Hi there.

in the end will be the flesh and the flesh will be made word

Please take a stroll down the gallery path of p r o x i m a t e .o r g. The site is a home for my internet-related poetry and graphic design. It is also home to the exploration of the effects, possibilities, and limitations of the internet on textual and graphical communication.

http://proximate.org/

WHAT THE NAME

The site is named 'proximate' as a nod to the concept of proxemics in human communication. Proximate communications, specifically oral communications, contain extralinguistic information, e.g., body language & context, that remote communications such as recordings or textual communications do not have, cannot have. The hope of the internet as some sort of transcendent medium deserves serious skepticism when placed in such a light. Such a light also gives us opportunity for discovering the positive. There's always the tension, the conflict.

The name "proximate" is also a pun on intimacy on the internet, as in a proxy mate. We all know sex sells, especially on the internet. The internet seems to be used as a proxy for human contact and proximal communication, which gives me pause. Such an intuition adds to what I sense as a sort of growing desperation for real, physical human contact, particularly in America, with everyone working on him- or herself, never time for affection, only time for status, career, a new car. Such use of energy may be at odds with a more positive force in life. The world has some strange dynamic property to it; there's something beyond our knowledge, yet within, around; perhaps such a thing helps explain the necessity for contact. The internet is often used as a substitute for that contact, but it can't do that well. There is NO substitute. The "i" that the pun pivots on is relevant to a constant concern throughout the site regarding identity. "I"? Y?

WHY THE SITE

I have authored this site as a byproduct of discussions I have shared about the internet, interface design and human gesture, the pretensions of proximity in web pages and the actual distances constructed by them, and some resulting poetry. Most of the discussions were this past summer and autumn through subsubpoetics (an e-mail list started by Jordan Davis) with Alan Sondheim and two close friends, one a writer, the other a designer. (Some material from these dialogues can be found at another web site: http://gesture.org/text.html.) I am interested precisely in the type of relationships that web pages build between people. I have observed that this internet aesthetic, this relater, is a duplicitous one (getting back to the original definition of art?) -- that the writing styles typical of e-talk and the "personalization" of web pages add up to make a user feel close, proximate, A SOMEBODY, while all along the relationship is constructed at an incalculably great distance. Such a great distance, that it allows the person or persons constructing the content, who is trying to get your attention or most likely your money, to completely disregard those at the receiving end of the communication. Like the power of a bomb; you can destroy people and not even have to suffer through witnessing it.

This web site appears in lieu of a book. Besides, such material would make little or no sense only in print. Of course, publishing the work on the internet pretty much guaranteed the publication. Makes it easier to work from outside the system as well. p r o x i m a t e tries to imitate this confrontational, faux-personal aspect of the internet in ludicrous ways, in some poems ("Come Closer!," "Simon Says," etc.) . Other poems engage a more sincere aspect, such as the relation between nature and the binary of computing, or my creeping suspicion that web pages are multiplying in the fashion of A.M. country stations, albeit at a greater rate, thus undermining this "personalized" bright future the internet is supposed to provide. All web pages seem the same after a while. I am primarily interested here in confrontation and the language unit of the sentence and the chord structures of poems (as I mis/read Ashbery), as opposed to the syllable, the notes of poems.

I have a strong interest in interface design, as interfaces on the internet (or in all technologies, even writing?) are the starting points for my discussion, as interfaces are the most immediate contact we have with others, though letters and graphics and hypertext links.

HOW THE SITE

p r o x i m a t e   is linear, as I wanted the site to feel less like a "Choose your own Adventure" book and more like a neglected side hallway in an old art gallery space. The site contains several poems, including 2 kinetic poems, a few RealAudio recordings of readings with some background processing in some cases, some original graphics, and some groundwork for new interfaces (which are now static). Perhaps the structure is a gesture of my sincerity, as the face of much of the material is one of sarcasm and duplicity (multiplicity?). I felt I could point out internet-style duplicity by exaggerating it.

Of course, without the internet, this work would be meaningless. The internet has afforded me the opportunity to publish in such a fashion. As much as I criticize the Internet, I cannot imagine a time or place in the past where a maturing writer could develop in a fashion that is at once independent and public. Proximal and distal. For this I am not only fortunate but grateful. With this site I have something at stake, both as a poet and as a professional web designer & developer. The job pays my bills, the poetry inflates my lungs, but I wanted something devoid of such a feeble opposition, a place where the two could meet. The result is p r o x i m a t e . o r g .

WHO THE SITE

All work on p r o x i m a t e . o r g is Copyleft. Copyright © 1999, 2000, Patrick Herron (with some minor exceptions). Verbatim copying and distribution of any part of or all of the p r o x i m a t e web site is permitted in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided this notice is preserved.

For more information on Copyleft, go to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonsoftware-copyleft.html.

Submissions are encouraged, however, no submissions will be solicited in a fashion other than this general notice.

