Sarahel's Semiotics 4U

that was xp to ikr.

aw

I was never aware of D/G outside of my studies. I read and absorbed Nomadology in an academic context (and indeed used references culled therefrom for a successful finals paper), and only interpolated elements into poetry because my own artistic response was so compulsive.

Everything in football is a path, rather than a route. Ethpecially if you have a lithp.

to clarify MW, you mean that the formulations and strategies of team sport are finite and repeatable and so the element of choice of ways of moving are not as plentiful as they seem so there is a False choice?

(Admittedly, there are some paths more well-trodden than others)

we're not complaining about you, unless your poetry was published in artforum or something.

yeah but I think that helps when you're talking about strategies for employing space, what I meant was that the nuance of chess really depend on the whole, whereas the nuance of sports can be much more localised and idiosyncratic

want to get into chess more fwiw

I think my annoyance at the D&G-rationalizing art projects, is that by citing the theorists they are implying that their projects have conceptual heft, when a lot of the time, they seem whimsical and lacking in rigor.

tbh my experience of art school has led me to realize that most uses of the word querying/deconstructing etc. actually mean nothing of the sort, but that the guy who made it kinda thought about some of that stuff once jus sayin

Extracts were published in a low-key brochure made by a university friend. The thing I most fervently derived from D&G was the infinite possibility for mischief and mayhem, rather than any high-minded art-wank sombriety, and also the idea that even in space, things are linked, and can recur in different forms. Citing a philosopher and then demonstrating none of the principles implied is the height of philistinism.

Chess is a striated whole, yes, according to nomad theory, and field sports are a lot more disjointed. Space is even more important in the latter, because it actually exists. The spacelessness of chess is what makes it so controllable and unartistic. Not that it is a bad activity. I was enormously rapt by chess not so far back. It's very good fun.

what is an art circle

http://www.abstractdigitalartgallery.com/artgallery-psion005-abstract-digital-art-fractal-Psytrip.jpg

http://www.ccca.ca/history/isaacs/english/images/68chess1.jpg btw

http://www.success.co.il/knowledge/images/Pillar8-Thought-and-Art-Vitruvian-Man-Leonardo-da-Vinci.jpg
art circle

xp most of D&G fans were social practices/relational aesthetics people ... I think.

fart circle

lol his navel is the centre of the circle, i never noticed that

sarahel do you mean professional flashmob organisers because if ever a nomadic principle has been hijacked for nefarious ends, that is it

to clarify MW, you mean that the formulations and strategies of team sport are finite and repeatable and so the element of choice of ways of moving are not as plentiful as they seem so there is a False choice?

Essentially, yes. I get impatient with either/or comparisons which purport to rely on some kind of 'hard science' or quantifiable differences but are really just aesthetic or personal, when it's precisely what's personal or aesthetic (to me) whcih justifies and explaining why is more fun and more rewarding than proving why. That said, I do rather love Borges' labyrinth of endless desert.

somewhere I have a list of parody social practices/relational aesthetics art projects I made up, if anyone's interested.

xp - in a similar vein as flashmobs ... yes.

MW, I meant that the minutiae of sport involved unforseeable paths. There are undoubtedly tactical 'routes' which are just as worthy of study, and perhaps even more worthy of admiration. There is something magnificent about a team using good tactics to pull off a result it wouldn't otherwise have pulled off. The specifics, well, they're the paths taken. Nothing scientific about them. The science is in the approximation of organisation.

I would like to see that list Miss El

the context is - a friend of mine did a project at some conference for social practices/relational aesthetics and said most of the other projects were lame, so I made these up.

1. birfday barfday - I ate too much cake and threw up at my 8th birthday
party. It was a slumber party. I was really embarrassed. I have commissioned
a fashionable indie clothing designer from Portland to create adult sized
replicas of the clothes me and my friends wore at the party. I will invite
attendees to reenact my 8th birthday party, and this time I won't throw up.

2. learning to love mommy more - a number of prepaid cell phones will be
available for participants to call their mothers. Participants will also
fill out surveys noting what they appreciate most about their mothers as
well as their first name and their mother's phone number. Participants will
also have the option to call one of the mothers on the list and relate to
her what her child values about her that they might not be able to or wish
to say.

3. cashing in your CHiPs - this project will bring people together - artists
and non-artists alike - through their reminiscences about the 70s television
program CHiPs. Teams will be formed based on a participant survey of whether
they preferred Ponch or John.

4. am I the cute one? - participants will bring with them a photo of someone
they've been told they resemble but believe they are better looking than.
They will then go around the room holding up the photo next to their face
and asking everyone, "Who is cuter?"

