WITH THESE SORTS OF MANIPULATIONS, WE FI ND OURSELVES IN NEW TERRITORY: WHILE MANY TYPES OF ANALOG MASHUPS WERE CREATED IN THE PREDIGITAL AGE—SUCH AS THE CUTTING UP AND GLUING TOGETHER OF TWO SEPARATE LP HALVES OR SPLICING MAGNETIC TAPES INTO COLLAGES—THERE WAS NO LANGUAGE ACTING UPON OTHER LANGUAGE TO FORM SUCH RUPTURES. KENNETH GOLDSMITH. WHAT WE TAKE TO BE GRAPHICS, SOUNDS, AND MOTION IN OUR SCREEN WORLD IS MERELY A THIN SKIN UNDER WHICH RESIDES MILES AND MILES OF LANGUAGE. OCCASIONALLY, AS ON MY FL IGHT, THE SKIN IS PUNCTURED AND, LIKE GETTING A GLIMPSE UNDER THE HOOD, WE SEE THAT OUR DIGITAL WORLD—OUR IMAGES, OUR FI LM AND VIDEO, OUR SOUND, OUR WORDS, OUR INFORMATION— IS POWERED BY LANGUAGE. AND ALL THIS BINARY INFORMATION—MUSIC, VIDEO, PHOTOGRAPHS—IS COMPRISED OF LANGUAGE, MILES AND MILES OF ALPHANUMERIC CODE. IF YOU NEED EVIDENCE OF THIS, THINK OF WHEN YOU’VE MISTAKENLY RECEIVED A .JPG ATTACHMENT IN AN E-MAIL THAT HAS BEEN RENDERED NOT AS IMAGE BUT AS CODE THAT SEEMS TO GO ON FOREVER. IT’S ALL WORDS (THOUGH PERHAPS NOT IN ANY ORDER THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND): TH E BASIC MATERIAL THAT HAS PROPELLED WRITING SINCE ITS STABILIZED FORM IS NOW WHAT ALL MEDIA IS CREATED FROM AS WELL. BESIDES FUNCTIONALITY, CODE ALSO POSSESSES LITERARY VALUE. IF WE FRAME THAT CODE AND READ IT THROUGH THE LENS OF LITERARY CRITICISM, WE WILL FI ND THAT THE PAST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERNIST AND POSTMODERNIST WRITING HAS DEMONSTRATED THE ARTISTIC VALUE OF SIMILAR SEEMINGLY ARBITRARY ARRANGEMENTS OF LETTERS. HERE’S A THREE LINES OF A .JPG OPENED IN A TEXT EDITOR: ˆ?ÎJ€≈ÔI∂FL¥D4˙‡À,†ΩÑÎÓªJËQSÕËY”Δ˝/Å)1Í.§ÏÄ@˙’∫JCGONAÅ$覮 QÍ˝Ô’Å P#N›=ÃWMÃFLÓÀÜÚ*ÊŒI”›_$ÎÛΜ}TSS‹Æ´’[“Ò*Ä≠ˇ Í=ÄÖΩ;Í”≠Õ ¢Ø¥}È&£S¨ÆΠ›ËÉK©I=/Á˝/”˙ÛÖÈ>∞AD_ÏÉÚÖ˙€Ì—ÉÆΔ’AØ6ªŸ- OF COURSE A CLOSE READING OF THE TEXT REVEALS VERY LITTLE, SEMANTICALLY OR NARRATIVELY. INSTEAD, A CONVENTIONAL GLANCE AT THE PIECE REVEALS A NONSENSICAL COLLECTION OF LETTERS AND SYMBOLS, LITERALLY A CODE THAT MIGHT BE DECIPHERED INTO SOMETHING SENSIBLE. YET WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SENSE IS NOT FOREGROUNDED AS BEING OF PRIMARY IMPORTANCE? INSTEAD, WE NEED TO ASK OTHER QUESTIONS OF THE TEXT. BELOW ARE THREE LINES FROM A POEM BY CHARLES BERNSTEIN CALLED “LIFT OFF ,” WRITTEN IN 1979: HH/ IE,S OBVRSXR;ATJRN DUGH SEINEOCPCY I IIBALFMGMMW ER,,ME”IUS IEIGORCY¢JEUVINE+PEE.)A/NAT” IHL”N,S ORTNSIHCLDSELØØPITEMOBRUCE-OOIWVEWAA39OSOANFJ++,R”P 2 INTENTIONALLY BEREFT OF LITERARY TROPES AND CONVEYANCES OF HUMAN EMOTION, BERNSTEIN CHOOSES TO EMPHASIZE THE WORKINGS OF A MACHINE RATHER THAN THE SENTIMENTS OF A HUMAN. IN FACT, THE PIECE IS WHAT ITS TITLE SAYS IT IS: A TRANSCRIPTION OF EVERYTHING LIFTED OFF A PAGE WITH A CORRECTION TAPE FROM A MANUAL TYPEWRITER. BERNSTEIN’S POEM IS, IN SOME SENSE, CODE POSING AS A POEM: CAREFUL READING WILL REVEAL BITS OF WORDS AND THE OCCASIONAL FULL WORD THAT WAS ERASED. FOR EXAMPLE, YOU CAN SEE THE WORD “BRUCE” ON THE LAST LINE, POSSIBLY REFERRING TO BRUCE ANDREWS, BERNSTEIN’S COEDITOR OF THE JOURNAL L=A=N=G=U=G=A=G=E. BUT SUCH ATTEMPTS AT REASSEMBLING WON’T