WHAT THE SITE: AN INCOMPLETE GUIDE

The site proceeds linearly in the following fashion, though you can also start at the home page and click through it (as of 20 January 2000):

http://proximate.org/ -- main page. Simple GIF animation. The hand (also see below) is known as, "La Mano Poderosa," or the All-Powerful Hand. It is a Caban-style sculpture from 19th C. Puerto Rico. Is the hand all-powerful? The hand has become a focal point for gesture, as communication with all its powerful extralinguistic content is trying to get through the hands, the fingers, through the keyboard.

To this page I recently added a flash piece called "Hello," which is properly reached from a link below the main graphic on the main page. The image of the abbot is Saint Benedict, who allegedly could read minds and dispense a large set of rules. He helped change Western European languages while proselytizing across the continent in the 6 th century. He is the patron saint in effigy and he is dying to shake your hand. Like agents of the lord, people are milling about proselytizing about the internet and its divine glories in almost religious fervor. And certainly language is changing as a result. Remember, 01 is me and I am 01. Dust & ash serve as analog counterpoint. The music is a short composition of mine. The flash animation requires Flash 4.

http://proximate.org/closer.htm - "Come Closer!," a kinetic poem about getting close to a web page. GIF animation.

http://proximate.org/hands.htm -- hands (future interface groundwork). The hand and the eye are the human part of the interface of the internet. But each finger has its own spiritual power, and together . . . .

http://proximate.org/01d3c0d3.htm -- "01 d3c0d3," a poem. (I decode). This poem is about interface, whether it be a keyboard or a language or a literary device or a counting system. Something gets filtered out, yet something else gets added. the impoverished signal gets a boost somewhere. I try to add to that filter, by means of adding subliminal (nonliminal?) suggestions to the noise, as an attempt to develop unconscious coloring constituents for meaning, as if meaning were not a point but a field, a cloud. But when pushed for something better, all means of communication break down, becoming noisy yet reductive, insular. Where does something go when it is expressed? Where do we go when we express ourselves? Poetry seems to be cryptic sometimes, and in the crypt, is something lost, or is something gained, or both? We live in an age of cryptography, seemingly disparate subjects suddenly thrust upon each other. Can anything be expressed in language or any other code? Hence my reason for changing the "I" to "01," seemingly appropriate for a binary age.

http://proximate.org/catching.htm -- graphics with a tribute to Vito Acconci, perhaps the most important influence on this site, at least from an ideological / aesthetic standpoint. the picture is of Vito Acconci trying to catch balls thrown at him while he is blindfolded. It's funny and yet it's not. It's other-sensory, synecdochal (to coin a word), and oddly harrowing. Like understanding art itself. The Chinese text is from a "Reelect Willie Brown" web page. I thought it was ironic without translation and even more ironic if the text is understood.

http://proximate.org/image.htm -- "image," a poem for Alan Sondheim. This poem is about the technology of writing and its relation to orality. And the internet and its magnification of aspects of the technology of the written word. Echoes of Plato, Walter Ong, Julian Jaynes, Coleridge, _Max und Moritz_. T.S. Eliot, interface, the augury underlying not only science but _intent_ altogether. With accompanying RealAudio voice morphing at http://proximate.org/ra/image.ram.

http://proximate.org/morph.htm - "Friends Forever!!!." A web page getting friendly, but it just _might_ be insincere.

http://proximate.org/simon.htm - "Simon Says!", a confrontational poem a la Acconci's way of forcing an audience's involvement by using the second person, using confrontation. The graphics are a reflection of reflections and dissected sexuality. Typography tries to merge the sense of language with mathematics, providing its own means for alienation. A poem originally composed for subsubpoetics.

http://proximate.org/confluent.htm - A well-known poet told me last year that I needed to write a nature poem. I do not think this is what he had in mind. I attempt to express timelessness with a most deliberate conflation of distant origins and the commonplace results of today, machines spitting numbers. And this conflation came out somewhat like Glossolalia, like speaking in tongues, only more clear, like Tourette's, but not abusive. My fascination with cosmology and astronomy bubbles through the lines but always at the strain of admitting such things as black holes, the strain of admitting the reality of anything, or the construction of anything for that matter. With a RealMedia recording, morphed voice and risset tones: http://proximate.org/ra/confluent.ram.

http://proximate.org/asabove.htm - "As Above, So Below." GIF image. Another interface precursor. Overly simple perhaps, but it is also a joke on interface and even perhaps the sortilege of sexuality, like knowing which way to go at the appearance of a subway sign that says "Street (up arrow), subways (down arrow)." You always know which way to go just by merit of where you are. The sign is unnecessary. The image, to add to the entendre, is an altered detail from a large public works mural done by the fantastic brilliant realist artist, Jack Beal. I believe the mural is the mosaic in the 42nd Street Subway Station in NYC. Jack is a dear friend of a dear friend, and this mutual dear friend is the stepfather of my best friend who died three years ago. The experience of his son's death is a large part of why I'm doing ANYTHING creative today. To bring this in line with the image, the detail from this mosaic is of my friend's stepfather, who Beal actually pictured as a welder in the mosaic. Perhaps the internet is a subway, and to make navigating it simple, know where you are and have a pretty good idea of where you'd like to go. And what if you don't know where you are?

