Re: RAT Words

[Jeffrey Jones <Diogenes_@compuserve.com>]

        In order to affect, touch, move, inspire - feel anything! - through
our ART, 
        we must first destroy the immediate barrier; language. Ater a
sufficient time 
        of exploration and experimentation without this element, we can
then begin to 
        re-integrate language as one more element in the event, not as
"more 
        important" but with equal importance as all the other elements.

An honorable position, honorably stated. I would disagree, but this is
indeed the faultline that runs through
modern American theatre since the 1950's.  On the one hand you had the
"phenominalists" (Living, Wilson,
Abdoh, Bogart, et. al); on the other hand you had the "nominalists"
(O'Hara, Foreman, LeCompte, Wellman 
& Jones, et. al).  De gustibus non disputandum est but I still think
viewing language as a barrier is an extremely
odd position for a medium which is, like it or not, dependant upon the
spoken word. 

         a way to - from the audience's perpsective - remain at a distance,
detached

This is where I prefer to be in the theatre. But again, this is a matter of
taste.

         as we have evolved and been educated in a culture which separates
body and mind, 
        language becomes an intellectual function, separating us from the
power of our other senses

Two thoughts: (a) advertising (use of language in: a purely intellectual
function? Surely not. OK, you find 
adversiting a low blow. What about ideology? Can it exist without language?
Could a constitution? OK, 
you say Law has no place in a discussion about Art. What about Faith? What
about prayer? All I suggesting
is that writing language off as a merely "intellectual" function grossly
misrepresents the importance of abstraction
in culture. Can you have culture without language? And can you have humans
without culture?) and b) winetasting.
I never understood winetasting or birdwatching until I tried 'em. Once I
tried 'em, I realized that in a sense they
were both about noticing experience. It's easy to see a tree full of birds,
right? Until you sit down and try to count 
the birds. Then you notice how many more of them there are. It's easy to
taste and enjoy a glass of wine. So why
would anyone try to describe the experience? Because translating the
experience into language forces you to
articulate it and in the process of articulation you begin to notice and to
make distinctions. I hold that the purpose of
language is not to name but to name in order to distinguish: Whether of not
Equimaux really do have a hundred and
twenty seven different words for snow (and are they, to that degree, more
or less in touch with nature and their 
bodies), I was delighted to read in the Times Book Review that their word
for "chief" is always used ironically.
The idea that the senses are more "honest" than language is also a curious
notion, but we will talk of Rousseau anon.


         His ultimate theory states that, in fact, the "chaos Theory" -
which Anne Bogart professes to be 
        a champion of (in her misunderstanding of Gleick's true meaning) -
is that 
        chaos does not exists, as we continually discover the order (rules,
theorems, 
        mathematical equations) which explain all events.



It;s been a while since I read Glieck, so you can correct me, but I
remember the business about the dripping faucet and it seemed to me that
chaos theory was in fact proposing a simple mathematical formula which
could generate an unpredictable pattern.  Don't know enough math to know
about the reliability of random number generators.


        There is no true randomness. 

Again, I don't know enough math to prove it, but I believe this is not the
case. 

        And all attempts to achieve "true randomness", chaos, disorder, 
        (Joyce, Dadism, etc) are futile as we are hard-wired to seek out
"meaning" 
        and "sense" in this existence in order to survive as a specie.

Hardwired by what? I agree that our brains are predisposed to see pattern
(whatever that is) but you seem to be wanting 
to have it both ways. Saying on the one hand that we are only imposing what
we call meaning upon events, but on 
the other that there is no "true randomness." Let's start with an
oversimplification: Let us suppose that Diogenes is able to prove that all
things are connected and that the proof is so compelling that everyone
capable of understanding it (and let us suppose that the proof is not  very
difficult) has no choice but to agree that everything is connected. Your
question, I believe, is whether or not Diogenes is on to something, and
what you are proposing (I think) is "Not necessarily." Diogenes' proof, in
this model, is still only thought-stuff, and bears no necessary relation to
the Real World (whatever that may be, forever unknowable to us). And the
fact that Diogenes and his friends find this proof compelling is only
further evidence of the tyrrany of tjhought-stuff in the world of
thought-stuff.  Logic being as arbitrary as any other thought-product.
[This, if it is your argument, is a refined version of Bishop Berkeley's
ideas, to which S. Johnson responded by kicking a stone and saying "I
refute it thus"] But then, it seems to me, you are saying that there may be
a "true randomness" Out There--which we simply can't get at because of our
language/logic brains.... which are nonetheless capable of achieving a
spurious randomness, spurious because it is thought-generated and therefore
inherantly logical. Interesting.... but I'm thinking a little convoluted?
Anyways Joyce surely wasn't about disorder in the Wake, but about the
fundamental connectedness of all things through language--a kind of geology
or biochemisty of language.

        a state of "terror"

OK, so I spent the winter reading about the French Revolution, so I'm a
little <I>tetchy</I>, but what on earth is this propensity for terror all
of a sudden? Does anybody out there really like the wretched thing? Does
anybody out there really approve of Terror? Robespierre certainly did and
he was arguably the first in our modern era  to thoroughly articulate the
notion of a beautiful and purifying terror, a noble and neccessary
terror--terror as a testament to incorruptability and virtue (jesus!).  Now
Rousseau, a thoroughly vile thinker and not much in the human being
department either, has a lot to answer for, but nothing more than the
sentimentalization of terror. Seriously, Tanya, do you really want terror
to define the relationship between you and your viewer? Do you really want
"Terror"  to be the calling card of your art? 

Among the many things I objected to so violently was the idea that terror
is the mot juste. When you say "terror," don't you really mean wonder? or
rapture? or delight? 

Lord, I hope so.


J. Jones (his mark)


Message text written by INTERNET:rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>To Jeffrey Jones: 

It's ALL math. The unified field theory is realized in everything we do and

create. We merely re-create the formulas and functions which dictate the 
universe. Language is merely an extension of those "formulas". This is not
to 
discount the power, beauty and functional necessity of language, but, as we

have evolved and been educated in a culture which separates body and mind, 
language becomes an intellectual function, separating us from the power of 
our other senses, and is given focus and more "importance" - and in
theater, 
language can be a way to - from the audience's perpsective - remain at a 
distance, detached. 

In order to affect, touch, move, inspire - feel anything! - through our
ART, 
we must first destroy the immediate barrier; language. Ater a sufficient
time 
of exploration and experimentation without this element, we can then begin
to 
re-integrate language as one more element in the event, not as "more 
important" but with equal importance as all the other elements.

Other note: in regards to "chaos" - Gleick's popular book CHAOS created a 
flurry of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. His ultimate theory 
states that, in fact, the "chaos Theory" - which Anne Bogart professes to
be 
a champion of (in her misunderstanding of Gleick's true meaning) - is that 
chaos does not exists, as we continually discover the order (rules,
theorems, 
mathematical equations) which explain all events. There is no true 
randomness. And all attempts to achieve "true randomness", chaos, disorder,

(Joyce, Dadism, etc) are futile as we are hard-wired to seek out "meaning" 
and "sense" in this existence in order to survive as a specie.

Yet, despite this seemingly depressing pre-deterministic perspective, I 
personally continue to engage in this futile attempt, to "break the rules" 
and present the unexpected. To keep the viewer off-balanced, on edge - a 
state of "terror". Why??????????????????

Tanya
Shumka Theatre
<