WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.550 align:middle line:84% I was just going to take a few questions if you 00:00:02.550 --> 00:00:03.720 align:middle line:90% wanted to direct them now. 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:07.380 align:middle line:84% I thought this may be more interactive this way. 00:00:07.380 --> 00:00:09.520 align:middle line:84% We'll let this continue to run in the background. 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:10.890 align:middle line:90% It's kind of a wallpaper anyway. 00:00:10.890 --> 00:00:13.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:15.262 align:middle line:90% But are there any questions? 00:00:15.262 --> 00:00:17.220 align:middle line:84% One of the things that I was interested to hear 00:00:17.220 --> 00:00:21.960 align:middle line:84% is when you read a book, you have sort 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.600 align:middle line:90% of control over the book space. 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:26.470 align:middle line:84% The book is sort of right in front of you. 00:00:26.470 --> 00:00:30.000 align:middle line:84% It exists in what's called a peripersonal space, 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:31.350 align:middle line:90% and one controls that space. 00:00:31.350 --> 00:00:33.450 align:middle line:84% It's sort of an extension of the body. 00:00:33.450 --> 00:00:37.500 align:middle line:84% But the minute I put you in a room, turn off the lights, 00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:40.747 align:middle line:84% stick you in a chair and set something in motion, 00:00:40.747 --> 00:00:43.080 align:middle line:84% you don't really have control over the language anymore, 00:00:43.080 --> 00:00:44.700 align:middle line:90% and you're also looking up. 00:00:44.700 --> 00:00:49.890 align:middle line:84% So people who have studied neural zen meditation practices 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:54.240 align:middle line:84% sort of also understand that the minute you look up, 00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:56.580 align:middle line:84% you're sort of in an other directed space, 00:00:56.580 --> 00:01:01.260 align:middle line:84% and it's characterized by sort of neural processing 00:01:01.260 --> 00:01:03.330 align:middle line:84% that takes place in the ventral area 00:01:03.330 --> 00:01:05.890 align:middle line:84% as opposed to the dorsal areas of the brain. 00:01:05.890 --> 00:01:09.270 align:middle line:84% And it's sort of bottoms up rather than top down. 00:01:09.270 --> 00:01:12.210 align:middle line:84% So I was really interested in distracted modes 00:01:12.210 --> 00:01:14.310 align:middle line:84% of reading or gathering information, 00:01:14.310 --> 00:01:16.620 align:middle line:84% and that's why I was encouraging you to, yeah, 00:01:16.620 --> 00:01:20.250 align:middle line:84% go ahead, look at yourself, get up, do other things, 00:01:20.250 --> 00:01:23.200 align:middle line:84% read part of the thing, and then come back to it later. 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:25.590 align:middle line:84% Or there was one sort of thing that 00:01:25.590 --> 00:01:27.630 align:middle line:90% had 17th century stuff on it. 00:01:27.630 --> 00:01:31.950 align:middle line:84% It was like, that's the longest title of a 17th century 00:01:31.950 --> 00:01:34.612 align:middle line:84% painting, but I ran it from the bottom up. 00:01:34.612 --> 00:01:36.570 align:middle line:84% So you're getting the PowerPoint bullet points, 00:01:36.570 --> 00:01:38.080 align:middle line:90% but they're working in reverse. 00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:40.680 align:middle line:84% So then the question is, well, do you read top down or do 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:43.650 align:middle line:84% you wait till it's shown, and then read it in its complexity? 