[syndicate] What is Codework?

[Alan Sondheim]

Reclaiming of anything is pretty futile; the initial bypass always seems 
of interest. "Deconstruction" is a good example, as is Foucault's "power" 
(perhaps). But look at all the semi -s - semiosis, semiotica, semiotics, 
sememe, semantics - these words are all under contestation and the dialog 
gets more confused/ theoretical perhaps as a result. - Alan


On Wed, 17 May 2006, marc wrote:

> Hi Alan,
>
> Yes - I agree with the term  'canonic'
>
> The way that certain mannerisms, social or even eugenic 'constructions',  in 
> our languages and connected behaviours, readily appropriate something such as 
> code in to our cultures on many levels...
>
> The word becomes so loaded, that one sometimes has to redefine what it 
> originally means to one's self. Which you have via the process of poetic 
> study.
>
> Even perhaps reclaim it, or even find a new term for reasons that are more in 
> line to their specific needs of that time...
>
> marc
>
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks; I lost sleep over it; part of it was the realization that these 
>> things are rapidly becoming canonic...
>> 
>> - Alan
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, 16 May 2006, marc wrote:
>> 
>>> Thanks Alan,
>>> 
>>> I love this text, not emotinally - but more for its clarity about a 
>>> subject that can, for some, create confusion, which is explored here so 
>>> poetically...
>>> 
>>> A print out of this text is going on my wall :-)
>>> 
>>> marc
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> What is Codework?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Codework is a practice, not a product.
>>>> 
>>>> It is praxis, part and parcel of the critique of everyday life.
>>>> 
>>>> It is not canonic, although it is taken as such.
>>>> 
>>>> It is not a genre, although it is taken as such.
>>>> 
>>>> The term is relatively new and should always be renewed.
>>>> 
>>>> We are suffused with code and its intermingling with surface phenomena.
>>>> 
>>>> Wave-trains of very low frequency radio pulses for example.
>>>> 
>>>> Phenomenology of chickadee calls.
>>>> 
>>>> Codework is not a metaphor, not metaphorical.
>>>> 
>>>> It exists precisely in the obdurate interstice between the real and the
>>>> symbolic. It exists in the arrow.
>>>> 
>>>> It is not a set of procedures or perceptions. It is the noise in the
>>>> system. It is not the encapsulation or object of the noise or the system.
>>>> 
>>>> It is continuous; it is parasitic; it is thetic.
>>>> 
>>>> When it becomes metaphor, masterpiece, artwork, it is still-born; it is
>>>> of no interest except as cultural residue: it is of great interest to
>>>> critics, gallerists, editors.
>>>> 
>>>> When it is not collectible, not a thing, virtual or otherwise, it is not
>>>> of interest to critics, gallerists, editors.
>>>> 
>>>> Things have already taken up its name, as if pictures in an exhibition.
>>>> 
>>>> This is nothing more than the continuous reification, territorialization,
>>>> conquest, of the real - as if the real were always already cleansed,
>>>> available for the taking - as if the real were already transformed into
>>>> capital.
>>>> 
>>>> Capital is the encapsulation, objectification, of code. Capital drives 
>>>> the
>>>> code-conference, the code-book, the code-movement, the code-artist, the
>>>> code-masterpiece; capital drives the technology.
>>>> 
>>>> In short: Capital drives code into metaphor.
>>>> 
>>>> In short: Metaphor drives code into capital.
>>>> 
>>>> In short, but of greater difficulty: Capital drives metaphor into code.
>>>> 
>>>> In production, simpler: Metaphor drives capital into code.
>>>> 
>>>> The driving of metaphor, code, or capital is not codework.
>>>> 
>>>> Codework is the labor of code, subject to thermodynamics.
>>>> 
>>>> Codework is demonstrative, demonstrative fragment, experiment, partial-
>>>> inscription, partial-object, the _thing_ prior to its presentation, the
>>>> linguistic kernel of the pre-linguistic. Code is the thetic, the 
>>>> gestural,
>>>> of the demonstrative.
>>>> 
>>>> It the gesture that never quite takes. It is the noise inherent in the
>>>> gestural.
>>>> 
>>>> However: Codework will become a _subject_ or a _sub-genre_ or a _venue_ 
>>>> or
>>>> an _artwork_ or an _artist_ or a _dealer_ or a _collector._ However: This
>>>> is not codework, or: What I describe above is not codework; after all,
>>>> names are subsumed beneath the sign (Emblematic) of capital - as if
>>>> something is being accomplished. (Hackers who are not hackers are
>>>> unhacked.)
>>>> 
>>>> To code is not to produce codework; it is to produce code on the level of
>>>> the code or interface. Bridged code, embedded code, is not codework; the
>>>> irreversible spew of cellular automata is codework, all the better if the
>>>> rules are noisy. The cultural production of codework abjures intensifica-
>>>> tions, strange attractors, descriptions such as this (which is the oldest
>>>> game in the _book_). The hunt and reception of short-wave number codes is
>>>> codework. Writers on the edge are circumscribed by codework, 
>>>> malfunctioned
>>>> psychoanalytics, scatologies. Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Blacks, are endlessly
>>>> coded and decoded; the codes are dissolute, partial, always already 
>>>> incom-
>>>> plete: the differend is codework.
>>>> 
>>>> To speak against the differend is codework; tumors are codework, metas-
>>>> tases. The useless sequences of DNA, RNA.
>>>> 
>>>> Be wary of the violence of the legible text. Beware the metaphor which
>>>> institutionalizes, the text which defines, the text of positivities, not
>>>> negations, the circumscribing text, inscribing text; beware of the
>>>> producers and institutions of these texts, whose stake is in hardening of
>>>> definitions, control, capital, slaughter: Texts slaughter.
>>>> 
>>>> And texts slaughter texts.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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>> 
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>> 
>
>
>

blog at http://nikuko.blogspot.com - for URLs, DVDs, CDs, books/etc. see
http://www.asondheim.org/advert.txt - contact sondheim at panix.com, -
general directory of work: http://www.asondheim.org
Trace at: http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk - search "Alan Sondheim"