#28 Sloterdijk; Critique of Cynical Reason | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thehumoredhost · 2 years

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Hello Friend,

As things usually go, you have been living for some time now by favour extraordinary. [33] An old friend…But I still don't quite understand you.’ I'll come to the point right away. [34]

I think you misunderstood two main things: I am not laughing; at least I am not laughing at you [35], and I’m not making a stage just for myself, but also for the Maiden’s Tower.

It can talk to you and you can talk to it.[7] It now seems that you would deny that she can talk or think at all.[36] I am talking to her, about her portrait. [30] She watches herself watching herself. Oh, that delicacy of observation of hers![5] She sees smiles, desires, terror, come and go like lightning; every time the face seems different. [3] You can almost watch the walls go up and down in real time. [37]

The Maiden cried for help, and there was none to hear. [3] When I saw her, I talked with her[38] And she listened to me with the utmost deference and attention. [39] she took pains to see that they should be equipped in ways which surpass the natural order [33] That was when I decided to do this project. She was going to talk through me, expressing all the pain and suffering she has seen over the years. The voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. [40]

After writing and despatching my first letter all I thought of was remaining quiet at the Maiden’s Tower and taking care of my health; of endeavouring to recover my strength, and taking measures to build the observation tower in the spring without noise or making the rupture public. [3]

But after reading your letter I made up my mind. You’re right. A stage controlled, closed-off isn’t suited for the Maiden to let her have her cry out [7], the stage must belong to all! Open and there for everyone to take part in.

After all, the man of the world almost always wears a mask. [3] Including you. I must admit, you were very good at concealing your true nature. [7]But this is merely an illusion. [25] the true function of a deceptive screen is not to conceal what lies behind it, but, precisely, to create and sustain the illusion that there is something it is hiding.[41] We should strip the mask, not only from men, but from things, and restore to each object its own aspect. [28] No more hiding. [42]

Now that’s a reason for a cenotaph: a sepulchral monument erected in memory of the deceased mask of a person whose lies are buried in the depths of Bosphorus. [43]

— There you can see what talk will do. [24]

Thanks for helping me and the Maiden with our project

Yours sincerely

Bill

#33 de Montaigne; The Complete Essays #34 Freud; The Uncanny #35 Wilde; The Picture of Dorian Gray #36 Hofstadter; Godel Escher Bach #37 Koolhaas; Elements of Architecture #38 The Book of the Thousand and One Nights Supplementary Nights #39 Svevo; Confessions of Zeno #40 King; James Bible #41 Zizek; Less Than Nothing #42 Bersani; Homos #43 dictionary.com #24 Leatherbarrow Eisenschmidt; Twentieth Century Architecture #28 Sloterdijk; Critique of Cynical Reason #25 Marx; Collected Works #7 Asimov;Complete Robot Anthology #3 Rousseau;Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau #5 Carter; Shaking A Leg #30 Proust; In Search of Lost Time Vol V The Captive The Fugitive

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cosmiccino · 1 year

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(1) Corbin, Temple and Contemplation

(2) Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

(3) Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

(4) Gorringe, A Theology of the Built Environment

(5) Jung, Memories Dreams Reflections

(6) Burrows, Fictioning

(7) Rand, The Fountainhead

(8) Koolhaas Obrist, Project Japan

(9) Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

(10) Seneca, Complete Works

(11) Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(12) Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

(13) Braidotti Hlavajova, Posthuman Glossary

(14) Zimring, Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste

(15) Kuhl, 50 Buildings You Should Know

(16) Negroponte, Being Digital

(17) Hofstadter, Godel Escher Bach

(18) Wilson, Aesthesis and Perceptronium

(19) Voegelin, Order and History 5

(20) Cixous, White Ink

(21) Hugo, Les Miserables

(22) Carter, Shaking A Leg

(23) Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

(24) Ball, The Selfmade Tapestry Pattern Formation in Nature

(25) Schmitt, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy

(26) Davis, High Weirdness

(27) Jefferson, Political Writings

(28) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

(29) Serres, Rome

(30) Negarestani, Collapse Volume VII Culinary Materialism

(31) Henaff, The Price of Truth

(32) Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home

(33) Marx, Collected Works

(34) Harman, Bells and Whistles

(35) Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism

(36) Derrida, Signature

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felleisen · 3 years

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THE SIL/ICON

„[…]I remember the pavement, it was right under my nostrils. I can still see it, there were veins in the stone and white spots.[…][23]“ ([its] character sketches of the daily life in Odysseus’ household constitute a sort of comedy of character.[24]) inside She is standing next to the surgery table, surrounded by hanging body parts - not to be defined. Flesh or silicone. Two large windows allow you to see who is in the [lab] and watch what they are doing.[25] In porn, an audience is able to watch sex acts being performed.[26] „If I sing and dance, I seduce, and if I dress and scent myself, I slay.[27] I need to express. Style, brains, and the skills to intellectually seduce both men and women on a grand scale.[28] [I] try to seduce him in exchange for being saved.“[29] Silicone implants?[30] “I answer, yes indeed[…].[31] Everything you’ll ever need.” It likes to serve, It likes to have a purpose again, It admires the power. On the first side, it is […] servant, on the other its master.[32] „I would like for the world—now pay attention to the way I say this—I would like for the world not to change so that I can be against the world.[33]” Are you not in my power?“[34] It denies, only every 24 hours

