Identity Theft

         

            Reading through Caroline Basset’s Identity Theft, made me think of the transformation of the body that we discussed last class. In her essay, Caroline argues the difference between the documented medical information of her accident and the transformational story that is told by the scar on her body.  Basset says, “The scar is permanent but unstable, it has faded and expanded over time” (154). Which raise the question of the relation between “permanent” and what later she calls describing the change on her wound “independent from the substrate”. How can the essence be permanent but separated from its substrate? In this form the transformation is something that keeps an eternity form of a substance but in the same time the transformational continuity will create a form that is “independent from the substrate”. And this development or changing on her scar was not registered by the database because as she put it,  “database cannot register continuity and transformation” (154).  

            On the other hand , the article discuss that Visual and digital database tries to grant the credibility of information and safety of people’s identity, these information are subjected to manipulation, and identities could be subjected to theft and misuse whether intentionally or unintentionally. This provoked the governing authorities to create systems that become kind of digital representation of one’s real body, an electronic form of the physical phenomena of my presence which helps to keep my identity from being stolen: x-rays and fingerprints cannot be substituted by fake ones, if thoughts and passwords could be hijacked, the unique formation of my body cannot.  

      

           

                  

“My head, for example, my head:  what a strange cavern that opens onto the external world with two windows.  Two openings—I am sure of it, because I see the in the mirror, and also because I can close one or the other separately.  And Yet, there is really only one opening—since what I see facing me is only one continuous landscape, without partition or gap”  --Foucault

The first fifty or so pages of sensorium deals with outlining various senses, which seem (to me) to be rather similar to that of umwelt, or the way that we perceive things.  Much of the text seems to be concerned with unpacking why we perceive the primacy of our senses in a certain way.  Over and over, notions of modernity are brought to bear on explaining why or why not ocular or olfactory senses are or are not more valued.

This book takes off from another age where prosthetics and technology was perhaps a bit spookier, into the current age where they are generally quite accepted.  Sherry Turkle, in her section of the text speaks of Stanford Cyborg experiments where several people wore computer equipment that allowed them to compute all of the time.  These “cyborgs” as they came to be called endured painful chafing and gouging due to the cumbersome nature of the computer equipment they wore.  By most accounts, at the time when this was done it was quite a strange thing to do. 

But, it seems at the present, society is more willing to engage in a digital media.  In a time where people are becoming more acceptable of virtual spaces/places, using computer-mediated technology is not out of the norm.  In fact, many theorists argue that our dependence on cell phones makes us cyborgs of sort.

I often walk by groups of 20 or more people of mixed gender often of a similar socio-economic group all of whom (ostensibly) attend the same university, waiting for the bus waiting to come to campus.  Generally, most of the time even, these individuals are using a personal handheld computing device.  In this way, they are mediating communication with a large number of others, while completely (or so it seems) ignoring those people around them. 

From a social lens this seems to be quite strange.  But, in a way these individuals are using media to exist and to sense (or perceive) things.  Granted, it is interested that they choose to do this using (typically) technology with minimal richness of cues, but they are doing it nonetheless.  However, most of the communication that is taking place on these portable devices ( I hypothesize) is probably text based (which is to say visual) and not auditory.  Though these devices were originally designed t be telephones (which has a decent amount of communicative richness) now the devices are more personalizable, but people favor the less rich forms of communication such as text messaging, emailing and facebooking.

Which again turns us back around to the notion that the visual is the dominant sense (in this paradigm) and that others are often ignored in order to give primacy to the sense of sight.

Absence/Presence - Sensation.

“If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.  At this point art became more of an activity and less of a product” (79).

In reading Caroline Jones’s Sensorium, I was particularly intrigued by Jane Farver’s description of absence/presence in Bruce Nauman’s artwork.  Farver writes, “Using his body as an art object—as a visual and audial element—he interrogated the act of making art” (79), creating videos of the process and letting us “see him, alone, mapping the boundaries of both his nearly empty studio and his own body” (79).  Simply through this act of videotaping himself, Nauman highlights the absence of material in his studio, as well as the presence of the artist and artwork with his self.  Somehow, the absence of “media” in the way we would understand it to be calls attention to the only presence we can recognize in the piece: the process of his art and the sensory experience of the artist himself.  By utilizing the presence of himself, the artist, and the absence of materials aside from space and his own body, Nauman recognizes the process of art as its own artwork.

