TRIUMPH

Alan Sondheim


TRIUMPH: Video concerned with the incursion of viral particles and text into and from a plague body, installation / performance in Second Life. The text reads:

MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY!

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS. I TRULY BELIEVE THAT. MY LITTLE BABIES TRULY BELIEVE THAT. FOR IF MY SKIN FALLS OFF, IF I CANNOT BREATHE, THAT HURTS NO ONE BUT ME. AND AS FOR ME, I WOULDN'T MIND DYING FOR MY LITTLE ONES, WOULD YOU? IT'S ALL A MATTER OF FAITH. I BELIEVE IN GOD AND GOD LOVES ME SO, DON'T YOU, GOD. MY LITTLE ONES ARE HAPPY I WILL DIE FOR THEM. AND SO MANY VIRUS I CAN GIVE A MY GIFT TO THE WORLD WORLD. SO MANY WORLD WORLD I CAN GIVE TO THE VIRUS. COME AND JOIN ME. WE HAVE LIVED TOO LONG. MAKE WAY!! MAKE WAY!!


About the Artist

Alan Sondheim's books include the anthology Being on Line: Net Subjectivity (1997), Disorders of the Real (1988), .echo (2001), Vel (Blazevox, 2004-5), Sophia (Writers Forum, 2004), The Wayward (2004),[4] and "Writing Under" (2012),[5] as well as numerous other chapbooks, ebooks, and articles. Sondheim has long been associated with the Trace online writing community, and was their second virtual-writer-in-residence. His video and filmwork have been internationally shown. Sondheim was an Eyebeam resident. He co-moderates several email lists, including Cybermind and Wryting. Since 1994, he has been working on the "Internet Text," a continuous meditation on philosophy, psychology, language, body, and virtuality. His artwork can also be found within Second Life. In 1996 he was keynote speaker for the Cybermind96 Conference in Perth Western Australia - one of the world's first conferences specifically organised around an email discussion list. In 2012 he was a presenter and active participant at the CyPosium, a one-day online symposium on cyberformance. Sondheim is the developer of the concept of codework wherein computer code itself becomes a medium for artistic expression. His poetico-philosophical writings deal with the notion of embodiment and presence in cyberspace, loosely based on the work of postmodern philosophers Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida. He explores the machinic using the language of computer code to articulate novel forms of identity in cyberspace. His work crosses over between philosophical explorations and electronic literature; he explores the language of music using the tonalities of a wide range of ethnic instruments. His poetry has spanned several decades ranging from avant guard beat poetry and stream-of-consciousness of the late 60's and 70's and soundscape poetry, maturing into a complex melding of multiple representational forms. Recently, he had residencies at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In November he spoke at Brunel University (London), London ICA, and NeMe in Limassol, Cyprus, where he also participated in the Children of Prometheus exhibition. His music and theoretical sound works are available on Public Eyesore and ESP cds. His work can be found at http://www.alansondheim.org and YouTube.