The Body in Cyberspace

The nipple is the matrix of a lost cause, a nostalgia of a network plurality in which one is too few and two is only one possibility. What remains? As screenal tongues cleave and suck the pacifier of unreal ideologies and unreal referents, the cancer of the techno-democracy reveals itself. The nipples mandate the electronic passion of diachronic doubles that blur desire and labor.

The spasm of digital bytes legitimizes the violence of information. Both the left and right hand are driven by the ritual of representation and sacrifice before the keyboard of dromographic speed. What remains? Hyper-real hands, sociologically unconscious desiring machines, always already possessed. What remains?

The anal night calls the virtual tongue to leave the mouth and enter it, red and obscene. An eruptive force of luminous thirst that demands indecent rupture and debauched hacking. What remains? An ontology of farts, of breathless lacerations that reborder the body and begin to speak. A revolutionary breakthrough of a post-biological sound. What remains after the system digests everything? Virtual gas.t

Notebooks of Jacques Lacan in The Electronic Disturbance. Critical Art Ensemble. New York, Autonomedia, 1994.

Students' Reactions to their Bodies in Cyberspace

to dress in sounds and waves
applying the action that best suits the melody

to pry the conscious free from the going to go

new maestroes of the fluid skin beyond the innocent sin
engulfed in the flames of passion's sake

new gods to fondle and contemplate along with time
acting not as time but as a still life episode

caught in your photograph stuck to your puzzle new baptisms of fire and brimstone blending bodies burning
new rituals to release and consume the chaotic anything

to dress in the fluctuating currents
manipulating the will to best suit the cituation

to dance to move generate time and place with formula
to breathe clinch exhaust all possibilities
to inform new worlds of our arrival

***

animals licking their wounds and hair into place
pacing the cages of an ancient auditorium
waiting for the hunger to starve or the gates to open

battery acid from teeth in the form of saliva
crystallized eyes blind with fire

two cannibalistic copulating dogs engaged
a ferocious tenacity equal in comparison
only to humans

violent vessels void of anything interfering

***

invisible feathers tickled by a finger almost touching
the outer layer of the sensorium one drop of melted ice
felt tip poetry scribbled on bloodless belly

fluctuating amoebic impatience
with a fidgetive lack of meditative stillness
the restless need to change the frame

michaelsgatling

in cyberspace


This class has been very helpful. It not only showed what deficiencies I possess as a computer illiterate, but if I don't get my ass in gear and purchase a computer I will be forever in the dark ages. I am not much for television or the daily newspaper, but the information I was able to access within seconds was astonishing! This is way better than TV or the newspaper; actually I can read the daily news on this system. Pardon me for sounding like someone who was away from civilisation for sometimes...but that is exactly how I feel. Unfortunately, my job does not require a computer. That could be why I have returned to school. I am undecided as to what area I will be majoring in but I know it will be revealed to me soon.

At this time, my body feels like it's racing. My heart feels as if it's pounding. I am relaxed back in my chair with my feet resting on my heels. It's raining and I have to drive back to New Jersey. It should be like floating.

--Paulette Johnson-Haqq


Avatar ny Debra A. Benjamin

How do I feel?

I am sitting comfortably now. My neck and back are relaxed. My feet are in an uneven position: one foot is curved to the left and the other one is curved upward. My eyes are beginning to hurt from staring at various computer screens all day. As I lean down to read the text or the info on the websites, I notice that the rate of my breathing increases when I see somehting interesting. My arms are held close to my body and only my fingers move as I type. I am struck by the size of the screen as I try to deliver the song my muse created during class. I am not comfortable with the size of the text and the screen because anyone can read it before it is ready. I'm just so frustrated because I don't have enough time to really adorn this message appropriately.

--Debra A. Benjamin


Right now sitting in this chair I am very tired. My eyes are teary from staring at this computer: it is so bright. Next time I will remember to bring my sunglasses.

