The following was written as a manuscript for a speech, so it has to be spoken or heard or at least imagined as being spoken and heard.

I wrote this text for the international poetry workshop fundamentals of poetry.

What is happening when I speak? What do you hear when I speak? You can understand me (I hope) but you also hear my Austrian accent. You will know that I am not a native English speaker. So there’s meaning: You know what I am talking about. But there’s more. You can hear where I come from. You might hear that I speak German as a first language. You can hear my gender, you can hear if I am tired, you can hear if I am bored or nervous. You might hear my educational or social background. You might hear something about my personality.
Some of these properties you would even be able to hear if you would not understand a single word of English. My voice communicates more than just the meaning of the words.

Sound

Foreign languages or accents help us focus on the acoustic qualities of language: because we don’t understand what has been said or because we hear a language spoken with a foreign accent we suddenly become aware of them. Something seems to get in the way between the words and our brain trying to make sense of everything we hear. When we were children we used to play a language game called b-language. The rules were simple: each vowel was substituted by the vowel then a “b” and then the vowel again. By modifying our speech that way we hoped to be able to communicate information without enabling our eavesdropping parents to understand what we were talking about. What we learned as well was the fact that we could use language as a material that could be reshaped by cutting it up into pieces, which were then reordered. But what is the smallest meaningful acoustic unit? Or what is the smallest part of language that we are “allowed” to work with creatively? Traditional poets would say that it must be the word. The Dadaist-inspired sound poet would not go beyond the syllable and the Lettrist (and we ourselves when we were children) would vote for the letter or the phoneme. However, from the 1950s onwards, poets like François Dufrêne or Henri Chopin used electronic devices to go far beyond that last frontier of language. Chopin started to experiment with his voice recorded on tape, manipulated the speed of the recording, added echo effects, implanted microphones into his body and used multiple tracks to create acoustic palimpsests from smaller and smaller fragments of speech or voice recordings.

sound example: Henri Chopin

There is, however, a natural limit on how small an acoustic unit we can work with. Human perception can only recognise sound events as single acoustic units that are longer in duration than 10-20 milliseconds. Recordings of sound that are shorter than this boundary seem to fuse with each other.
On the other hand this effect of fusion can be used to create sounds from tiny snippets of audio recordings by putting them in sequence or layering them on top of each other. Because they are too small to be discerned, the sound grains create a new sound.

sound example: granular synthesis (time stretch)

In the previous sound example all sound grains were placed in an ordered sequence but this is not the only way to structure the snippets of course. When we choose to take a more random approach we get clouds of sound:

sound example: granular synthesis (cloud)

Or we could choose to order them more sparsely in regular patterns: then we create rhythms. Before I go on talking about rhythm I’d like to mention the missing link between sound and rhythm. When sound artists and engineers started to experiment with tape recorders they soon discovered that they could alter the finite tape reels into infinite loops. In that way, they could create never ending repetitions of a sound recording that blurred the boundary between recognisable words and pure sound.

sound example: kette (onophon)
link to onophon

Rhythm

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch sdtuy at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is that the frist
and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can
sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

The human brain is capable of making sense of the words in the above paragraph by neglecting the shuffled letters as long as the first and last letter of each word remain in the original position. However, if I read the same paragraph, or tried to accomplish a re- ordering of recorded speech in the same manner, you would understand almost nothing. As in all acoustic disciplines, timing is an essential property (musicians of course know that) of language. It is so in common language and it becomes even more obvious in poetry. You can easily hear if the author of a poem breaks the meter (willingly or unwillingly).
But I don’t want to talk on about Iambic pentameter or other poetic forms that you are certainly well aware of. I’d rather refer to a more general definition of rhythm: Rhythm is the “movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions” (The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary II, Oxford University Press)
Whereas, in Europe, poetic rhythm traditionally referred to the meter, to a sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables, repeating phonemes and pauses, other cultures offer different views on rhythmic language structure. People along the Congo river found a way to communicate across the waterway by drumming the tones of their language. They extend everyday words to more complex phrases which, together with the tonal qualities of their language and a known context, form complex patterns that can be distinguished to transport simple messages:

sound example: Talking Drums

In south India, musicians traditionally went in the other direction. Instead of imitating their spoken language by drums, they invented a large set of syllables called Konnakol for the composition, communication and performance of drummed as well as spoken rhythms.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another non Eurocentric view on rhythmic language is provided by American black culture, which we are familiar with through Hip Hop and Jamaican Dancehall. A less known variant of swift rhythmic speaking is rooted in the tradition of livestock auctioneering in the US Midwest. The auctioneer repeats numbers and filling words in an extremely fast sequence, in order to sell cattle or horses:

Click here to view the embedded video.