[23]Rand, The Fountainhead [24]Longinus, On the Sublime [25]Rendell Penner Borden, Gender Space Architecture [26]Bussey Chamberlain, Queer Troublemakers [27]The Book of the Thousand and One Nights [28]ArtBasel, Catalogue [29]Derrida, Signature [30]Koolhaas, Junkspace with Running Room [31]Spinoza, Complete Works [32]Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason [33]Amin, Disturbing Attachments Genet [34]Deleuze, Masochism Coldness and Cruelty Venus in Furs

#text

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omaelle · 3 years

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House Rules

1 no touching of objects and subjects

2 no one should be forced against their will [4] unless it is said so

3 if you have long hair please tie it up

4 do not feel joy of another’s misfortune [5] during the welcoming process

5 no shirts, no shoes [6] that are not clean are allowed in the house

6 proudly show the world you have nothing to hide [7]

7 What you see is no longer what you get [8]

8 exercise all the senses [9] and interact with the others

9 you shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise [10]

10 no running, pushing or shoving on the stairs

11 shower with soap and water before you enter

12 pregnant women must consult a doctor before use

13 children under the age of 18 years are not permitted

14 exercise [11] your happiness by pushing your boundaries

15 please no jumping on all floors

16 never demand an exact finish [12] let the others be free

17 please do not sit or lie down on fragile objects

18 use restrooms at any time

19 record only what you please [13]

20 use the stairs

21 no pets allowed without exception

22 no rough play during breaks

23 you must show clearly the use before the abuse [14]

24 never encourage imitation [15] unless it is part of the process

25 reduce wastewater [16] by turning off the shower every 15 minutes

26 you can’t use computers [17] while you are in the pool

27 exercise of mind and body as relaxation [18] to free yourself from expectations during your stay

28 enjoyment of the property is granted [19] when you follow the rules

29 Everyone has a role [20] that has to be followed throughout the whole process

30 if you loose any of your items pick them up [21]

31 do not at any time lack confidence [22] in yourself

32 only use the front door to leave after the process

the other rules you’ll figure out as you go along [23]

[4] Justinian, The Codex [5] Aquinas, Summa Theologica [6] Fight Club [7] Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture [8] Koolhaas, Junkspace with Running Room [9] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [10] Augustine, The City of God [11] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [12] Ruskin, The Stones of Venice [13] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [14] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [15] Ruskin, The Stones of Venice [16] Zimring, Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste [17] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [18] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [19] Justinian, The Codex [20] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason [21] Greenhalgh, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky [22] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [23] Shawshank Redemption

#followtherules #inruleswetrust

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nbrunell · 3 years

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Passing By

Exile

Lenny stands in the garden, once again, facing towards the city. The large shadow cast by the neighboring building covers the entire House and its surroundings. He would like to sit, but the sunless afternoon makes it too cold for him. He thinks about his first time there, on a similar day, how he had been underwhelmed by the banal garden when passing the walls, and how unwelcome he had felt by the cold pure white house upon reaching the front door. He cannot remember how long ago; was it weeks? Months already? Could it be years?

-How much time gone to waste! [1]

He misses his long contemplative walks in the lush, warm and calm gardens of Rome. In Vienna the garden does not allow him to walk long enough to finish half a thought. There is no docile ear to listen when he wishes to speak, to be heard. The city seems to be pushing against the walls, shrinking the garden bit by bit, applying pressure, ready to crush him.

- How does death feel?… How does death feel?... [2]

Lenny suddenly turns on his feet and heads towards the house. He does not fear death; he fears the thought of death. [3]

The most whimsical idea was, that not believing in hell, he was firmly persuaded of the reality of purgatory. [4] Was this it? But how did he get here? He should listen only to his own zeal and should bear his exile without a murmur; that exile is one of his duties. [5] But what homeland do those seek to whom this entire world is a place of exile? [6] An exile, of which every one is more ashamed than the sufferer, is not exile at all. [7]

He reaches the door, pushes the handle and steps inside.

