Lena's+Space+for+Sustained+Freeplay;+or+how+the+demiurge+engineered+the+other+of+human,+A+question+concerning+Triviality

Oddly perhaps, this story begins here:

"Freeplay is the disruption of presence. The presence of an element is always a signifying and substitutive reference inscribed in a system of differences and the movement of a chain. Freeplay is always an interplay of absence and presence, but if it is to be radically conceived, freeplay must be conceived of before the alternative of presence and absence; being must be conceived of as presence or absence beginning with the possibility of freeplay and not the other way around…This affirmation then determines the non-center otherwise than as loss of the center. And it plays the game without security. For there is a sure freeplay: that which is limited to the substitution of given and existing, present, pieces. In absolute chance, affirmation also surrenders itself to genetic indetermination, to the seminal adventure of the trace."(1)

Perhaps more oddly, this story--the 5:09pm on Wednesday October 17th year 2007 story--will conclude here:

"I do not believe that today there is any question of choosing-in the first place because here we are in a region (let's say, provisionally, a region of historicity) where the category of choice seems particularly trivial; and in the second, because we must first try to conceive of the common ground, and the difference of this irreducible difference. Here there is a sort of question, call it historical, of which we are only glimpsing today the conception, the formation, the gestation, the labor. I employ these words, I admit, with a glance toward the business of childbearing-but also with a glance toward those who, in a company from which I do not exclude myself, turn their eyes away in the face of the as yet unnameable which is proclaiming itself and which can do so, as is necessary whenever a birth is in the offing, only under the species of the non-species, in the formless, mute, infant, and terrifying form of monstrosity." (2)

In this game the players are never introduced to one another and they all wear blindfolds. If time permits, I might explain this later.

The oldest and most futile of Lilith Iyapo’s activities is to escape structure. Yet it is not her first activity upon Awakening—her body comes first: urination, “the austere economy of organic functions.” (3) Next self-examination, scars across her abdomen that she has no knowledge of, other than as markings that signify her passivity, ignorance, and imaginings, “And what else might be done? She does not own herself any longer. Even her flesh could be cut and stitched without her consent or knowledge.” (4) Tracing its outlines does not help her out. Food next, bland yet nourishing, certainly not invigorating; at this time she is still marked as a receiver. (5) N0w, after attending to her body—it is still in her care, right?—Lilith turns toward the walls of her prison, trying to sense its seams. Where are the cracks in the border? Lilith wants out of this structure. There is no question of whether or not her current location is good or bad. No question of how these borders enable and protect her. Inside, at its center, all Lilith knows is that she is in a power struggle, and autonomy and self-definition are the stakes. (6)

There is something, someone, outside the walls of her prison. They speak to Lilith from above, the same place that lights her cell. A mock up of the transcendental figure; Lilith must go through a number of exercises before she can know the demiurge. And the demiurge must know her, must situate Lilith before they interact. In order to penetrate you we must know your position as a social subject. (7) What social attributes can you contribute to our social scenography, the scenography that will structure our cogeneration?

"How old was she...Had she been married...Had she had children...Had she had siblings...What work had she done...Did she remember the war?" (8)

Lilith refuses to freely give information about her social position, especially without knowing its costs and benefits. (9)

Isolated from the outside, Lilith turns back in towards herself: physical exercise, regular diet, sleep, and learning. But cultivation of self is necessarily “a social practice, giving rise to relationships between individuals, to exchanges and communications, and at times even to institutions. And it gave rise, finally, to a certain mode of knowledge and to the elaboration of science.” (10) Unable to contextualize the cultivation of self beyond the walls that currently hold her in place, Lilith loses her sanity. How will the demiurge work with such corruptible material? Back to sleep you go, until we can figure you out.

Pushed and pulled from sleep to wake—and why doesn’t Lilith ever dream?—each time the demiurge trying to understand her more and more, eventually we come to social reproduction. The structure and therefore center shifts ever so slightly when Sharad joins Lilith—the title “mother” is not enough for the demiurge; mothering is a practice. More importantly, it is a practice that the demiurge has no skill in, a knowledge gap, something that the physician-philosopher-scientist that is ooloi has not been able to master, “we had no skill at grouping humans in ways that suited them.” (11) Would Lilith—first wife of Adam, hypersexualized-child-eating demon, and bearer of illness, disease, and death—be able to do any better? Lilith passes this exercise with flying colors—she fits the bill for Plutarchian pleasure relations. (12) Experiment complete. Sharad is physically removed, but not without lasting affect.

Monstrous cogeneration demands the social reproduction of ethical subjects; how will the demiurge cultivate this through conjugal conduct? Training of course; Ooloi-style genetic determination. First, Lilith must be led out of the isolation room—this structure has served its purpose. Enter Jdahya, “When you’re ready, I’ll take you outside…This room will be nothing more than a memory for you soon.” And what is outside, Lilith asks him-who-is-not-man-nor-human. “Education. Work. The beginning of a new life.” A new life ordered by sexual-social activity.

“The outside is the (successful or victorious) series of forces that impinge on structures, plans, expectations of the living: this outside appears to use in the form of events, natural and social, and events generate for us the problems that inventiveness, above all our culture’s ingenuity, attempts to address or resolve.” (Grosz 49)

(When Lilith first looks upon Jdahya in light, she retreats to the furthest wall but continues to stare at him. “Medusa” is her only thought. Medusa, a monstrous chthonic female figure and famous apotrope, a word of Greek origin, which means “turning away,” often an exaggerated eye painted on drinking objects to ward off spirits, the evil eye, and, quite interestingly, vampires.) (13)

(1) Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (2) Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (3) Foucault, History of Sexuality, V3, 136. (4) Butler, Dawn, 5. (5) Foucault, History of Sexuality, V3, 131. (6) Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders, 171. (7) Foucault, History of Sexuality, V3, 26-36. (8) Butler, Dawn, 5-6. (9) Growing up and living in a world governed by the military-prison-corporate-university-industrial-look-at-how-obviously-ancient-patterns-transform complex, Lilith understands the logic of “analogy of position” and “economic adequation.” Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 3, 32. (10) Foucault, History of Sexuality, V3, 45 (11) Butler, Dawn, 17 (12) Foucault, History of Sexuality, V3, 149 (13) Wikipedia