Ulmer 3

“As an institution of the image, the Internet is the prosthetic unconscious of a virtual america becoming global, and in this capacity it constitutes a living, dynamic, thinking and feeling monument” (115).  The internet is based on images.  The internet is a medium that allows those who practice theoria to experience monumentation in a digital sense.  Ulmer recently posted a picture of a place I presume he wanted to visit but was satisfied with a Google Street view image. -- Prosthetic indeed.

The MEmorial attempts to reduce the resistance by supplementing (merely) the literate tourist experience with the electrate image designed to expose ones own presence as shadow or blind spot in a collective field... (116).  

The emblem for the Chilean miners in many senses could be the image of the shirtless miners in the mine.  Ulmer says that “the most useful feature of the emblem-ad operation is the translation of values across cultural domains” (124).  I find this especially interesting for the case of the Chilean miners because many of the miners mentioned that they were more warmly welcomed outside of Chile.  One miner said that the people of Chile were jealous and barely paid attention to them, while in the United States people were flocking to touch or just to see the “33”.  The image of the miners, in the darkness, is a large sense was transmitted around the world.  But, perhaps the punctum hit most strongly in the United States where the miners where companies who were pinched by this emblem were vying to send the miners numerous gifts such as mopeds and other things.


“The purpose of the peripheral is to make a case for losses of life (or other expenditure) whose public, collective relevance as sacrifice are not recognized” (131).  This is interesting in that it presumes that the sacrifice is not recognized.  I’m wondering why it is necessary to have a MEmorial if society can decide to have a regular Memorial.  Nevertheless the idea of the MEmorial, in a way, makes Memorials more sticky.  They cause the viewer and the creator to actively engage in the memorialized.  This, is certainly an elusive thing that many have tried to strive after- a rich way of describing something.

Ulmer says that materialism and other things “bring abject experiences into discourse without” glorifying them (132).  He then follows that with the idea that the MEmorial is to “articulate the unacknowledged values to be found at this level of experience” (132). He then goes on to elaborate that the piercing idea should be abject in that the “community acknowledges” the problem but does not recognize it as a sacrifice (134).  This idea is tremendously powerful to the MEmorial we are proposing.  In fact, in doing our MEmorial the object is secondary to the goal of the MEmorial.  But, does one necessarily overshadow the other?  We’ll see.

The MEmorial is to take what might be viewed individually a number of times and aims to bring it into a way of being that can affect the collective public.  The digital apparatus could not be more perfect for doing this.  Indeed, this, would not (likely) be possible without the internet.

Ulmer asserts that the cause of the sacrifice is not important as is the sacrifice.  But, I find it troubling when he asserts that this “sacrifice” pays the debt.  What debt, to whom, and who or what compels this.  I see where he is going with the idea, but I think it is over sold.

The idea that electrate writing (or composition) does not express “truth” but that it expresses the ideas is interesting.  The transition from literacy to electracy highlights the differences between literacy and electracy.  Whereas literacy (it could be argued) aims to express a truth; Ulmer actively argues that electracy is more “obtuse”. 

I am particularly fascinated when Ulmer begins to explain the origins and reasons of puncepts.  He explains that Lacan writes of tree’s or words using all definitions of them and all forms of the word (151).  This is very interesting to me as it seems to assume an interesting link between word and thing.  These ideas of thinking creatively, seeking to find more meanings and draw them into communicating a thing seem to be very key to electracy.

Ulmer explains that consultation is not based on “text”.  Of particular interest to me is how he continues to deconstruct the idea of the material metaphor of weaving that is often tied to the notion of writing.  He furthers this with the idea that MEmorial is “felt” which (after a fashion) continues the textile metaphor.  So “MEmorials are not texts but felts”(167).  Sythesizing this with all of the other information provided to me about what a Memorial suggests to me that a major goal of the MEmorial is to (in the form of a peripheral) create a monument to an abject sacrifice and to do this by making a testimonial.  I’m most fascinated by the various realms of materiality and really- multimodality that are described in this book as possible methods of creating the neon glow to be experienced by one who sees the monument.  

