ENGL 478

Chapter 10 brings Internet Invention to a close. Maybe it doesn’t quite close out the book since there is a concluding chapter, but it certainly works to create a synthesis for the previous chapters. In this chapter, Ulmer poses many questions, questions that are shaped by his own experiences and how he’s using those experiences to become electrate. These are questions we, too, can ask ourselves; we can adopt what Ulmer poses, essentially in the same fashion in which we’ve worked throughout this semester while reading, responding to, and working within Internet Invention.

Ulmer writes at the beginning of Chapter 10, “the EmerAgency approach policy issues at the level of values that circulate in the culture determining the way the policy makers focalize the issue. One way to approach this call for a paradigm shift in values and identity is to take up the question of happiness promised through the whatever of the image” (Ulmer 278). In accordance with this, Ulmer urges us to create an emblem showcasing a personal idea of happiness. He uses the example of advertisements—typically advertisements appeal to what a company believes a collective happiness is; however, Ulmer encourages us to subvert this concept, creating a design that supports personal happiness, rather than assumed happiness at large.

Essentially, what we must do now that we’ve designed the 4 popcycles, is we must analyze what makes us happy, aside from any outside interference, in as much as it’s possible. As Ulmer reminds us, we are dealing with one of the oldest questions/quests in philosophy—“asking about what constitutes the good life” (Ulmer 296).

Ulmer says (going back to the narrative structure) that our apprenticeship only takes us as far as the end of the second act. We must return to the everyday world. We must come back home with the magic object in tow, with the solution to the problem that sent us on this quest in the first place. Ulmer writes, “What remains to be accomplished in this book, to conclude the second act, is this return to the ordinary world, which involves extending the insights of the emblem to a fuller explanation of our own state of mind, the mood of our daily life, and its possible correspondence or conflict with the mood of the wide image…An effect of learning cyberpidgin is that its syncretic formations of pop icons and states of mind, crossing the borders of ‘own’ and ‘other,’ make me aware that I must already have a ‘state of mind,’ and my own pop fetishes, in the same way that learning a second language made me conscious for the first time that the grammar of English that I had been studying in the K-12 years (School) was the one I used as a native speaker of English…An imported state of mind—wabi-sabi or saudade (the samba feeling) for example—calls attention to the existence of a ‘native’ state of mind that perhaps remained an unrecognized, unacknowledged atmosphere of my existence” (Ulmer 279).

As far as the Mystory concerned, Ulmer writes, “The goal of the mystory map is to foreground the very frame through which we experience and understand the world and ourselves” (Ulmer 296).
In the same vein, Ulmer gives us more clues to his theories in this chapter than in any chapter before. For example, another critical passage lies on the following page: “To find/invent the wide image one must sort out and map the personal relationship to the default moods of historical culture. The givens are both collective and individual…The exotic is a negative experience of the homely…There are two sides to the barre, the gap is crossed in both directions, two semantic domains between which the signifier floats (and this ‘two’ is an open series). To this extent my experience is dialectical (literate), making the odyssean journey away to the ‘exotic’ and back, discovering my native place for the first time upon the completion of the circuit (the uncanny)—which is to say that my experience (necessarily, for now) is organized as ‘selfhood.’ The ‘uncanny’ is an effect of position” (Ulmer 280).

So now, at this point, I wonder: will I experience this return upon completing my Mystory in the fullest degree (avec website/portfolio, in which all films are housed, rather than existing in a digital drop box)? And if so, how will this return feel, and what will it show me?

