Screen Environment
The screen environment and the concepts of in and out, on and through, remain an intriguing dimension of what we are doing in this spatial, technical and communication context.
The screen as the global, the space local, is a reverse of the usual geographic assumption of going out into the world. The image made of pigment, ink and emulsion, is de-coded to produce the light of art, photography, whilst film is light projected onto a screen and we learn to focus on a plane that hovers invisibly in front of that screen to achieve the maximum illusion of a window onto a cinematic set of spaces and times. The telly, the computer screen is illuminated from within, this is a spatial relation akin to the architecture of glass in the medieval cathedral, not an architecture of light, a system of illumination where the human subject performs the role of a screen capable of absorbing this quite different sort of light, a sort of sculptural light, if that is possible! Texture!
In Communication in Finnegans Wake by Donald Theall the technological context of Joyce's work is powerfully presented:The screen environment and the concepts of in and out, on and through, remain an intriguing dimension of what we are doing in this spatial, technical and communication context.
The screen as the global, the space local, is a reverse of the usual geographic assumption of going out into the world. The image made of pigment, ink and emulsion, is de-coded to produce the light of art, photography, whilst film is light projected onto a screen and we learn to focus on a plane that hovers invisibly in front of that screen to achieve the maximum illusion of a window onto a cinematic set of spaces and times. The telly, the computer screen is illuminated from within, this is a spatial relation akin to the architecture of glass in the medieval cathedral, not an architecture of light, a system of illumination where the human subject performs the role of a screen capable of absorbing this quite different sort of light, a sort of sculptural light, if that is possible! Texture!
.... those ars all bellical, the highpriest's
hieroglyph of kettletom and oddsbones.. .
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
We are not physicists nor metaphysicians: we must be Egyptologists. For there are no mechanical laws between things, nor voluntary communication between minds. Everything is implicated, everything is complicated, everything is sign, meaning, essence. Everything exists in those obscure zones which we penetrate as into crypts, in order to decipher hieroglyphs and secret languages.Gilles Deleuze
In 1922 when Joyce began working on Finnegans Wake, mechanization, electricity and electrification were already central aspects of everyday life and consequently destined to become part of the night world of
Here Comes Everybody.
The new world of communication technology, the new modes of popular culture and electrified mechanization held a particular attraction for an author recon- structing the night of an "Everybody" (H.C.E), for the dream action which takes place that night also retraces the social evolution of technology: "First you were Nomad, next you were Namar, now you're Numah and it's soon you'll be Nomon (374.22)." The history of "the people" making themselves unfolds: first as early wanderers ("Nomad"), then as warriors ("Namar"), next as the lonely, alienated one ("Numah") and soon to transcend beyond the limits of the human like a hero, the cunning Odysseus ( "Nomon", a complex pun probably involving elements such as: nomos + gnomon + noman, i.e, law & custom + one who interprets or knows + no man + know man + Ulysses' name = no one).
Since complex communication technology is characteristic of the later stages of the book, cinema, radio, newspapers, "dupenny" maga- zines, comics (contemporary cave drawing), and telecommunications materialize again and again throughout the night of the Wake. The "tele- " prefix appears in: "teleframe", "telekinesis", "telemac", "telepath", "telephone", "telepho- ny", "telescope", "telesmell", "telesphorously", "televisible", "televi- sion", "televox", "telewisher," as well as in a variety of "messes of mottage" such as "velivision" and dullaphone."The Wake refers or alludes to a wide variety of processes associated with communication such as photochemistry ("any photoist worth his chemicots" [111.27]), printing, electrolysis ("helixtrolysis", [163.31]), waves, electronic scanning ("the bairdboard bombardment screen" in the "charge of the light barricade" [349.9,11]), and electromagnetism.
Since complex communication technology is characteristic of the later stages of the book, cinema, radio, newspapers, "dupenny" maga- zines, comics (contemporary cave drawing), and telecommunications materialize again and again throughout the night of the Wake. The "tele- " prefix appears in: "teleframe", "telekinesis", "telemac", "telepath", "telephone", "telepho- ny", "telescope", "telesmell", "telesphorously", "televisible", "televi- sion", "televox", "telewisher," as well as in a variety of "messes of mottage" such as "velivision" and dullaphone."The Wake refers or alludes to a wide variety of processes associated with communication such as photochemistry ("any photoist worth his chemicots" [111.27]), printing, electrolysis ("helixtrolysis", [163.31]), waves, electronic scanning ("the bairdboard bombardment screen" in the "charge of the light barricade" [349.9,11]), and electromagnetism.
Communication in Finnegans Wake by Donald Theall (Published in: Joyce Studies Annual. Ed. Thomas F. Staley. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1991, 129-76.)