00:01:43.650 --> 00:01:46.890 align:middle line:84% There are just so many different ways to read. 00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:49.710 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking about when the first phones were 00:01:49.710 --> 00:01:51.240 align:middle line:90% introduced. 00:01:51.240 --> 00:01:54.060 align:middle line:84% People heard someone's voice on the phone 00:01:54.060 --> 00:01:56.400 align:middle line:84% and they said, oh my god, that sounds terrible. 00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:59.370 align:middle line:90% You sound so phony. 00:01:59.370 --> 00:02:02.068 align:middle line:84% And I think now we're reaching a point where somebody could 00:02:02.068 --> 00:02:04.110 align:middle line:84% turn to you and say, oh gosh, your poems, they're 00:02:04.110 --> 00:02:07.710 align:middle line:90% so SMS-ey or so text-ey. 00:02:07.710 --> 00:02:10.740 align:middle line:84% But these are really very much about integrating 00:02:10.740 --> 00:02:15.600 align:middle line:84% communications mediums and texts, video game walkthroughs, 00:02:15.600 --> 00:02:17.790 align:middle line:84% a lot of bibliographic citations. 00:02:17.790 --> 00:02:21.300 align:middle line:84% There's a huge play with the couplet as a structuring device 00:02:21.300 --> 00:02:23.790 align:middle line:90% and how to make it more fluid. 00:02:23.790 --> 00:02:28.500 align:middle line:84% But I suppose the thing that PowerPoint presentations raise 00:02:28.500 --> 00:02:31.290 align:middle line:84% in comparison with a book or a codex 00:02:31.290 --> 00:02:33.690 align:middle line:84% is that when you read a book most of the time 00:02:33.690 --> 00:02:36.120 align:middle line:84% the text isn't moving, it's static. 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:38.970 align:middle line:84% And a book works to codify texts. 00:02:38.970 --> 00:02:42.150 align:middle line:84% It works to enter them into canons. 00:02:42.150 --> 00:02:45.810 align:middle line:84% Books stabilize text, but with a PowerPoint presentation, 00:02:45.810 --> 00:02:47.820 align:middle line:84% the text is moving too in addition 00:02:47.820 --> 00:02:50.380 align:middle line:84% to your retinal processing of that moving text. 00:02:50.380 --> 00:02:53.070 align:middle line:84% So there's a lot of freedom in my mind 00:02:53.070 --> 00:02:56.970 align:middle line:84% to reconfigure the text on the fly. 00:02:56.970 --> 00:02:59.628 align:middle line:90% But are there any questions? 00:02:59.628 --> 00:03:00.420 align:middle line:90% There's a question. 00:03:00.420 --> 00:03:01.560 align:middle line:90% Did you want a mic someone? 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:04.390 align:middle line:90% It's not important. 00:03:04.390 --> 00:03:04.890 align:middle line:90% The miking? 00:03:04.890 --> 00:03:07.590 align:middle line:90% 00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:10.560 align:middle line:84% Why did you end it at 45 minutes? 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:12.060 align:middle line:84% Well, it doesn't really have an end. 00:03:12.060 --> 00:03:14.110 align:middle line:90% I just sort of ran out of time. 00:03:14.110 --> 00:03:18.540 align:middle line:84% So it's really-- it should be like a 24-hour work. 00:03:18.540 --> 00:03:22.617 align:middle line:84% I was really wondering what the ideal situation was. 00:03:22.617 --> 00:03:25.200 align:middle line:84% Yeah, it would be interminable work that would sort of collect 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:27.070 align:middle line:90% data on its own. 00:03:27.070 --> 00:03:29.070 align:middle line:84% And then you could just turn it on in your house 00:03:29.070 --> 00:03:31.440 align:middle line:84% like a thermostat, and it would sort of 00:03:31.440 --> 00:03:33.540 align:middle line:90% regulate your emotional states. 00:03:33.540 --> 00:03:36.780 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:36.780 --> 00:03:39.960 align:middle line:84% That would be an ideal poetic system for me. 