It’s kind of sad bringing this semester in Digital Literacy to a close. (This is our last posting for this course.) As I reflect on what I’ve managed to absorb in just 4 short months, I feel more ready to work within the parameters (or non-parameters) of the digital environment. In this process, I’ve learned things about myself that I’ve probably always know, just never took the time to push it to the forefront of my existence. I’ve created and shared. I’ve explored and wondered. How will I use what I’ve done here in the future? Right now, honestly, I’m not really sure. And this isn’t a bad thing, not by any means. It’s quite beautiful really, just as beautiful as the Web itself. And that’s the wonder of it all, the power. Sure, we can chart where we’ve been (orality & literacy), and we can attempt to chart where we’re going (electracy). We can attempt to reconfigure our brains to operate in an every changing apparatus. We can reconfigure our brains to operate. So when I ask myself what will I do with this, and I find that my answer is one laced with uncertainty, I don’t worry. In fact, I’m thrilled. We’ve finally entered into an apparatus that always keeps us guessing, and as we prepare ourselves to maneuver in the electronic future (and present), we can be sure that should we find ourselves uncertain at any point, we can always just log on and ask someone. There is never a moment when someone, somewhere is not online.

After completing all four quadrants of the popcycle of the mystory, we should be able to uncover our emblem. Using the language of the hero’s quest, Ulmer states, “The raw material of the mystory provides the makings of the magic tool that is the immediate ‘object of the search’ (the wide image). Once we put the mystory into a form, to make it legible and transportable, we will be in a position to consult for the EmerAgency (to perform as Sender/Donor” (Ulmer 246). In connecting the popcycles of our mystory, we should be looking for patterns that can signify our emblem. In order to do this, Ulmer says that we must return to haiku logic (and the mood of wabi-sabi ) (see Chapter 2 as a refresher).
I recently attended a lecture given by Ulmer at Clemson University, and in this lecture, Ulmer discussed how haiku reason/logic works. Haiku logic is based upon the fundamental poetic principle of the poetic form of the haiku. In this, the haiku functions as a prompt and the imaginative self is left to fill in the remainder of the story/image/setting, etc. To flesh this out a bit more, we need to return to Chapter 2. In this chapter, Ulmer delineates haiku reason, citing Roland Barthes as a foundation [numerical list below is quoted from Ulmer’s book]:

1. “Image” refers to verbal as well as to pictorial practices.
2. Imagining is not new in itself, but in electracy it is augmented by the digital prosthesis, and thus acquires a new dimension supporting a new order of thought and expression.
3. Electracy extends poetic and art imaging into a general practice of language, used by all citizens for quotidian, personal, and specialized thought and expression.
“In short, the haiku is an alternative for recording ‘thing.’” [Ulmer 46-48]

To really get Chapter 9 moving, Ulmer begins by giving us an assignment: “Design an emblem that evokes the look and feel of your mystory” (Ulmer 246). Why does he ask us to do this before telling us how and why? As Ulmer explains, the making precedes the doing because it “provides a practical motive for working through the readings, relays, and arguments….Everything that is said about the emblem is there as a relay for your own composition/design. You should always ask: What is that for me?” (Ulmer 246). While we have focused on four popcycle discourses (career, family, entertainment, history), Ulmer goes on to encourage us to apply other institutions, such as church and street, which can further our search for our emblem. This is to say that the mystory is not a limited construction. Since each person is an individual and we all come from various frames of reference, we should construct within those discourses which have stung (punctum) us. As we design our emblems, Ulmer urges us to remember earlier chapters in which he expounded upon “ Agamben’s observation of the equivalence among the emblem, the fetish, and the Sphinx’s apotropaic discourse (a poetics of indirection and defense). The function of the fetish in oral civilizations is protection…The widesite in electracy performs this…as a virtual ‘potential space’ that augments the basic trust or ontological security needed in order to be creative” (Ulmer 247). Thus, as Ulmer points out, our emblems should be a version of our wide images, and should reflect the mood of our “themata” (Ulmer 247).