Nauman’s 2000 work Mapping the Studio (Fat Chance John Cage), in which he used infrared technology to record images of space within his studio without himself present, is where he most interestingly applied the concepts of absence/presence to the sensory experience.  In one of the “incarnations” of this project, he taped the space underneath his desk (as seen on page 80) for several hours.  Without the artist present, how can the artist be creating the created?  

In Mapping the Studio, Nauman highlights the absence of everything we might associate with the “process” of art: materials, light, and, of course, the artist.  By doing this, we the viewers must search for other components that are present in order to formulate in our view the work of art.  While we might not expect anything to happen under a desk with its owner absent, Farver points out that the infrared camera captured an array of sensory experiences: “the comings and goings of the mice that infested his studio; his cat’s almost perfunctory pursuit of the rodents; many moths; and the ambient sounds of the rural desert community” (81-82).  She goes on to note that while the objects and setting of the space appear “inert and pallid, the studio’s night creatures, tracked through their body heat, are highly animated” (82).  Mapping the Studio may not be a work of art in the visual sense we are used to, but Nauman succeeds in capturing the senses of sight, sound, and feeling (as the images are generated through heat recognition); he captures a unique sensory experience, which is what we look for in a work of art.  His art is the process of its own creation, the activity of creating it, and the sensing of the space in which it is created.  

Optical Sense

Caroline Jones's essay entitled "The Mediated Sensorium" discusses the various senses in relation to society as well as to each other, sight being at the top and the most imperative to this modernist world. According to Jones, "we should begin to reckon with the auditory, the olfactory, and the tactile as similarly crucial sites of embodied knowledge. The resulting set of experiences can be called a sensorium" (8). This means that each of the five senses produces knowledge and experiences for an individual, from which the sensorium is born, and he/she can coordinate them all as well as well as the self.

Through Jones's discussion of the optical, part of what struck me was the emphasis placed on that particular aspect of the sensorium, for it is something that is highly crucial to function and truly experience the world. Nevertheless, I kept thinking of those that are blind, or at least partially, and how that must affect their their sensorium. Even more, I have a friend who is color blind and cannot distinguish certain colors very well. He has to get his sister to help him pick out his clothes because the hues seem so different to him.

Jones further emphasizes the optical sense via "the privileging of painting at the time, and in [her] essay" (10). Those that are color blind, even partial to completely blind, are unfortunately at a loss when it comes to the sensorium and the possible experiences they can have. I am wondering how my friend is able to experience paintings, which are held in such a high regard as Jones points out in her essay.

Jones mentions Wittgenstein's famous theory, stating "I can never be certain that my "blue" is your "blue"; I can only persuade you to share a consensual language-game whose referents are sufficiently stable to function" (11). This is undoubtedly true, in that those whose senses "are sufficiently stable to function" may very well differ in experience, and even similar experiences such as the color blue can vary as well. Yet, for those whose referents do not function as well as others, there is a slight dislocation, and as a result, certain experiences are unfortunately lost within the sensorium. Playing the "consensual language-game" surrounding that particular facet of the sensorium becomes slightly more difficult for that person. Yet, the other senses take over as well, compensating for that which is lost.

Why 3D?

Why 3D?:

                During the late 90’s, a series of popular sitcoms attempted to boost their ratings by incorporating a relatively new technology into one of their episodes: 3D. I remember watching one such episode of Home Improvement with a growing sense of disappointment in the failure of the technology in recreating the kind of environment I had come to expect from the 3D technologies I had experienced at theme parks. In many ways, I believe my disappointment stems from the fact that I had developed an appreciation for the sensation of 3D because it allowed me an opportunity to interact with the images on a screen (or have them interact with me) in a much more “sensational” way than simply watching a two dimensional movie or TV show. Thus when I saw this poorly executed 3D version of Home Improvement I began to realize that the way I sense 3D is very much dependent on a certain technology.

                What interests me about 3D movies in relation to Sensorium is how 3D technology augments Caroline Jones description of modernism’s separation and segmentation of our sensory field. Jones writes, “Hearing, like seeing, has always been part of producing the self; modernism achieved this in ways profoundly different from earlier historical moments-separating, segmenting, and bureaucratizing the subject in conjunction with similar initiatives in markets, governments, pedagogy, and biomedical research”.

How does 3D technology challenge these modernistic ideals of separation and bureaucratization? For me, 3D movies and 4D theme park attractions are a unified, embodied experience of sensation and any attempt to separate seeing, hearing, smelling, and touching is not only limiting to the overall sensation but extremely difficult. One particularly traumatic experience I had as a kid involved a ride called Alien Encounters where an animatronic alien was trapped in a glass tube in the center of a room and when the lights went out a series of sound effects, air compressors, and other physical stimuli created the perception that the alien had escaped and was now running around the room looking for its next meal. The fear and anxiety created in this experience made separation of sensory stimulus very unlikely and undesired on the part of both the rides creators and many of the park guests who wished to “buy in” to the experience.

