WEB ARTISTA de Julho: JOEL Weishaus/ USA

Brief Biography: At age 19, Joel Weishaus was a Jr. Executive for a New York advertising agency, a position he left soon after his 21st birthday. In 1964, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he enrolled in the Department of Oriental Languages at The University of California, Berkeley. For two years, he was the Literary Editor of the student newspaper, and also helped build an experimental theater in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury District. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Weishaus traveled to Japan to visit Zen Buddhist monasteries, edited On the Mesa: An Anthology of Bolinas Writing (City Lights Books, 1971), and translated Oxherding: A Reworking of the Zen Text (Cranium Press, 1971). 1973-1974: After a one-year hermitage in a mountain cabin, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a resident of the Cambridge Zen Center. He returned to San Francisco for two years to study various bodywork therapies, and Aikido; then, in 1977, he moved to Taos, New Mexico, for a nine month writing residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. In Santa Fe, he edited Thomas Merton’s Woods, Shore, Desert, and began a four year period of sculpting. In 1982, living in Albuquerque, Weishaus became an Adjunct Curator (Video Art) at the University of New Mexico’s Fine Arts Museum, wrote feature articles on photography for Artspace: A Magazine of Contemporary Southwest Art, and was a Writer-in-Residence at UNM’s Center for Southwest Research. Since May 2000, he has been living in Portland, Oregon. where he is Visiting Faculty in Portland State University’s Department of English. His latest book, The Healing Spirit of Haiku, co-authored with Texas A&M University’s McMillian Professor of Analytical Psychology, David H. Rosen, and illustrated by Arthur Okamura, will be published by North Atlantic Books in October 2004. Print Archive: http://elibrary.unm.edu/oanm/NmU/nmu1%23mss456bc/   Past Digital Work: In the early 1990s, I had to prepare a series of prose poems, now titled "The Deeds and Sufferings of Light," for a show at the Albuquerque Museum. As the museum required a diskette, I bought my first computer. After working with it over the weekend, I knew the future of my writing would be linked to this instrument. Next I wrote a hyperlinked autobiography, "Reality Dreams," then, as software developed, I did a series of small digital works, which led to the five-year project, "Inside the Skull-House," and the recently-completed "The Silence of Sasquatch." Digital Archive: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/weishaus/index.html   Techniques: Back when I began working on "Reality Dreams" I was reading theory that was being translated from the French, particularly from Barthes, Deleuze, and Derrida I invoked what I call "invaginations," which are fragments of quotes that move in and out of a sentence, suddenly imposing the thoughts of others into mine, creating an interruption and unstable logos. At first I planned to introduce smaller and smaller fonts, each within the other, until they were undecipherable. But, given the resolution of present monitors, this proved impracticable. Thus I settled for two steps down, though, in most projects, I use only one. I’ve chosen to continue to use more or less "traditional" hyperlinks as my main means of portage, because this strategy has established itself in digital writing as solidly as syntax has in the sentence. As for images. I decided to stay with GIF animations, rather than Flash. This I did because I like the low tech feel of GIFs, rather than the smooth transitions of Flash. Nor do I want readers to have to download a viewer to see my work. Also, by keeping the software simple, the work is more assured to be able to be accessed as the technology changes.   "Traces of the Catacombes": Traces of the Catacombes" came about when I read Claude Gandelman’s essay, "Torn Pages of Deconstruction: The Palimpsests of Mireille W. Descombes." Descombes’ technique of tearing and shredding paper as a deconstructive methodology, their violence and destruction, "a ‘deconstruction,’" Gandelamn says, didn’t interest me. But death and decomposition did. As a living artist, I could only see the consequences of death from the outside, and, as there is no solution to our ephemerality in sight, I crafted this project with a sense of dry humor. Descombes’ palimpsest, along with her thought of "a fragmentary stream of quasi-words (that) collapse into a dense ‘mass’ of Memory…" gave me direction, and her name conjured up the Roman catacombs—there are catacombs under Paris, too--, and, further back, the Paleolithic caves in France and Spain. So this is where I began. The first link is in the Introduction, an image of a skeleton in a tunnel, as the beginning always incorporates its end. There is a quote from Descombes, invaginated with a fragment from Christopher Bache’s extraordinary book, Dark Night, Early Dawn, which is about the latest scientific research on reincarnation. Next I designed a map that opens a labyrinth of vaults, each with its own aesthetic. These are linked to each other, including a "dead end." There is no center. Much of this work is animated, which works as a sort of pun. https://archive.the-next.eliterature.org/museum-of-the-essential/weishaus/weishaus/intro.htm   Joel Weishaus http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 weishaus@pdx.edu

