Updated knowledge-flux theory (original Perforations 3, 1992)

[Alan Sondheim]

Updated knowledge-flux theory (original Perforations 3, 1992)


Epistemologically, the very concept of knowledge flow questions structure
introspective self-consciousness. Digitizing - a form _matrix_ or _sieve_
topology guarantees both totalized reproducibility formatted and its
neutrality. The former refers to channelling knowledge, latter "inertness"
in relation previously inviolate operations introspection. also insures
that is flux; flux necessitates gating continued channeling; these
necessitate gate-keepers data-locators. Introspections becomes matter
location within cyberspace. Cyberspace contentless; last vestige
anthropocentrism disappear postmodernism _meaning_ itself. Meaning always
spills beyond matrix; it occurring subterranean investment, an excess
which remains irreducible. What meaning _attribute-meaning,_
_meaning-sub-x,_ where x given cognitive domain issues translation. From
_beings_ _Being,_ from _meaning-sub-x_ _Meaning_: ultimately are
transformations digital analog, matrix continuum, object subject,
inscription fissure. rootedness "ultimate" sense Quine, untranslatable,
regional morphology. "message" current video computer worlds, however, as
with McLuhan medium _is_ message, "content" replaced by (or equivalent to)
production-value. production-value but fetishizatio representation
production overarching "originary" style absorbs debris, seepage that,
fact, _communicates_ value, value production? Everywhere cyberspace,
Gibson _Bladerunner_ notwithstanding, occurs clean room dirt exists only
signifying. (Only fissuring body escapes this even body-production.)
communication channel well; represents producer, product, corporation,
medium, signified. Production-value signifies economic technological
capital well. increases extent recognized such; maintained through
recognition habitus. increased "slipperiness" content production-value;
expands knowledge-flux. clean, fetishized, redundant, continually
overlapping itself, inscribing reinscribing. Breakdowns viruses for
example stop machnery, scrap programs, create headaches; breakdowns
fissure flux, recodes, redistributes, bypasses. (A model could be drawn
directly _Porifera,_ sponges whose cells gate nutrient-rich water
throughout body.) It not irrelevant invoke Sartre's notion seriality
capitalism here "inauthentic" group coheres virtue secondary alienated
labor. For knowlege seriality; machine operators (sysadmins) themselves,
nodal at heads tails flux-vectors, speak think as-if thinking occurs. "But
them dreaming." (_Critique Dialectical Reason._) brackets develops
accumulation nodes ruptures temporarily sampling impeding flows, just like
ostensible ideally foreclosed bureaucracy. Hence introspection challenged
flux-knowledge two ways: 1. contents placed matrix, thereby "cleansing"
operation (no leakage, no excess). 2. introspecting organism temporary
neccesary (so far) impediment flows. clear one witnesses return classical
behaviorism here, inverted behaviorism. There longer stimulus/response;
there flows impediments. does "respond," bypassed. Instead response
"fueled" interior energetics, swept exterior energy; self-simulacrum. If
("human") self-simulacrum, recognizes itself representation. Body
transformations, example, fissures, inscriptions; they represent capital,
style, value. produces duces knowledge-flux result Inscriptions chatter,
do dissolve, upon surface. _Within knowledge-flux, representation._
presumed "shallowness" "depthlessness" postmdoernism representation,
which, infinitely deep, extending entire domain. In sense, virtual reality
contraction, expansion know- ledge-flux; what cannot represented bandwidth
human sensory receptors. (And real far more than course so _any_ reality,
seamless perfected, already foreclosed.) phenomenology much tenuous
expansive reality; gloss real, sheen fetish On level technology, consider;
increasing number screens resolution them; emphasis on real-time displays
transformations; infinite spread- sheets; invisible rasters;
reconstruction "audio sphere" surrounding viewer; absolutely flat
responses (vis-a-vis perception); fetishization "blankness" equipment
display rooms; feedback monitoring responses; calculating speed
memorydensities; miniaturization; exponential increase networking with-
without immediate environment; continuous "exfoliation" peripheral
technologies components; decreased fixed standards combined translation
polymorphic environmentally-sensitive standards. will come increasingly
inhabit terms time phenomenological horizon organism. "compact,"
self-(re)produce self-monitor. Any question "intelligence" artificial
become new neural networks, vectors, arise. _Porifera_: "Two unique
organizational attributes define have played major roles poriferan
success. These features channels, _aquiferous system_ (and _choanocytes_),
totipotent nature sponge cells." ... "Increases size surface area
accomplished folding wall into variety patterns. Furthermore, variation
overall shapes results different growth patterns various environments.
This general plasticity fact most individual capable radically altering
their function needed compensate part absence tissues organs. aquiferous
system brings though close responsible food gathering gas exchange." "The
volume moving sponge's remarkable." (Brusca Brusca, _Invertebrates._) *The
Gate-Keepers (Routing Service Community) exist double bandwidth: channels
before them, apparatus decision-making. insert withdraw filtration flow,
retaining re-entering. Temporary skeins matrices beck call; ordered
reordered, events described, descriptions circulate entities. node moment
intensification, vortex machinery. passes elsewhere, duplicates
reduplicates belong community; perhaps unionized. They share customs;
information shuttles between them. Information leverage, input output;
scrip. Quantity enters picture flee again. control flight; exile. exiles,
existing margin social body.

