The "Internet Text"
The "Internet Text" (http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html) currently constitutes around 80 files, or 2500 printed pages. It was started in 1994, and continues as an extended meditation on cyberspace. It began with a somewhat straightforward theoretical outline, and has expanded into "wild theory," utilizing numerous "ghosts" (alive, quasi-alive, dead), such as Jennifer, Julu, and Nikuko - see below.
(Recently, I have taken time out to write a book "summary" and expansion of some of the ideas of the text - it can be found at the same URLs, as "The Beginning of the Book," or "The Book." There is also a short fiction, "Novel," that might be of interest.)
Almost all of the text is in the form of "short-waves, long-waves." The former are the individually-titled sections, written in a variety of styles at times referencing other writers/theorists. The sections are heavily interrelated; on occasion "characters" appear, _actants_possessing philosophical or psychological import.
They also create and problematize narrative substructures within the work as a whole. Such are Julu, Alan, Travis, Honey, Jennifer, and others. Recently, in Fukuoka, Japan, and now back in New York, I have been working primarily through Nikuko; I've been concerned with the mirror of virtual and "real" subjects / subjectivities, and the slippages, anchors, among them.
The long-waves are fuzzy topoi on such issues as death, love, virtual embodiment, the "granularity of the real," and physical reality, which criss-cross the texts. The resulting fragmentations and coagulations owe something to phenomenology, deconstruction, linguistics, prehistory, the philosophies of science and programming, etc., but more to the functions of sites or nodes on the Net itself.
I have used MUDS, MOOS, talkers, Perl, html, Javascript, Qbasic, linux, emacs, CuSeeMe, etc., all tending towards a performativity of thought, texts which _act_ and engage the subject beyond the traditional phenomenologies of reading. I tend to work interstitially, across or through protocols and programs.
There is no binarism in the Internet Text, no series of definitive statements. Virtuality itself is considered far beyond the ASCII text/ Webscape that is most prevalent now, at the end of the twentieth century. The various issues of embodiment that will arrive with full-real VR are already in embryonic existence, permitting the theorizing of present and speculative future sites, "spaces," nodes, and modalities of body/speech/community.
Please check the INDEX to find your way into the body of the work online.
It is helpful to read the first file, Net1.txt, in the beginning, and/or to look at the latest files (kg, kh, etc.) as well. The INDEX lists the files in which a particular topic is described; you can do a search on the file, or simply scroll down (the files range in length from 30 to 50 pages in print).
In addition, there are a few graphics, javascript and VRML pages
(at the mirror site, http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/), and a resume.
Further graphics can be found at:
Thank you.
Usage: The texts may be distributed in any medium - indeed, I urge you to do so - provided I am credited with authorship. I would appreciate in return any comments you may have.
Alan Sondheim, sondheim@panix.com