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:41.460 align:middle line:84% And it would be relaxing because you 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:43.020 align:middle line:84% wouldn't be so pressured to read it 00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:45.030 align:middle line:90% in a linear, straight-ahead way. 00:03:45.030 --> 00:03:47.550 align:middle line:84% You can just live with it forever 00:03:47.550 --> 00:03:52.205 align:middle line:84% and accomplish that reading over 20 or 30 years. 00:03:52.205 --> 00:03:54.330 align:middle line:84% You could finally say, oh, yeah, I've sort of lived 00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:56.610 align:middle line:84% with that piece and read it and dah, dah, dah, dah, da 00:03:56.610 --> 00:03:58.650 align:middle line:84% And at the end of 30 years, you could 00:03:58.650 --> 00:04:01.320 align:middle line:84% say, yeah, I really read that piece really poorly, 00:04:01.320 --> 00:04:02.760 align:middle line:90% but in that way, very well. 00:04:02.760 --> 00:04:05.305 align:middle line:90% 00:04:05.305 --> 00:04:07.680 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.550 align:middle line:84% At what point does our distraction away 00:04:11.550 --> 00:04:13.500 align:middle line:84% from what the words are actually meaning 00:04:13.500 --> 00:04:17.490 align:middle line:84% and in the speed that they're being brought to our attention 00:04:17.490 --> 00:04:22.590 align:middle line:84% play in this kind of text, this kind of coupling 00:04:22.590 --> 00:04:25.320 align:middle line:90% of interactions between people. 00:04:25.320 --> 00:04:26.820 align:middle line:84% At what point does that really start 00:04:26.820 --> 00:04:30.400 align:middle line:84% to take over the meaning of the whole presentation? 00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:33.130 align:middle line:84% I think I can cause you to get up and leave at any moment. 00:04:33.130 --> 00:04:35.605 align:middle line:84% So one of the things that any reading does, 00:04:35.605 --> 00:04:37.230 align:middle line:84% and it's true with the book too, you're 00:04:37.230 --> 00:04:38.970 align:middle line:90% always free to stop reading. 00:04:38.970 --> 00:04:41.760 align:middle line:84% People pretend that putting down a book 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:44.700 align:middle line:84% or not reading a book as a non-viable alternative 00:04:44.700 --> 00:04:46.620 align:middle line:84% to reading, but, in fact, it always 00:04:46.620 --> 00:04:49.710 align:middle line:84% exists as the sort of obverse, the opposite coin. 00:04:49.710 --> 00:04:52.360 align:middle line:84% Like, if a book is boring, what are you going to do? 00:04:52.360 --> 00:04:54.193 align:middle line:84% You're going to put it down right away. 00:04:54.193 --> 00:04:55.860 align:middle line:84% I don't know how many books I've started 00:04:55.860 --> 00:04:58.450 align:middle line:84% and I've only read the first sentence, and I put it down. 00:04:58.450 --> 00:05:01.310 align:middle line:84% So this only brings to the fore something 00:05:01.310 --> 00:05:02.900 align:middle line:84% that you can accomplish with the codex 00:05:02.900 --> 00:05:06.123 align:middle line:84% very easily, which is, oh, I'm tired of this book 00:05:06.123 --> 00:05:07.290 align:middle line:90% or I'm not going to read it. 00:05:07.290 --> 00:05:09.290 align:middle line:84% Or better yet, you're going to say, 00:05:09.290 --> 00:05:13.340 align:middle line:84% like for my Columbia orals PhD I had 200 books on my reading 00:05:13.340 --> 00:05:15.290 align:middle line:84% list, but I only read a 1/3 of them, 00:05:15.290 --> 00:05:18.950 align:middle line:84% and I just lied, and I said, oh, I read all these other books. 00:05:18.950 --> 00:05:21.350 align:middle line:84% That's the other thing you can do about reading. 