Que craindre d’un univers qui a la vacance comme arme et comme programme ?

 

– MURAY, Philippe (2005). Festivus Festivus, éd. Fayard, Paris, p. 14

» Voir également «Permanent Vacation»

– “It’s like we’ve been flung back in time,” he said. “Here we are in the Stone Age, knowing all these great things after centuries of progress but what can we do to make life easier for the Stone Agers? Can we make a refrigerator? Can we even explain how it works? What is electricity? What is light? We experience these things every day of our lives but what good does it do if we find ourselves hurled back in time and we can’t even tell people the basic principle much less actually make something that would improve conditions. Name one thing you could make. Could you make a simple wooden match that you could strike on a rock to make a flame? We think we’re so great and modern. Moon landings, artificial hearts. But what if you were hurled into a time warp and came face to face with the ancient Greeks. The Greeks invented trigonometry. They did autopsies and dissections. What could you tell an ancient Greek that he couldn’t say, ‘Big deal.’ Could you tell him about the atom? Atom is a Greek word. The Greeks knew that the major events in the universe can’t be seen by the eye of man. It’s waves, it’s rays, it’s particules.”

– “We’re doing all right.”

– “We,re sitting in this huge moldy room. It’s like we’re flung back.”

– “We have heat, we have light.”

– “These are Stone Age things. They had heat and light. They had fire. They rubbed flint together and made sparks. Could you rub flints together? Would you know a flint if you saw one? If a Stone Ager asked you what a nucleotid is, could you tell him? How do we make carbon paper? What is glass? If you came awake tomorrow in the Middle Ages and there was an epidemic raging, what could you do to stop it, knowing what you know about the progress of medicines and diseases? Here it is pratically the twenty-first century and you’ve read hundreds of books and magazines and seen hundreds TV shows about science and medicine. Could you tell those people one little crucial thing that might save a million  and a half lives?”

– ” ‘Boil your water,’ I’d tell them.”

– “Sure. What abour ‘Wash behind your ears.’ That’s about as good.”

– “I still think we’re doing fairly well. There was no warning. We have food, we have radios.”

– “What is a radio ? What is the principle of a radio? Go ahead, explain. You’re sitting in the middle of this circle of people. They use pebble tools. They eat grubs. Explain a radio.”

– “There’s no mystery. Powerful transmitters send signals. They travel through the air, to be picked up by receivers.”

– “They travel through the air. What, like birds? Why not tell them magic? They travel through the air in magic waves. What is a nucleotid? You don’t know, do you? Yet these are the building blocks of life. What good is knowledge if it just float in the air? It goes from computer to computer. It changes and grows every second of every day. But nobody actually knows anything.”

– DeLILLO, Don ([1985] 1986). White Noise, New York: Penguin Books, pp. 147-149.

» More works inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

– EPSTEIN, Mitch (1998). Untitled, New York, The City serie.

She thought that the hovering possible presence of God was the thing that created loneliness and doubt in the soul and she also thought that God was the thing, the entity existing outside space and time that resolved this doubt in the tonal power of a word, a voice.

God is the voice that says, “I am not here.”

– DeLILLO, Don (2007). Falling Man, New York: Scribner, p. 236.

– Kerry Skarbakka, Naked, 2002.

Philosopher Martin Heideggar described human existence as a process of perpetual falling, and it is the responsibility of each individual to catch ourselves from our own uncertainty.  [Lire la suite...] 

A man was dangling there, above the street, upside down. He wore a business suit, one leg bent up, arms at his sides. A safety harness was barely visible, emerging from his trousers at the straightened leg and fastened to the decorative rail of the viaduc.

She’s heard of him, a performance artist known as Falling Man. He’d appeared several times in the last week, unannounced, in various parts of the city, suspended from one or another structure, always upside down, wearing a suit, a tie and dress shoes. He brought it back, of course, those stark moments in the burning towers when people fell or were forced to jump. He’d been seen dandling from a balcony in a hotel atrium and police had escorted him out of a concert hall and two or three apartment buildings with terraces or accessible rooftops.