Memory

Lenny stands still and looks around him. He suddenly feels very light. The room is bathed in warm sunshine and he can see dust floating in the air. The walls are covered with shelves that contain books and picture frames. The entire surface of the room is occupied by small tables and pedestals, presenting countless other objects. Lenny picks up a book, but doesn’t recognize the language in which it is written. He looks at the frames, but they are all empty. None of the objects seem to be of use for anything to him. He walks around, trying to find something that he recognizes. Nothing. He thinks to himself:

- You’re too tied to the past. [8] None of this matters. The past is an enormous place, with all sorts of things inside. Not so with the present. The present is merely a narrow opening with room for only one pair of eyes. Mine.[9]

Lenny’s thoughts are interrupted by a distant sound. He can make out a quiet, rhythmic thump, emanating from the big empty white wall at the very end of the room. It is free of objects and coverings. [10] Is there someone else in the house? He exits the room to try and get to the other side of the wall. He guides himself by sound. [11] He searches and searches, but there doesn’t seem to be any way of getting there. He returns to the bright room and looks at the empty wall. The quiet thump continues.

- The future is hidden from me. [12] Is eternal life not as enigmatic as the present one? [13]

Lenny’s frustration grows with every thump. He starts kicking the wall, hitting it with various objects. Noise against noise. [14] White flakes of plaster and wood fly into the air, joining the dust before hitting the ground as he gradually destroys the wall, creating an opening just big enough for him to see through. Lenny looks inside but cannot make anything out in the dark space. He can hear the sound more clearly now, resonating. Lenny keeps going. Hitting, thrashing. The hole is now large enough, letting some light in and allowing him to crawl inside. The darkness embraces him lovingly. [15]

Malaise

As the dust settles, Lenny finds himself in a dimly lit space of strange proportions, much higher than it is wide. Vast. And silent. There is no more thumping. Here nothing but darkness and chilling moisture. [16]

There is however another monument of this dynasty. The celebrated Labyrinth, which must now be passed over entirely in silence. [17] Lenny advances in the only possible direction. The seemingly random movement of the endless walls forces him forward. He loses sense of time, and space seems to curve. He wonders if he really has a choice in navigating this artificial infinity. [18] He knows that his freedom of will consists in the fact that his future actions cannot be known now. [19]

He advances further. Gradually the ceiling becomes visible as it lowers above his head and the space straightens in front of him. For the first time since entering, he sees behind the vertical horizon of the walls. Clarity instead of vagueness. [20] At the end, a heavy door, filling the entire space between ground, walls and ceiling.

Lenny thinks about going back, but the eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills him with dread. [21] He takes a few more steps until he notices on the door, written with golden letters: « The Abode of Beauty ». [22] Lenny erupts.

- Open the door! Open the door, I said! [23]

The door bursts open. [24] He thinks to himself.

- A door opening to the unknown, discoverer of the new, maker of the new, maker of life. [25]

Lenny stands in the threshold. A door between two rooms is in both of them. [26] He steps forward and closes it behind him. His eyes slowly adapt to the bright warm light.

Sisyphus

Lenny stares in disbelief. In front of him he recognizes the unknown objects, strange books, empty pictures. And in the back, a cold, empty white wall.

He falls to his knees.

- My God, my god why have you forsaken me, I say to you now. [27] I came because I’ve never felt so alone and in despair in all my life. [28]

God’s infinite silence… God’s infinite silence… God’s infinite silence. [29] More cruel than the silence of prisons, that kind of silence is in itself a prison. [30]

Lenny screams and runs to the main entrance of the House.

He skids out, slamming the door. [31]

Other forces would have had to intervene […] to allow architecture to come in for a modest share in the great human revolt. [32] The House is capricious. One can struggle against it and hold back what has to be; then one becomes the person in revolt. [33]

Lenny steps into the cold afternoon light. He walks into the garden. The air was calm, and the sky unclouded, [34] but the Sun is hidden behind a skyscraper.

[1] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[2] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[3] Seneca, Complete Works

[4] Rousseau, Collected Works

[5] Rousseau, Collected Works

[6] Erasmus, Paraphrases

[7] Seneca, Complete Works

[8] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[9] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[10] Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture

[11] Serres, The Parasite

[12] Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

[13] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

[14] Serres, Genesis

[15] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[16] Jung, Memories Dreams Reflections

[17] Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art

[18] Frankl, The Gothic

[19] Wittgenstein, Tractatus

[20] Benton Sharp, Form and Function

[21] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[22] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[23] Borges, Collected Fictions

[24] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[25] Bergdoll Oechslin, Fragments Architecture and the Unfinished

[26] Russell Norvig, Artificial Intelligence

[27] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[28] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[29] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[30] Proust, In Search of Lost Time