00:05:21.350 --> 00:05:23.470 align:middle line:84% You can just say, no, I didn't read it at all. 00:05:23.470 --> 00:05:23.970 align:middle line:90% I lied. 00:05:23.970 --> 00:05:25.110 align:middle line:90% I didn't read any of that stuff. 00:05:25.110 --> 00:05:26.000 align:middle line:90% I didn't need to read it. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:28.417 align:middle line:84% But in a way, I had read them all, all those books, anyway 00:05:28.417 --> 00:05:31.250 align:middle line:84% by whatever, by understanding their contextual relationship 00:05:31.250 --> 00:05:32.600 align:middle line:90% to why they're books. 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:35.660 align:middle line:84% Half of reading is about contextualizing or managing 00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:39.110 align:middle line:84% the information that one takes in at any given moment so. 00:05:39.110 --> 00:05:41.720 align:middle line:84% But yeah, distraction, I think the other thing 00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:43.593 align:middle line:84% that it dramatizes is, how active are you 00:05:43.593 --> 00:05:45.260 align:middle line:84% going to be in relationship to the text? 00:05:45.260 --> 00:05:48.050 align:middle line:84% On the one hand, you could say, oh, this is too much for me 00:05:48.050 --> 00:05:49.970 align:middle line:84% to organize and I can't control it. 00:05:49.970 --> 00:05:51.980 align:middle line:90% I'm just going to phase out. 00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:54.500 align:middle line:84% The other thing is you can be an extremely active reader 00:05:54.500 --> 00:05:55.500 align:middle line:90% and read this closely. 00:05:55.500 --> 00:05:57.920 align:middle line:84% You could read all of these pages from right 00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:00.020 align:middle line:84% to left and from left to right and from top 00:06:00.020 --> 00:06:01.527 align:middle line:84% to bottom and from bottom to top. 00:06:01.527 --> 00:06:03.110 align:middle line:84% So you could read it really spatially. 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:05.450 align:middle line:84% If you could just jam all that reading 00:06:05.450 --> 00:06:07.070 align:middle line:84% into a short enough time, that would 00:06:07.070 --> 00:06:10.430 align:middle line:84% force you to be an extremely neurotic active reader, 00:06:10.430 --> 00:06:12.260 align:middle line:84% and that does exist as a possibility, 00:06:12.260 --> 00:06:14.510 align:middle line:84% but you might defer and prefer to say no, this 00:06:14.510 --> 00:06:15.660 align:middle line:90% is really sickening. 00:06:15.660 --> 00:06:16.830 align:middle line:90% It's making me sick. 00:06:16.830 --> 00:06:18.260 align:middle line:84% It's giving me a kind of vertigo. 00:06:18.260 --> 00:06:19.760 align:middle line:84% I'm going to stop reading right now. 00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:22.310 align:middle line:90% I can't stand it anymore. 00:06:22.310 --> 00:06:24.350 align:middle line:84% So I think that something like this 00:06:24.350 --> 00:06:26.150 align:middle line:84% dramatizes those choices that one makes 00:06:26.150 --> 00:06:27.950 align:middle line:90% all the time with reading. 00:06:27.950 --> 00:06:30.920 align:middle line:84% Reading can be nauseating, but also, reading 00:06:30.920 --> 00:06:32.330 align:middle line:90% can be very relaxing. 00:06:32.330 --> 00:06:36.620 align:middle line:84% So I like it when that becomes apparent or dramatized. 00:06:36.620 --> 00:06:39.173 align:middle line:90% Yeah, other questions? 00:06:39.173 --> 00:06:40.340 align:middle line:90% There's one in the way back. 00:06:40.340 --> 00:06:40.810 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:06:40.810 --> 00:06:41.768 align:middle line:90% There's one right here. 00:06:41.768 --> 00:06:42.620 align:middle line:90% Oh, OK. 00:06:42.620 --> 00:06:44.960 align:middle line:84% I just want to ask, so you mentioned 00:06:44.960 --> 00:06:48.170 align:middle line:84% Bogost and the idea of speculative realism 00:06:48.170 --> 00:06:52.130 align:middle line:84% that Bogost writes about where you speculate that things 00:06:52.130 --> 00:06:53.990 align:middle line:84% speculate themselves, that they think, 00:06:53.990 --> 00:06:57.290 align:middle line:84% and then you speculate about what those things think about. 