                What then can be said about the recent revival of 3D technology in theatre complexes across the world? Is this a reunification of the senses? Were they ever really separated in the first place? I believe the sensational power of a 3D or 4D experience exists just as much in the fiction or narrative that is represented as it does in the technology. The most memorable 3D movies to me as a kid were the ones that interacted with me in a more memorable way. Sometimes characters would come off the screen and appear to be floating in front of my face as they spoke directly to me. If anything, 3D experiences are only possible because they collapse our senses and perceptions into a direct interaction with an entity, much like we perceive another person in a holistic sense. When someone is speaking we don’t just hear them but we see them, smell them, and sometimes even touch them.

Cashing in on Theory

The sensorium, as Caroline Jones explains in Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art, includes the entire gamut of sensory perceptions an individual experiences at any given time.  Beyond that even, the concept of sensorium transcends individual sensibilities as a culture-spanning type of sensory hierarchy individuals in a society adopt unconsciously, never quite knowing why they have developed the tastes they have or how those tastes guide certain cognitive and behavioral functions.  The sensorium then, by these terms, becomes a virtual stage for various rhetorics of sensation to compete for individual favor on a subconscious level.  Furthermore, by this understanding, people’s tastes become subtly reflective of their personalities, and the gates of persuasion are therefore opened up to those who understand either the types of things a target likes or the type of person that a target is.  By ascertaining either of these facets of information, a party interested in gaining a target’s interest becomes substantially more likely to succeed.  Interesting, no, and while the general public may be largely unaware of this phenomenon, you can bet that the mass marketers and rising entrepreneurs of this world are well aware of it and are giving the matter ample attention.  Take, for instance, L’Oreal’s latest marketing campaign, which involves the introduction of a new retail marketplace machine designed to enhance customer/product interaction and boost perfume sales.  Any guess what this fancy new machine is called?  That’s right you guessed it, check out L’Oreal’s new Sensorium customer console in the video below…

Listen closely to the guy who comes on at .51 seconds into the video; his description of the sensorium and how they are trying to manipulate it is pretty interesting.  My question, is how else are marketing teams and companies trying to incorporate the sensorium?  I bet there are more than we are aware of, but I'm also curious to see how this turns out.  I have my doubts as to whether or not this type of marketing will work in the retail environment. What do you think?

Camera Phone Gawking: Observe and Report

See Spot run after mail carrier. See Spot run after mail carrier through the screen on a camera phone that is now in video capture mode. (Do not attempt to help the mail carrier. When the game is camera phone gawking, your objective is to be the insect on the wall, the god in the clouds, Uatu, the Watcher; do not intervene. You have a lens and a "record" button. Shoot things. That's all.) Name the video "Spot Attacks Mailman" and save it. Post "Spot Attacks Mailman" on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube so that everyone who follows you and everyone who follows them can see Spot run after mail carrier. Viral, perhaps. This is your eye tethered to a network of interfaces; your gawking eyes mediated by circuits and pixels and signals; your gaze injected into a digital cat's cradle frequented by gawkers intent on finding something at which to gawk. The network, the phone--once you've used them to gawk, they're extensions of your optical organs, like glasses or contacts. Maybe it's an expected evolution of the eye that network-ready camera phones are accessorized to them these days. In a sense, we were all blind before we could see what other people were seeing, before everyone's phone had a built-in camera and before social media made easy the uploading of what's seen. Now, there's my "Spot Attacks Mailman" beside a host of "Spot Attacks Mailman" in a Web image or video search.

The camera phone, as William J. Mitchell indicates in "Networked Eyes," matches well with our instinctive gawking behavior by inducing "some particularly subtle and ambiguous body language," similar to the body language that we use when we're gawking without our prosthetic eyes (Sensorium, 177). We want to cast our gaze, but we don't necessarily want to be gazed at while we're looking. (Voyeurism, maybe or not so much, given the perverted connotations of that activity.) The camera phone allows us a vantage point that a camera does not. Camera phones are everywhere, so it's harmless when a person raises one up in the middle of an event that might attract gawkers, as that person could be "dialing a number, sending a text message or surfing the Web" (177). People aren't as apprehensive of a camera phone because "Hey! I have one, too! What operating system does yours have?" A camera and a camcorder, however, are totally different monsters that are often met with "What the f#@% are you takin' pictures of?!? Get that f#@%in' camera outta my face!!!" They label a gawker as a gawker, and nobody likes to be stared at.