5. everyone's shit stinks - stool samples will be collected from
participants and there will be comparative smell tests. Participants will
also be required to write a one page diaristic essay about what they ate the
day before and recount a significant food memory.

Chess/Football variables in common

Use of space wrt limitations
Speed (especially with timed chess play)

Mental acuity and agility

Physical prowess and agility (admittedly for chess, if you can breathe, cogitate, see, raise your arm and grasp a piece, you're good. It's considered good form, though not necessary to be able to kick a football with a relative degree of accuracy in soccer)

Style of play/tactics

Naffness of kit (Don't laugh, many a chessmaster was felled by unexpected dazzle-ships patterned scarfs worn over lilac and blue striped shirts with silver piping 'round the sleeve hems.)

Fans/Groupies

Feel free to add your own...

!!!!

That is an amazing post.

Sarahel please tell us abt the semiotics of which theorists ppl use to illustrate the importance of their stuff.

Gravel: crap ... I've temporarily stopped paying attention. I'll have to do some research, and get back to you.

MW, I meant that the minutiae of sport involved unforseeable paths.

However, I cannot forsee many paths in chess whereas 'God' or some awesome robot from the future with a super brain/computer could see all the variables on the pitch as *ho hum* so predictable. "If he punts it up there, the defender will be able to get to the ball before the attacker, whereas if he passes it out to the winger, they'll get bogged down. Best to run at the defense a bit and see if you can shake them up. Maybe get one your backs up a bit and see if you can get that guy on your right to run down the touchline. The you pass it *just so* (robot brain makes 20 zillion precise physical calculations) and he volleys it into the box *just so* (whir, whir) and then you can charge at the box, dive *just so* and head the ball to *boink, zap* that exact spot over the keeper's left where he hesitates so much."

I bet you my robot could do all that and beat you at chess and compose a sonata all at once.

where are the chess hooligans? i guess bobby fischer was proto-NF...

MW, are you saying that in field sports, the goal is a passive aperture, which can be attained through physical calculation, whereas in chess, the goal is a mutable human agency whose intentions are hidden?

The plot thickens...

There's a recent movie version of Chess the musical with Clarke Peters in it.

'am i the cute one' is my favourite fwiw, although it is also the simplest and least poststructuralist

Sarahel please tell us abt the semiotics of which theorists ppl use to illustrate the importance of their stuff.

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Tuesday, August 11, 2009 6:47 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

foucault - sociology majors
derrida - lit majors
deleuze - art majors
heidegger - philosophy majors

donna haraway was popular with gender studies people at one point.

cixous/foucault/butler - gender studies or womens studies or queer studies or whatever

I've been out of those academic circles for over a decade ... my grad program was pretty unaware of contemporary theory trends, considering ... it was definitely strange to me, going from a media studies department driven a lot more by critical theory/lit/art stuff to one that was more focused on journalism/social science.

i told my momz that Deleuze and Guattari were pretty popular in lit circles these days and she was all "lol whut in the sixties we thought they were crazy people i thought it was only art d00ds who were taken in." Except in, like, super polite psychoanalyst language. (momz also thinks zizek is a charlatan why because she hates Lacan)

my brother is all about the heidegger, i actually find it pretty offensive tbh.

heidegger is awesome on women's footware tho

i just like reading stuff i dunno what's cool in what circles these days

my only experience with zizek is from special features on the DVD for Children of Men ... I wasn't that enthralled, though he seems to be the new baudrillard, who I actually do like.

harbl is massively otm although it pays to know thy enemy

don't feel like paying for any Ann Coulter books, though.

zizek is many shades of awesome imo

willing to give him a shot.

i am fond of the zizz despite his habit of inventing antagonists who only about exist in the realms of plausibility (see: the leftist supporters of ahmadinejad in his recent lrb article (while his political writing is not his critical writing they share as it were tendencies)) but his books so far have been fairy gold for me-- they seem substantial while in front of your eyes but when you put them aside your brain is no fuller than when you started.

personal fave is the puppet and the dwarf fyi, there's a lot of repetition between books tho

promising title.

oh yeah all his books are the same. i like him iirc. his writing style can be really, really, really annoying though. "is this not the x of y?" over and over

I like Barthes and Eco's essays a lot. The more heavy theory stuff still gives me master's thesis flashbacks ... the instinct to look for succinct quotes, etc.

i like barthes. mythologies is one of my favorite books ever, v fun read. i am trying to remember what zizek to read though, i think the first i read was welcome to the desert of the real, which is not very heavy.

last year i was reading "for they know not what they do," and i didn't finish bc long book is long

mythologies is great. Eco's Travels in Hyperreality is also awesome.