00:06:57.290 --> 00:06:58.250 align:middle line:90% So I was curious. 00:06:58.250 --> 00:07:01.907 align:middle line:84% If you think of PowerPoint as thinking, 00:07:01.907 --> 00:07:03.740 align:middle line:84% and we're talking about us reading the text, 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:07.670 align:middle line:84% but do you interact with this as the text reading us 00:07:07.670 --> 00:07:11.330 align:middle line:84% and the text reading you too and how that plays out. 00:07:11.330 --> 00:07:15.110 align:middle line:84% Yeah, well, I think you should answer that question. 00:07:15.110 --> 00:07:18.860 align:middle line:84% I think that what you're suggesting 00:07:18.860 --> 00:07:21.950 align:middle line:84% is that perhaps this, reading this, which is sort of 00:07:21.950 --> 00:07:23.990 align:middle line:84% perfectly calculated in advance in terms 00:07:23.990 --> 00:07:25.640 align:middle line:84% of all the timings in the settings, 00:07:25.640 --> 00:07:28.970 align:middle line:84% whether that gives off an anthropomorphic ring. 00:07:28.970 --> 00:07:32.120 align:middle line:84% And if that does happen, if this feels like a human reading 00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:36.140 align:middle line:84% to you, and it may or may not, I don't really know, 00:07:36.140 --> 00:07:38.360 align:middle line:84% then the question would be, well, why does it do that 00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:40.050 align:middle line:84% and how does it manage to do that? 00:07:40.050 --> 00:07:42.170 align:middle line:84% So maybe I could throw this question back at you. 00:07:42.170 --> 00:07:44.570 align:middle line:84% Did you feel like this was anthropomorphic, 00:07:44.570 --> 00:07:48.050 align:middle line:84% that the reading was in some ways human or alive? 00:07:48.050 --> 00:07:49.850 align:middle line:84% It was a machine reading in some ways. 00:07:49.850 --> 00:07:52.280 align:middle line:84% This is software that's performing a calculation. 00:07:52.280 --> 00:07:54.170 align:middle line:84% Of course, I authored it in some way, 00:07:54.170 --> 00:07:57.230 align:middle line:84% but I like to think here that PowerPoint in some ways 00:07:57.230 --> 00:08:00.410 align:middle line:84% is an authoring function with a kind of life of its own, 00:08:00.410 --> 00:08:03.650 align:middle line:84% but that may be overly speculative. 00:08:03.650 --> 00:08:06.440 align:middle line:90% 00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:12.140 align:middle line:84% I thought that-- we were humans engaging with it, 00:08:12.140 --> 00:08:15.830 align:middle line:84% but I was trying to imagine the text and the words 00:08:15.830 --> 00:08:19.190 align:middle line:84% going on in the wall and while you were walking around, 00:08:19.190 --> 00:08:25.550 align:middle line:84% your phone making noise as something else connecting 00:08:25.550 --> 00:08:29.120 align:middle line:90% with us in a non-human way. 00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:31.610 align:middle line:84% That's what I wanted to do with it. 00:08:31.610 --> 00:08:33.943 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I'd like to hear what other people say about that. 00:08:33.943 --> 00:08:35.860 align:middle line:84% I'm actually very interested in this question. 00:08:35.860 --> 00:08:38.237 align:middle line:84% It's not settled in my mind exactly how the piece is 00:08:38.237 --> 00:08:40.070 align:middle line:84% functioning and how people read it actually, 00:08:40.070 --> 00:08:42.362 align:middle line:84% and that's why I think this question is so interesting. 