Traffic was barely moving now. There were people shouting up at him, outraged at the spectacle, the puppetry of human desperation, a body’s last fleet breath and what it held. It held the gaze of the world, she thought. There was the awful openness of it, something we’d not seen, the single falling figure that trails a collective dread, body come down among us all. And now, she thought, this little theater piece, disturbing enough to stop traffic and send her back into the terminal.

– DeLILLO, Don (2007). Falling Man, New York: Scribner, p. 33

» Voir aussi Man, Falling (infra)
» JUNOD, Tom (2003). «The Falling Man», Esquire, septembre.
» Photographies de Lyle Owerko
» «The Falling Man», article Wikipedia (anglais)

Then he spread the sheet of plastic on the ground and got the coats and blankets from the cart and he took off their damp and muddy shoes and they sat there in silence with their hands outheld to the flames. He tried to think of something  to say but he could not. He’d had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and the dull despair. The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things in oblivion. Colors. The name of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever. 

– McCARTHY, Cormac (2006). The Road, New York : Vintage, p. 88. 

The fast pace of life and the increasing speed of mouvement across vast American spaces, well before the beginning of the twintieth century, had begun to put a premium on quickly impressive, attractive images. They were creating a new Iconography of Speed. Competition for attention put a premium on attention-getting. The word “billboard”, which was invented in America, had first come in use about 1851, in the early days of the Graphic Revolution. The rise of the automobile, the improvement of highways in the 1920’s and ’30’s, and the consequent vast spread of billboards were now incentives to produce images that could catch the eye in a flash and remain indelibly imprinted on the memory.

– BOORSTIN, Daniel J. ([1961]1992). The Image. A Guide To Pseudo-Events In America, New York : Vintage Books, p. 199.

– Brad Harris Photo

– Abandoned Places, un projet photographique de Henk van Rensbergen

Well, he’s a space orphan from Long Store 6
Left to rot on Cyborg 9
He was trying to find his way to Planet X
But stepped on a land mine
He only lost his third leg
But he’d never beg or put anybody down
And behind the great walls of China
Underneath the galaxies
He had a studio
And he wrote this song

– JOHNSTON, Daniel (1994). «Jelly Beans», album Fun.

» Sorry Entertainer (Yip/Jump Music, 1983)

Where the wind blows
That’s where I go
Where the moon is
That’s where I am
And when I just
Have a problem
Always hoping the wind will blow me away again
I’m a loner
I’m a sorry entertainer [...]

David Mauas recently completed the conspiracy theory-laden Who Killed Walter Benjamin? The film heavily critiques the largely accepted idea that Benjamin committed suicide and, instead, theorizes that he was assasinated by agents working for Stalinist Russia.

– WHITSON, Roger (2007). «Who Killed Cultural Studies?», Long Sunday, 27 août. [En ligne]

In the meantime we were joined by an elderly gentleman, a younger female and her son. The gentleman, a German university professor named Walter Benjamin, was on the point of having a heart attack. The strain of mountain climbing on an extremely hot September day, together with the anxious endeavour to escape German arrest far too much for him. As we were at a resting place, we ran in all direction in search of some water to help the sick man…

– BIRMAN, Carina (2007). The Narrow Foothold, Hearing Eye. [Site officiel]

[Lisa] Fittko’s account of what followed is now a justifiably famous element of the Walter Benjamin cult. Carina Birman’s personal story is not, but it includes the most recent of many last words about Benjamin’s death, a death on which, for his admirers, so much seems to hang that it, too, seems suspended: symbolic to the point of unreality, an enactment more than an event, like the death of the Christian messiah and the disappearance of the ‘risen’ body, for so long a matter of ardent conjecture.

– HARDING, Jeremy (2007). «Through The Trapdoor», London Review of Books, 19 juillet. [En ligne]

BEIJING (Reuters, Monday December 3, 2007) – China has dismissed Internet gossip that its first photo of the moon taken from a lunar orbiter might have been plagiarized from NASA, local media said on Monday.The country launched its first lunar probe, the Chang’e 1, in October and released a photo featuring a patch of grey moon surface splotched with craters last week, hailing the mission as a “complete success.”But some Chinese Internet users have questioned its originality after comparing it with an almost identical lunar image from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2005.