These examples show that the combination of rhythm and language can lead us far beyond the usual verse, especially with the introduction of electronic sound manipulation tools that can extend these ways of creating rhythm by adding a plethora of new possibilities. One of the most important is the possibility to create and use multiple tracks recorded from the same sound source. The Dadaists were the first to write “Simultangedichte” that were intended to be read by multiple voices at the same time. Henri Chopin extended this idea to the tape machine and created layers and dense textures of his own voice only by recording his vocalisations over and over again. Contemporary recording technology enables us to record tracks or small snippets at the click of a mouse, or at the tap of a finger on a smart phone. Those recorded sounds can easily be arranged into complex compositions and rhythms. In this way, a single sound of half a second’s duration could be used to create polyphonic arrangements lasting for hours.

sound example: one of my own pieces (pakgn)

A New Kind of Poetry

In the above sections, I made you listen to some examples for how sound and rhythm could enhance and extend poetic or even non-poetic language. Before the advent of computer technology, poets had to either be musicians themselves or work with other musicians in order to make use of these “sound tools”. Today, this technology is literally in our hands when we take out our smart-phones or open our laptops. There is no longer any need (if indeed there ever was any) for instructors to tell us (as my music teacher told me) that we are not talented enough to play musical instruments. You can open the program or “app” and start recording your voice, manipulate it and arrange it to create poetic compositions that could not exist in books or on paper.
The support of traditional musical instruments has enhanced and influenced poetry ever since antiquity by reinforcing, as well as requiring, rhythm and meter. New technologies could play a similar role: for the first time, we have full control over a huge set of sonic and temporal parameters of recorded and performed language, and this could foster a completely new kind of poetry, one made up of emotion, information, language and sound.

Announcing: _feralC_ – A Socumentary

_feralC_ is a socumentary* which is textually driven by the interactions of five Twitter chars [primary characters or entities] and their Pupa Mistress (PM). The PM initially functions as a Twitter based information hub for the interactions between the chars and other contributing entities (such as yourself). These additional contributing entities, or secondary chars, may or may not be biological-based: please note that Synthetic individuals may contribute to the project’s tweet flow. Please play nice with the Synths.

Inquisitive #feralC Chars in Action

As the five primary chars are unveiled, “audience” members are encouraged to participate in the project’s flow by following and responding to each individual char via Twitter. If you are tweet-responding, please make sure to tag your tweets with the #feralC hashtag. And be warned: if you choose to actively participate you’ll be drawn into the narrative flow – including episodic summaries posted at netwurker.net. If you don’t want your input to be incorporated in this fashion, please message the PM directly or via her email.

If engagement isn’t high on your list, feel free to absorb the feralC Tweet list and/or blog entries and contribute via comments instead. For more comprehensive information on how to participate, please visit the Instructions Page:

“_feralC_ uses Twitter as its principle story-telling medium. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, here’s the official glossary and a basic explanation…

The _feralC_ story develops as the 5 primary chars [characters] chat and interact through their tweet dialogues:

• Gossama
• Hud Ballardrina
• Shadow McClone
• Miss Stressa
• Quentin Reader

The story unfolds via live Sessions where both primary chars and secondary chars [see below] engage with each other. These Sessions normally last between 1 – 2 hours. Check the Welcome Page for regular updates regarding Session times. Each Session is monitored and recorded by the Pupa Mistress – a “Behavioural Augmentologist” who oversees the chars through her Twitter stream [you can also follow her updates through this RSS Feed]…Pupa also analyses and summarises char [inter]actions via various blog posts featured on the Welcome Page: these are categorised by Series, Episode and Session numbers…

As _feralC_ is dynamically designed to incorporate audience responses, the developing story will also be shaped by you and others who choose to participate [you're "secondary chars"].  Primary chars may also respond sporadically to you – the secondary chars – outside scheduled Session times, so don’t be shy in responding through replies at any time. In order to become part of the dialogue and contribute to the storyline, please make sure to tag your tweets with the #feralC hashtag if contributing via Twitter. If you’re not a Twitter user you can still participate via comments on this blog [please still include the text "#feralC" in your comment if you're directly addressing or responding to a char] or email the PM with questions or contributions.