[31] Rand, The Fountainhead

[32] Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968

[33] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[34] Humboldt, Equinoctial Regions of America

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dthai · 3 years

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II.Infiltration

The Elysian Garden

Day was departing, and the embrowned air released the animals that are on earth from their fatigues; and I the only one [13] was sitting on a small bench on the square of social security. The night hides the ones who seeks to lie hidden in their deeds of darkness.[14] Indeed it was finally time to infiltrate the world of Lenny Belardo, the hidden Don of the most dangerous underworld mafia. I hastily walked down the Parkgassestreet and there it appeared the House Wittgenstein. There is a secret buried deep within the house, a secret inaccessible truth, buried in the bowels of the earth. Hidden chambers where the pope hides his darkest secrets, political enemies, betrayers thrown in the darkest pit of Tartarus, unspeakable treasures and goods guarded by beasts.

I climbed up upon cold walls, using the big publicity signs as support; and entered the underworld, the realm of Hell like a thief. [17] I fell on the soft grass.

A thousand noted nightingale shrilled with her varied shright[18]. In this calm and peaceful garden of the courtyard more than forty statues can be seen; stones placed here and there upon a green lawn stand with dignity in the midst of the silence and tranquillity. Some pines, some cypresses and some poplars keep them company; urns placed upon window sill give to this place an air of happiness that sweet melancholy which speaks to the sensitive soul. [19] Somewhere in the garden a continual murmur of water gushing forth in the generous flow that only a Roman fountain can produce. [20]

Elysium seemed to me to suit the character of the landscape [...]where the souls of the virtuous live[...]. [21]

Or Is it a graveyard, a place with tombs to bury the poor people? [23] Do these urns contain the ashes of the murdered. Are the walls in the death agony, the stones falling?; the breaches crying aloud; the holes [...] wounds?; the drooping, quivering trees [...] making an effort to flee? [24]

Deception or self deception? – I do not know[22]

The Vestibule

Somewhere in the Wittgenstein House, the back and forth swinging of the pendulum clock

could be heard. I was standing in the corridor, a high ceiling gallery, which expresses a formal space where visitors can meet and talk. The roads were lined with religious paintings [26], some superposed and all intervaled in renaissance-like and divine proportions. In this case, the layers curve around numerous ellipses that fan out from a common point radially, like petals from a flower such as a daisy.[28]

As I ran through the passage, the corridor seemed endlessly long, a gigantic tough of beast swallowing me whole. Under this high ceiling [...] did the paintings look further apart than they actually are? [27]

The sudden curve destabilizing making me sick in this circular maze, elongating likea moving snake. Am I walking on the floor or ceiling? Were the pendulum oscillations [...]growing shorter before ceasing altogether soon?. [29] Is this the vestibule of Hell where the damned are in perpetual pursuit of the eternal banner? Is it my imagination?

The Library

A smell of broken down glue, yellow paper, ink polished wood and musty leather book bindings [30] and the mist of the incense hangs heavily[31] in the air when I entered the library. At the top coffered barrel vault placed over an amphitheater of books[34] ,arches that are dramatically withdrawn from the middle of the central skylight, which, like the oculus of the Pantheon, presents a floating circular disk of hovering sky[32]. The whole ambiance was conducive to a spirituality of study. Inside reigned respectful silence, a reverential attitude toward the books[...]These treasures on the shelves, all alike contributed to an atmosphere if not of sanctity, at least of scholarly devotion. [35]

Moonlight was flowing in like white mist and gave the surface a ghostly ashen glow between the shadows [33]. In the middle of the room under halo of the skylight, a few stuffed armchairs and a heavy dark walnut wood reading desk with complex carvings.

However is this studious silence hiding another obscure truth? Just another shameful silence and hypocrisy of the countless evils committed? Doesn’t these perfectly aligned shelves and chair look like marching soldiers, reduced to silence but to listen to the Lord of the underworld sitting on his black throne? As I walked down the aisle I saw that there is a hidden shrine in a large niche, a strange smell escaping from it. A underground passage seems to be hidden there.

The Cave

A draught of cool air blew in my face[38]. It seems that this underground passage is connected to the outside. There was neither gold nor silver nor marble nor columns nor paintings nor statues; this grotto was carved into the rock, vaulted with rocks and shells, adorned with a young vine that spread its flexible branches equally in all directions [39]

Chambers were built inside this cave, sometimes visible and invisible behind the irregular structure of the cold rock. Small lights on the walls illuminated the way.

