want to appear less “raging[ly] philistine”, you could – instead of incredulously sputtering – ask:
What’s the difference between “liminal space between” and ‘space between’ (or ‘limen between’)? Is there an example of a “space between” which is not a limen?
Liminality as a way of picturing – to put it crudely -, and so of understanding, difference is useful; extra words, less so.
“It’s written symbols that recur in […] semantic relation to one another.”
Colin, is the squiggling that constitutes the printed part of The Giant’s Fence, in your view, “semantic” or, as the Amazon intro claims – and others on this thread agree -, “asemic”?