Going back to the question of “Why practicality before theory?” Ulmer writes, “That the quest for the wide image and the initial task for the EmerAgency are conducted simultaneously is due to the fact that the image must be sorted out or winnowed from the collective moods and themes circulating through the popcycle” (Ulmer 247). Here, once again, we find ourselves navigating the threads of interpellation.
Ulmer cites Jean-Jacques Lecercle as follows: “’The Althusserian concept of interpellation of the subject by ideology and/or language…is aptly expressed by a conception of the shaping power of ideology and of meaning (the subject’s meaning) as the object of a Freudian compromise between the speaker’s expressive needs and the mastery of ideology/language in the shape of ready-made discourse, cliché and polemical positions’” (Ulmer 247). Ulmer interprets Lecercle in such a way that demonstrates that demonstrates his interpretation: language is an “open system” so that one can say something original and another will understand it (Ulmer 247). What Lecercle calls “ready-made discourse, cliché and polemical positions,” Ulmer stretches to mean, for our uses, the images and themes of the popcycle. Since each quadrant of the popcycle reflects institutions that have existed before the creation of the mystory, Ulmer says, “When one ‘enters a language’ (is hailed, interpellated) one takes up a place assigned in advance by that discourse (language promises/speaks me)” (Ulmer 247). In accordance with mood (essential to the wide image), Ulmer says that mood is found to be functioning at two points: an inherent feeling that we recognize from our socialization and a personal feeling endemic to our internal selves.
In order to begin our quest for our emblems, Ulmer advises us to complete another task. In this task, we are to sift through our documentations of the popcycle and retrieve any patterns or links we might recognize. These patterns do not have to be present in every documentation, just in two or more. Ulmer says this is important because the “pattern created by the repetition of details or signifiers across some or all of the discourses expresses a simulation of the wide image” (Ulmer 248). Ulmer goes on to say, “The wide image itself (or themselves) is an embodiment of themes or ‘themata’ (abstract orientations) that we propose to locate through mood. We are evoking it as an emblem because of the connection of that form with allegory” (Ulmer 248). This being stated, Ulmer then connects the emblem traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries to modern advertising. Advertising, according to Ulmer, “is a principle site of the invention of electracy”; however, Ulmer does not immediately go on to explain his claim (Ulmer 248). Rather, he cites Peter Daly’s examination of the emblem: “’The emblem…is a mixed form comprising a motto, a picture and an epigram. The motto introduces the emblem and usually indicates the theme, which is embodied symbolically in the picture that depicts one or more objects, persons, or events. Beneath the picture is printed an epigram or short prose statement that interprets the picture and elucidates the theme…The function of the emblem is didactic in the broadest sense: it was intended to convey knowledge and truth in a brief and compelling form that will persuade the reader and impress itself upon memory…modern advertising is an exercise in communication and persuasion’” (Ulmer 248-249). If this is true, then the audience must have a collective sense of signifiers, or what E.D. Hirsch calls “cultural literacy.” Our education provides us with this cultural literacy. Ulmer then instructs us on how to create an emblem, citing the Baroque Era “conversation-game of emblems” (Ulmer 249-251). After this section, he moves forward to talk about the readymade, referencing Lecercle from earlier pages in the chapter, and anticipating Marcel Duchamp, perhaps the most famous associations when it comes to the readymade.

To initiate his section on the readymade, Ulmer states, “The emblem form stripped of both its theological and commercial anagogies (cosmologies, rationales) is practiced as pure language in the vanguard arts in a way that reveals and codifies its formal properties” (Ulmer 251). Ulmer then turns to the artist Marcel Duchamp, quoting him on readymades: “’The choice of these “readymades” was never dictated by esthetic delectation. The choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste’” (Ulmer 252).

Some questions I have: If we notice multiple patterns, which one do we choose for our emblem? What if there are no patterns? What our documentations of the popcyle are as disparate as our memories?

The third popcycle of my MyStory is here.

Shadows Never Sleep

How It Is

Hamlet

Mass Transit

[[[murmur]]]

dis[ap]posable

I made tea.

The Digital Narrative

Ulmer opens Chapter 5 by relating the differences and links between the home (Family) and the adventure (Entertainment) discourses of the popcyle. He says that within the Mystory, the Entertainment section will be similar to an adventure narrative, or “the archetypal pattern of the hero’s quest” (Ulmer 126). In order to begin the quest, we must identify a problem within the home and, thus, go on a journey (Entertainment) which will be a search for the problem’s solution. The assignment for the Entertainment portion of the Mystory is as follows: “Make a website documenting the details of a movie or TV narrative some part of which you still remember from your childhood years (K-12)” (Ulmer 127). Ulmer also instructs that documenting fragments of memories (images) of these films can be a good way to begin working on the Entertainment section of the Mystory (127).