Who liked to meditate within the dark recesses of subterranean chambers, it is not difficult to understand why they eventually hid all they knew or thought they knew beneath an impenetrable veil[40]

A howling sound vibrated through the air. The voices of innumerable souls trapped inside this monster? Inside the guts of cerberus, a monstrous dog, terrible and great, shimmering, eating raw flesh, under the hidden places of the holy earth[41]. Guarding the darkest secrets for his master, his most precious treasure, his secret weapons, his political enemies from seeing the light of the day? Is Euridice really here - I wonder?

I descended deeper into the underworld it occured to me that this may be a one way trip. Because noone returns from the underworld.

A noise behind me and everything went dark.

Quotes

The Book of the Thousand and One Nights Supplementary Nights [1]

Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology[2]

Matrix 1999 [3]

Sophocles, Ajax[4]

Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau[5]

Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason[6]

Augustine, The City of God[7]

Melanchthon, On Christian Doctrine[8]

Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises[9]

Luther, Works of Martin Luther Vol 3 [10]

King, James Bible [11]

Homer, The Odyssey[12]

Dante, Divine Comedy[13]

Aquinas, Summa Theologica[14]

Serres, Hermes Literature Science Philosophy [15]

Foucault, History of Madness[16]

King, James Bible[17]

The Book of the Thousand and One Nights[18]

Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815[19]

Lovejoy Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity[20]

Magnuson, Rome in the Age of Bernini [21]

Hatfield, Experimental Film and Video An Anthology[22]

Flint, Wrestling With Moses[23]

Hugo, Les Miserables[24]

Alexander, A Pattern Language[25]

Kolrud, Iconoclasm From Antiquity to Modernity[26]

Leslie, Liquid Crystals[28 ]

Hugo, Les Miserables[29]

Unwin, Analysing Architecture[30]

Ruskin, The Stones of Venice [31]

Wittkower, Born under Saturn [31]

Marder Jones, The Pantheon[32]

Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology[33]

Marder Jones, The Pantheon[34]

Coomans, Loci Sacri[35]

Stickley, Gustav Stickley s Craftsman Homes and Bungalows[36]

Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1[37]

Kafka, The Trial[38]

Le Roy, The Ruins of the Most Beautiful Monuments of Greece[39]

Saisselin, Painting Writing and Primitive Purity[40]

Hesiod, Theogony[41]

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k-chapman · 3 years

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Chapter 4 - The Feast

I find myself lost. Vienna, my home, turned against me. Places of love turned to spaces of pain, in my mind, around my body. The ring of promise, the gift of love from my beloved, cripples my hand. I can hardly walk, and yet I wander.

In a side alley I am discovered. I had halted but for a moment when a man in the dead of night, smoking, speaks to me: "Do you know the pain of lost love? [1] Perhaps you are going to deny the existence of that which you do not see?” [2]

The speaker came into the light of alley. Behind him the gates in a wall seemed to distort as he moves, taking up my whole field of vision. I see his face; it is the rugged face of moments lost. [3] I fumble with my ring out of apprehension and disorientation.

His words bolder now: […] “we find three levels: we see one form closer to matter than to the agent, another closer to the agent than to matter, and another in between.” [4] His eyes darting back forth between me and my ring. Pangs of pain running through me as his needy eyes caress the gold. I thought him for a moment a common thief, but his words begged to differ, his manner was more akin to servant, a butler.

Our eyes met again. From the rugged, beautiful face the word came forth: “What the lover sees is the lost part of himself contained in, enveloped by the Other.” [5]

I could not stop myself from nodding in agreement.

“Come then, let us see, by way of the works and affects of the understanding, how we might be able to find what we are seeking.” [6] He softly opened the gate behind him, and we entered the presence of the house, enveloped by the garden, I felt outside the world. From this point onwards, a new relation between love and unreason began to take shape. [7]

Inside what I first took for statues, where in fact beasts. Cows to be exact. Surprised I stare at my acquaintance as he moved through the lush meadow.

“What of the purity of a man who, content with a farmer’s life, preferred honesty to any amount of gold?” [8] He winked, and he spoke in soft reassuring tones, as I release the grip on my ring, but only slightly. The beasts indifferently watched us, chewing.

The garden was completely overgrown, no discernible organization lay under these grasses. Clearings were only created by the cows stamping weight. Moonlight glittered of the lush follicles as they swayed in the breeze.

“Don't you understand what we owe to this breed of animal? [9] To any breed in fact?” He petted the head of one of the beasts as it chewed slowly. It struck me that purity, and retiring delicacy, are features well contrasted with the rough, but tender disposition of the hero. [10]

“Human body is not animal body. [11] We know too much; such consciousness cannot become dumb and trust again; innocence cannot be regained. [12] We surely by now would have forgotten innocence if it weren’t for the beasts.” But I was only half listening, my eyes drawn to the light from inside the house. I was drawn inside the house, feeling the light and warmth beckon me. I enter and for the first time see the source of the light, a great shining rift.

