In the closing section of Ulmer's "Electronic Monuments," he goes further into depth on the idea and concept (?) of conductive reasoning, along with giving demonstrations for the practice of intuitive reasoning, mystory mapping across the discourses of the popcycle, and documenting a very insightful MEmorialization practice done by one of his UF colleagues in the wake of 9/11.
Chapter 7 on the Justice Miranda really made the differences between the literate and the electrate, as well as their differing modes of reasoning stand out. Ulmer uses the literate concept of justice as the starting point, building an electrate concetto in the process to demonstrate what an electrate process of "knowing" might look like. The crux of this process is to find connections between independent entities, identify the gaps/connections that exist and to fill those gaps using inferential logic. In the search for an electrate concetto of justice, Ulmer draws on a comparison between logical and literate modes of investigation (interrogation) to an intuitive mode of reasoning. In electracy, thinking/knowing relies on intuition the way dancing or boxing relies on it. It does not (just) apply analytical rules, but uses past experiences and patterns as a sort of guiding "memory" - as the Dreyfi say, it is more of "acquiring a skill rather than solving a problem."
What skill then, is to be applied? It is the drawing of connections across the transversal of the various discourses of the popcycle, creating a cognitive map across which one can jump. I thought Ulmer was artistic in his drawing of metaphors- between learning/interrogation/3rd degree and their relations to the concept of justice in the literate apparatus, and intuition/dance/3rd (obtuse) meanings/samba as a mode of reasoning/thinking in the electrate. Perhaps most pertinent was the way he tied together the Miranda rights (concerning interrogation, justice, etc.) to Carmen Miranda, a famous Brazilian samba dancer. The turning to a "Miranda" in the popular culture highlights what Ulmer has to say about conduction: that it "is based on this tuning of discourse to culture, using these lucky finds as points of departure for further elaboration and development." In his connections between and organization of Miranda Rights, justice, the Turing test, Samba, Carmen Miranda, and Ludwig Wittgenstein (chiefly) into a coherent pattern, Ulmer sets up an opposition that is tied together in the field of justice. The ends of the scene/chora/pattern he builds is different from the logical ends of literacy. As he says, "it is not about the literal dance, but the figurative one, changing our cultural style of information into knowledge. It is not the dance but what is felt." Essentially, the literate information-to-knowledge is all about the essence of what is, what happened, etc. However, Ulmer is making an argument that a different apparatus demands a different way of creating knowledge, and that mood (and not essence) is what creates knowledge in this new way of thinking.
"Miranda" then, by way of its connections to the literate concept of justice becomes an electrate chora all its own, tying together a united mood surrounding the idea of "justice" across the popcycle of family, community, culture, career. It is within this popcycle that Ulmer highlights the "Soft Wishing Y," a MEmorial project/process that Ulmer collaborated on with colleague Will Pappenheimer. In Chapter 8, Ulmer displays the MEmorialization process through the documentation of Pappenheimer's thought processes, his personal mystory across the popcycle, the situation of his own personal "burning question" within the disaster of 9/11 and the ways in which he forms and utilizes connections to trace both his peripheral (the Y of pom poms, converging at a park dedicated to the man who is considered to have laid the groundwork for the skyscraper; set to the periphery of Ground Zero) and his testimonial (the website on which people could write their wishes/questions, forming a sort of collective testimony.) Ulmer introduces a couple of new concepts in this chapter.
First, the idea of Choramancy- an idea of divination applied to cognitive mapping. The idea is that in certain cultures (oral/magical?) a person with a problem or question would consult a diviner, who would use some uncanny or intuitive ability (chance procedure, as Ulmer calls the electrate practice) to connect one's individual problem to the larger collective community. This obviously nails the idea/hope of choragraphy and the EmerAgency itself: to recognize the problem in us and to situate ourselves in relation to the greater, collective disaster. When we see our part in the disaster, we are immune to compassion fatigue (or so is the hope.) The second new concept is the idea of the wish. Pappenheimer harkens back to Ulmer's "Y," and the idea of the wishbone. While we are prone to explore all of the reasons "why" in culture, the one that we tend not to explore is the one that is represented both by the wishbone, the wish and the why: the dimension of human desire. Wishes represent this human desire, and as Ulmer says, a way to commemorate one's wish as a part of life. Connected with choramancy, the wish functions as a question to a diviner and in the process of MEmorialization it helps to situate the individual within the field of collective history.
Overall, the biggest things I took from these sections were the importance of mapping connections through the various discourses of life, the importance of recognizing one's place among the collective history, and then the different mode of reasoning which takes place in electracy, rather than literacy. Electracy is all about capturing a mood through mapping connections that must happen by chance or by intuition. Image category replaces logical category. Concepts become concetto. Fact becomes mood.
Questions for Ulmer:
1) You use a great deal of metaphor to explore electracy and many of the ideas in this book. What is it about metaphor that makes it such a great vessel to explore and elaborate on your ideas?
2) What is it about pop culture that makes it so conducive to electrate thinking/reasoning?
3) On pg 199, you mention the samba as a relay for the formation of image category based on mood. If we are forming image categories based on mood, does this not limit the possibilities of classification (there are fewer "moods" than "concepts") or am I still thinking of mood from a literate perspective?
No comments:
Post a Comment