“There is absolutely no forgery,” Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for the lunar probe, told the Beijing News. [Lire la suite...]

» Voir aussi «La Chine publie sa première image de la Lune»

The onboard high definition camera of the moon explorer “KAGUYA”, which is under initial functional verification, successfully acquired the world’s first high definition images of an “Earth-rise” and “Earth-set”. It was also the world’s first HD images of the Earth from about 380,000 km away in space. Image: (C) JAXA/NHK

—Source: JAXA | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

1999, August 28: FIRST WOMAN ON THE MOON is realized in ten hours. During a short morning meeting with the crew, Aleksandra Mir draws a sketch of a crater in the sand. The 200×300 square-meter full-size landscape is thereafter completely improvised by the workers themselves. During the process of digging, tons of garbage and broken glass are revealed in the sand. It is collected and placed out on tables, making for an impromptu ‘Museum of Lunar Surface Findings’ to which the public contributes all day. By the afternoon, the water has unexpectedly risen to fill the craters, creating numerous little lakes for kids to play in. Everyone is taking pictures of everyone. And at sunset, the flag finally graces the highest hill, a champagne bottle is cracked open and the public is welcomed to join the astronauts on the moon. One person declares himself ‘The First Black Man on the Moon’, another, ‘The First German’. […] Read more

By Anthony Young, Monday, July 25, 2005

Women have tried to get into space ever since Project Mercury. That subject has been ably covered by Martha Ackmann in her book, The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Space Flight published in 2003. The subject of women in space was expanded in Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space written by Yale historian Bettyann Kevles, also published in 2003. Of course, no American woman flew during Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo; only the Soviets flew a single female cosmonaut and then for political advantage—read propaganda. It was the Cold War. NASA wouldn’t accept women applicants to the astronaut corps until 1978. The first American woman to fly into space aboard the space shuttle was Sally Ride in 1983, and the glass stratosphere was finally shattered. However, the names of the many women who followed aboard the space shuttle can only be learned through a search on the web. Practically anyone can name the Mercury Seven, but the first seven American women in space is a question for a game show. Sadly, these female pioneers of space are an enigma and virtually unknown today. Nevertheless, they paved the way, and that way now points to the Moon and eventually Mars. […] Read more…

By Maijinn Chen, Payload Development & Integration, Bigelow Aerospace.

Bingo in space? This must be a Vegas idea. From the land of slot machines in grocery stores and poolside blackjack comes the next generation of gaming —space bingo. The Bigelow Aerospace-developed payload is the only bingo game of its kind. It is set to be launched with Genesis II in early 2007, and should be up and running by the middle of the year. This payload includes a unique enclosure design that reduces material weight while being structurally sound. It can autonomously mix and select bingo balls using a network of fans and solenoid activated levers. Its interior is adorned with space graphics and color lights set to the game cycle, and it houses 75 balls marked from B1 to O75. This is no blue-hair grandmothers’ plastic dome with a crank handle. But gamblers take note: There is no gambling involved here. Bigelow Aerospace isn’t a casino. “The bingo payload is meant to generate interest in the Genesis II mission by providing the public with a relatable in-flight experiment,” said Casey Harr, a robotic engineer on the bingo design team. “Through the Internet, those browsing the Bigelow site can feel that they’re directly connected to the spacecraft.” Bingo has never been so cool. […] read more…

Boston – Accrochés à leur portable, les adolescents américains d’aujourd’hui sont pourtant bien moins mobiles que leurs parents, préférant visiter le Web que le monde extérieur [sic]. Lors d’une conférence au Mobile Internet World à Boston, le Dr Norman Lewis, stratégiste du groupe Wireless Grids et ex-directeur de recherche chez Orange, en est persuadé: cette génération de la «culture de la chambre», centrée sur l’expression de soi, qui craint le monde extérieur [sic] et veut «connecter le monde entier à sa chambre», restera ainsi à l’âge adulte.

