16.632 preservation

From: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk)
Date: Sat Apr 19 2003 - 01:48:18 EDT

  • Next message: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty

                   Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 632.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                       www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                         Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu

       [1] From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com> (10)
             Subject: Re: 16.629 preservation

       [2] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (43)
             Subject: reading traces Re: 16.622 preservation and absence

       [3] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (57)
             Subject: evaporation Re: 16.629 preservation

    --[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:35:55 +0100
             From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com>
             Subject: Re: 16.629 preservation

    Two outstanding examples of re-writers are (as Willard knows) W.B. Yeats
    and Walt Whitman. If we did not have the early versions of their poems we
    would be missing a number of great works of art. In some cases the first
    published versions were finer than the later ones. (Cf. Auden's "Elegy on
    the death of W. B. Yeats', in which the later milder final version has been
    'cleaned up' to reflect Auden's later political views - it isn't nearly as
    good. (The same goes for the re-written "Under Which Lyre") But we have
    all the published versions, and we have all or most of Yeats' remarkable
    drafts of "Sailing to Byzantium", for out eternal amazement. And we have at
    least 9 versions of Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ to read.

    --[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:36:29 +0100
             From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
             Subject: reading traces Re: 16.622 preservation and absence

    Willard,

    You quoted

    > Jed Z. Buchwald [...]
    > piece, "The scholar's seeing eye", in "Reworking the bench - research
    > notebooks in the history of science", eds. F. L. Holmes, J. Renn,
    > H-J Rheinberger, ARCHIMEDES, vol. 7, pgs. 311-25. He argues that,
    >

    [...]

    > >world of paper -- it may be difficult for them to find the residue of
    > >human thought and action, because they will be used to seeing only the
    > >perfected digital record, which will rarely leave informative traces of
    > >the road not taken. Paper retains its human stain; the digital record is
    > >spotless.

    And then you ask:

    > loss. Are we really without qualification the preservers of knowledge?

    The above is a "digital record" in which "spottedness" is highlighted by
    "excision" and "interpollation". If I may be so bold to suggest that
    historians will be reading not a prefected digital record but a series of
    records, it is because I know that certain archives have received not just
    the complete hard drive contents but the hard ware as well (I have in mind
    the case the fonds bpnichol at Simon Fraser University). The problem is
    not one of "leaving" traces but future access to those traces. Further the
    "trace" problem is not inherent in the technology (some users save whole
    series of versions). It is a deontological question: what traces do users
    wish to be left. Whether it is the individual space of the "personal
    computer" or the account on a mainframe, the digital realm provides for
    information interchange between the semi-private space of the local file
    storage and processing unit and the public space of data and applications
    made available to other users. Out of some dream of the _complete_ record
    and aspiration to a mastery of a plenitude of possible paths, the
    historian of science may bemoan lack of access to the semi-private sphere
    where work gets done. But how much work would get done if users couldn't
    make a "mess" in a preserve free of the future prying eyes of historians?

    I say "disposers of knowledge" -- without qualification -- i.e.
    fabricators of dispositions.

    <sigilla>
    <civic.name>Fran&ccedil;ois Lachance</civic.name>
    <self.desig>Scholar-at-large</self.desig>
    <activity>Actively visiting <?insert URN?></activity>
    <motto><w corresp="grok">gork</w> structure, savour <w
    corresp="peace">content</w>, <s ana="play-with-piece">enjoy
    form</s></motto>
    </sigilla>

    --[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:37:00 +0100
             From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
             Subject: evaporation Re: 16.629 preservation

    Willard,

    I've taken your statement (quoted below) and by a few strokes composed a
    version in the past tense in order to tease out those implications:

    No one did ever see the words

    [the projection of a future "will see" assumes a having seen and exposes
    the phenomenology of "to see" in relation to "recognize seeing"]

    I had written

    [note the subtle assumption of persistence in "have written" and the hint
    of loss and decay in "had written"; the English tense system allows us to
    ponder the relation we might conceive between the action (to write), the
    act (the writing) and the product (the written)]

    but then had [have?] deleted
    [the temporal relations between
              "have written" and "have deleted"
              "have written" and "had deleted"
              "had written" and "had deleted"
              "had written" and "have deleted"
    offer a mini display of the complexities of punctuating the past]

    from this note,
    [ the trickiness of the diectic "this" which can point to
    the "note" as object on the screen and the "note" as object held in the
    reading mind]

    and I could not [was not able to] even remember at the moment

    [tense and mode colour the statement of a failure of memory]

    what they had been.

    [they - the words considered -- have an independence from their
    being written, deleted or remembered -- try remembering the unwritten
    word]

    Trying to remember the unwritten word -- for computing in the humanities
    may be a move from instance to system, reading with a view that sufficient
    manipulation of a string leads to a matrix. And in a non-verbal vein,
    imagining a possible system or considering an artefact or a set of
    artefacts as a sense-making machine (including the meaningful scrambling
    of sense) depends in part on trying to remember the unproduced sign or
    trace.

    Humanities computing perhaps reflects that space of practice between
    historical reconstruction of the genesis of a semiotic object and the
    rhetoric that accompanies the changing contexts for the reception of such
    an object. It is a space of practice where people can turn to the machine
    model to make perceivable the ways of reading, ways of constructing
    meaning and ways of configuring practice.

    > what we are in fact doing. No one will ever see the words I have written
    > but then deleted from this note, and I cannot even remember at the moment
    > what they were. A trivial case, perhaps, but not in its implications, I
    > think. What migh these be?

    In not seeing the not-remembering and the not-writing, I join you in the
    labour of a machine-assisted hermeneutics - a lovely activity for finite
    beings.

    --
    <sigilla>
    <civic.name>Fran&ccedil;ois Lachance</civic.name>
    <self.desig>Scholar-at-large</self.desig>
    <activity>Actively visiting <?insert URN?></activity>
    <motto><w corresp="grok">gork</w> structure, savour <w
    corresp="peace">content</w>, <s ana="play-with-piece">enjoy
    form</s></motto>
    </sigilla>
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Apr 19 2003 - 01:49:53 EDT