I feel I am not alone.

“What comes out of that thing can be called flame or soul, charm, consumption, in any case a halo.” [13] The voice resonates throughout the house, as if the walls themselves were speaking. The tones are deep now and hollow. I feel the man’s presence behind me but cannot tear my eyes from the beauty of the pit. Again, he spoke in an ever-increasing boom:

“[..]When the brain’s black vapours have filled the spirit and, with the spirit vibrating, have set into motion horrible forms in the phantasy so that very nearly the soul’s entire power is struck by the novelty of the hideous spectacle and is concentrated in the phantasy, are you surprised if it interrupts its work of contemplating for a while and resumes it only when the vapours have finally dispersed? [14]

[…] Such contemplation cannot rightly take place unless the images have been set aside. [15]

The true task is to see how meaning is corroded from within by an [external] object, an object inherent to it, a stranger within. [16]

Your ring…”

The last vowel shook the windows, like the grumbling of a hungry belly, the light of the pit pulsated, the ring now on the palm of my hand. My love, lost.

“Such a vice does not destroy the soul’s nature, but it does take possession of it. [17]

[…] Should the pain remain distinct or [should it] intermingle? [18]

Don't you know how much the gods like the smell of burnt offerings?” [19]

And with a simple movement the ring fell from my palm into the pit and sparked as it hit the bursting surface and an enormous clap sounded.

Every individual created substance exerts physical action and passion on all the others. [20] Is it through choice rather than through being that the Sun gives light to the world, that fire heats, that the soul nourishes the body? [21]

The release was electric. I was blown back by the heat, the air unbearable, the lightness otherworldly, I am thrown to the ground and find myself at the feet of the stranger.

Around us the house groaned as if in great pleasure, shifting and expanding with warmth. I look up, seeing now the distorted ceiling, covered in organic openings like a frozen dissolving cement. The opening like inhaling vents began to shimmer. The smokey vapours were sucked up and swirled around thousand tiny nostrils in a deep breath. Cool air streamed past the stranger’s feet and my body, I shivered.

He stares at me, his face illumined by the multicoloured glow. Slowly he fixed the sure gaze of his clear eyes on mine, and keeping his mouth tightly shut, he thoughtfully put his faithful hand on my shoulder. [22] Then he spoke with his voice echoing through the house as if they were speaking as one, his voice seemingly modulating the howling rush of air as it pulled past us.

“If [there] were some form superior to matter, why did one need to destroy the matter in order to make this completely unrelated form, which in no sense comes into existence from matter and is produced at a total remove from it? [23] Your eyes’ sparkle, I see clearly ; the waft of your breath I feel warmly, your [pain’s] voice’s singing I hear sweetly:— but what, singing, you tell me, amazed, I understand it not. [24] The victim, not the murderer, is guilty. [25] You were guilty, and you know it! You lingered!”

His lasts words left is face contorted with anger but only for a moment.

He looked to the blaze and in his own voice now, as if to himself, hardly audible past the streaming wind, he spoke:

“In this way whiteness has become corporeal [26]. The whiteness, the pure whiteness.”

Lying on the floor I saw him move towards the unbearable heat and I was taken by lightness, taken by peace. Sound becoming silence as I fall.

Softly, like feathers caught up in an eddy of air that had passed, [my] thoughts steadied and drifted to rest. [27] Down in this world you allow yourself a thousand peaceful acts: to sleep, dream, talk on and on, relax your attention; all danger moves away from your steps so naturally that you don’t think about it. [28]

[1] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[2] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 2 Books V VIII

[3] Zajko, Laughing with Medusa

[4] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 3 Books IX XI

[5] Zizek, Less Than Nothing

[6] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 2 Books V VIII

[7] Foucault, History of Madness

[8] Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence

[9] Alberti, Momus

[10] Homer, Iliad

[11] Zajko, Laughing with Medusa

[12] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[13] Serres, Statues

[14] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 3 Books IX XI

[15] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 5 Books XV XVI

[16] Zizek, Less Than Nothing

[17] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 5 Books XV XVI

[18] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 2 Books V VIII

[19] Alberti, Momus

[20] Leibniz, Philosophical Essays

[21] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 1 Books I IV

[22] Zizek, Less Than Nothing

[23] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 2 Books V VIII

[24] Kittler, The Truth of the Technological World

[25] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[26] Ficino, Platonic Theology Volume 1 Books I IV

[27] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[28] Serres, The Natural Contract

#SOAPCHAPTER

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heloisedc · 3 years

Text

The darkness embraced him lovingly.[1]

I can no more recognize the form of this light than I can gaze directly on the sphere of the sun. [2]

