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Log of trAce Weekly Online Meeting, WebBoard Chat room
Sunday 6 Feb 2000

Session Start: Sun Feb 06 2000 20:57

We join the session when Helen_Whitehead, Ginny_Lloyd, Jennifer_Jessop, Allen_Bramhall, Barry_Smylie, Pauline_Masurel (Mazzy), Alan_Sondheim (Alan), Annie_Milner, Keith_Pomfret, Dan_Sondheim, Sue Thomas (Sue), Nenagh_Watson and Rachael_Field have joined the chatroom.

<Helen_Whitehead> Great to see so many people here for this inaugural workshop chat

<Sue> Hi - wow - the list is too long!

<Annie_Milner> First time for me :-)

<Helen_Whitehead> OK, to start us off, would people mind introducing themselves?

* Alan hears a sudden lull...

<Helen_Whitehead> I'll start by welcoming you: I'm Helen Whitehead, Site Editor for trAce

<Helen_Whitehead> ...and a hypertext web writer with a great interest in our topic tonight!

<Sue> I'm Sue Thomas, Director of trAce, and I am also working with Nenagh and Rachael on Outer Body

<Sue> You don't need to wait to intro yourself - just type it in and the machine will queue it

*** Elizabeth_James has joined #trace

<Mazzy> Mazzy, member of trAce - short fiction and a little Lost MOOing

*** Elizabeth_James is now known as elizabeth

<Mazzy> Hi Jen & e!!

<Alan> Hi Jennifer, Elizabeth, everyone -

<Jennifer_Jessop> hi everybody. wow a full room, so cool.

<Annie_Milner> Annie.....Bristol UK

<elizabeth> hi all what a crowd

<Keith_Pomfret> I'm Keith Pomfret, on the border of Scotland & England

<Helen_Whitehead> Go ahead and introduce yourself, then we'll kick off Alan's feature

<elizabeth> elizabeth is my real name; I'm in London England

<Jennifer_Jessop> jenn from tenn, usa.

<Barry_Smylie> : )

<Allen_Bramhall> Allen Bramhall from Massachusetts

<Dan_Sondheim> I'm Dan...from Victoria BC...Alan's nephew

<Allen_Bramhall> wait, can I be from Maine?

<Helen_Whitehead> of course...

<Sue> Allen you can be from anywhere you like :)

<Helen_Whitehead> Anyone else?

*** Dan_Sondheim is now known as Dan

<Helen_Whitehead> OK, Alan... where do you come from?

<Alan> ?? Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania - hard-coal region

<Alan> Northern tip of the Appalachians

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<Helen_Whitehead> But you're now in NY? Have you been in new York long?

<Ginny_Lloyd> Ginny from Louisiana...

<Alan> I've been here about ten years - I've lived all over the States and different parts of Canada for that matter -

<Alan> It doesn't really matter where I'm from or where I am - I feel ill-at-ease just about anywhere...

<Helen_Whitehead> even in cyberspace?

<Annie_Milner> is there a way of making the chat screen bigger?

<Alan> Well, in a way there's no "in" or "cyberspace," there are all sorts of communities/protocols/chats, and some I'm more comfortable with than others - generally those I'm not comfortable with interest me the most -

<Alan> Just resize the window, Annie

<Helen_Whitehead> So you're "from" Pennsylvania, but what is your creative background?

<Alan> Writing, music, sound, video, film, some photography -

<Margaret_Penfold> What cyber communities make you most uncomfortable, Alan

<Alan> Not so much communities as say the 7-11 email list, challenging applications like that, java - I'm bad with object-oriented

<Alan> Although I was on the quota board of the PMC MOO and the politics there made me very uncomfortable - I couldn't deal with them

<Helen_Whitehead> ...a truly multimedia background. So maybe the Web/Internet was a natural progression? What brought you to the Net?

<Alan> Distribution more than anything - I'd worked with offline computers years ago, made a number of films as well as video and other pieces (including writing programs I did in Pascal) - but the Net initially offered distribution and the ability in a strange way to fine-tune the planet

<Helen_Whitehead> fine-tune the planet?

