[Xmca-l] Re: Time, Imagination, Metaphor

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Thanks Henry!

Yes, it has to do with setting and placement in time. Language is important, but how one says the word and where one says the word and why one says the word and even IF one says the word seems to have more importance than which word it is or where that word appears in a sentence. Yes, I'm referring to context.

Of course this is why I don't think computers will ever be able to speak to us in conversations: they don't have bodies and they can only mimic, and even if they have sensors on them that can detect place, will they ever be able to detect mood or affect? I mean, it seems that we have our own issues in addressing the pain of others (the reference to Susan Sontag is accidental and intentional). Are we expecting computers to take care of that for us? Like the babysitting television set?

So I wondered if there is a way to capture environments and places in a descriptive sense (á la Darwin) and to be able to note if there are any interesting realities that emerge from that kind of study? In the same way we learn something about the nature of movement from Muybridge's work, can we learn something about the nature of setting in which locution happens?

What patterns emerge? And how might these patterns be represented visually? Can something be learned by going over older studies that would offer new insights?

Certainly this relates to power, it relates to the public vs the private, it relates to growth and change, but what I hope to preserve when making this proposition for a new language, is the unity we feel as human beings with our environment, how connectedness is preserved vs how it is adulterated.

I echo something that Wittgenstein pondered, regarding the sense of feeling perfectly safe.

It is not only the ineffable that is unspoken, but those things that are not represented and consequently can escape our notice. Just like the horse's hooves up off the ground.

Kind regards,

Annalisa