When I first began to read this book, Electronic Monuments, I thought that I’d think a bit more about things that are electric, or electrate, and things that are monumental.
In fact, I have thought very little about these two things in reading this book, and a lot about issues. Social ones. Abject ones.
I am mainly moved to think about my issues, and then our issues, collectively, particularly as a country, and generally as a world. I have been thinking about the loss of our children’s play as a result of our (meaning adults’) demand for education, efficiency, production, and capital.
I am learning to see these things not as binary oppositions, but as two sides of the same whole, which includes many more sides.
I am also learning the responsibility of commemoration, of memorialization, of the humanities to consult the world. This practical application of humanistic subjects is encouraging.
What we write, in the end, has its effects, and it has no effect at all, but it does exist for the tourist and the thinker.
According to Ulmer, “EmerAgency consultations map the circuit connecting obscurity and clarity of reason. Electrate humanities is about wisdom” (255). This new wisdom-making through sign-posting is an ambitious endeavor that I’m glad we’re all participating in. To “learn” our culture of its own sacrifices is the task of a jerk, but also a savior.
We have to see what we’re sacrificing in this insane economy, and I think MEmorials show us that. If we don’t see our sacrifices, we might be compelled to continue making them without limit.
Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Issac
In this way, we emphasize the ATH. As Ulmer suggests, “This mood is the Stimmung (attunement) that Heidegger says is the condition that makes knowledge (bestimmen) matter” (255). We make knowledge matter by making these things, these digital things with images and text and sounds…
(Here is a good example of sounds that are meant for waking people)
by making rhetorical sounding boards for the culture.
With all of this inspiration, I feel thankful for this text. And so, I end here. Not with a whimper, but a BANG!
