>to analyse specific well-documented
>>disasters as metaphors or figural displacements for the traumatic void of
>>individual identity formation
Greg, These issues are interesting to me, not only technologically produced
"disasters" (such as the Salton Sea) as media or touristic spectacles, but
also natural phenomena of such vast scale that they are seen as cataclysms.
The scale of such events or spaces has the property of suspending
consciousness and dissolving notions of self-containment.
We write the earth with our bodies....a geo-graphy to locate "self".
Inside/outside, self/other, here/there erode in cataclysmic space. Yet,
once we are outside of ourselves, we want to go back in. We know ourselves
by our (delusion of) separateness. Boundaries become a "necessity" of
consciousness. Yet beingness is not bounded by anything.
Perhaps this feeds the urgency define ourselves spatially (virtually or
otherwise).
...
Somehow I am also reminded of spatial configurations which have layers of
stratification, for example, Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. It's a long
street, and we think of it being a cultural construct, yet it is in fact a
glacial morrain... a natural road laid down by retreating ice. This road
became a trail for prehistoric and later animals, indigenous peoples,
colonialists, automobiles and other machines, Brooklynites and etceterrata.
Anomalous zones are forever beautifully unsettled and unsettling.
Eve Andree Laramee
>In my case, the discussion of the Salton Sea disaster is very relevant to
>my plans for my graduate seminar planned for the fall. The project for
>the seminar is to set up a website to promote and explore an "advocacy
>consulting." We will organize ourselves as the **emerAgency** and take as
>our area of specialization the intractable problems--the sort that baffle
>instrumental reason. I would like to discuss this approach here if anyone
>is interested. A shorthand note of the method could use the following as
>a reference
>
>>
>> The way in which such cultural productions end up blurred with natural
>> phenomena dusts my imagination with uncertainty and indeterminacy, and se=
ts
>> me on strange trajectories. The aspect of indeterminacy in virtual space =
is
>> also of interest. Where are we? (I'm not to the why and how yet)
>>
>> Eve Andr=C8e Laram=C8e
>>
>>
>>
>
> The approach, that is, is to analyse specific well-documented
>disasters as metaphors or figural displacements for the traumatic void of
>individual identity formation (subjectivation in poststructural theories
>of identity). What we learn from this aesthetic tuning between the
>external and internal mood/atmospheres may then be applied to the design
>of specific ways to address local problem solving in our community.
> The goal of the project is the formulation of an "instrumental"
>problem-solving that is specific to the humanities and fine arts.
>Suggestions, comments, consultations welcome. Also welcome are
>collaborations (once the course gets going in late August).
>
>best
>Greg Ulmer
>http://www.ucet.ufl.edu/~gulmer/
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>a forum on spatial articulations, perspectives, and procedures
>texts are the property of individual authors
>for information, email majordomo@forum.documenta.de with
>the following line in the message body: info blast
>archive at http://www.documenta.de/english/blasta.htm
>or http://www.documenta.de/deutsch/blasta.htm
>documenta X Kassel and http://www.documenta.de 1997
>-------------------------------------------------------------