In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

266 CODES
strangely unerotic. Bodies without depth get caught, and catch others, in
rapid movements and rhythms; they inspire mimetic desire; they intoxicate
their spectators. Yet they do not seduce other bodies or drag them
into the abyss of addiction or perversion. [see Bars] Above all, artificial
worlds are worlds of barren sexuality. [see Stars]
Genealogy, prophecy, and historical time, possession and loss, reflexivity,
emancipation, and addiction are allied with Authenticity. It is the
dimension of agency and subjectivity which, by interpreting, produces
the belief in that cosmological order whose existence the subject's
thoughts and actions always presuppose. Even failed actions can matter
in the world of Authenticity because they express an agent's project,
courage, or capacity to resist adversity. [see Action vs. Impotence, Action
= Impotence (Tragedy)] Reason and logic are concepts which articulate
the expectation that such subjectivity and such agency proceed in accordance
with an ultimately transcendental-that is, cosmological-order of
things. [see Immanence vs. Transcendence] On the side of Artificiality,
however, the laws and rhythms of whatever happens appear as the laws
and rhythms of particular systems without any normative status. [see
Railroads, Timepieces] Each system's structures and procedures seem
inevitably contingent from the perspective of every other system. The
functionalization of bodies within individual systems presupposes and
causes their fragmentation [see Assembly Lines, Employees]-a fragmentation
that ends up producing gender neutrality. Sobriety is the appreciation
of this functioning of parts within a system and of their submission
to its laws. But even those forces or agents that keep alive, drive, and
inspire a system are never independent of it and can never completely
observe or manipulate it from outside. [see Engineers] In Bertolt Brecht's
drama Mann ist Mann (Man Is Man), the innocent Chinese packer Galy
Gay, whom the colonial army transforms into a "human fighting machine,"
is a product of the military system and obeys that system's laws
to the letter. On the other hand, the colonial army as a system could not
exist without being constantly ignited by such internally produced
fighting machines. With his first victory barely won, Galy Gay whips up
himself and his companions for the next battle:
And already I feel inside me
The wish to sink my teeth
Into the enemy's neck,