THE FOURTH COLLABORATIVE REVIEW

1- Is it possible that reality only still be true at the sunshine?... by Regina Célia Pinto Review on Traces of the Catacombes by Joel Weishaus

If the things which I have to tell about "Traces of the Catacombes" by Joel Weishaus are all by half, and could sound insignificant to the other person ears, it is because I admittedly do not be literary critical. So that, I ask for patience for the ones that venture in the reading of this review. The truth is that for three days I have been immersed in the translation of this hypertext which I had already read previously, but without the determination of translated it into Portuguese. The translation obliges us to a much more careful reading and, just because of this, it is more immersive. Thus, what I have to tell is that I am back (?) from the caves remembering Plato, I felt that what I had seen at Weishaus' under the earth world was truer than my own cave / office / room, where, every morning, the sun enters through the window . Will it be possible that reality still only be true at the sunshine?... To you understand what I want to say, drive into Weishaus' hypertext. At first visit the website: https://archive.the-next.eliterature.org/museum-of-the-essential/weishaus/weishaus/intro.htm ; check the design - dark, as should be a cave / catacombe. Venture to walk through the galleries of the catacombes, do not have fear of the boneses, click on the skulls, feel the chill... "And silent. Not a sound. No dripping. Nothing. N-O-T H-I-N-G!! I have never experienced anything like it. You don't have to close your eyes. You don't have to tune anything out. One man's tomb is another man's refuge. I don't know how long we stay like that. (Joel Weishaus, Traces of the Catacombes ) "The laws of the fictional narrative, in its wide diversity, are much complex, and, because of this, contradictory, paradoxical and very variable. Thus, to say anything about a narrative can be just a little or nothing applicable regarding to other narratives. When we verify that as true, we can realize that a narrator is always unique, as well as the narrative that his / her voice, his / her look and his/her language produce." (1) Walter Benjamin (2), introduces us three narrator's main possibilities. In the first, the narrative is as a "craft process", derived from the overlapping of "fine and translucent layers of successive narrations". We found these kind of layers during all time in which we were "strolling" in the catacombes. They are highly erudite layers, because of Weishaus' culture . Traces of the Catacombes is a text / archaeological field, and the reader / archaeologist performs the role of going unearthing the ideas in the different narrative layers. The second is the 'modern' narrator, who narrates the individual own experience: "Although I am not yet convinced that reincarnation is a fact, maybe because I'm reaching a point where my death is within sight, I am open to studying the materials, and there is interesting contemporary research to be found.." (Joel Weishaus, Traces of the Catacombes) Following , Benjamim insinuates a 'journalist narrator', which cares for of the experience while information: "In 1987, Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia, published, 'Children Who Remember Previous Lives'.(11) For this book, Stevenson studied children around the world who at around age three or four had spontaneously spoken about having had a former life." (Joel Weishaus, Traces of the Catacombes) In the current narrative speech, the writing's image transformed itself, leaving of being the one of the only insertion and becoming the image of set of parallels texts, fact which reveals a post-struturalist referential. Likewise is Weishaus' text: "In Polynesian myth, Ta'aroa the creator of the universe, "sits in his shell in darkness from eternity. The shell was like an egg revolving in endless space." The Cosmic Egg is brooded upon, heated by tapas, the "store of concentrated energy ...employed for the purposes of creation. The god-creator heats himself and thereby produces the universe." Humpty Dumpty was great big egg, and master of words, to whom words meant no more than taking every 'text,' or life scenario, and unconsciously giving them all the same rewrite --thus always finding the sacred and profane to be what he wanted them to mean. One day Humpty took a great big fall, and no one could put him together again. (Joel Weishaus, Traces of the Catacombes) For now we conclude that Weishaus is an unique author in his multiplicity. Is it possible that reality only still be true at the sunshine?... Perhaps not, my cave is very comfortable, there is security, television, video, phone, computer, Internet,...in it .An authentic paradise where the real is this set of nice chaotic fragments which I live daily (3), among them, in a great luck day I can tele-transport myself into the Joel Weishaus catacombes / caves / hypertext. Many thanks Joel! In order of appearance: PINTO, Sílvia Regina. Desmarcando Territótios Ficcionais: Aventuras e Perversões de um Narrador, in Armadilhas Ficcionais, Modos de Desarmar. Rio de Janeiro, Sete Letras, 2003. BENJAMIN, Walter. Obras Escolhidas (vol.1) Magia e Técnica. Arte e Política, 6 ª edição. São Paulo, Editora Brasileinse, 1993. KONDER. Leandro. O Mito da Caverna Hoje. Artigo no Jornal O Globo, Rio de Janeiro, 2001.

