GRGR(19) - Pynchonian Pornography

David Morris fqmorris at yahoo.com
Fri Feb 11 10:57:16 CST 2000


--- Lycidas at worldnet.att.net wrote:
> A fine essay, I thought I had posted it a while
> back. 

I'd be surprised if you hadn't (I just decided to do a
search of the word "Pokler" and this is one of the
results).  I was hoping this reference would draw you
out, Terrance, since you so often use the word
"pornography," and I've had trouble understanding what
you mean by the term.  Thanks for filling in more of
the gap.

Now I think we're up against a questioning of this
terminology:  Does all "representation" by nature thus
become "pornography?"  All representation of
experience requires "Analysis" (another big GR word),
which involves abstraction and dissection (an
evil-sounding word, like vivisection). Wouldn't
"pornography" speak more about the INTENTION of the
representation, ie. an inversion(reversal as you
say)/perversion/Frankenstein-recombination of the
analyzed life?  To argue that analysis is antithetical
to life seem too blunt.

> > Institutions, Individuals, and Information
> > Technology's Mediation of the Body
> > A hypermedia essay by Rob Callahan.
> > 
> > http://www.2street.com/cyborg/porn.htm
> > 
> > "In the novel Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
> > uses the term "pornography" to denote modes of
> > representation and reproduction which fragment
> > continuous experience into discrete, quantifiable,
> > replicable units "
> 
> AND reversible! This goes to the various notions of
> Time in
> GR.  "Pornography" in GR has several meanings.
> Callahan
> identifies the most important one--the pornography
> of the
> System that defies the "continuous experience" of
> life, cuts
> it up into fragments, finite time, photgraphs and
> films, and
> reproduces it as a quantifiable, replicable and
> REVERSABLE
> Pronography. This is associated with the
> conterfeiting
> german mind and represented in a plethora of
> symbols,
> metaphors (mostly scientific, mathmatical,
> photographic),
> and allusions (Leibniz, for example) and these
> Pornographies
> are extended from scientific, mathmatical and
> photographic
> concepts to human lives (even the soul) and indeed
> to life
> itself.
> 
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