Wonderland
Paul Auster, Humpty Dumpty & the Power of Words
– The initials HD in the name Henry Dark refer to Humpty Dumpty.
– Who?
– Humpty Dumpty. You know who I mean. The egg.
– As in « Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall? »
– Exactly.
– I don’t understand.
– Humpty Dumpty: the purest embodiment of the human condition. Listen carefully sir. What is an egg? Is it that which has not yet been born. A paradox, is it not? For how can Humpty Dumpty be alive if he has not been norn? And yet, he is alive – make no mistake. We know that because he can speak. More than that, he is a philosopher of language. « When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less. The question is, said Alice, whether you CAN make words mean so different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master – that’s all. »
– Lewis Carroll.
– Through the Looking Glass, chapter six.
– Interesting.
It’s more than interesting, sir. It’s crutial. listen carefully, and perhaps you will learn something. In his little speech to Alice, Humpty Dumpty sketches the futur of human hopes and gives the clue to our salvation: to become master of the words we speak, to make language answer our needs, Humpty Dumpty was a prophet, a man who spoke truths the world was not ready for.
– A man?
– Excuse me. A slip of tongue. I mean an egg. But the slip is instructive and helps to prove my point. For all men are eggs, in a manner of speaking. We exist, but we have not yet achieved the form that is our destiny. We are pure potential, an example of the not yet arrived. For man is a fallen creature – we know that from Genesis. Humpty Dumpty is also a fallen creature. He falls from his wall, and no one can put him back together again – neither the king, nor his horses, nor his men. But that is what we must all now strive to do. It is our duty as human beings: to put the egg back together again. For each of us, sir, is Humpty Dumpty. And to help him is to help ourselves.
– A convincing argument.
– It’s impossible to find a flaw in it.
– No cracks in the egg.
– Exaclty.
– And, at the same time, the origin of Henry Dark.
Paul Auster, City of Glass, Chapter 9.
Alice in Centralparkland
Alice’s cup
In the rabbit hole
Behind Memory (2005)
> Générateur de textes + images:
Ce projet a bénéficié de l’aide au projet Hidrazone (Angleterre).
Un Générateur d’histoires, textes et d’images en ligne d’après « De l’autre côté du miroir », Lewis Carroll.
Le point de départ de Behind Memory est une réflexion simple : dans un ordinateur, les images existent et l’on peut y accéder grâce à leur index, un mot qui les définit. Il est donc vrai de dire que derrière la plupart des mots de mon ordinateur se cache une image. Si le développement de mon projet précédent, Random Access Memory, s’interrogeait sur la transmission d’un texte et ses conditions de lecture, Behind Memory se penche sur la relation texte/image ou gen-narration (génération+narration).
Le but de Behind Memory est de découvrir les images cachées derrière les mots, en particulier ceux qui composent le livre “de l’autre côté du miroir ».
Random Access Memory (2004)
> Générateur de texte :
Random Access Memory est un générateur de texte dont le matériau et le support de diffusion sont Internet, dont la thématique est la transmission d’information.
Le but est d’interroger notre capacité à envisager un texte lorsqu’une interférence s’insert pendant la transmission écrite de celui-ci. Le principal dessein sera moins de narrer une histoire au sens strict du terme, que de développer un rythme, un univers qui projettera, exilera le spectateur dans un monde vraiment différent de celui qu’il expérimente lorsqu’il se trouve face à un simple générateur de texte. Il s’agira de créer, grâce uniquement au texte, l’image d’une autre langue dans la tête du spectateur.