<Alan> It was a very natural progression - I had worked in short-wave at one point, and video quite often. Fine-tune in the sense that, say with unix or linux or running amuck in the tcpip programs you can speed up connections, route things, etc. - and I was and am still, fascinated the way the planet works or becomes a membrane, appears like that -

<Alan> It's amazing, this image of say a sphere which glimmers on and off at various points, becoming more intense year by year

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*** Miekal_And is now known as mIEKAL

<Helen_Whitehead> networking, connections.... you have always been fascinated by programming?

<Alan> Not always - I've done some Pascal years ago and then Basic and then Qbasic - it depends what my needs have been. I've also worked in analog synthesizers (both video and audio), and that's another kind of programming -

<Sue> Alan could you say something about the nature of connectedness online? do you really feel connected to the planet, to the web?

<Alan> I feel connected in a broken way - maybe unlike most, I'm aware of delays/gaps/breakdowns/demogrpahics of the unconnected, etc. -

<Helen_Whitehead> hence your interest in traceroutes, which was a recent project for trAce?

<Alan> Yes, traceroute fascinates me as a tool - I think it's completely unique in the history of the planet -

<Alan> It's really part of a nervous system, just like ping and ping -s are - you can feel the packets moving through the wires -

<Sue> alan could you explain to people a bit about the terms ping and packets?

<Alan> And it leads me to think about virtual subjectivity and distributed subjectivities as well -

<Alan> Ping is a common tool that sends out a packet to a site to see if it's up or down and reports accordingly; ping -s is a subprogram that repeatedly pings a site and gives you the return time

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<elizabeth> Alan aren't the traceroutes equivalents of physical routes, silk road; droving roads etc., the physical traces that also in a way express the time it took to travel/communicate along them back then?

<Alan> In a way, but traceroute takes the quickest route, and can reach a destination even bypassing a particular machine. And you can do this, run a number of them at once, from a single site - it's as if perception alone were traveling -

<Alan> And with physical routes - I'm thinking of pre-Nara contacts between Japan and China - ships would set out, and that would be the end, no return at all, nothing

<Keith_Pomfret> how do we know that the times or the routes are accurate?

<elizabeth> That is like the ***

<Helen_Whitehead> essentially we can find out the computers our message is going through and how long it takes?

<Alan> Helen for the former it's traceroute - ping just pings the host

<Alan> They reach their destination -

<Alan> As for accuracy, most of the machine now give readings to the microsecond.

<elizabeth> Noah's dove

<Keith_Pomfret> I'm not convinced

<Alan> Journeys with black holes fascinate me. (Keith, that's ok - I am :-) ) - what happens when a plane disappears and the cause is never found...

<Helen_Whitehead> So these ancient routes are significant for you? In your writing you are influenced by folktales of ancient China and Japan?

<Alan> Not folktales - I rarely read them - more like philosophy and religious texts, some koan, literature (Heian diaries, etc.) -

<Helen_Whitehead> Yet your parables remind me of folktales

<Alan> I think a lot of my work revolves around destinations that aren't reached -

<Mazzy> Alan, were your inspirations for the Parables modern or ancient?

<Alan> Modern -

<Helen_Whitehead> You are more interested in the travelling?

<Mazzy> :)

<Alan> Well, I've read Japanese folktales, and I really don't see that? They're more like Zen stories if anything -

<Helen_Whitehead> Ah that's probably what I see...

<Alan> Definitely in the traveling. When I do electronic music, say, or even video, a lot of the work is in real-time

<Alan> But then they're not Zen either,

<Alan> they relate to, say the philosophy of language (Saul Kripke for one)

<Beth_Garrison> but what about when you were younger? as a child?

<Beth_Garrison> (ive brought my son, erin says hi)

<Alan> When I was a child I joined the American Forestry Association and had tree pictures all over the place

<Alan> As well as runes and bits of telescopes

<Alan> - nothing ever seems/seemed irrelevant -

<Beth_Garrison> thank you.:o)

<Helen_Whitehead> Did you write as a child?

<Alan> in some ways all journeys are equivalent - not as a child, not until I was in high school and had a lot of rage in me -

<Helen_Whitehead> Is rage essential to write?

<Alan> no - I don't think so - it can even get in the way -

<Helen_Whitehead> Is emotion of some kind important?

<Alan> I don't think there is any "essential" in general -

<Margaret_Penfold> Did you have no rage in you before High School?

<Alan> for me, even emotion can get in the way at times -

<Alan> Oh, I'm sure it goes all the way back; like a lot of people's, my life has been fairly distorted

<mIEKAL> what about engagement as an essential

<Alan> For me engagement is essential, as is a kind of obsession, but then I look at the work of say more conversational 'cooler' writers and that doesn't seem to be the case -

<Sue> Alan I have a question about emotion and programming...

<Alan> Yes? -

<Sue> The two seem so very opposite - the ultra control of programming and the subjectivity of emotion..

<Sue> how do you see the 2 interacting in your work?

<Alan> Programming can provide a framework for writing - for me it's a catalyst. I don't use language generators, but programs to create an open articulation - and the semantics can be anything. Certainly programming itself is in its own, an obsessive task -

<Alan> My programming skills are poor; I can do what I need to do, though, and know my way around linux, say, really well -

<Alan> But I couldn't do dhtml or flash to save my life! Barry does great flash, as does Miekal -

<Barry_Smylie> not without yr scripts

<Alan> Even the little dhtml I've done has been done by hard-coding, typing the stuff in...

<Alan> I think the scripts might be easier; on the other hand, say, the work since the parables is again related to programs producing things -

<mIEKAL> I OFTEN DREAM of working with a tech, so I could focus

<Mazzy> Do you feel that your work HAS become more visual, particularly in collaboration, since being with trAce?

<Mazzy> Or was that always an aspect with video etc

<Alan> I think it's become less visual, which is fine; I never want to lose the philosophical or psychological underpinnings. But I've worked in video and film so long that a kind of seeing is second-nature to me - it's more a question of getting the equipment together...

<mIEKAL> on the creative

<Alan> Miekal, you might want to look into the Experimental Television Center...

<Alan> We have a show coming up with the material we produced there (Azure, Foofwa, and myself) at the end of this month at Millennium here -

<mIEKAL> I've never worked with video

<Helen_Whitehead> Do you have any recommendations for anyone trying to work in this field? An author here in the UK said "The Web is essentially the next development of tv and will be run for profit by the Media Corporations. There is absolutely no profit in this business as an individual and the big boys will soon have it all sewn up with digital tv."

*** Dan_Sondheim is now known as Dan

<Alan> I don't think there's really much profit in it, in relation to the arts - but most artists in gallery don't sell either. The difference between this and tv is that this is still, like linux, a fairly democratic medium; I can have a webpage - I can't have even a cable television program without going through endless bureaucracy

<Helen_Whitehead> Does your tv work have more application to the future of the Web than your writing?

<Alan> Helen, I don't think either of them do? The writing reflects on the Net in general (not so much the Web); the tv reflects on issues of body, language, virtuality, etc. - but nothing direct.

<Helen_Whitehead> Will that situation last do you think?

<Alan> Helen I tend to think forever -

<Alan> There's always a way - look at the rise and fall of Fidonet for example - which was wonderful early on with a 2400 baud modem or less

<Alan> As long as machines can connect -

<Alan> And as long as the demographics keep expanding - that's a real problem of course...

<Alan> As far as the future of the Web is concerned - I keep thinking, more bandwidth - and a change, heading towards, ultimately, hyperlinked video -

<Barry_Smylie> great!

<Alan> and from then on, anyone's guess, but the holodeck provides a way of thinking about this -

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<Alan> the accompanying politics may well be another thing; on one hand I'm for complete free distribution of information online - on the other, I wonder when the plans for inexpensive atomic weaponry will reach my inbox -

<Alan> accompanied by addresses for plutonium acquisition...

<Helen_Whitehead> The nature of the Web being what it is, it may be that any hint of originality is instantly stolen and watered down in a myriad of copies. Do you think it's realistic for Web writers to keep ahead of the technology, or to use existing technology in new ways to make art? Will you have to learn DHTML in the end, or can the simple format of the parables still be relevant?

<Alan> Anything is relevant - I did do some simple dhtml and I hope to do some more, but I think what's relevant really is content-dependent. I also don't care about the stealing - I couldn't - enough of my work is taken as it is without permission. I also don't think anyone can keep abreast of all the technology at this point - I can't

<Mazzy> How do you feel about distribution/plagiarism/theft of art on the Web?

<Alan> - Mazzy, I expect it - recently though I was upset when my work was used by someone for a pro-life (so to speak) webpage - I was really disgusted -

<Helen_Whitehead> It wasn't a very good webpage...

<Alan> Everything we do here is totally constituted by bits and bytes which can ultimately be reassembled by anyone else...

<Mazzy> It was pretty horrid ...

<Alan> But the politics disturbed me, and I felt somewhat raped (I know that's much too strong a word), as if my body/of work were taken from me -

<Alan> So I learned something from my reaction there - that my work was closer than I had anticipated.

<Alan> Straight satire or putdowns or theft don't bother me all that much...

<Alan> This did, though, just as right-wing politics greatly bother me -

<Annie_Milner> It seems that when something new appears it is immediately interpreted and turned into it's opposite

<Helen_Whitehead> Is it the unavoidable nature of the medium?

<Alan> It's subverted on all sorts of levels - the first use of the phone was supposed to be for pharmacists and doctors -

<Margaret_Penfold> There's the paradox. Is it democratic to ban the non-democratic

<Alan> But the families of the pharmacists and doctors used it for all sorts of gossiping -

<Dan> opposite...do you consider your work left-wing then? or apolitical?

<Helen_Whitehead> and the Net started out for military use

<Alan> I don't believe in banning, but I do believe in hacking - I don't know if that makes much sense -

<Alan> Left-wing

<Alan> Not Marxist, so -

<Annie_Milner> it is impossible to copyright these things

<Alan> One _can_ copyright, but it doesn't seem to mean much. I think if you were a large corporation, you could go after people with lawyers, etc. - but I certainly couldn't -

<Annie_Milner> I think it is like sampling in music

<Alan> sometimes I feel my work is a kind of burrowing - I don't get involved with the domain name or name.space controversy for example, but i'm concerned with flows of desire across networks, etc. -

<Helen_Whitehead> Will this affect the type of work you put out in future?

<Alan> Will what?

<Helen_Whitehead> The plagiarism, etc.

<Alan> I think my work is actually very narrowly focused... Ah, no, not at all -

<Helen_Whitehead> Will you think twice before publishing some of your work on the Net?

<Alan> No, not unless a publisher 'out there' asks me not to (so that she would have the rights to the work in entirety) - but that's very unlikely

<Helen_Whitehead> narrowly focussed....on what themes?

<Alan> On issues of body, binary systems, psychoanalytics, language, coding, phenomenology, etc. - how one lives in a world of symbols, through or beyond them -

<Annie_Milner> If it is written with the net in mind you have to let go a bit

<Mazzy> What future work do you have planned, or do you not pre-plan in any sense?

<Alan> I do pre-plan to some extent; next November we'll be making a new group of videotapes at the Center; I also want time desperately to work on the Internet Text and try to reduce its size by, say, a third - it badly needs editing and re-arranging. It's grown out of all proportions...

<Alan> I tend to get too fascinated by writing something new, doing new music, etc., rather than going into the older material - but I need to do that if it's going to go anywhere beyond anonymous files on a couple of servers...

<Alan> I'm also supposed to have a book out next year, or two - we'll see - and if they come through, I'd have to do a lot of manuscript assembling, etc.

<Mazzy> As a reader I find the structure hard to approach.....but would like to read the material.

<Alan> I agree Mazzy; my tendency is just to take a random file and read into / through it. They're about 25 pp. long each -

<Beth_Garrison> are you considering publishing the website in a cd format?

<Alan> Ah Beth, I spoke to you about that! That would be ideal - with a search engine built in. But I would need funding for that - no publisher will do it...

<Alan> I keep thinking about that because it could include graphics, some video clips, etc., as well as the writing, which is the most critical. And the dhtml or javascript stuff would work - but it would take several thousand dollars...

<Helen_Whitehead> Your themes seem particularly suitable for the Internet as a medium and a tool for distribution. Do you think this relevance of material is important for someone beginning to work on the Net?

<Alan> I think my work might be too difficult or strange for someone starting out? Without an ideal of virtual subjectivity or community, or, say, understanding lag, they might well get lost...

<Barry_Smylie> what about branching story lines and interactivity?

<Alan> Barry, for some reason I've been less interested in branches, unless they return as pseudo-branches. Even my hyper-linking is simple and one-way, and the projects I did for trAce are basically linear, although anyone could take them anywhere...

<Alan> But I would love to work on an infinitely-branching environment - I read Julian Dibbell's my tiny life, where he talks about his garden in a somewhat similar manner, the garden of forking paths...

<Helen_Whitehead> Has your residency with trAce allowed you to develop your work in ways you planned -- or has it taken you in new directions?

<elizabeth> Helen it's good question; interesting net writing often is self-reflexive to a degree. Perhaps it will 'grow out of' it... This used to be thought a virtue in poetry, e.g., by the old New Criticism.

<Alan> New direction, definitely - I really loved seeing what was done with the LoveandWar and Yours projects, and the Flash there - but also the very quality of writing. It gave me a great deal of joy -

<mIEKAL> likewise--

<Alan> I don't see so much self-reflexive as self-reflexive across the membrane, the planet - to the extent that self is problematic, and so are the selves we are emigrating towards...

<Helen_Whitehead> I'd like to ask how the requirement to keep a diary/journal of your writing process has influenced you?

<Helen_Whitehead> Have you found it useful to be encouraged to reflect upon the process, and will you continue?

<Alan> It's the first time I've ever kept a journal and it was very strange, all that economy of reading and book-acquisition there, and the overly-depressive tone which comes through and the sleeplessness...

<Helen_Whitehead> I certainly noticed the lack of sleep!

<Mazzy> …and the reading!

<Alan> I doubt I'd continue; one of the things that gives me energy is knowing that what I write there will be read by at least one other person -

<Alan> So it's also a subtle form of communication; I can't see keeping a diary for myself. I will go back and read into it, however..

<Alan> I do like the fact by the way it's just humble ascii text, straightforward, like reading Pepy's -

<Sue> Did you find that keeping a diary somehow depletes your stock of material, or enhances it?

<Alan> Complements it, certainly not depletes. By the way, one other comment that might be relevant -

<Alan> that a lot of my work isn't web-based, but comes out of perl or dialog programs in, say, linux or unix shells - so the result is ascii, not graphic at all -

<Alan> and even with graphics, I tend to work in odd programs although I just discovered Gimp for linux which has an amazing set of filters -

<Alan> so my projects aren't web projects and the subtlety or difficulty of the texts vis-a-vis technology might not be noticable - there are no moving surprises in them for example - although Barry has done amazing things!

<Margaret_Penfold> Thanks for an interesting evening, Alan, Helen. Am off now. Bye everyone

<Dan> so your work isn't going towards the holodeck type future you mentioned earlier?

<Barry_Smylie> the rhythm is in the text not in the flash

<elizabeth> Yes, these works are very strong & especially the last I thought

<Sue> Yes, congrats to you and barry for the latest works we've seen - beautiful

<Alan> Bye - I think it's in both -

<Alan> They're well integrated work -

<Helen_Whitehead> We are coming to the end of our hour with Alan. Are there any more questions anyone would like to ask him?

