Re: <documenta X><blast> urb anim age

Greg Ulmer (gulmer@ucet.ufl.edu)
Sun, 7 Sep 1997 14:21:37 -0400 (EDT)

> relative passivity/activity of an embodied subject as a determinant agent
> in the formation of both an image and the terms by which an image is
> negotiated.
> which is to say:
> it's 12:13 AM.
> do you know where your attention's drawn?
>
>

RECOGNITION
the most famous recognition scene in the history of literature is the
identification of Odysseus by his scar.
Tragedy (and comedy)--theater--use recognition as a feature of plot:
some detail triggers a memory, makes an association, and the uncanny
passage from unfamiliar to familiar takes place. The result is:
ANAGNORISIS. The turning from ignorance to knowledge, giving onto a
disaster that is either foolish or fatal.
theater used recognition to focus attention. The device itself was
often unmotivated, arbitrary, artificial, and fell into disrepute in the
epochs of verisimilitude.
Advertising relies upon recognition. It exposes a glimpse of the
disaster (the bait), then (the switch) erects the commodity in its place
(as solution).
The answer to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
is another disorder (Attention Deficit).
(I WOULD be haunted
except I get DISTRACTED
so easily).
The TESTIMONIAL must devise a new use for recognition
post-tragic.

for the emerAgency
Greg Ulmer

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documenta X Kassel and http://www.documenta.de 1997
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