| Cabaret Vert Magazine | The Straytext Device: Pure and Applied Research in Mutational Field Theory by John Riddell |
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3. WAVE THEORY In his brilliant paper, "An Approach to Linguistic Onto-Genetics,"(18) Michael Dean essentially demonstrated how to collapse biliterate field grids (closure) into a rich and diverse speculative range of mutational field topologies (open). It is Dean's revelatory gesture which ultimately brought mutational field theory--- and, by association, the Straytext Device---- to life... We restate Dean's First Law of Language( the Art of Quotient) thusly: I=(A)(T), as it is not the genus (Art) we seek, but the species (Culture), which is the subject of our inquiry (19). Of specific interest to us is Dean's discovery of the relation between writing and emotional problems: it is from here that we take our text... Dean defines a natural state of Discourse as being one wherein "the energy of the thing, and the word denoting it, are the same "; and a disturbed state of Discourse as being one in which "language is used for effect, to hide, rather than reveal, meaning." He goes on to say that "language must be understood as flow"; and he states the necessary vowel/consonant measurement units, the energy of the word as "helix", breaks down and lists the standard tables of affective speech equivalents, etc. Dean himself sums up the conflict between the wave theorists and the Constructivists: "...one wonders how the Constructivists can really believe that the whole universe of language can be expressed in terms of the natural order of discrete letters and the rational syntax derived therefrom."<< >> |
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