00:08:42.362 --> 00:08:45.260 align:middle line:84% I was actually more interested in some ways in Ian Bogost's 00:08:45.260 --> 00:08:47.630 align:middle line:84% notion of a unit operation where you 00:08:47.630 --> 00:08:50.190 align:middle line:84% have sort of individual discrete and modular units each 00:08:50.190 --> 00:08:50.690 align:middle line:90% functioning. 00:08:50.690 --> 00:08:53.090 align:middle line:84% And here, you get a sort of reenactment 00:08:53.090 --> 00:08:57.350 align:middle line:84% of the unit operation, computational operation taking 00:08:57.350 --> 00:09:03.470 align:middle line:84% place in a very sort of in a very discrete unit. 00:09:03.470 --> 00:09:05.900 align:middle line:84% And then you wonder, well, how does one thing relate 00:09:05.900 --> 00:09:06.650 align:middle line:90% to another thing? 00:09:06.650 --> 00:09:09.050 align:middle line:84% What's going to sort of put the whole thing together? 00:09:09.050 --> 00:09:11.770 align:middle line:84% So I was sort of interested in that too. 00:09:11.770 --> 00:09:14.048 align:middle line:84% That's a different issue that you raised. 00:09:14.048 --> 00:09:15.590 align:middle line:84% Yeah, does anybody else have thoughts 00:09:15.590 --> 00:09:19.700 align:middle line:84% on the anthropomorphic or alienating effects of having 00:09:19.700 --> 00:09:21.770 align:middle line:90% PowerPoint dictate tempo? 00:09:21.770 --> 00:09:24.610 align:middle line:90% 00:09:24.610 --> 00:09:31.455 align:middle line:84% I was intrigued when after the movement and Gary's 00:09:31.455 --> 00:09:35.940 align:middle line:84% preceding screens we just had the word lather in the center. 00:09:35.940 --> 00:09:42.210 align:middle line:84% And to me that was kind of a creative moment 00:09:42.210 --> 00:09:46.170 align:middle line:84% in the experience because I kind of welcomed it and immediately 00:09:46.170 --> 00:09:47.670 align:middle line:90% began picturing lather. 00:09:47.670 --> 00:09:51.030 align:middle line:84% And also, when the word Hawaiian punch came up, 00:09:51.030 --> 00:09:52.270 align:middle line:90% connecting with that. 00:09:52.270 --> 00:09:53.970 align:middle line:90% So-- 00:09:53.970 --> 00:09:56.940 align:middle line:84% I don't even remember the lather thing. 00:09:56.940 --> 00:09:58.920 align:middle line:90% What was that again? 00:09:58.920 --> 00:10:01.470 align:middle line:84% At different points in the experience, 00:10:01.470 --> 00:10:04.230 align:middle line:84% there were a variety of number of words 00:10:04.230 --> 00:10:07.710 align:middle line:84% on the screen at any given time, but my recollection 00:10:07.710 --> 00:10:13.200 align:middle line:84% is that, maybe towards the end, I noticed dead center the word 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:15.180 align:middle line:84% lather, and I kind of welcomed it. 00:10:15.180 --> 00:10:19.900 align:middle line:84% It was like this peaceful moment of just thinking about 00:10:19.900 --> 00:10:22.860 align:middle line:84% L-A-T-H-E-R, the sound of the word, 00:10:22.860 --> 00:10:27.100 align:middle line:84% and calling up a picture of lather, and I just liked it. 00:10:27.100 --> 00:10:29.170 align:middle line:84% Maybe my brain was tired at that point 00:10:29.170 --> 00:10:30.680 align:middle line:90% and I welcomed a single word. 00:10:30.680 --> 00:10:32.430 align:middle line:84% I just did it in another sequence in here. 00:10:32.430 --> 00:10:33.555 align:middle line:90% I don't know if you saw it. 00:10:33.555 --> 00:10:34.680 align:middle line:90% I can't remember it. 00:10:34.680 --> 00:10:37.110 align:middle line:84% It was bounce, bounce, snuggle, which, 00:10:37.110 --> 00:10:39.870 align:middle line:84% of course, are the names of my favorite fabric softeners-- 00:10:39.870 --> 00:10:41.588 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:41.588 --> 00:10:42.630 align:middle line:90% --on the theme of lather. 00:10:42.630 --> 00:10:47.427 align:middle line:90% 00:10:47.427 --> 00:10:48.510 align:middle line:90% Yeah, any other questions? 