“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.
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.
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