<Barry_Smylie> Alan is easy to work with

<elizabeth> Is the Lost project happening?

<Alan> I hope so; I'm waiting to hear from the webdesigner -

<Annie_Milner> yes Alan do you know John Cale ? :-)

<Alan> No, but there's a new bio out on him which is beautiful - just saw it -

<Annie_Milner> I always imagine you as a great friend of la monte Young s!

<Annie_Milner> New York intellectual stereotyping !

<Alan> I used to be friends with Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, but not Lamonte or those people, more like those 'other' people...

<Annie_Milner> I knew you must have some groovy friends

<Alan> And now I'm more hermetic, close to Tom Zummer and Leslie Thornton (theorist and filmmaker)

<Alan> But I was never part of "an" avant-garde here at all, not even a community of writers or artists - more sporadic.

<mIEKAL> do you think software will disappear?

<Alan> which has been a problem for me - working very much in isolation - which is one reason the Net has been so good

<Alan> disappear how?

<mIEKAL> as interface.

<elizabeth> I have to leave now too -- thanks, and to Helen for excellent structured interview.

*** elizabeth has quit IRC

<Mazzy> Hear, hear

<Alan> Oh I think so - as interface - as machines respond more and more, say, to voice...

<Sue> Yes, it has been very enjoyable - thanks to helen and alan both for clarifying so many things

<Helen_Whitehead> Sorry to interrupt: A reminder that in two weeks' time Christy Sheffield Sanford will be talking about the new issue of frAme, trAce's online journal of culture and technology

<Alan> The mouse is already a step in that direction of course - hand movements which aren't coordinated with writing -

<Alan> And what will be next week?

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<Alan> Hi Loki!

<Helen_Whitehead> Normal chat: anyone like to suggest a topic for in between our itnerview series?

<mIEKAL> bye all

<Alan> bye Miekal -

<Sue> perhaps we could discuss a topic in webboard

<Sue> and decide as the week goes on

<Alan> That sounds good

<Annie_Milner> you aren't going to disappear are you Alan?

<Annie_Milner> will you become a 'normal' member of trace?

<Alan> Disappear? After February I'll cut back a bit on Webboard and stop the diary, but I'm around and still running (with others) the ficiton-of-philosophy, cyberculture, and cybermind lists etc. -

<Alan> I doubt I could be normal...

<Annie_Milner> :-)

* Sue laughs

<Beth_Garrison> Annie, you might really enjoy these lists..

<Sue> Alan, we wouldn't want you to be normal!

<Annie_Milner> where are they?

<Alan> I couldn't if I wanted to. Ask Azure!

<Alan> Cybermind is at listserv@listserv.aol.com and fiction-of-philosophy is at majordomo@purdue.edu

<Annie_Milner> are they all linked on your page?

<Barry_Smylie> bzzzt - electro shock therapy

<Alan> No, the page is a dead end!

<Helen_Whitehead> All this will go on a webpage based on this session log, as soon as possible

<Alan> bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! :-)

<Annie_Milner> ok

<Barry_Smylie> ouch

<Beth_Garrison> could we post the info on subbing to the lists?

<Annie_Milner> bye

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<Sue> but thanks very much Alan and Helen

<Alan> Cyberculture is at cmhsys.com - I think it's listproc - write me if you want the address at sondheim@panix.com -

<Sue> see you soon

<Alan> I could post the information on the Project Announcement -

<Alan> Bye Ginny -

<Annie_Milner> please do, alan

<Alan> Bye everyone - I should go myself -

<Alan> I'll talk with you next week -

*** Helen, Ginny, Mazzy have left #trace

*** Disconnected

Session Close: Sun Feb 06 22:16 2000

We hope you enjoyed this conversation and would like to join in.
trAce is live online every Sunday, and you are warmly invited to come along to the next meeting.

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