00:10:48.510 --> 00:10:49.440 align:middle line:90% And then we should move on. 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:51.273 align:middle line:84% I think otherwise we're not going to-- yeah? 00:10:51.273 --> 00:10:58.150 align:middle line:90% 00:10:58.150 --> 00:11:00.270 align:middle line:84% I'm curious about that ideal reading 00:11:00.270 --> 00:11:03.750 align:middle line:84% that you imagined living with a text for 30 years. 00:11:03.750 --> 00:11:04.350 align:middle line:90% How are you-- 00:11:04.350 --> 00:11:04.966 align:middle line:90% I was kidding. 00:11:04.966 --> 00:11:05.466 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:05.466 --> 00:11:09.073 align:middle line:84% OK, but even within this 15 or 45 minute piece 00:11:09.073 --> 00:11:10.740 align:middle line:84% or whatever the case may be, how are you 00:11:10.740 --> 00:11:13.800 align:middle line:90% thinking about time and context? 00:11:13.800 --> 00:11:16.680 align:middle line:84% So for example, in both the content 00:11:16.680 --> 00:11:18.550 align:middle line:84% of the words that are in the technology 00:11:18.550 --> 00:11:20.860 align:middle line:90% you're choosing to use. 00:11:20.860 --> 00:11:27.960 align:middle line:84% So I can imagine a way that the text from the video game stuff 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:30.360 align:middle line:84% can be contextualized, people might have reference points 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:35.400 align:middle line:84% to it now in a way that they may not have 10 years from now. 00:11:35.400 --> 00:11:37.440 align:middle line:84% And also, the choice to use PowerPoint 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:39.000 align:middle line:84% as a particular type of technology, 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:42.830 align:middle line:84% are you interested in how the content 00:11:42.830 --> 00:11:44.580 align:middle line:84% of the stuff, the technology you're using, 00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:48.780 align:middle line:84% is getting indexed by the time in which it's happening? 00:11:48.780 --> 00:11:51.000 align:middle line:84% I know in one interview you talked 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:57.960 align:middle line:84% about how copyright might become more of a factor 00:11:57.960 --> 00:12:01.270 align:middle line:84% in appropriating text and language as the technologies 00:12:01.270 --> 00:12:05.010 align:middle line:84% in the corporate structures around digital communication 00:12:05.010 --> 00:12:06.180 align:middle line:90% are changing around us. 00:12:06.180 --> 00:12:10.470 align:middle line:84% I'm just wondering about how you situate your work in a moment 00:12:10.470 --> 00:12:12.510 align:middle line:84% and how you're playing or not playing 00:12:12.510 --> 00:12:15.360 align:middle line:90% with context and temporality. 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:19.620 align:middle line:84% Well, and I've said this before, I think generally, 00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:24.160 align:middle line:84% the codex as a form in the book tends to repress two things. 00:12:24.160 --> 00:12:28.230 align:middle line:84% One is when it's its own platform. 00:12:28.230 --> 00:12:30.570 align:middle line:84% When you read a book, you're supposed forget. 00:12:30.570 --> 00:12:33.137 align:middle line:84% The ideal reading is premised on, oh, 00:12:33.137 --> 00:12:34.470 align:middle line:90% I've forgotten that I'm reading. 00:12:34.470 --> 00:12:36.210 align:middle line:90% I've gotten lost in the book. 00:12:36.210 --> 00:12:38.220 align:middle line:84% And the other thing that a book typically 00:12:38.220 --> 00:12:42.750 align:middle line:84% represses, in addition to its platform, its medial platform, 00:12:42.750 --> 00:12:44.580 align:middle line:90% is its temporal dimension. 