Ulmer says we can use actors’ guidelines as a way
to connect the home with entertainment. He cites Anita Jesse’s instructions on “The Method”: knowing that you have a belief system is crucial to being able to conform to your character’s belief system in order to make your character real (129-130). When thinking upon the entertainment memories to be used in the Mystory, Ulmer urges us to note how these characters performed their roles; in this, there are more ways of communication than verbal—there is also non-verbal, which can aid us in understanding the performances (130). Interestingly, Ulmer writes, “Noting an analogy between the circumstances of a character in a story and your own circumstances is a useful way to bring your own belief system into awareness. These beliefs operate through intuitions mistaken for reality itself. Interpellation works in this way, not usually as explicit explanations of concepts, but through the repetition of behavior” (130).

Again drawing upon previously mentioned theories, Ulmer discusses Jean-Paul Sartre, whose study of the imagination can aid us in understanding “the nature of images and imaging…Pictures, like words, must be actively read”[which relates back to the literacy apparatus and the reading of text] (132). Ulmer goes on to discuss “the feeling of longing…the imcompleteness of any individual person” (134). Ulmer then attaches longing to the digital space when he says, “The augmentation of this human trait in the digital prosthesis means that its native presence in human intelligence has to be developed through training, just as in literacy the native potential for analysis was augmented through the practices of logic. The combination of topic and chora [see my blog representing Chapter 4 of Ulmer’s book] in the alliance of literacy and electracy is a collaboration joining reason and emotion” (134-135). While Ulmer’s book is highly steeped in heavy theory, he is using said theories to aid us in our [collective] inventing a new apparatus for digital literacy.

Ulmer continues digging through the material
he’s already mentioned in previous chapters, once again unearthing Plato’s Phaedrus and Roland Barthes’s signifiers. Again, these recollections only further his argument for the invention process. For example, we must understand how the oral apparatus and literacy apparatus worked [in full] before we can begin to even think about inventing a new apparatus for digital literacy. Ulmer argues that in literacy, there exist hybrids—such as Phaedrus. To Ulmer, Phaedrus is a hybrid because it combines oral traditions (dialogue) to literacy (written word). Ulmer highlights his hybrid theory when he says, “From the old oral culture Plato retained the scene of a face-to-face (F2F) exchange of two speakers; from the new written culture he accepted the abstracting procedures of analysis. When the two are fused in Phaedrus (and the other dialogues) the result is ‘dialectic’” (141). Ulmer also notes that there are a variety of ways of conversing within a variety of discourses. Most often, the ways in which we converse will vary among discourses.

Still embedded in ancient Greece, Ulmer talks about how hermeneutics is a circle, “the canonical odyssean story of alienation” (as discussed in the Family chapter [see earlier blog]) (144). Ulmer, as he has throughout his book, is hereby still arguing for a “transformation of the apparatus” in digital space (144). Poignantly, Ulmer writes, “The circular journey of Odysseus…permeates the literate apparatus…In electracy the body mood is augmented in the digital prosthesis and becomes capable of supporting sophisticated intelligence. Our larger project is to develop the educational practices (the rhetoric) for using this prosthesis. A literate person reasons on paper (text); an electrate person feels online (felt)” (145).

Here, Ulmer initiates a discussion about tables,
initially drawing upon the story of Simonides, the inventor of mnemonics. He then moves into psychoanalysis, and finally onto the occult. Channeling Derrida again, Ulmer talks about the “notion of the ‘gram’ as a correction and extension of the semiotic ‘sign’ with its metaphor of the signifier and signified connected like two sides of one sheet of paper” (149). Ulmer’s own circular reasoning reflects his theory of the circular motion of the literate apparatus: Ulmer’s book, by extension then in a meta-move, uses text to demonstrate the circuitous nature of text. We can’t “conduct” on paper, but we can on the Web, thereby breaking the cycle.