The Metaphor of Cyberspace

8/14/2019 The Metaphor of Cyberspace

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Body II: Structures, Bodies, and Space

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Electronic media is a field of relations that is becoming a vital part of what academics do.We are not simply caught in one web of relations. We are caught in disciplinarystructures, architectural structures, bureaucratic structures, interpersonal/communalrelations and structures, and now we can simply add the internet to the mix as another web of relations. All these structures are superimposed upon each other and upon our

bodies. The potential complexity of flow and relation between all of the structures is far beyond any logocentric explanatory model. We know these structures and relations arethere, but we a have a difficult time trying to conceptualize them all coming to bare on us

at one time. Every person is caught up in similar webs of significance and intertextualmeaning just like the academic. Steven Holtzman outlines a history of trying toconceptualize structure and its relation to the human in an attempt to deal with the waynew technology will influence this continually expanding interlinked space in which weare caught. In _Digital Mantras_ he claims "we are on the verge of a new age in creativeexpression" (vii): new ways to express ourselves, communicate, and create willaccompany the computer/digital age. His goal is to create an aesthetic based on theapplication of structure to language, music, art, and computer technologies. As a hyper-structuralist, he sees computers as the ultimate manipulators of "abstract structures." Theyhave the ability to manipulate/alter the structures of all human expression in ways theunaided human cannot. Holtzman situates this coming age of creativity in a long tradition

of formalism from early Indian grammar to Saussure and Chomsky, linking them tomodern abstract music and visual art.

In order to lay the general historical foundation for his structuralist position, Holtzmantraces a structuralist view of language back to Indian linguist Panini, some time aroundthe fourth century B.C. Panini is important for Holtzman not only because he was thefirst to develop and document a phonetics and grammar to describe language (Sanskrit),

but primarily for his theory's ability to be utilized as a generative or creative grammar.Part of the reason it can be used in this way is because it remains "the most consciouslyformalized [theory] of the Indo-European languages" (emphasis Holtzman, 13). Probablymore interesting is the fact that this tradition lead to more theoretical debates. FromPanini sprung the Mirmamsa school, a Vedic version of Plato which saw meaninginherent in ideal prototypes, and the not so surprising counter-point the Nyaya school,which saw "the relationship between words and meaning as purely conventional" (35).Around 150 A.D. Nagarjuna formed a new school under the premise that nature andlanguage are based on differentiation and "are said to be devoid of an intrinsic [value],and hence, empty" (qtd, 36). From this position another theorist, Dignaga, was able to

posit a theory of meaning based on negation, what something is not. Interestingly enoughit was a double negation (cow=not-not-cow). With theoretical ease Holtzman jumps to


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the 20th century and Saussure. Saussure studied Indo-European languages for over 20years, and Holtzman doesn't have to spend much time to make the case that he wasinfluenced by these early Indian thinkers. The important point of linguistic analysis for Holtzman is that it develops the notion of a system that is based on its own internalrelationships.

This notion of meaning through internal structure carries over to the discussion of music.Holtzman takes the reader through a discussion of The Circle of Fifths, the earlyfoundation for structuring musical compositions based on tonality, in order todemonstrate the traditional connection between structuralism and music. The technicalaspects of the circle of fifths are an important point in the development from thisstructural tradition to a more complex notion of structure in the 20th century. Around theturn of the century, composers Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern develop a new method for constructing compositions based on a full 12 note scale rather than the traditional 7 notescale. This approach can be used on pitch in conjunction with other traditional structuresfor rhythm and meter, or it can be applied to all aspects of music.