2- The Only Previsible Reality And Some Considerations On Inês de Castro by Alice Gabriel

RRR

Dear Regina, I do not know if I am imagining things, but, after reading with admiration Joel Weishaus' hypertext and the last message you sent us, on that same hypertext, this part of it does not abandon my mind: "Is it possible that reality only still be true at the sunshine?... Perhaps not, my cave is very comfortable, there is security, television, video, phone, computer, Internet,...in it. An authentic paradise where the real is this set of nice chaotic fragments which I live daily , among them, in a great luck day I can tele-transport myself into the Joel Weishaus catacombes / caves / hypertext." I am sure that you know that I am in my own cave too. Nowadays, I abandon very little my technological refuge, and, I should confess, how terrible my reality is in the days we have blackout. So that, I have immediately identified myself with that thought. On the other hand, comparing Weishaus' hypertext and the end of your review, I realized that perhaps you were also referring to the death - which, in our life expectations, is the unique previsible reality and from which we do not escape. And, this reality seems to me, very distant of the solar light, at least of the Sun we know as Sun ... "One man's tomb is another man's refuge." (Joel Weishaus) In Alcobaça's Monastery, Portugal, Inês de Castro and D. Pedro' s graves confront, so that, in the ressurection day, the first image that each one will see will be the other one and the immense love that they had in life. Oh, the romanticism of portuguese people!... To whom does not know the history, Inês de Castro was daughter of a Galician nobleman. It was one of the ladies who accompanied D. Constança when she came to Portugal to marry to D. Pedro, future D. Pedro I, son of D. Afonso IV. However, D. Pedro and D. Inês fell in love, and they had sons. According to some archives, they married, secretly, after the death of D. Constança. The love of D. Pedro and D. Inês raised strong opposition by political reasons. Some persons feared that D. Fernando (son of D. Pedro and D. Constança) could lose the right to the throne, because the sons of D. Inês and D. Pedro would inherit the crown. so that Dom Afonso IV, the father of D. Pedro ordered behead Inês de Castro. D. Pedro crowned Inês de Castro after her dead, and he also persecuted and executed ferociously the hangmen of his sweetheart. The universality of the tragedy of the innocent death caused by the meanness of the human interests, has guaranteed to D. Inês a resistance to time and enabled a permanent update, in terms of aesthetic, of the ways of telling her history. Lots of authors have been doing narratives on that theme, among them, our magnificent Luiz de Camões, in "Os Lusíadas" (Canto III, 118 to 135), Episode of Inês de Castro: 118 Passada esta tão próspera vitória, Tornado Afonso à Lusitana Terra, A se lograr da paz com tanta glória Quanta soube ganhar na dura guerra, O caso triste e dino da memória, Que do sepulcro os homens desenterra, Aconteceu da mísera e mesquinha Que despois de ser morta foi Rainha. 120 Estavas, linda Inês, posta em sossego, De teus anos colhendo doce fruito, Naquele engano da alma, ledo e cego, Que a fortuna não deixa durar muito, Nos saudosos campos do Mondego, De teus fermosos olhos nunca enxuito, Aos montes insinando e às ervinhas O nome que no peito escrito tinhas. (Translation note: Well, I do not dare to translate Camões into English, but if you click the buttons above you will listen to the poetry sound. Then you will feel how beautiful it is, even thought you do not understand anything.) Weishaus wrote on "Reincarnating the word": " Here the catacombs do not warehouse a concatenation of corpses, named or anonymous, but an animated network ..." (Joel Weishaus) Could not we also consider as reincarnation each one of the narratives on Inês de Castro's Drama? And regarding the poem "Os Lusíadas" by Camões, would not it be the poem reincarnating every time anybody reads it and so that could discover the sonority of its verses?