We are mutually bound together, the lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that I cannot fly off; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending upwards, the heavier is so suspended, that he cannot fall down.[3]

The excitement rushed through my body as the ritual started. Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus.[4] (My goal is to transpire)

He was of utter beauty, grazing perfection. The reproduction of the image of the Vitruvian man […][5]

No sculptor can possibly produce a first class work of art here on Gaia without a well crafted Participation and the ones I produce of this particular type are considered excellent[…][6] We seem never to be altogether prepared for the resulting distress. If we do not literally shake, as I did […], we may experience an internal shudder that is the subjective equivalent of the overt trembling that occurred […]. While my physical shaking […] was observable by anyone standing near me, the inner shudder at my own bodily pain may not be visible to others even though it is felt intensely by myself, and felt as foreign to me. Some part of my body has become alien to me, split off from a coherent and unitary sense of self.[7]

He clearly abused himself, but in so doing rendered a stature I had never before had the blessing to see. Ideal form of excellence![8] but For what purpose?[9]

For them.

I had also studied all the details of housekeeping; I understand cooking and cleaning; I know the prices of food, and also how to choose it; I can keep accounts accurately […].[10]

Mild water? I found suds forming on my body and I rubbed hastily here, there, everywhere, judging it to be the wash cycle and knowing it would not last long. Then came the rinse cycle. Ah, warm Well, perhaps not warm, but not quite as cold, and definitely feeling warm to my thoroughly chilled body.[11]

If a man is covered by an eruption you will mix flour of malt little by little in oil, you will apply (it) and he will recover; if he is still not cured, you will apply hot simtum and he will recover; if he is still not cured, you will apply the warm residue and he will recover.[12] Since statues are feasting, it’s an interrupted meal. As though eternally interrupted. At which deadly mouthful were they immobilized?[13]

The Greeks were not wrong in showing us the immortals constantly feasting, drinking ambrosia, and laughing endlessly.[14]

Now, everything is finished.[15]

Here the day has come; here the week of the lectistemium has begun.[16] If we employ extracts, they must have been recently prepared and preserved with great care.[17] Oiling out, making out, polishing, scraping, etc.[18] This new development came from the perfecting of the arts that imitate the human body.[19]

The physical effort was small, but the mental effort of trying to control without controlling was enormously difficult.[20] His only aim, his only possible aim, was to please me.[21] Or so I had thought.

I believed, however, that the soul could achieve temporary separation from the body in an ecstatic trance.[22] Is it truly possible to think without arriving at beauty, without penetrating the secret place where life bubbles up, without the transfiguration of the body?[23]

“Prepared?”[24]

The Sacrifice, the gift

Then the engine was started, the machine ran along the ground, gathered speed, until finally, all of a sudden, at right angles, I rose slowly, […] as it were static ecstasy of a horizontal speed suddenly transformed into a majestic, vertical ascent.[25]

Now, drawn out from his body, his sinews formed a bundle of dark, shiny stalks, not unlike the bundle of lightning bolts that lay beside him, although these were bright and smoking.[26] Now between the dry head, more than dead, almost abstract, empty and dessicated, suitably objectivized, wholly exterior, pierced, visible, nameable, articulated, analyzable, between the skull and the rest of the world, a circumstantial halo of light, like the ones worn by the great saints, replaces, at bone level, the lining of flesh, fat, muscle, organs, skin, veins, tendons, hair, radiance, charm, beauty, glory. Thus the body thinks. The body thinks therefore shines.[27]

If you ever have to carry someone on your shoulders from the top of a mountain, down to the valley, you will think at first that you are dying, the torture endured by muscles that do not know how to work when walking down a slope is unbearable; then you get your strength back, as is always the case, a second wind and addiction to this new labour, gradually and for the first time previously unknown muscle fibres, unaccustomed angles, slumbering joints, zones of silence in the middle of your flesh make strange yet familiar music, never before heard yet immediately recognized, the mobile, non-homogeneous porterage column separates into its component parts, a whole world comes to life within it, arranges and adapts itself, redistributes its responsibilities under the implacable, crushing weight; the body becomes an architectural structure, moving masonry, a ship; the skeleton becomes a firm framework, with tie beams and rafters; the muscles form the wall and partitions.[28]

The gods were distinguished from men through their immortality; they were physiologically distinguished through their living on a special diet; and they were endowed with a variety of nonhuman qualities such as superior knowledge and strength, the ability to be invisible and to change their form; and so forth.[29]

Moments are points of rupture —ephemeral, euphoric, revelatory of the total, radical, sometimes revolutionary possibilities latent in everyday life.[30]

Everything that I can see in this body produces in me ecstatic wonder.[31]