– BENHAMOU, Laurence (2007). «Mon monde dans mon portable», (AFP) Le Devoir, jeudi 15 novembre, B1

Il n’est pas nécessaire que tu sortes de chez toi, reste à ta table et écoute. Non, n’écoute pas, contente-toi d’attendre. N’attends même pas, reste tranquille et seul. Le monde s’offrira à toi pour que tu lui ôtes son masque; il ne peut faire autrement et, en extase, il se roulera à tes pieds.

– KAFKA, Franz ([1924]1994). Aphorismes, §109, éd. Joseph K., Paris.

Tu as raison, il ne faut surtout pas faire comme Martyr et attendre la mort en chassant les taons qui sillent. Je vais fermer la porte derrière moi et monter dans la fusée qui m’attend au bout du champ. J’irai dans la lune pour voir qui des Russes ou des Américains aluniront les premiers; pour entendre le premier juron d’homme dans la mer des Sargasses. Je serai le premier ethnographe lunaire; j’ouvrirai un stand aussi, le Moon Snack Bar, pour les cosmonautes de passage et les lunautes amoureux qui viendront faire du parking derrière les rochers blancs. Je pourrai même inviter Martyr à monter à bord de la fusée. Noé croyait au couple, moi, je crois que nous sommes seuls; Martyr et moi sur la lune, la plus noble conquête de l’homme et vice-versa, quatre sabots dans la poussière lunaire. Et si un jour la lune devenait trop craoudée, si les gens s’y pressaient comme à la place Saint Pierre, on pourrait toujours revenir sur terre, les deux pieds sur terre. Je serai heureux. Transporté de joie comme une corneille dans un champ de maïs où le blé d’Inde jaunit en rangs serrés.

—Godbout, Jacques (1967). Salut Galarneau! Paris: Éditions du Seuil, pp. 60-61.

Objet : Demande de partenariat
Date : 8 novembre 2007 19:46:47

Bonjour,
Nous venons de lancer un nouveau site consacré à la danse Tecktonik. Pour améliorer le référencement, nous souhaitons faire un échange de lien avec votre site. […]
Merci d’avance.
Cordialement.
L’équipe Tecktonique Dance

Quand Myspace joue les faux amis: Un philosophe s’est découvert une page à son nom… et les ennuis qui vont avec.
par Judith Revel

C’est l’histoire d’un ami. Un dimanche matin paisible, après le café et la lecture des journaux, il fallait répondre à quelques mails. Dans l’un d’entre eux, une connaissance le félicitait de son blog sur MySpace, se montrait ébahie et admirative du soin avec lequel il répondait à chacun des « visiteurs », et disait sa très grande fascination pour le nombre conséquent des « amis » virtuels dont il pouvait se vanter. Mon ami tombe des nues : avec une coquetterie un peu affectée – mais à laquelle il tient beaucoup -, il refuse depuis des années de se servir seul d’Internet, et utilise au contraire toute une série d’intermédiaires (secrétaires, collègues, et – le dimanche matin – sa propre compagne) afin de conserver ce qu’il considère comme une sorte de « distance de sécurité » face à l’outil informatique. Il est donc hors de question qu’il ait pu créer puis gérer, sa propre page sur MySpace. […] Lire la suite

