Fidget

Fidget

Submitted by Simon Brousseau on Wed, 07/08/2009 - 12:27

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Fidget est une transcription des moindres faits et gestes de Kenneth Goldsmith durant 13 heures le 16 juin 1997. L'oeuvre ayant d'abord été manuscrite, il s'agit ici d'une adaptation transmédiatique dans laquelle l'internaute peut explorer le texte original qui est présenté sous forme de liens arborescents. Le but de cette expérience est de réduire le corps à un catalogue de mouvements mécaniques grâce à une observation soutenue.

Anciennement hébergée au http://www.stadiumweb.com/fidget/, l'oeuvre se retrouve maintenant au http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/fidget/?q=archives/online_books/fidget/.

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Citation(s)

Breathe while grasping. Elbow out. Hand down. Pour coffee. Elbow down. Hand up. Back on back. Hands on arms of chair slide back. Arm stretch. Grasps milk. Elbow down. Elbow up. Elbow down. Arms stretches. Elbow down. Elbow on chair. Chair on elbow. Hand on hand. Legs cross. Back on back of chair. Legs touch legs. Arms parallel arms of chair. Hands grasp end of arms. Legs push back. Feet flat on ground. Elbow on arm. Arms out. Cup to mouth. Swallow. Cup put down. Cup to mouth. Swallow. Cup put down. Teeth outside mouth. Leg lifts. Legs stretch on legs ninety degrees. Grasp paper towels. Slide to front. Left hand grasps right. Pulls away from left. Left hand stretches. Folds. Left thumb and forefinger crease. Thumbs crease. Forefingers over tips of thumbs. Thumbs and forefingers crease. Hands parallel. Tips of fingers touch thumbs on top of towel. Bring to nose. Press. Expell mucus. Exhale through nose. Right hand grasps. Rubs left nostril. Rubs right hand. Transfers to left hand. Drops on table. Fists to table. Legs cross. Right hand grasps coffee cup. Brings to mouth. Tips cup. Coffee spills into mouth. Swallow. Right hand brings coffee cup to table. Right hand grasps coffee cup. Breathe from stomach. Breathe from top of lungs. Exhale. Stomach fills with air. Exhale. Exhale. Eyes close. Pressure on eyeballs. Eyes open. Right hand grasps coffee cup with thumb, forefinger and index finger. Muscles tighten in arm. Coffee cup to lips. Tilt. Coffee swallowed. Cup placed on table.

Notes

Fidget is a transcription of writer Kenneth Goldsmith's every movement made during thirteen hours on June 16, 1997 (Bloomsday). This online edition includes the full text, a self-running Java applet version written by programmer Clem Paulsen, and a selection of RealAudio recordings from Theo Bleckmann's vocal-visual performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art on Bloomsday 1998.

Fidget attempts to reduce the body to a catalogue of mechanical movements by a strict act of observation. Goldsmith aims to be objective like the photographer Edward Muybridge. In Fidget, Goldsmith reduces language to its basic elements in order to record and understand movement in its basic form. Despite these aims, the dictates of the work like the self-observation and the duration of the act, create a condition of shifting referent points and multiple levels of observation that undermine the objective approach.

Goldsmith and Paulsen's collaboration has reconfigured the text of Fidget to substitute the human body with the computer. The Java applet contains the text reduced further into its constituent elements, a word or a phrase. The relationships between these elements is structured by a dynamic mapping system that is organized visually and spatially instead of grammatically. In addition, the Java applet invokes duration and presence. Each time the applet is downloaded it begins at the same time as set in the user's computer and every mouse click or drag that the user initiates is reflected in the visual mapping system. The different hours are represented in differing font sizes, background colors and degree of "fidgetness", however, these parameters may be altered by the user. The sense of time is reinforced by the diminishing contrast and eventual fading away of each phrase as each second passes.

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Goldsmith, Kenneth