Now whoever offers sacrifice must be a sharer in the sacrifice, because the outward sacrifice he offers is a sign of the inner sacrifice whereby he offers himself to God.[32]

Then, having risen to so high a pitch, having been sustained with so much vigour, the chant, mingled with a murmur of supplication in the midst of ecstasy, seemed at times to stop altogether like a spring that has ceased to flow.[33] This music makes me cry because I am not like it, not something complete, which turns toward the lost sweetness of life like a distant quotation. Happiness can only be thought of as something lost, as a beautiful alien. It cannot be anything more than a premonition that we approach with tears in our eyes without ever reaching it. [34]

In an ecstasy of joy, no doubt intensified by the joy he felt in making me shine before his friends, with extreme volubility, he reiterated, stroking and patting me as though I were a horse that had just come first past the post: “You’re the most beautiful man I know, do you hear?”[35]

BAs soon as he was free, he rushed out to admire the sunlight, crying out ecstatically, 'How beautiful![36]

Just as a different image of the rainbow enters into every mortal eye, so too does the surrounding world reflect for each individual a different imprint of beauty, However, universal, original beauty, which we can name only in moments of ecstatic intuition and are unable to reduce to words, reveals itself unto the One who created the rainbow and the eye that beholds it.[37]

It was time to rest again.

[1] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[2] Newman, Sister of Wisdom

[3] Pliny, Natural History Volume 1

[4] de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

[5] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[6] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[7] Casey, The World on Edge

[8] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[9] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[10] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[11] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[12] Serres, History of Scientific Thought

[13] Serres, Rome

[14] Serres, The Parasite

[15] Serres, The Birth of Physics

[16] Serres, Rome

[17] Laennec, A Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest and on Mediate Auscultation

[18] Gombrich, Art and Illusion

[19] Younes, The Historical Dictionary of Architecture of Quatremere De Quincy

[20] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[21] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[22] Schmitt, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy

[23] Serres, The Five Senses

[24] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[25] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol V The Captive The Fugitive

[26] Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

[27] Serres, Statues

[28] Serres, The Five Senses

[29] Voegelin, Order and History 2

[30] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[31] de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

[32] Aquinas, Summa Theologica

[33] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

[34] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[35] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol III The Guermantes Way

[36] Foucault, History of Madness

[37] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

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nbrunell · 3 years

Text

Exile

-How much time gone to waste! [1]

- How does death feel?… How does death feel?... [2]

Lenny suddenly turns on his feet and heads towards the house. He does not fear death; he fears the thought of death. [3]

He reaches the door, pushes the handle and steps inside.

Memory

- The future is hidden from me. [12] Is eternal life not as enigmatic as the present one? [13]

Malaise

- Open the door! Open the door, I said! [23]

The door bursts open. [24] He thinks to himself.

- A door opening to the unknown, discoverer of the new, maker of the new, maker of life. [25]

Lenny stands in the threshold. A door between two rooms is in both of them. [26] He steps forward and closes it behind him. His eyes slowly adapt to the bright warm light.

Sysiphus Unhappy

Lenny stares in disbelief. In front of him he recognizes the unknown objects, strange books, empty pictures. And in the back, a cold, empty white wall.

He falls to his knees.

- My God, my god why have you forsaken me, I say to you now. [27] I came because I’ve never felt so alone and in despair in all my life. [28]

God’s infinite silence… God’s infinite silence… God’s infinite silence. [29] More cruel than the silence of prisons, that kind of silence is in itself a prison. [30]

Lenny screams and runs to the main entrance of the House.

He skids out, slamming the door. [31]

Lenny steps into the cold afternoon light. He walks into the garden. The air was calm, and the sky unclouded, [34] but the Sun is hidden behind a skyscraper.

[1] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[2] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[x3] Seneca, Complete Works

[4] Rousseau, Collected Works

[5] Rousseau, Collected Works

[6] Erasmus, Paraphrases

[7] Seneca, Complete Works

[8] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[9] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[10] Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture

[11] Serres, The Parasite

[12] Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

[13] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

[14] Serres, Genesis

[15] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[16] Jung, Memories Dreams Reflections

[17] Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art

[18] Frankl, The Gothic

[19] Wittgenstein, Tractatus

[20] Benton Sharp, Form and Function

[21] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[22] Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815

[23] Borges, Collected Fictions

[24] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[25] Bergdoll Oechslin, Fragments Architecture and the Unfinished

[26] Russell Norvig, Artificial Intelligence

[27] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[28] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[29] Sorentino, The Young Pope

[30] Proust, In Search of Lost Time

[31] Rand, The Fountainhead

[32] Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968

[33] Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

[34] Humboldt, Equinoctial Regions of America

#passingby #exile #malaise #sysiphus #diogenes #memory

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