April 19, 2005
2home, james
Guarantee of the Performative
"Via text messaging English might evolve the markers of a locative case. Like Finnish with suffixes, e.g. houseto, clubto, house2, club2. But more likely with prefixes, 2house, 2gym. Very telling about the phenomenology of pointing, mapping and readiness to go.
There is an archaic locative case in Latin, which primarily was used in references to cities and small islands. But also, apparently, military command ("militiae"). When one thinks about it, the locative has much in common with the imperative, what Deleuze and Guattari, after Foucault, call "order-words," a kind of hierarchical sign. An order-word implies Austin's guarantee of the performative, sometimes covert, the "I make this so" of announcement, pronouncement, declarative, ontological presentness, magic. But more than that: the thing itself, which is often a scenario whose context bleeds far into the recesses, is so. (The classic example is marriage.)" From 2home, james, blogged by tobias van veen on MDCN.
Posted by jo at April 19, 2005 09:35 AM