—Source: Écrans.fr

Bonjour
Lisez ce message et vous comprendrez plus. Je vous le demande s’il vous plait. Je me nomme Sarafiner Bamba agée de 21 ans de nationalité ivoirienne, la fille de Feu Bamba Estelle, un grand homme d’affaires et agriculteur de café et de cacao et je vis en Côte d’Ivoire. En effet, mon père est mort suite à un empoisonnement fait par ses associés qui pensaient avoir profit de son décès. Et malheureusement pour moi aussi, je suis orpheline de mère depuis l’adolescence et me voilà sans famille. Étant la fille unique de mes parents, je deviens normalement héritière de la somme totale de US$5,500,000.00 que mon père a déposé dans une banque ici en Côte d’Ivoire. Donc je vous demande pardon de bien vouloir lire attentivement l’histoire de ma vie et avoir un cœur de bonté afin de me venir en aide à faire transférer d’argent sur votre compte bancaire et voir après comment investir cette somme dans un domaine et aussi me permettre de venir chez vous pour suivre pour continuer mes études auprès de vous. S’il vous plait, je sais que vous êtes de bonne foi, aidez-moi car je suis sans famille et je vous promets une garantie de 20% de cet argent une fois le transfert sur votre compte c’est à dire 15% comme intérêts et 5% comme dépenses établies à mon égard. Et les 80% seront investis. Aidez une orpheline qui a besoin d’assistance, d’amour familial et surtout d’éducation. Pour plus d’informations sur mon argent et surtout sur ma vie, écrivez-moi car je suis disposée à vous renseigner pour que vous me veniez en aide sur cette affaire et voir aussi comment faire pour permettre le transfert de ce fonds en votre compte bancaire parce que pour le moment j’ai pas accès car il est sur compte bloqué de deux ans. Je suis prête à vous donner tous les renseignements concernant ma vie et aussi les informations sur cette affaire. S’il vous plait il faut que vous me veniez en aide pour que je puisse vous rejoindre avec cette somme que mon père a laisse en ce compte avant de mourir et dis-moi dans quel domaine on pourra investir cette somme je vous joindrai les photo de moi dès que je reçois une réponse de vous à mon émail afin que vous puissiez me connaître physiquement s’il vous plait aidez-moi car je souffre ici et ma vie n’est pas garantie ici.
Cordialement,
Sarafiner Bamba

[Father] “Hello Frank!
[Mother] —Happy birthday, darling!
[Father] —Happy birthday! Many happy returns of the day.
[Mother] —[…]
[Son, talking to Hal] — A bit higher, Hal.
[Father] — Now, Mother and I are both feeling wonderfull, too. Ray and sally were going to be here, too, but at the last minute Ray’s back went bad on him again.

[Mother] —How do you like your cake, dear?
[Father] —Looks great, desn’t it? Sorry you can’t join us.
[Mother] —ya.
[Father] —Oh, I ran into Bob the other day. He said to be sure and wish you a happy birthday.
[Mother] —All my students made me promise to send their best wishes, too. You know they talk about you all the time in the classroom. Frank, you’re a big celebrity in the second grade. You know we were on television last week?
[Father] —Oh, yes! Yes! Your mother and I and Dave’s parent were interviewed about what we thought of our illustrious sons. You can imagine what we told’em. I think it’s being broadcast next thursday. Perhaps you’ll be able to listen in.
[Mother] —Oh, we were thrilled about Elaine and Bill, dear. I’ll be glad to get the present for you, but please tell me how much I can spend.
[Father] —Oh, yes, Frank, about your AGS-19 payments, I think I straightened it out for you. I talked to the Accounting Office in Houston yesterday, and they said you should be receiving your higher rates of pay by next month.
Well Frank, I can’t think of anything else to say, now.
[Mother] —Oh, give our love to Dave.
[Father] —Oh yes, be sure to give him my best regards.
We wish you the very happiest of birthdays.
[Mother] —God bless.
[Father] —All the best, son.
[Mother & Father] — ♬ Happy birthday to you! ♪happy birthday to you! ♫ happy birthday dear Frank! ♬ happy birthday to you! ♫
[Father] —See you next wednesday.”

—Stanley Kucbrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey. 01:04:18–01:05:44

“Yes?
—Hello!
—Hello…
—How are you, squirt?
—All right.
—What are you doin’?
—Playing.
—Where’s Mommy?
—Gone to shopping.
—Well, who’s taking care of ya?
—Rachel.
—May I speak to Rachel, please?
—She’s gone to the bathroom.

—Are you coming to my party tomorrow?
—I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t.
—Why not?
—Well, you know, Daddy’s traveling. Very sorry about that, but I just can’t. I’m gonna send you a very nice present, though.
—All right.
—Anything special that you want?
—Yes…
—What?
—A telephone.”

—Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey. 00:27:50–00:28:37

Nixon: «En cet instant inestimable dans l’histoire de l’Humanité, tous les peuples de la Terre ne forment plus qu’un».
Armstrong: —Merci, monsieur le président…»

—Source: L’Internaute