Between in and on
As the semester draws to a close, or more so, its frantic finishing stages, I am at a loss. Not so much in what has to be done, than doing it. Hence, the silence here. That silence will continue, for a part into the future, well not exactly, it is the ability to organise and synthesise thought, condense and distil it into an entry, onto a post. The question of writing, when writing on the internet is is writing in or on? That distinction is blurred, the topology of the structure is something that is at arms length occasionally, placing an entry, the fact that it is called an entry means to enter inside and write in. However, the twofold nature of writing, the inscriptive surface that is connected through nodes and binary data, projected on the screen relates to on. Writing on a surface, a space, a plain a node of dimensionally, something that at once appears and disappears. The tension with the space, a coordinated set of ideas, developed over time. A genealogy of the self, the archive that is represented, projected, emergent and more so there, it has a presence.
Is the nature that of writing in/reading on. The analogy of paper writing in a book, writing on paper. One never writes in paper but in ink or lead. What are the words then that comprise the screen, what is the text that is presented here, by me, for you to read? How does it relate to me? What is its role?
The trouble with the in/on distinction is that it reflects a level of dimensionally. One cannot enter a two dimensional space, a plain. Yet one can enter into the third dimension, the level of spatiality that is contained within its volume is projected. To enter is to go inside and be surrounded by that which is now outside, but appearing in reverse. This angle, can be summated through code—code that is at once both a representation and an expression. An object that is at once a store, a repository of data yet invoked on the other end, a user who calls up the text, from the inside to the outside, from the in to the on, the representational mechanics of dimensionally that float through the tentacles of the network…