In terms of the visual arts, Kandinsky becomes Holtzman's archetypal figure. During theearly part of the 20th century he became very interested in the Serialist movement inmusic because he saw a connection between their work and his own. Kandinsky wasinterested in color and form/composition in relation to their psychic or emotive effect.This position lead him to privilege subjectless painting. In his work the "subject wasmissing"(71); there was no subject, and thus no object, only relationships. For him"Subjects lost their representational function"(72). In his book _On the Spiritual in Art_ he claims "we have before us the age of conscious creation" (qtd, emphasis mine, 76).What this conscious creation affectively creates is unconscious feeling, emotions, andreaction in the audience. With Kandinsky, Holtzman is able to see the potential for conscious, structured aesthetic creation, which opens the way for the arts to be formalizedand programmed into a computer, yet retain human feel and emotion. This becomes therole for Chomsky's "generative grammar." Holtzman wishes to use this rejuvenated ideafrom ancient India as a model for a computer generative grammar. The contested site of the subject in structuralism/post-structuralism leaves the door open for him to bringcomputers into the space of a "creative" subject.

In music the general move was also toward a dissolution of personality (the human, body?) for form. The inclusion of postwar composers Boulez, Stockhausen, and Cagemake this explicit. "Once Boulez had defined the rules, the 'mechanism' could run its owncourse. The process of composition was effectively automated" (91). Stockhausen andCage also open the way for Holtzman to potentially bring in chance/chaos theory intocomputer generated art. In opposition to a the strictly controlled formalism of Boulez,Stockhausen saw the potential for "controlled chance" through the "random ordering of segments" (94). Though Cage was more radical in his desire for happenstance, Holtzmanclaims that "All music can... be viewed as a formal abstract system. Even music that mayseem like noise or that is based on randomness and chance must have an underlyingsystem" (67). For him, "this reflects directly on the mind's ability to derive meaning bydifferentiating. Perception itself is a process of differentiation" (52).


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Holtzman goes beyond structuralism in a reductive sense. It is not limiting. It is open. For him subjectivity/agency is not internal to the human. It comes from outside, because thereis technically no distinct inside. The center is empty in that its content is predicated on thestructure of the relations around it. Holtzman goes all the way back to Nagarjuna to show

that this idea is not new. The fact that nature and language are based on differentiationand "are said to be devoid of an intrinsic [value], and hence, empty" (qtd, 36) is notsomething new to poststructuralism or Derrida. The opening created by the structure of aweb of relations is the generative space. It not only generates discourse, thought, and art,it also generates the notion of the subject, the individual, and identity. What Holtzmansuppresses in his discussion is the fact that there is something in this center. Its not thesubject, but the body. What is caught in the web is a physical body. Bodies are immersedin structures and they interact with other bodies that are caught up in interconnected websof relations. Once immersed in structures, the structures dictate what inter-relationshipswith other bodies are possible. They thereby determines/define the subject position, the

potential individual character traits, and the possibilities for combinations of identities.

But the structures cannot determine how bodies will interact once given the opportunity.The structures still cannot account for the element of chance. There is always an excess.Even if there is an underlying system, the system cannot know precisely how bodies willinteract as long as there is more than one possibility for interaction. This is the post-structuralist paradox- everything is determined but remains open.

This is the paradox of Derrida's reading of the term chora which he gets from Plato'sTimaeus. "Chora receives everything or gives place to everything, but Plato insists that infact it has to be a virgin place, and that it has to be totally foreign, totally exterior toanything that it receives. Since it is absolutely blank, everything that is printed on it isautomatically effaced. It remains foreign to the imprint it receives; so in a sense, it doesnot receive anything- it does not receive what it receives nor does it give what it gives.Everything inscribed in it erases itself immediately, while remaining in it. It is thus animpossible surface- it is not even a surface, because it has no depth" (Derrida, qtd.Heuretics, 65). The chora is the open space that is neither present nor absent. It generatesyet it has no formal substance. This is the space that the body inhabits within webs of interrelations. The body is not the chora. The chora has no substance. But the chora is theforce that arises from the interaction between structures, and the force is then expressedthrough the bodies that are immersed in the structures. What Holtzman must be callingfor is to replace the "human" body with the computer as a body. As long as we immerse itin the proper structure and give it the ability to interact with that structure, the computer will become productive. It will become the medium of the chora. But what Holtzmancannot account for is the excess of the unconscious. The choric space that cannot becodified because it has no presence in the traditional sense. With the aid of computers wecan calculate and conceptualize our structures more thoroughly, but we cannot accountfor excess. For absence.

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The Metaphor of Cyberspace