3-FAST COMMENT by Marcelo Frazão: Regina, I liked very much the Weishaus' hypertext which you translated! It is a lesson! And I also liked the review's comments! I appreciated when you said that you were returning from the caves! Literature, for me, is a complete form of interativity. For me, it still more powerful and complete that the resources the computer can offer. While the human genius will be capable to create, literature will be always precious and good Art. And what better form of interativity of that: the trips and creations that each one makes through the written words? Marcelo Frazão

4-What will be Electronic Literature? By Regina Célia Pinto For me, the printed book seems to be the most practical format to publish texts. The contrast between the book that we load with us, which we can read in the street, in the bus or in the subway, and the computer, exactly portable, indicates two very different corporal relations with the text. On the one hand, the proximity of the object, in which we can turned pages, to write notes, to have available. On the other hand, the mediation of the keyboard, the weight of the device, the discomfort of the reading. The majority of old age, today, is incapable of reading a computer screen in the same speed that an adolescent. But, adolescents age and the old persons pass away... Then, we will arrive in a time where all people will read the screen of the computer with equal rapidity.... "A medieval cathedral was a sort of permanent and unchangeable TV program that was supposed to tell people everything indispensable for their everyday lives as well as for their eternal salvation." With the invention of the press and the printed text things modified and the book took ownership of its place. "During the sixties, Marshall McLuhan wrote his "The Gutenberg Galaxy", where he announced that the linear way of thinking instaured by the invention of the press, was on the verge of being substituted by a more global way of perceiving and understanding through the TV images or other kinds of electronic devices." On its screen there run words, lines, and in order to use a computer you must be able to write and to read.The computer made us to return to a Gutenberg Galaxy because it opposes itself to television and cinema, where the images are smashing majority. The screen of the computer is also a text screen. Will the books become obsolete because of the computers? And the written material and printed texts will become obsolete too ? I do not believe: the computer is only creating new ways of production and diffusion of documents and printed texts. What will be Electronic Literature? A bet in the easiness of spreading texts through the net, according to standards of the printed texts? Texts, when they arrive at the computer of somebody make possible two forms of behavior, the reading in the proper screen or its printing and posterior reading, in both cases, the readers participation must be the same that in the printed book, a relation of immersion and imagination. Without a doubt this is an important aspect of current electronic literature, and it cannot be left of side. However, before the invention of the computer, "the poets and writers dreamed of open texts that the readers could infinitely rewrite in different forms. It was the idea of the Book, exhilarated for Mallarmé; Joyce imagined his Finnegans Wake as a text that could be read by an ideal reader with an ideal sleeplessness." This became reality with the computer. The hypertexts allow us to invent new ways of writing texts. A hipertextual, interactive and multimedia romance allow us to practise intuition and freedom. Another type of reading and relation with Literature. Which of the two is more important, or which of the two could be categorized as Electronic Literature? Probably the two, both are important in their different specifications. The choice is based on the preferences of the reader and Author. In which of the two categories we can include "Traces of the Catacombes" by Joel Weishaus? Perhaps in the intersection of the two? - This narrative besides allowing freedom and intuition, also leads us to the immersion and imagination... So that here we have a third category ? Possibly more Electronic Literature than the others? At the same time, needing to know if the value of hypertext would continue the same out of the architecture where it was programmed, I imagine Weishaus' text in a printed book format or pdf file. Would it be so interesting like in its hypertext version? What I really try to decipher is if in "Traces of the Catacombes" the content can be freed from its form, including in this last one, the navigation programmed by the Author... I try to discover if it is a text specific for WEB... Until now I do not obtain to arrive at any conclusion, I would need to have the printed book in my hands... I think and I rethink and I conclude that the best definition for Electronic Literature is really in Weishaus hypertext: "...an animated network that reaches to where God is not a given, and our species is again on the threshold of exhuming a further vision of itself. " Bibliography: CHARTIER, Roger. Leitor também é autor. Rio de Janeiro, Jornal O Globo, Prosa e Verso, 10 de julho de 2004. ECO, Umberto. Tradução, para a Língua Portuguesa Falada no Brasil, da Conferência From Internet To Gutenberg. (http://www.inf.ufsc.br/~jbosco/InternetPort.html ) RUCH, A.B. Review of The Secret Books: Writings by J.L. Borges. Photographs S. Kernan. Chicago, 1999. (http://www.themodernword.com/borges/ )

Photo by Faye Powell

View of Portland, Oregon, USA, where Weishaus lives.