In language, poetry has the quality of the punctum. In other words, the reader is rewarded for his/her savoring of language by allowing that language to intrude into one's sense of timing.  The breath and the heartbeat are invited to participate in the word structure, thus allowing language itself to penetrate the body. When that resolution moves the lingering reader into dangerous territory, poetry is all the more gripping. To really read poetry, one must commit her/himself to a luxuriant, almost decadent expenditure of attention to language.  Poetry requires a slowing down and a lingering gaze into accepting some conclusion -- of course Barbara Marie Stafford spoke of the notions of "slow looking" and the "lingering look" when she was here last week, so I also have her thoughts in mind. 

In this poem, Campo performs a stretched sonnet that forces us into the psyche of his persona narrator, or Jerry's friend. I think this is why poetry has such a unique capacity to memorialize. 

Revulsion by Raphael Campo

I think her name was Carly - no, Charlene.
So fucking beautiful, the way she laughed,
a hardness in her face that seemed so soft.
She picked up Jerry real quick - I mean,
without his knowing it - they dated three,
four months. He kissed her in the parking lot
one night in front of all our friends. We thought
she was a woman, too. Eventually,
he wanted more than just a kiss; she played
miss frightened innocent until he forced
his hand inside her dress. Her bloody face
was in the local newspapers next day,
beneath the one-inch headline MALE PROSTITUTE
FOUND DEAD. I recognized her, sure I did,
but I would say she got what she deserved -
I mean, she was a guy, a fucking fruit.

I am currently using my Digital Remix project as a demonstration of media's/images' ability to numb the mind to imagery and ideologies that--perhaps even 20 years prior--seemed repulsive. This idea is particularly interesting in instances like news media (as Ulmer points out) or even in "reality" TV (as Nicole S. points out) where the audience is supposed to see something "real" in what is presented. Most audiences recognize the concoctions (often somewhat ridiculous ones) formulated in reality TV--the human sensorium that Ulmer suggests probably plays a role in this--but many, even educated, audiences often forget to critically reflect on the news media and its relevance to "reality." Interestingly, this "reality" becomes spectaclized in order to "maximize [the audience's] desire" (83), rather than to present a Truth. This spectaclization then becomes the norm. Just as we see Hollywood expanding the boundaries of what is acceptable to view in terms of nudity, profanity, drug use, or any other preciously-deemed unacceptable behaviors and images, we also see the news media reaching further to aggrandize the dimensions of reality, perhaps stretching even further the truth in order to present a spectacle that we--society--are entertained by.

self "becoming image"

Ulmer speaks of "becoming image" and the differencce between one's self and one's image much along the same lines as Lacan and his notion of looking into the mirror as a child. Ulmer though takes this thought farther and begins a conversation about "perfect self-presence" through self "becoming image. " This chain of thought amounts to autocommunication that allows one to see one's self seeing one's self which essentially is the meta-awareness of the act of seeing oneself.

This type of autocommunication I believe has been continually exploited by those who create and produce reality shows.

Through creating the image of reality by the lack of scripts and casting people who the target audience can relate to in one way or another, reality shows work to allow people to "watch themselves" in a role of "perfect self-presence" personified by the cast. This phenomenon then becomes a type of autocommunication...a narcisistic endeavour that allows one to participate in their own self "becoming image."

Death might not make WOW a world

Death on a screen whether it be a computer or silver one works often times to represent death as consequence. Essentially, death itself is not the focus of the viewer/player. It is the effects of that death on the current situation which is the point. And so death is seen as a character of causation and not effect.

I came to this notion in thinking on the aesthetics of death as described in Klastrup's article on WOW and in thinking about how death is displayed in the various movies/tv shows that are watched. These thoughts lead me further back to thinking of plays such as "Death of a Salesman" but here I have to stop b/c in thinking on this play imparticular I am forced to look back toward "American Beauty" which deals with death in an all together different fashion. Death in "American Beauty" is the end...the effect...and even though we see briefly its affects on the other characters the emphasis lies not at that point but on all the other points or causes that lead up to it. This is important and perhaps why the movie was such a hit b/c it demonstrates death acting as it does in the "real" world. What is death but the ending point of what is here a summation of all of the causes that we experience that leads up to that point?

