Kittler and the Sirens

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/11/09/tom-mccarthy/kittler-and-the-sirens/

" ... He looked like a retired porn actor: grey, shoulder-length hair;
big moustache; glasses that framed eyes with a permanent sensual glint
in them. He delivered a mesmerising lecture on Sappho and Pink Floyd,
Heidegger and Wagner, that linked classical notions of geometry to
Beckenbauer’s mastery of football, nymphs prostrated before godheads to
Hendrix’s multiple visitations on his groupies. (...) Here was someone who
– at last! – had charted the genealogy, or transmission lines, of writing’s
interface with bodies, from Sade to Kafka, Marinetti to Pynchon. (...)
We corresponded again last month, after Kittler’s death. ‘The arrival of
the gods,’ she said, ‘took place after the four machines that kept him
alive were turned off.’ He’d given the command himself: his last words
were ‘Alle Apparate auschalten’ – switch off all apparatuses.