Products of Acts of Making: the Limited Fork Theory Poam as Investigation

A way to enter a session of a system of making can be the setting up or configuration of an investigation, the purpose of which can be discovery of (some of) what happens under a set of conditions or parameters, as if to answer a question such as:

What happens if...? What happens when...? What doesn't happen if...? What doesn't happen when...? Etc.
Typically, a Limited Fork Theory investigation is carried out according to a set of rules related to the question[s] being asked. The maker applies the rules and documents what happens, that documentation a poam itself, the outcome system of an investigation. The outcome system is configurable, perhaps according to rules of the investigation or as solutions to how the outcome system can be displayed to help reveal interpretations and meanings of the outcome system or outcome data. (investigation logo made at spiffytext.com)

Rules of an investigation exist whether or not the rules are explicitly stated; rules (and their companion obstructions) provide context, and configure what will be possible to consider. Rules form a context of inclusion and exclusion. Some of the nature of access is shaped by choices governing what is considered and what is not considered, what becomes possible and what becomes impossible within the context of investigation, outcomes biased or configured to respond to the parameters of the investigation. Listen to rules and obstructions in Samuel Beckett's Rule number one:


Read some of Samuel Beckett's rules and obstructions from pages 97 and 98 of Molloy:


Click to investigate and experience more (rules and obstructions) of a more complete sucking stone sequence excerpted from Samuel Beckett's Molloy.


In an approach to poam as investigation, revision of the outcome system, other than modes and manners of configuration for revelatory display and access of information, would be considered manipulation of data, (further) tainting of findings, so the documentation of outcome is left intact, the data is left intact in all the forms in which data was collected, and continues to be collected, some the outcome of further thinking about the data, thought configuring and reconfiguring the data set into subsets which in turn may give rise to subsets of their own (which may intersect [on some scale in some location for some duration of time] with the initial outcome data). Display and interpretation of the outcome system data is configurable and reconfigurable. When outcome system sata sems shallow or flawed, then the investigation itself can be revised or revisited —reconfigured, and new data collected according to revised parameters of investigation.

Ask different (or what the investigator might consider) better questions the next time, and the next time, and the next time.

Try to determine all the contributing factors (that you can), try to identify all collaborators (that you can) as these factors can (and probably should, as participants in a system of information and activity) shape the possible configurations of the system investigated, configurations that vary as scale, location, and time is varied and context shifts. The geometry of the investigated system is variable and complex, structures that may connect (in some form) here and here, on some scale, in some location, for some duration of time —multifaceted (regular and/or irregular) structures part of super geometric communities of temporarily connected (in some form on some scale) multifaceted (regular and/or irregular) structures.

While in Toronto, at the CNE shortly after the publication of Tokyo Butter, I visited The Farm building where I was intrigued by an Ostrich and an unkempt man who seemed thoroughly mesmerized by the ostrich to the point of paralysis —he was able to move toward the caged Struthio camelus by only an inch per minute —powerless for having looked into the ostrich eye! He was under a spell, under hypnosis, under influence a spiritual calling, so I watched and filmed ostrich acolyte and watched and filmed ostrich, really interested in this culture of dependence and devotion (each contained by and containing the other simultaneously, a selected perspective determining momentary fixing of container or contained status —rather like the challenge of seeing both the young woman and old woman at the same time; the eye and brain shifts from one configuration to the other) unfolding so publicly, a slow ecstasy that would seem dynamic and explosive only when the footage was sped up. The man in white t-shirt had white hair, dirty white pants, like, somewhat a zombie snowman come to life under the influence and power of the ostrich —and that is the possibility I investigated in a simultaneity study: The Culture of Snowmen (a text poam in Tokyo Butter) temporarily connects with the living snowman-automaton. (ostrich head image from wikipedia commons). The video poam that follows investigates this temporary contact/interaction system as a study of simultaneity.






Once the video poam simultaneity study was configured, stills were extracted for a closer examination of what's inside the interaction at various locations:



Extracted stills (many of which are from spaces between film frames, progeny of the frame that precedes and the frame that follows; from locations of interactions between frames, the connective tissue of moments)have been compiled into a small booklet of ostrich culture of snowmen interaction stills. Each still is a form of page from a dynamic video book —a closed loop video book in its unchanging playback (varying frame rate or direction in playback scenarios shifts perceptual encounters and scale without actually altering the content; the video content is perceptually configurable, and can be edited further by anyone who has or acquires editing skills, but the video content is not self-changing) of video content dependent on technological mishap for change as opposed to be a system that changes within itself over time, or on changing assessments/interpretations of the content, or on direct tinkering with the video content by an agent outside the video content, for instance. Matters of resolution of eye and screen, and sonic issues related to playback device speakers and to ears are other factors contributing to dynamic qualities (putty qualities) of configurations of the Ostrich Culture of Snowmen video poam system.

Zooming into various sections of the stills reveals detail on an even smaller scale, detail that interacts with the pixels for other understandings and interpretations of the unfolded collaborative event moment. Zooming into the zoomed outcomes will reveal even more, including what might prove to be interesting and/or useful distortions once this zooming into the zoomed outcomes occurs as a bifurcation investigation (or subsystem or extension) of the initial investigation occurs. The extracted stills already provide extended consideration of interactions with two text systems: text generated with video editing tools and text scanned with a USB microscope (like one used in an episode of CSI ) from the print version of The Culture of Snowmen in Tokyo Butter. Stay tuned for outcomes of this planned further forking of the investigation, that with the plan (in any form, on any scale, in any location) intact, is ongoing. (CSI/proscope image from everything USB)


Beckett, another incurable tinkerer, investigates and tinkers with a configuration of his play What Where: