exploring modalities of communication. of connection, of be-ing. Kittler shows up on the radar immediately (hmmm, recalling that extremely uncomfortable evening with him in that bar in Linz before the Intertwinedness happening. he needed the table to circulate around him. and it did because of the language (protocol) gap. I was not fluent in German enough to access the discussion that inevitably circulated, hovered, around him. strange situation. instead I talked with his assistant (and translator whose name I have now forgotten), a young American who came to worship Kittler in Berlin for a time. I left early as I had to catch a train to Copenhagen early the next morning.)

how to bind energy in to the text [as the particular creative output]. to be released in TIME. to the proper receiver.

that from an earlier travelogue entry. it clearly has been on mind for a long time. actually the transition from print-making to performance/happening was a mapping of that need. finding that the silver print was just too rigid a platform when compared to presence. although the print is, as with anything, in retrospect, a resonance of presence and be-ing as is any trace left in the wake of life.

this issue along with structuring days and weeks in order to be the most productive and concentrated. the chill of the room makes morning writing a bit uncomfortable up there, so, perhaps writing through the morning in the kitchen as long as there are no real interruptions to focus. the desk in the room is good though, with a decent chair. back to the Berlin writing experience. the tea pot is a crucial question. wondering whether I should have Christian send me the excellent pot that I found in Kreuzberg. insulated to keep the tea hot, enough for three or four cups, and a slide-in screen for the tea. it was perfect for a three-hour writing fest. otherwise, brewed in a regular ceramic pot, it goes cold way too fast (at the rate I drink it), that and the problem of steeping too long when doing it the British way. but so far, I haven’t found the same kind of pot here. went into one cheap Made-in-China shop in Marrickville and was so overcome by the fumes of cheapness that I had to leave with watering eyes. made me nauseous. something akin to the smell of Walmart, but with no air circulation, add dust, and knock the cheapness factor down by a couple orders of magnitude — this not in cost, but in the absolute shoddiness of the manufacturing process which may mean anything from sloppy execution, and under-optimized production standards, to dangerous or even lethal ingredients. I didn’t find what I Was looking for, and haven’t yet.

back to modalities. where this frames the issues raised in the Ways of Listening course as well. how expressive pathways are never absolute (are entropic) and depend on the continual input of energy (from the social energy bank) to maintain their hegemonic order and control over interpersonal impression and expression. there are a class of individuals in every time and system who seek to renew, evolve, change, destroy the old modalities. Cage, Fluxus-folks, Bauhaus, anyone who seeks this process at whatever scalar effect.

(i.e., Norie is at the forefront of this process — a faculty-member advising in the fuzzy space of the DCA (Doctorate of Creative Arts) concept — they are, in general, functioning in a space of indeterminate protocols as are the candidates. making choices on what to accept or reject as possible (modal outputs) protocols within the social system (in the form of the educational institution as one specific modal expression of the wider social system). a formative space, the choices made in that space will determine the level of vitality or corruption in the unfolding/evolving social system.

modalities are independent of scale — that is, they cross many levels of a social system, of be-ing. (and, at this point, can I consider the intersection of the words modality and protocol?) modality seems to circumscribe a more material space (also discounting the phenomena of energy-transfer although it relates to sensory perception). modality, modal, mode, mood, modus (related to mete, mediate, mediation, meditation, measure, meet (met), (and in the Greek medesthai to care for, to be mindful of) — how some thing (quelque chose or process) is done, executed, performed, expressed. to take care for the expression of active be-ing. be here now. to care for being here, now. and it comes, translates to us within the social system as a measuring, circumscribing of ways of going. this seems a good example of the social system imposing its inevitable evolutionary impact on individual be-ing. from a qualitative, caring, contemplation of presence, here, now, to the quantifiable, conscripted, defined, the modal.

so the question comes back, how to circumscribe the theoretical of the work ahead? the immediate answer: with care. the only way to proceed!