Seventh Class

Nov. 9th

Materiality

Écriture Feminine

Pataphysics

Materiality > Physicality of language > Game

Language being made of raw materials > splashes on a page, etc.

Sound Poetry is attempting to address the importance of a signifier.

Semiotics > Signs, sign systems

Three Branches:

semantics.. relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata

word A = X, meaning as a positive value

syntactics.. relations among signs in formal structures

pragmatics.. relation between signs and their effects on those (people) who use them

Three Parts:

signifier.. the sound "Cat"

signified.. a cat, your friend Kat, a groovy cat, a multiplicity of possibilities

referent.. outside language or system of signs that we're actually talking about

material expressions of stuff that generate ideas

Semiotics:

Signifier A ≠ B, C, D, E, F,....

Cat means this because it doesn't mean this and this and this and this, which all have signs

What a specific signifier signifies is shaped by the signifiers that it keeps company with

Networks of meaning: the dictionary as a closed system that you don't step outside of.

sound poetry through problematizing reference creates a new awareness of language

ludic structure of language

"it might be difficult right now to hear my voice as pure noise, although sometimes it might not {laughs}."

the blurring of boundaries between poetry and speech and music

insisting on the materiality of language

spoken language as corporeal > isn't just noise but the result of a process.

Corporeality: in two directions

Uncanny> Slavoj Zizek: the voice is itself may be uncanny: simultaneously familiar and unknown, generally unsettling. think of "cleave" as an example

what is the source of this uncanniness?

triggering the unconscious, repressed, beyond naming, forgotten

Zizek says the relationship of voice to body is to detached/complex/ problematic. resides "between the body" (vibrating air).

Disorderly> supposed to make sense, if not then taken to realm of madness

Language in and of itself. the ability to speak or write clearly. is inherently masculine.

the emphasis on direct clarity in language and faithful to reality.logic,etc. is in and of itself. participant in a broad cultural emphasis in the west, which have been historically gendered masculine. "you could say."

Several thousand years of sense in the west is built on binary systems. system of opposites. understanding relationship between things that can be thought of as opposites.

The question of a third sex is problematic. One that isn't a blend of the opposites.

Masculinity tends to be affiliated with:

daylight. linear temporality. logic. reason. culture. civilization.

Femininity tends to be affiliated with:

dreams. embodiment. unreason. emotion. moonlight/moon. night. reflection.

Working with this cultural inheritance:

language is masculine

Phallogocentrism: phal.logo.centrism

logo centric culture; sense making reason in aspiration

How do you use language in a way that is feminine?

Ècriture Feminine > feminine writing

Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous, Marguerite Homans

three people who think about what a feminine language might be.

childhood. before entering the realm of the father.culture.rules.order

expresses a playfulness of language

develops an idiolect

breaks the rules of language purposely

the development of the individual

Julia Kristeva:

> poetic . open and playful

> semiotic . the arrangement of language that makes sense everyday

"I can call cottage cheese, finger stick." but never be understood.

Helene Cixous:

> strictly the writing of the body. writing through the body. sounds of the body

sounds that defy sense (problematic)

embodied language

Marguerite Homans:

> is also something that situates itself against logos.. non signifying. it is its touch.

infant and mother. a kind of touch. a phatic function. establishes connection.

Originating from Aristotle.

How do you address the problem of this entrenchment of division without reinforcing it?

It seems to be difficult to step out of this binary system of thinking.

Sound poetry seems to trigger this sort of conversation of embodiment and sexuality.

The tensions are being addressed: what they're doing, where they're going, is up to you.

BP Nichol:

puzzles, games, play

em ty : word as shape > concrete poetry

full?, P-less, illustration of self, self reflexive, page empty, MT

the contradiction and triple meaning of the empty fullness of the page word and meaning

U+⁻P=MT

there seems to be a relation to minimalist sculpture

Pataphysics:

Alfred Jarry > french artist and playwright. Ubu Roi (play)

discipline . indiscipline

imaginary solutions to unsolvable problems

looks for exceptions. looks for inconsistencies. paradoxes. problems.

had a tour through Dadaism

{dadaists do not want ism or ists attached ∴ henceforth is just dada}

Blues:

-title

-content

> colour, musical style, emotion

> loss of love, presence of love

-love, evol, eeeee > heavy bold on the page > impersonal > empty vessel

how do you deal with a poem that tells you how to read it?

-commentary

> handwritten > personal

> monospecific

{Glen Beck}

love > over signify, under signify

"The anthropologist dated the dead neanderthal."

the doubling of meaning and un-understanding of things

what happens when you give up a measure of control by introducing chance into your work?

chance > genius > intention > agency

Labour > value in relation to the amount put into it (work)

Dada Lama

divestiture of ego

why do people make things?

Eunoia . poetry book