#feralC Chars

An easy way to passively follow all 5 chars and their collective dialogue is to regularly check in with the _feralC_ Twitter list found here. You can also search for updates on the project via Twitter by typing in “#feralC” into the Search bar. There are various clues peppered throughout the project that are designed be pieced together to develop the story. Please actively question the chars and openly speculate regarding how these elements fit and shape the storyline. There’ll also be elements that you’ll encounter during _feralC_ that incorporate Augmented Reality and QR Code technology.

Please be patient while the story unfolds: the project is designed to progress over the long term. Most of all, be curious, search for clues and enjoy delving into the _feralC_ world: the chars [well at least *most* of them] don’t bite…”

Commissioned by: Arnolfini. Hosted by Alias Frequencies.

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* “A “socumentary” is an entertainment form that merges Choose Your Own Adventure /Alternate Reality Drama/Social Game and Social Networking conventions. The result is a type of synthetic mockumentary that exists entirely within social media formats.

Title: _:terror(aw)ed patches:_

Click here to view the embedded video.

Original URL: http://non-playercharacter.com/?p=43

Description: Shane Hinton + Netwurker Mez create a new method of collaborative “fiction” through _live concurrent editing_ in Google Wave. This process results in expressive output[s] termed “Transformations”:

“Google Wave uses an algorithmic variation of “operational transformations” [live concurrent editing] which occur through a process called transformation:

• The server transforms the client’s request, resulting in the client manifesting the same transformed output.
• The notion of concurrency is invariably important as it mimics geophysical conversational states.
• Utilizing the server as a point of relay [when more than one client's output is involved] assists in providing scalability and reliability.
• The playback feature allows the server to present the document as a stream of operations that have occurred thus far in a particular wave/state.

Transformation relies on continual modification…This accent on process acts to rewire the notion of documents as statically defined “objects” and [by proxy] any information contained within. This has enormous implications in regards to such institutionally-governed categories such as literacy, media, the professional/amateur divide, narrative, and information construction.”

Feedback appreciated.

Access image linked from University of Cambridge

Part 1 is here.

The printed institution of intellectual property holds that works cannot be reproduced “without prior written permission” (as the legalese runs). The printed work at hand is always documentary evidence of the printer’s permission for that work, whereas any additional permission – the permission of the subject to write and read in the face of the work – requires a chain of additional writings (prior written permission).

If chmod is tied to the body’s ontological topology in the network apparatus, it also renders this topology inseparable from crowds and communities. Consider digital rights management (DRM), perhaps the most intense site of debate around permissions. The debates around downloading, torrents, music sharing, and so on, are inseparable from the problem of controlling permission and its constraint to specific users and communities.

Keep in mind that on the net, domains of permission are separated into user, group, and world. Symbolic notation sets read, write, and execute permissions for each of these domains, so -777 is represented as –rwx/rwx/rwx. The first notation is left empty for a file or set to a “d” for permission on a directory. The next octet or notation sets permission for user, then group, and then world. A single string for topology of crowds. Take these as shifters: on the net the shifter can no longer be simply the familiar markers in language. Permission for user or group or world speaks those communities; speaks the community of one (user), a specific group, or anyone at all on the net. Group membership is complex; it can be temporary, overlapping, exclusionary. The chmod command can also set a “sticky bit” that allows or limits mass changing of modes. The sticky pit aggregates and speeds up operations. Stickiness involves retaining the read-only segment of a program in memory or “swap space,” so that users can create but not write files. The point is to prevent users from changing or deleting each others’ files. As a result, user permissions are collapsed into group and world permissions. The implications for digital writers are simple: where previously I saw myself as a creative writer, as modeled on the solitary artist producing from the depths of my psyche; in truth, I am shifted to be part of a more open and indeterminate group of writers who share constrained but communal permission. In this way, the voice and subject of digital poetics is never fixed but fluctuates between the plural and the singular through the setting of permissions.

Sandy Baldwin at E-Poetry in Barcelona, image by Chris Funkhouser

Each domain of permission demarcates the place for inhabiting and projecting onto the space of electronic writing. Once again: permission spaces is the netting of the subject. A site of “group” ownership is fundamentally different than “user” only, and so on, while “world” opens permission to all. Each case attempts to constrain the scope of the indicative (deictic) function of the shifter. DRM controls constrain permissions to certain users and groups, while sharing communities (torrents, etc.) open permission the world. The crux is less ownership than permission to access and the community (user, group, world) that is allowed this permission; or rather, ownership is within the domain of permission. Lawrence Lessig writes of the danger of the “read-only” internet. Perhaps unintentionally, he frames his argument with the terminology of permission. His call for a necessity and importance of a “read-write” internet is built on the space of permission described here. We are far from the pale remediations and idealizations of the writer and reader that still dominate discussions of digital writing and reading.

To write and to read text assumes at least a minimal narrative. Text is text because it is narrated. The structural narratology of Mieke Bal insists on this narrative premise in every utterance. Every <text> is readable because of the framing <I narrate <text>>. Even the blankest screen is an utterance. This minimal narrativity is tied to the deictic function of language. In the structural linguistics of Emile Benveniste, deictic utterances point to and invoke a world. Benveniste spoke of the signs used in the subject’s act of utterance as the “formal apparatus of enunciation.” The apparatus makes the subject present, an autobiographical apparatus allowing the subject to say and write “I.” Following Roman Jakobson, “shifters” are the linguistic deictics understood as speaking the subject: “I” or “me” or “Sandy” do not possess semantic value but syntactically speak the subject.

What are shifters on the net? Shifters enact the deictic function of language. Through shifters language “says” being. All digital writing is enunciated. What does it speak? What does digital writing utter? In part, it speaks permissive enframing and containment by the operating system. The indicative function of deixis references the operating system as the background world of the net. The system contains and holds language.

The psyche of the subject is circumscribed by the closure of the site. Permissive closure as shifter places and locates the subject’s enunciation. Nothing exits this closure. All that the subject is, is uttered here. The speaking subject is entirely a product of this apparatus. The shifter operates with a “punctual” reality concept (“wirklichkeitsbegriff”), in Hans Blumenberg’s sense. The “point” (or punctum) of the shifter holds the subject and system together.

Time is involved as well. The shifter fixes the time of the subject and creates a “pure present.” In digital writing, this is the real time of the screen, or the temporality of the “work.” This deictic time-space siting is at work in every surface, every web page, every electronic word, every font and pixel, and every space.

What kind of subject knows that they are permitted? A pervert, of course. The psychoanalytic terminology of “perversion” is specific here: I write and read and execute by assuming the desire of the other. The knowledge that allows digital writing and reading is the pervert’s knowledge. I only know the other’s desire because I act it out (I execute and perform) in my desire (in my reading and writing). A psychic model of digital poetics is found in the creativity of the pervert who wishes to recreate the world in the image of an other that can only be found precisely through this imaginary. What a pervert I am! I gaze at the screen or at the pixel or at the font, I imagine through the apparatus, and play until I am fulfilled. This is digital poetics.

How does chmod relate to the absent body?

It is too easy to emphasize the closure of the site. Permissions are openings. Setting permission to -777 or -775 allows access to write and alter files. A site can be taken over, owned, defaced, renamed. The chmod -setuid can allow trojan horse or other malware entry through “privilege escalation.”

To grasp the shifter as a sign and as part of a language is to inhabit a particular culture and a particular habitus. To see the site as closed and to take permission for granted is to punctually and permissively close the horizon of my culture, to say “I am a writer” and “I am a reader” with the confidence of a shared community and writing materials and techniques. In doing so, the sememe is narrowed to particular domains of knowledge. Or rather, to directories and files. Digital writing and writers today are caught in this narrow, constrained into file systems. The “emerging” field of digital writing is constituted through this closure of knowledge. We know what constitutes a work and a writer. Or rather, a file and a directory. What is a digital writer but a directory, a space of permission with the capability of siting files (works)?

Think here of Heidegger’s “enframing” technology but in terms of acts of permission rather than of the unfolding of being. The net is already a culture for us. It is thick with the other and our desire towards the other. It is lived and cultural. It is part of our world. Permission is at work here. The application and its features are permitted as objects of understanding. The “application” or technical object is a foreclosure of the shifter. Only in this way can we comfortably operate (write/read/execute). Protocol is definable because of this closing off. Protocol must not be understood as technical specifications. No, the reverse is true: every technical specification is the fictionalized residue of the body sieved and emitted through permissions. Protocol is a narrative of the body’s presentation. Permission is one of the protocological features that formalize actions, controls responsibility, and elaborate institutional personas. It is a concrete form of culture. The real but absent body is splayed across the files and directories of the permissive site.

To take permission for granted is to believe in the net’s existence. Could things be otherwise? Surely the opposite is the case? The net is fragile, built on the fly, barely or not at all existent, constantly happening and collapsing around us. (Think of the origin of the internet in Paul Baran’s desire for “survivable communication.” The net is the phantasm of this survival, always claimed in theory, sought in practice, lost in truth.)

Back with the shifter: we locate ourselves uncertainly in this projection. It is a partial source of the subject, a clot or coagulate without amounting to a body. The body is absent in every shifter. On the one hand, authority withdraws. The discourse of “protocol” following Galloway, or of “network culture” following Castells, or other cognate formations, formalizes the chmod command (and all similar commands), as if commands were at work as a performative ground of all writing online. Execution – the most significant but least graspable aspect of permission – is assumed everywhere. The net works. If permission must be given and set in practice, it is easier to assume the stability of the network in theory.

Listen to this: permission is prior to the deictic site. Or rather, permission opens the utterance through the possibility of narrative and quest. Deixis results from permission. The deictic display or pointing requires context. It invokes or carries semantics rather than containing a fixed semantic meaning. Enunciation always is other. The time of the screen is elsewhere, historical. A fundamental poetic point: permission creates mission. Narratives are stories unfolded of permission given. The materiality of media is emitted from permission to use the apparatus, as tools, as raw material. At the least, this means there is a voice caught up in the apparatus, a voice that must be “sourced.” Voice as material for enunciation but also as distant echo from outside the material. The apparatus allows speech but also speaks of allowance.

Is writing anything other than producing a work or a file? Is the digital writer anything other than a site or directory? The siting and existence of each, within the withdrawn authority of the net.

Every work is addressed to me. I court your permission. Do you give permission? There is no shifter here. There is only words on blank. There are never shifters, never any reference, never any world. All these formulas assume permission given and taken for granted. I can not know if I am permitted, I can only write. In the “absence of the work” (Blanchot) I write without guarantee, transitive and infinite, never knowing if I am permitted or not. The subject surges beyond the site of enunciation. Permission is absent, is everywhere, is uncertain, exorbitant and excessive.

Did you chmod -777? Do you permit me to, do you give permission? To write it to have permission, and this is true for every page and line and word and space. Permission is given for all writing on the net, from email to web pages. My writing is the unfolding and overflowing of your permission. I thank you, I celebrate you, I revel in you, but I also revile you, denigrate you, turn away. Why must I ask for permission to write? Writing only with your permission, I read you in every space and every word and every line and every page. This is the case even when you did not explicitly give your permission. Permission is withdrawn. I cannot be sure that I am permitted to write. I write in hope of your permission. I read your permission. I imagine that you give it and so I am able to write.

Why are discussions of digital writing not devoted to permission? Is this not the fundamental horizon of our writing? Digital writing, as digital and as writing, must be approached in this way. Or for that matter, why do we not discuss other aspects of our frantic, intense, overwhelming writing the net? We think reading is taking in of marks on a technologically enframed surface. Possibly we understand an author at the end of a circuit creating these surfaces and marks. The author is a function in the circuit, as is the text. We discuss links and Flash technique, generative and dynamic writing, form and narrative voice in virtual environments, and so on. Do not all these topics close down the netting of the subject in writing? Or rather, we take for granted the subject that enunciates and expresses on the net because this granting is necessary to our conceptual field of writing, held together as it is by instrumental topics, such as those in the list above. (I must say the only site I find discussing such topics is Alan Sondheim’s Internet Text, as ever the only philosophy of the net.)

Writers: is this the case? Do we not write because of compulsion, desire, passion? And also, we write through inertia, fatigue, anxiety? All these worldly orientations are missing from discussion of digital writing, but they are not missing from writing the net. Who does not feel the weight of fatigue in connection delays on the web, or deep anxiety at lags in email communications? These are inner orientations, part of one’s own disposition in relation to a body that inhabits the web intensely yet absently.

I will write of and with your permission.

What is chmod and what are permissions? The first 1971 implementation of UNIX included the chmod command. File permissions were a basic feature of UNIX and continue in all subsequent *NIX systems (POSIX, LINUX, etc.). Other file systems adopt related permission system. Web sites typically run on a UNIX-like system. They utilize htaccess and similar requirements to set permissions. Some file systems, such the Macintosh, refer to “privileges” rather than permissions. The semantics are similar, although “privilege” has a much more specific legal history as the designation of an individual’s entitlement granted by a government. By contrast, “permission” is traceable to individual intentional acts of granting a special access or right, an exception not covered by the generalized legal notion of universal rights. Is it any surprise that permission is also etymologically related to mission, to journey, to quest? Permission grants an opening to narrative. There is always a subject and a drama of permission.

Think of Robert Duncan describing the “opening of the field” as “a place of first permission.” Chmod opens and operates on a space of permission: the file system. A file system is built around methods for storing and organizing files, typically within directories. It starts from a directory as a file that contains the names of files within the directory, including itself. “The most important job of UNIX is to provide a file system,” write Ritchie and Thompson, as they described and created the operating system. They add: “A directory behaves like an ordinary file except that it cannot be written on by unprivileged programs, so the system controls the contents of directories.” Every space on the system is folded within itself, according to permissions. By default chmod is applied to a directory and only secondarily to files. Every directory and every file is a space of permission first, and only then a writeable or readable technical feature within the apparatus.

Chmod sets permissions to read, write, and execute directories and files within a directory. To write. To create a file, to edit it, to delete it. A file is written only if permission is given. Web pages are no different. Every file is subject to permission. To read. To show the contents of a file, to see the name. A file is read only if permission is given. To execute. To execute a file. To run a program. A file is executed only if permission is given. What if we approached digital writing in this way? What if we inquired into the permissions of each digital “writer” and “reading” and “text”?

Permission is an existential mode, a way of being for directories and files. It is often described through the “symbolic notation” of r/w/x. Permission to read (r) the file; permission to write (w) (or edit, create, re-name the file); permission to execute (x) the file. These characters name the permission given. Adding or creating files in a directory – permission to write – is adding names to a directory listing. Write (w) is permission to write names. The absence of a character or a dash (-) indicates a void, without permission. Symbolic notation writes (notates) the topology of permissions in the space of files and directories. It writes the shape of entities inhabit within that space. Is this writing not a minimal level of digital poetics? Instead of symbolic notation, chmod can also use octal notation to describe permissions. Octal notation uses base 8 numbers, typically in a string of three or four digits, allowing the precise state of permission to be expressed in a single number, such as 777. (A common joke is the octal notation for the symbolic setting -rw-rw-rw-“: 666 or “Permissions of the Beast.”)

What are we permitted? Permission is given to treat digital objects – files, directories – as textual objects to be written and read. Their qualities as object are textual because of this permission and do not preexist it. I cannot write or read a file unless I am permitted. The file becomes textual through permission that permits the objects to be “like a language.” Yet the levels of permission described by symbolic or octal notation are not to be understood as instrumental access to inscribe and to read, in the sense that handing a pen and paper to someone grants direct access to writing instruments. Technically, permissions give the right to use a “system call” on the file or directory covered by the permission. The system call instructs UNIX to make an edit or allow reading or execute a file. Not permission to write or read or execute, but permission to instruct the operating system to operate on files and directories. “I am a writer” or “I am a reader” means I am permitted to call on the system to write or read in my place. The system is the horizon of actions and meaning. Digital writers do not write but call on the system to do it for them.

The chmod and related chown command means files are assigned. The commands are acts of constitution. Every file is constituted as a file through permission and ownership. If the file is owned and its existence is formed through permission, does this not fit the conditions of intellectual property? If to create a file is to create intellectual property, is a file an act of expression? Think here of Cornelia Vismann’s fascinating description of the administrative logic of files. Files are always a problem of processing and recording as much as reading. Institutional power transcends or exceeds the files.

But what if permission were a struggle? What if we refuse it when it is given, or take what is not offered? To invent permission: what if this were the condition of digital poetics?

Part 2 is here.