MEmorial

“it is our task to bring about a state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against facism”  (Ulmer, quoting Benjamin 59)  This seems to imply that recognizing a sense of emergency (or an exigency) is imperative for something to justfy memorialization.  That being said, creating a memorial (peripheral or otherwise) brings the issue to the consciousness of the people and can then allow action to happen.  This is an important idea as it is also the reason for having a MEmorial in the first place.

The urgency for this is no accident.  It is mirrored in the name EmerAgency.  “merge, emerge, emergence, urgency, urge” all of these terms are part of the portmanteau.  This notion of Pun is something I am trying to work into our MEmorial as it serves many purposes.  The pun reminds the user that there are multiple concepts coming together and I think that in a very large way it reminds the user that words (like thoughts and ideas) are malleable.  

This malleability seems to be a a key point in the notion of electracy.  Ulmer argues that critical reason is based on a fallacy.  And this, is precisely the point where electracy can step out.  Reasoneon is the perfect blend of this importance.  While other literacies strive for clarity, electracy seeks to capture the aura of something.  This is precisely the neon glow that attracts attention.  Ulmer captures Benjamin's idea so clearly when they discuss the notion of the sizzle selling the steak and not the steak itself.

Im fascinated by this idea that the Agency casts a shadow.  Ulmer steps outside of the box (again) in describing the caligraphy of the phrase EmerAgency.  There is one key idea that I think he misses.  The idea that a memorial can cast a shadow over other things.  I have come to calling this something that is DeMemorialized.  When one thing is memorialized, something else is not.  Not everything can be memorialized and have all of the attention called to it.  However, I do quite agree that finding the things “aura” can be a very elusive thing and that very few will attempt to do this (though many of them are featured prominently in the readings).

Ulmer almost gets to discussing the idea of DeMemorialization when he touches on “compassion fatigue”, but I don’t think he quite gets there.  However, the idea that he presents is important.  This idea that people are “tired” of being compassionate, and that they know more about more “situations” now, than ever before, but yet, they do not have the capacity to be compassionate towards them because they are just another caught in the flow.

As I move through this book I am consumed with the idea that there “is more to this, than there is to this”.  As that line is mentioned in Mel Brooks the producers a conservative, inside-the-box thinker and being encouraged by a broadway producer (and scam artist) to try new things.  The producer is encouraging the fellow that he is a “fountain” and that there is “more” to him “than there is to him”.  I think it is clear that Ulmer is openly inviting people to build upon his work.  Where others seem to shroud their ideas in secrecy and preventative langugae, Ulmer’s work begs to played with.  

In forming the EmerAgency he is giving Egents Agency.  The notion of the MEmorial is but a frame work.  In fact in many ways the notion of electracy ( I think) is still being realized.  It is up to those who do the scholarship to frame where the scholarship is going.

That being said, for the MEmorial I am working on creating we are actively trying to make it evocative.  Ulmer says that we should not try to literally re-create the experience, but that we should convey the idea.  This is where I suspect many might get stumbled.  I think traditional monuments do this quite well.  For instance the Oklahoma bombing site does not literally translate what happened; so why should a MEmorial?  The symbolism is quite important.  The key is capturing the instance and transforming it into that neon glow.

A MEmorial begins as a respose to news (65), I suppose in many ways all things are news and that our understandings of things are rhetorical.  In my case, the MEmorial is very much based on the news but I am not sure that this is, necessarily, the starting point from which a MEmorial must begin.  In many ways I find myself resistant to setting up too many ground rules (which Ulmer is continuously and somewhat slowly unfolding) with regards to making a MEmorial.   I’m hoping to incorporate a number of different elements into capturing the “Aura”.  These, seem to be important ideas as far as the MEmorial and electracy as a whole go.

Wrapping up I think Ulmer does an awesome job presenting a variety of different mediums that serve as MEmorial.  Any ciriticism I might have is largely put into check by the approachable nature of the work and the creativity that it inspires.  In that respect I am very anxious to meet with my group tonight and continue working on our project.

Re/Think(ing) Memorials

Synthesizing all of today’s reading it seems to be a call to re/think memorialization. By that I mean not only the process of making memorials, but also the notion of considering what should be memorialized and how this might best be captured.  For this to work we need to be more creative (I’m saddened by how hollow that sounds).  This innovation will not come from inside any discipline (3), but as egents in an electrate age we should be free to draw on all forms of experience in order to create.

Building from the tragedy of 9/11 Ulmer constructs the notion of MEmorial which is ultimately an electrate memorial.  What is the difference?  “MEmorial visualizes at least a part of this formation of coherance in which electrate society is held together not by a master narrative but by collections of meaningless signifiers” which materially emobody the sinthome (symptom). (Ulmer 28)  What does that mean?  I’m not 100% sure.  But, I am reasonably sure that it calls for us to re-think what we think.  By that I mean that our general assumptions about things (in this case memorials) are not necessarily sufficient in the age of electracy.

This idea seems to be supported when Ulmer states that the purpose of this experiment is to “invent a role for digital technology in general” (34).  That is to say, that all to often I feel that we assume that things are already set in stone and we are reacting to them.  I think the point of the MEmorial is to ACT on something instead of re-acting to that thing.  We do not yet know what role technology is going to play in society, but we can un-do the fact that it is here.  We can, however re-think the way we use it.  Further than that I opine that we must constantly consider our use of things.  As Turkle cautioned us to be careful in our use of technology or at least cautioned us with regards to accepting technology.  So too do I feel that Ulmer is calling us to re/un think the way we do things right now.

At one point in the book Ulmer describes an assignment he was given in a class.   He was told to “Draw Kierkegaard’s laugh and integrate it into the model of Nietsche’s eternal return that you constructed out of cardboard last week” (38)  I’m not sure I would know how to respond to that.  I think that’s the point.  Most of us do not know how to respond to things that are so strange.  Yet, it can hardly be denied that many of the most important things, if they are to be re-thought, will be re-thought in strange ways.

“This consultation is conducted in the spirit of the musical sense of chora: music associated with the muses and hence with general (economy) rhythms absorbed unawares through the musical experience by the young were to be made explicit by means of philosophy” (39).  This statement goes on to further support my claim.  I expect that we could suggest any number of metaphors for a MEmorial.  Music is particularly interesting because it plays into his description of the Traffic Sphere MEmorial.

Traffic Sphere



The notion of the ear in the sky is particularly fascinating because Ulmer remarks that this device does not need to be built in order to be effective.  Ultimately, The goal of traffic sphere was to “make highway fatalities perceptible, thinkable, recognizable as sacrifice” this is to be done by shifting them away from the “private sphere of one at a time” (43). Ultimately this ear will reveal the rhythm of crashes.  

The reasons for conducting a MEmorial are almost as numerous as you can imagine.  Individually I feel that each thing has plenty of room for memorialization.  However, at one point Ulmer comments that automobile accidents would take on their “proper significance” (45) if they were given their own section of the evening news.  I find this troubling, because firstly it assumes that these things are inherently valuable (I’m not asserting they are not) but secondly if this is important that certainly numerous (NUMEROUS) other things are equally important.  At this point the tv news would be flooded with everything.  I’m reminded of Henry Jenkin’s re-thinking television as something akin to a giant user specific swirl.

To wrap things up, this chapter calls for a reconsideration of how we memorialize things.  The chapter also goes into discussing what a memorial is and how we can use different ideas to impress the memorial onto an individual and to the collective.

What is a memorial?

How can we re-think this memorial?

Do all things deserve to be memorialized?

Is it possible for something to be un-memorialized?

Ulmer, Gregory. Electronic Monuments . 1st ed. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minesota, 2005. ix-280.