GET US TOO FAR: WHAT WE’RE LEFT WITH ARE SHARDS OF LANGUAGE COMPRISED OF ERRORS FROM UNKNOWN DOCUMENTS. IN THIS WAY BERNSTEIN EMPHASIZES THE FRAGMENTARY NATURE OF LANGUAGE, REMINDING US THAT, EVEN IN THIS SHATTERED STATE, ALL MORPHEMES ARE PRESCRIBED WITH ANY NUMBER OF REFERENCES AND CONTEXTS; IN THIS CASE THE RESULTANT TEXT IS A TISSUE OF QUOTATIONS DRAWN FROM A SERIES OF GHOST WRITINGS. BUT DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. YOU CAN EASILY CREATE THESE TEXTUAL RUPTURES ON YOUR COMPUTER. TAKE ANY MP3 FI LE—WE’LL USE THE PRELUDE FROM BACH’S “CELLO SUITE NO. 1”—AND CHANGE THE FI LENAME EXTENSION FROM .MP3 TO .TXT. OPEN THE DOCUMENT IN A TEXT EDITOR, YOU’LL SEE GOBS OF NONSENSICAL ALPHANUMERIC CODE/LANGUAGE. NOW, TAKE ANY TEXT—LET’S SAY FOR THE SAKE OF CONSISTENCY, WE TAKE BACH’S WHOLE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY—AND PASTE IT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THAT CODE. TH EN SAVE IT AND RENAME THE FI LE WITH THE .MP3 EXTENSION. IF YOU DOUBLE CLICK IT AND OPEN IT YOUR MP3 PLAYER, IT’LL PLAY THE FI LE AS USUAL, BUT WHEN IT HITS THE WIKIPEDIA TEXT, IT COUGHS, GLITCHES, AND SPITS FOR THE DURATION OF TIME IT TAKES FOR THE PLAYER TO DECODE THAT BIT OF LANGUAGE BEFORE GOING BACK TO THE PRELUDE. WITH THESE SORTS OF MANIPULATIONS, WE FI ND OURSELVES IN NEW TERRITORY: WHILE MANY TYPES OF ANALOG MASHUPS WERE CREATED IN THE PREDIGITAL AGE—SUCH AS THE CUTTING UP AND GLUING TOGETHER OF TWO SEPARATE LP HALVES OR SPLICING MAGNETIC TAPES INTO COLLAGES—THERE WAS NO LANGUAGE ACTING UPON OTHER LANGUAGE TO FORM SUCH RUPTURES. WITH DIGITAL MEDIA, WE’RE SQUARELY IN THE WORLD OF TEXTUAL MANIPULATION, WHICH NOT TOO LONG AGO WAS ALMOST THE EXCLUSIVE PROVINCE OF “WRITING” AND “LITERATURE.” 7 WE CAN DO THE SAME THING WITH IMAGES. LET’S TAKE A .JPG OF THE FAMOUS DROESHOUT ENGRAVING FROM THE TITLE PAGE OF THE 1623 FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS AND CHANGE THE EXTENSION FROM .JPG TO .TXT. WHEN WE OPEN IT IN A TEXT EDITOR, WE’LL SEE GARBLED CODE. NOW LET’S INSERT HIS NINETY-THIRD SONNET INTO IT, THREE TIMES AT SOMEWHAT EQUAL INTERVALS, AND SAVE THE FI LE AND CHANGE THE EXTENSION BACK TO .JPG. WHEN WE REOPEN IT AS AN IMAGE, THE EFF ECT THAT LANGUAGE HAD UPON THE IMAGE IS CLEAR: WHAT WE’RE EXPERIENCING FOR THE FI RST TIME IS THE ABILITY OF LANGUAGE TO ALTER ALL MEDIA, BE IT IMAGES, VIDEO, MUSIC, OR TEXT, SOMETHING THAT REPRESENTS A BREAK WITH TRADITION AND CHARTS THE PATH FOR NEW USES OF LANGUAGE. WORDS ARE ACTIVE AND AFF ECTIVE IN CONCRETE WAYS. YOU COULD SAY THAT THIS ISN’T WRITING, AND, IN THE TRADITIONAL SENSE, YOU’D BE RIGHT. BUT THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET INTERESTING: WE AREN’T HAMMERING AWAY ON TYPEWRITERS; INSTEAD—FOCUSED ALL DAY ON POWERFUL MACHINES WITH INFI NITE POSSIBILITIES, CONNECTED TO NETWORKS WITH A NUMBER OF EQUALLY INFI NITE POSSIBILITIES—THE WRITER’S ROLE IS BEING SIGNIFI CANTLY CHALLENGED, EXPANDED, AND UPDATED. 
REVENGE OF THE TEXT, UNCREATIVE WRITING (KENNETH GOLDSMITH) HTTPS://S3.AMAZONAWS.COM/ARENA-ATTACHMENTS/2864063/6481FCF121217C31903AD71106B4A039.PDF