--Melanie Rose

Living should be a wonderful experience. The best and most important things in life should be free and effortless. Our bodies should stay in a perfect state of health for as long as we want...We have complete power to improve our health and free ourselves from any disease...

The description of my body in cyberspace:

I am thinking about what to type on the computer while listening to the rain. My fingers are clicking away. I am sitting in a upward postion


Robyn Vanterpool

The mind is a reality of its own...it could be a realm of joy, happiness, and pleasure. It can also be a horrific nightmarish Hades of many slow and agonizing tortures.

I feel so annoyed. My head hurts, and Im suffering from an extrerme case of writers block !!!!!!

consmed by irretation!!!!


--Jonathan Miller

....What story does my body tell, and what does it say at present? To be perfectly honest, I can't say what story my body would tell. Just when I think I have a grasp on who I am and what I stand for -- whoops! "I realize I ain't figured out shit." I don't know hwo I am, what I want, and what is going to give me some peace of mind in thinking and feeling, "there, I've reached that goal, I feel some sort of fulfillment in mind life." What will it take to reach that? Is there not only a way for my mind to undestand my body, is there a way for my body to understand and treat my mind?

UNBALANCED CENTER OF GRAVITY
BEING INSIDE BEING
EXCHANGE OF LIVING NECESSITIES
AND THE PROCESS OF LIFE BREEDING LIFE

LARGE AND ROUND IN THE FRONT
WATERY AND FULL INSIDE
QUICKENED HEARTBEATS
AND BLOODY TUBULAR CONNECTIONS

THREE TRIMESTERS OF EXCESSIVE FOOD
TWO EXPECTING AND ANXIOUS
ONE KICKING AND SCREAMING RESULT AND
EVERYONE IS HAPPY.

HOW DOES MY BODY FEEL IN CYBERSPACE?

AS USUAL--HUNGRY
(I FEEL THAT EVERYWHERE NOW)
A LITTLE TENSE
DUE TO NEED TO WRITE SOMETHING EXTREMELY "ENLIGHTENING"
SOMEWHAT LIBERATED
(STILL EXHILIRATED FROM FIRST "SURFING THE WEB" EXPERIENCE.)

--KIVA JAMES


I'm writing. You asked and I am.

Thoughts are breech. They run away from me. There is an annoying computerized "drip" coming from the machine to my right. The the background noise: fingers tapping to an odd rhythm. First quick, then falling silent. Then quick again. And I am curious how one can write in such chaos. This "work" environment.

I need silence. Does this mean I'm somewhat neurotic? It's a mad quest: To write, one must have the perfect pen. A certain kind of paper: not too thin, mind you. Not too dense either. And there must be no noise. No nosy neighbors lurching over your shoulder. There must be privacy before the world can be entered. The world Nin wrote of: the only world where one can create the perfect conversation. The perfect scenery. All on their perfect white sheets. RULES!!! Blah! What ridiculousness!

....The goal of the writer must be a sort of death, or she could not comment on all she sees. To comment is an act of reliving, not living. It is the essence of being alive, not the reality of it. It pretends. It reconstructs. It connects or tears apart. It is spread out on a desk, or crumpled and buried in the trash heap. It wears coffee stains, urine stains, dog shit stain. It scoops up and throws away. etc. Ad nauseum.

We are all in our "zone" now. We are all creating with vigorous intentions. You can almost hear the brain concentrate. It sounds a lot like lightning before it hits the ground. Not the BOOM of thunder. It is the whisper which, like lightning on the descent, is invisible. But this flahs of light proceeds its. And there is always the BANG of a clean strike.

BODILY FUNCTIONS ILLUSTRATED POUR VOUS

My write ear is hot. A lot of blood is thre. Shallow breahting, I'd say. My spine curves to the left. My left foot is tingling: it sleeps! My legs are crossed. I'm somewhat contorted. My eyes are wide. Almost strainingly so. (Is strainingly a word? If not, it should be.) I type with one hand: the right. My neck is tight. I am a veritable train wreck! But...I'm writing. You asked and I am.



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