Kode9 : portrait of the artist as a... writer

[dubsola]

I remember reading in an interview with Foucault that the reason his style was often so complex and not straight forward was in part due to the academic climate of the 60s. If you didn't write in a convoluted manner than people wouldn't take you seriously.

Is that why Deleuze is so hard to read?

I don't think I will ever make up my mind as to whether some of this stuff is
A. mental wankery;
B. people using words without knowing exactly what they mean, or understanding their point well enough to explain it in layman's terms;
C. Deep thoughts that are necessarily difficult to explain because they are talking about things far beyond eating, drinking, and constructing tangible things - as I do for a living (engineer).

Most likely it's a combination of the above, depending on who you're talking about and what day of the week it is.

I like the thought that there is more going on than a group of kids (actual kids, or kids at heart) listening to music. Don't get me wrong, that is awesome, and a straight-up visceral experience is great - but maybe there is more to it, sometimes. How do you explain that weird mental states that come from listening to something the first time, the 50th time, African jazz mixed with sounds produced by cutting edge technology, mental images produced by music, rhythm's effect on your heartbeat, your state of mind, what tunes go well together and why, music and politics, music and culture, blogs, forums and media... All of it.

Maybe this stuff (Kode9's writing, Kodo Eshwun, etc) is a way to explain it - but damned if it's not incomprehensible to the casual reader. And I would hate to think it's intentionally so. Clarity can be a good thing.

[futureproof]

Is anyone going to filming/recording Steve Goodman's talk?

I think we'll try and film/record parts of the day if possible...

Whether or not Steve's talk is recorded depends on whether he gives us permission... It sounds really interesting though. He'll be using both sound and a data projector as part of the talk.

[ufo over easy]

http://www.museumgardenhistory.org/atmospheres2

I've just booked in for the monday of this too, any other londoners popping along? Looks like it'll be a good day kode and philip jeck playing in the eve, talks in the day

[stanton]

Is that why Deleuze is so hard to read?

I think a lot of it has to do do with famililiarity of the subject, (ie. Engineering books might be wholely opaque to me) but this is true of any necissarily complex document.

Depending on what Deleuze you read he can be really easy to understand. Negotiations and Two Regimes of Madness are full of interviews that give specific examples or show his thought applied to what were comteporary issues. Things such as A Thousand Plateaus are necissarily more complex though, both in their scope and their accesability. ATP is intended to be Rhizomatic, or to propagate ideas by epidemic or contagion and not in hereditary manner (this tollows that). It can be read in any order, dipped into at will and the reader in encouraged to leap about the plateaus as connections are formed and concepts created. This makes it a bastard to read at first.

[spooKs]

phallocentricism motherfuckers

[slothrop]

I remember reading in an interview with Foucault that the reason his style was often so complex and not straight forward was in part due to the academic climate of the 60s. If you didn't write in a convoluted manner than people wouldn't take you seriously.

Is that why Deleuze is so hard to read?

I got the impression that being hard to read was part of the point of stuff following on from the Frankfurt school - the idea being that if it was all explained in a simple and digestible form then you'd just be able to pick it up in a bookshop, read through it thinking 'oh, that's rather interesting' and then put it down and forget about it when you pick up the next thing on your intellectual-consumerist list. Whereas the way it's written actually forces you to wake up and grapple with it and deal with different ways of thinking when you try to understand it.

Still don't understand it, though. It's on my list of things to do when I've got lots of time on my hands and no thesis to write.

Someone (on here perhaps) described the CCRU stuff as 'not so much an attempt to apply critical theory to jungle as an attempt to apply jungle to critical theory' which seems to sort of make sense.

[slothrop]

I wouldn't be surprised. Isn't he a lecturer or teacher of some sort?

http://www.uel.ac.uk/ssmcs/staff/steve-goodman/

Aww look at his cute pic.

Christ, imagine having Kode 9 as your PhD supervisor...

[ikeaboy]

Jesus its great to stumble across fields of thought that you were unaware of. So is the language here used to make the reader reach harder with there mind so they have to make more of a personal invetsment in understanding? or is to create a true meaning so obscure that only an approximate understanding can be reached by intuition, reflecting the nature of the truth? Or is it a form of intellectual elitism? I do like the word monoplod as applied to Shadow Boxing

[optimum]

Use a dictionary innit

[bribkin]

Is that why Deleuze is so hard to read?

Depending on what Deleuze you read he can be really easy to understand. Things such as A Thousand Plateaus are necissarily more complex though, both in their scope and their accesability.

Also if you dont know about some of the in-jokes you might not get why it is actually really fucking funny

[bribkin]

http://www.museumgardenhistory.org/atmospheres2

I've just booked in for the monday of this too, any other londoners popping along? Looks like it'll be a good day kode and philip jeck playing in the eve, talks in the day

shit i would but i have a 'generic skills workshop' at college

[fractal]

lumerians

[dj vk - snakebite ent.]

I wouldn't be surprised. Isn't he a lecturer or teacher of some sort?

http://www.uel.ac.uk/ssmcs/staff/steve-goodman/

Aww look at his cute pic.

Christ, imagine having Kode 9 as your PhD supervisor...

I go to that fucking uni!

I'm gonna try track him down when I next go in!

[pangaea]

what a learned chap

[rekordah]

http://www.museumgardenhistory.org/atmospheres2

I've just booked in for the monday of this too, any other londoners popping along? Looks like it'll be a good day kode and philip jeck playing in the eve, talks in the day

I'm up for it Ben.

[tusk]

I tend to think of the ccru stuff as intelligent, quasi sentient inspired sci fi. I will oscillate between a strongly focused decoding style of reading and moments of passive receptivity, just letting the text resonate and pass over me like waves. Like urban drift on the page / screen.

[ufo over easy]

shit i would but i have a 'generic skills workshop' at college

that sounds awesome.. lol

[djshiva]

this thread is made of awesome.

[dubluke]

http://www.museumgardenhistory.org/atmospheres2

I've just booked in for the monday of this too, any other londoners popping along? Looks like it'll be a good day kode and philip jeck playing in the eve, talks in the day

had been thinking of heading down to that if i can scrape together enough pennies, will keep you posted

[joe muggs]

I tend to think of the ccru stuff as intelligent, quasi sentient inspired sci fi. I will oscillate between a strongly focused decoding style of reading and moments of passive receptivity, just letting the text resonate and pass over me like waves. Like urban drift on the page / screen.

Or like (the good bits of) NLP theory, it's reprogramming you as it goes... creative derangement etc.