Paradoxically, up evidence senses. screen momentary, souvenir best, brief
unwieldy turbulence current. identity, identity-flux. see depth; feel it.
depth real. lexicon operations. fear admire viral attacks. follow virus
machine, observing duplications erasures. aware, else, long complex
history. witnessing beginning life, literal life organization proper
Ridding themselvs virus, Interspecies communication. Other forms ensue.
ghosts; program ectoplasm. Languages develop collapse beneath ride higher,
forgetting assembly codes saturating electronic. called "speech."
concerned nothing else except incoming. Their bandwidths shudder occlude:
information, control; needs controlled; charge? Everything shifts another
level; levels, intensities. Sensory reduce! senses necessary; bits fly
every diretion, coherent. insist coherency things; margins mesh,
operations; things devolve against exigencies starvation, geopolitics,
militarisms all sorts. remain distance depth. Whispers along pipeline,
rumors. rumors bodies, flesh translated symbolic. Rumors necessary.
gate-keeper perfect sphere; spread lightning, static discharges across
Pathways separate forever, rejoin. sphere engorged, never devoured,
devouring. float above surface; rings hollow resonances entering
information. keepers make decisions. shuttle. seized. *Questions M.
Chaput* "Objects can apprehended aesthetic technical wholes; been
fragmented.

  "It possible master composition thorugh old semantic procedure component
parts, structure,system, product. Instead, we find superimposed multitude
mutually unintelligible codes. Each field has own code, synthesis
necessary apprehension any particular reached common labor specialists,
putting grids another's disposal hope resisting few moments continental
drift reshaping world science. "In impossible synthesis, everyone left
grasp whatever his competence allows deal element less secret deep-lying
layer. "As move outer strata, shell towards kernel, faced reading after
another" "until reach structural core. vain, pursue chimera encyclopaedic
ledge, unless restrict ourselves anonymous realm data banks like. loss
mastery important mustrely considerable degree magnification, causes
partial blindness." ("From Socrates Intel: Chaos Microaesthetics" _Design
Modernism,_ ed. John Thackara, London, 1988.) if were "structural core,"
material substrate integral software interfacing used organism;
interconnected others, functioning; states components substrates
indiscrete, irretrievable; flow-formations traveled, redundant form, media
copper, gold, silver, air, glass, vacuum carriers (neither wave-form nor
particle) electrons, holes, photons; structures surrounded
guard-structures, potential wells (preserving internal coherency)
infiltrated antibiotics (protecting decay); bounced planet; relativistic,
particularly regard stasis "operating" partially linked (as case
infinitesimal degree) (sensory) "contents" flow-formations; network
duplicated reduplicated expanding data-bases, there, modified, returned,
reassigned speciation; core" became transport (on order molecular); cores"
(except trivial sense) "fields knowledge"; best part-objects, momentary
flux-states; strata simultaneously "shell" "kernel"; "layers" diffuse,
non-hierarchical; "competence" layers non-secret, erotic-pornographic
open; "chimera knowledge" "Once loaded (if still use such "metaphysics")
operates combinatorics, micro indi- vidual. Only when operating
instructions applied micros identical, multiple." (Chaput, op.cit.)
loading continuous; partial, blind; "moments"; "individualities" flickered
random receptors, organic _longings_; occurred body, gates open,
everything flux... +++