So why is it that death in WOW and other videogames acts as a cause? Because perhaps as Klastrup points out there has to be an incentive for a player to play better. If this is so, can we then state that death is part of what makes WOW a world? I ask this last question because death is positioned in these games as counter to its function in the real world

Permission

So I have some ideas with regards to my digital remix project and my final emonument that entails the use of my fellow class member's identities and their actions. Essentially, I'd like to have your permission to use you in my two projects that have to do with reality TV and reality. Your role in the project would be to represent reality and would be used to enact a stark contrast to those entities that comprise reality on tv. So please respond to this post with a yes or no so that I know what I'm working with. Gracias!

World of Deathcraft

The "death penalty" of games: yes, that certainly makes sense.  Virtual worlds must punish.  Virtual worlds built around the concept of war must punish with death.  A few alternatives:

-surrender of land

-occupation

-embargoes

-sanctions

-broken families

-incineration of cities

-torture

-slavery

-inflation

-physical disability

-PTSD

-imprisonment

-exile

-scorched earth

But these are much more messy.  Death is easily inflicted and overturned in a virtual world.

Klastrup's "Note on Death and Dying" in WOW calls attention to the construction of mortality and its interface (so to speak) with players.  Her most provocative findings/conclusions are: 1) it can teach through incentive; 2) it is an event (she makes this claim indirectly through Van Gennep's idea of a "liminal phase" and her rebuttal of the player who described battleground death as a non-event).

From this I'd like to offer one re-rebuttal and two questions:

Re-rebuttal: Death is an event in WOW but not a death event.  I will ignore PVE and PVP and Battlegrounds and get right to the most narrative-worthy material: the Leeroy Jenkins death--dying under the high-stakes conditions of a group run/instance/quest.   As Klastrup indicates, this kind of death does not only produce fools.  It makes heroes too (although I don't agree that these "valorous" deaths parallel WWI accounts--think of Wilson Owen and trenches, and the comparison falls apart).  My point is that this kind of death focuses much more on shifts in social standing than on a bodily event.  The group, if wiped, re-spawns and retries.  Nothing physical (besides the durability of armor) transforms.  Death, on the other hand, is a fleshy event.  Without any permanent material rupture, death be not found.

The game should be approached--as should most games--as a combat simulator without killing.  "Permadeath" should not describe "death."  "Death" should.  What happens in WOW is more along the lines of involuntary teleportation--a non-non-death  

Question 1): Does this really matter?

Question 2): If it (death or the non-non-death) is a powerful incentive to learn, should we bring it into the classroom?

A sifting through of society's trash

Ulmer connects his argument in the section on sacrifice (pg 41-42)to Georges Bataille and his thoughts with regards to sacrifice and forms of unrequitted expenditure. His choice of Bataille as reference for this section implies that his idea of car crashes is: "ostentation squander" (<--Bataille word choice in "Gift of Rivalry: Potlach") and hence insightful when discerning the values of the entity (the US) that engages in it. Before moving on to its application to emonuments I want to take a closer look at Bataille's idea and Ulmer's notion of sacrifice. Below is a brief summary of their thoughts explicitly present in the article and informed by Bataille's article "Gift of Rivalry: Potlach" and his short text The Eye

Sacrifice (the continuity of life through the witnessing of death and still being) - as a way of understading society
Sacrifice as performance - ritual - rhythm - which invokes then the sense of pattern
Sacrifice as related to practices of production/consumption and unproductive expenditure
Sacrifice as having no end beyond itself
Sacrifice as ostentatious squander - an act afforded solely through one's ability to do so.

Sacrifice as a symptom related to a larger site of schematics. A symptom that may be reduced to its part of a social cycle that is: give and receive - man to man / man to society / society to man. A power shifting through life and death - a vengeful consumption of individual life at the expense of a society's witnessing - which is needed to acknowldege and reify its own existence. But more so a wasteful consumption of life simply because a society has the goods(individuals) to consume. A behaviour based on a sort of capitalistic circadian rhythmic impulsivity (which implies a lack of uncorrupt conscious reason) which can be directly linked to ownership.

The power to ingest/invest which thereby concludes in ownership, which in turn offers the power to destroy/expel/make abject. ie: i buy a flag..I can burn a flag / I ingest food which will eventually become abject <-- This idea as applied to society. An emonument - bearing witness, calling attention to this. A sifting through of a society's trash as means to discern its values and then laying claim to and projecting such to the mass in lightspeed.