http://proximate.org/subterra.htm - A poem entitled, "Subterranean Homesick Filament," with original graphics. The poem originally appeared on subsubpoetics and was written by replacing every 'a' with a 4, every 'e' with a 3, every 'i' with a 1, every 'o' with a 0, every 'g' with a 9, and some other textual substitutions as well. This poem is perhaps more sincere than the other content, perhaps more mundane and commonplace, but all such things should have a home. The empty feeling from working too much, being too deeply immersed in the mercantile world, and the effect of such feelings of emptiness on one particular personal relationship, my most important relationship.

http://www.proximate.org/paradigm.htm - "Paradigm Shift." A poem about web pages as miscellaneous and vapid as country stations in a violent cowboy world soldiered by people in briefcases. The distance of web pages, the desperate need of people for touch, and the outlandish appeals for subjugation and abuse all over the internet -- all such things play a part. Perhaps because all of that time on the internet we are sitting in front of a lifeless monitor. Human contact is so hard to find, and just a little more difficult on the internet. It's as if making a bigger noise on the internet will finally bring the touch, but at that point you're already sucked in. And you are more easily commodified at that point. I guess I'm pretty much an vitalist, by way of Wilhelm Reich or Bergson, so my concerns with the technology of text, of internet, or ideas without flesh, distant media like big brothers, are all in conflict with the great deal of fondness I have for both writing and the internet. And I'm curious here about the rise and fall of the sentence, how syntax is like the chord structure of a song. Hence the unresolved sentence to introduce, and its repetition as an opportunity for resolution. A RealMedia recording accompanies the poem at http://proximate.org/ra/paradigm.ram.

http://proximate.org/lockandkey.htm - "Lock and Key." Poem with original graphics. Keys, encryption, gestures of openness and penetration/interface, the divisiveness of objectification, the gestures of body language blown apart, and the age-old philosophical riddle of other minds.

http://www.proximate.org/syntax.htm - "Syntax Round." Poem with original graphics. What does a page when designed for a print layout, look like on the web? Again, another poem that plays on syntax and its relation to resolution via the avoidance of resolution and repetition. Free jazz is a big influence on much of my writing, not just here, and it has led me to some level of insight on the sentence and its music. An insight perhaps or an opportunity for an invented intellection. A sentence in language is used here in a way equivalent to a phrase of music in a song. And on the graphical design side of things, here's an attempt to see what a page spread layout designed for print would look like on a web page, and the art work, again, indulging in the compulsion of most literal interface, the display of genitalia. We humans have more in common with chimps than we like to kid ourselves. Commercial internet enterprises take advantage of our primate nature as well as our seeming ignorance of such a nature, all over the place. Sex sites in particular.

http://www.proximate.org/bookends.htm - "Bookends Person Absurdities." This poem was the result of a Sunday trip to the library. The opening section is composed of the first and last sentences of books I picked up at the library, but when I rewrote them I stripped of any people. And then I incorporated the credits for each book as part of the work. The measure of the line here is in words, not syllables. The unit of the sentence takes primacy here. The "notes" section is a more personal accounting of some things that I was rubbing up against. I guess I read Walt Whitman poems now as if John Giorno were trying to read them, not allowing a breath until the line is completed. Allen Ginsberg haunts this, perhaps even my reading of it (RealMedia) at http://proximate.org/ra/bookends.ram. Yes, this is my voice unretouched. At some point the authentic must appear, no matter how futile in theory such an appearance may be.

http://proximate.org/blackbox.htm - "The Black Box is Empty." A villanelle, with artwork. Unfortunately I cannot remember the source of the photograph. So someone is going uncredited here. Are poems part of signs? What's that monkey doing there?

http://proximate.org/creation.htm - A visual allusion to Linda Nochlin's "The Origin without an Original"* and Gustave Courbet's "L'origine du Monde" and to the collapse of the end into the origin in the great cosmological cycle of things. Authenticity and a lack thereof. A return to the beginning, if you touch it, baby, c'mon. This woman, unlike Courbet's subject, is not an object but an activity, an explosion, a channeling, an interfacing. Orgasm as interface, transformation, both familiar and other-worldly.

Starting with an end and ending with an origin.

THANKS

Enjoy. I would love your feedback, especially if you have made it this far along. Most of this material was posted to the domain server during the week beginning 16 January 2000, and is still in development. There is much more to come, both poetry and interface design. My thanks go to Alan Sondheim, Giles Hendrix, and Suzie Sisoler for their valuable insights and comments generously given to me during the development of the p r o x i m a t e site. I also thank Giles Hendrix again for his technical assistance and expert labor on version 2.0. And to Janet, for not just tolerating but appreciating my absences from working too much.

Patrick Herron

patrick@proximate.org

* - Nochlin, Linda. "Courbet's L'Origine du monde: The Origin without an original." In Spectacles of Realism, eds. Margaret Cohen and Christopher Prendergast. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. 339-347