00:12:44.580 --> 00:12:48.210 align:middle line:84% So like when you read Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," 00:12:48.210 --> 00:12:54.570 align:middle line:84% when you read line 1 at 3:17 and you read line 3 at 3:21 00:12:54.570 --> 00:12:55.970 align:middle line:90% you're not really aware of that. 00:12:55.970 --> 00:12:57.720 align:middle line:84% But I actually think it's more interesting 00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:00.780 align:middle line:84% if literature is connecting to a rapidly ticking clock. 00:13:00.780 --> 00:13:03.990 align:middle line:84% And so yes, I'm very, very interested 00:13:03.990 --> 00:13:05.730 align:middle line:84% in, again, the sort of time-based 00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:07.380 align:middle line:90% and media specific platforms. 00:13:07.380 --> 00:13:13.270 align:middle line:84% And as you say, PowerPoint, it's a very specific platform. 00:13:13.270 --> 00:13:16.200 align:middle line:84% And as I mentioned, it has certain affordances, 00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:18.930 align:middle line:84% and it makes it a sort of ideal multimedia platform. 00:13:18.930 --> 00:13:20.460 align:middle line:84% And in that sense, I think platform 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:22.170 align:middle line:84% is just indicative of how much text 00:13:22.170 --> 00:13:26.820 align:middle line:84% we take in today on various mobile devices, on a computer. 00:13:26.820 --> 00:13:31.140 align:middle line:84% Reading is extremely varied as a practice, 00:13:31.140 --> 00:13:35.730 align:middle line:84% and, yes, it involves pictures, now it involves moving texts. 00:13:35.730 --> 00:13:36.930 align:middle line:90% It involves areas. 00:13:36.930 --> 00:13:39.120 align:middle line:84% It involves time-based communications. 00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:42.660 align:middle line:84% Yes, eventually, we're going to have Twitter poems 00:13:42.660 --> 00:13:45.210 align:middle line:84% and you know Tumblr poems and all that too. 00:13:45.210 --> 00:13:47.520 align:middle line:84% So I think PowerPoint as a medium 00:13:47.520 --> 00:13:49.530 align:middle line:90% is in some ways prescient. 00:13:49.530 --> 00:13:51.090 align:middle line:84% And yes, will it become obsolescent? 00:13:51.090 --> 00:13:54.210 align:middle line:84% Yes, perhaps in relationship to a lot of the platforms that I'm 00:13:54.210 --> 00:13:55.680 align:middle line:90% referencing, but who knows? 00:13:55.680 --> 00:13:58.620 align:middle line:84% Video game walkthroughs are comprised of at least 25% 00:13:58.620 --> 00:13:59.940 align:middle line:90% of this work. 00:13:59.940 --> 00:14:04.080 align:middle line:84% This is pretty arcane stuff that I sort of surfed. 00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:05.580 align:middle line:84% Will it be forgotten, these games? 00:14:05.580 --> 00:14:08.160 align:middle line:84% Yeah, those games are sort of already forgotten, 00:14:08.160 --> 00:14:10.800 align:middle line:84% but people who are familiar with video games 00:14:10.800 --> 00:14:12.900 align:middle line:84% are sort of aware that, oh, well, you're 00:14:12.900 --> 00:14:14.850 align:middle line:84% navigating some sort of virtual space 00:14:14.850 --> 00:14:16.530 align:middle line:84% and you're using language to do it. 00:14:16.530 --> 00:14:18.780 align:middle line:84% So language is a sort of navigational tool. 00:14:18.780 --> 00:14:20.340 align:middle line:84% And I didn't use any GPS stuff here, 00:14:20.340 --> 00:14:23.190 align:middle line:84% although I could have done that, and mapping systems. 00:14:23.190 --> 00:14:24.810 align:middle line:90% Those were eliminated from here. 00:14:24.810 --> 00:14:27.330 align:middle line:84% But yeah, this work could go on for a long time 00:14:27.330 --> 00:14:32.340 align:middle line:84% and include different kinds of language as a navigation or GPS 00:14:32.340 --> 00:14:34.490 align:middle line:90% system so.