The camera phone allows ongoings to go on as they normally would if nobody was looking under the aid of a prosthetic eye. The prosthetic eye that is recognized as a bad omen, camera or camcorder, changes reality a bit. People ready themselves in front of a camera or a camcorder; the camera is like a police officer in uniform patrolling a neighborhood. When the officer is in sight, behaviors change. Move on. There's nothing to see here. The camera phone, though, is the officer in street clothes and not looking like a cop. Things stay the same and now comes the time to observe and report. Same thing with reality shows on TV. I'm not saying that reality shows are worthless (In saying that, did I indicate that I think they're worthless?), but they would possibly be worth a lot more if there were no writers and no massive production crews in front of whose lenses the cast members can become hams. Maybe the footage should be recorded by camera phones or hidden cameras, so there's no extravagant transformation of a Real Housewife into an artificial housewife with an unbearable flamboyant divatude. Less entertaining? (Less entertaining anyway...)

Reconsidering the Sensory Hierarchy

             In her essay, The Mediated Sensorium, Caroline A. Jones discusses the apparent hierarchy which has existed among the senses.  With ocularity dominating the modern period, Jones claims that other senses often were not tended to in the development of artistic creations as well as in our overall understanding of the world.  Relying on sight most heavily, the other senses are generally considered supplementary to ocularity and, according to Jones, “the hierarchies placing sight at the top of our sensory aristocracy are… not neural imperatives” (11).  In her section entitled "Olfactivism," Jones explains the curious ways which modernism has consigned smell to the position of the abject (12).  Constantly looking for ways to freshen the air and deodorize ourselves and others, it seems that either no smell or artificial smell are somehow preferable to scents that are contextually natural. 

            As a means of broaching this subject, Jones discusses artist Sissel Tolaas’s attempt to create a language to appropriately tend to the nuances of olfaction.  Quoting “Scent Systems,” a London parfumier, Jones writes “[Tolaas] claims [that] no existing language – she speaks nine – describes smells accurately.  The terminology currently used to describe fragrances, sweet, spicy, etc., is limited and generally void of emotion.  Therefore, she is developing a new language that attempts to describe “smell and smelling” in a logical and consistent manner” (12).  Tolaas’s need, then, to create a language which adequately describes smell, seems to stem from this sensory hierarchy which neglects, if not actually attempts to eradicate, graphic depictions of smell.  For Tolaas, language seems to represent a means of understanding the world as it provides a path to comprehending lived experience in a more olfactory manner.

The idea that perspective can be garnered through the construction and use of language is essential to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of language.  Working together at Yale University, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf developed a theory of language which suggested the interrelatedness of language and culture.  According to this hypothesis, the structure of a language is often responsible for how a speaker thinks and relates to their world.  As the concept of eye/I seems to be particularly important to Jones’s hierarchy, this provides a clear example of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.  The very existence of the word “I” in most languages allows speakers to conceptualize themselves in a particularly subjective, if no ego-centric, manner.  Without “I,” we may not visualize ourselves as unique entities, capable of differing and unique experiences.  Since our language is structured in such a way that we can imagine ourselves as subjects, as an “I” clearly differentiated from a “you,” we act accordingly.  This framework may augment our objectification of elements or our environment as well as promote certain self-serving tendencies that determine our interaction with others and our world.

Greatly in line with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Tolaas’s new olfactory language attempts to reshape the ways in which we interact with our environment.  By creating new words to describe smells, we may not only be able to be more nuanced in our understanding of olfaction but we may also begin to understand smell in such a way that it is no longer relegated to the position of the grotesque.  If language provided a different means of understanding smells, we may no longer feel the need to deodorize, as our very conception of olfaction would shift along with our ability to articulate and conceptualize the sense.



Caroline A. Jones’s essay “The Mediated Sensorium” historicizes discourse and common beliefs about the senses and their role in society. In the essay she establishes a hierarchy of the senses: odor is at the bottom, vision at the top, and the other senses range between. Jones gives an account of why this is, but what stood out out to me was her assessment of the visual/optical in society today. According to Jones’s essay the modernist privileging of the visual--which disembodies human minds--is still present in society, and still requires consideration even as we move forward into a world that is less wary of the other senses.

I’ve chosen this video because it has several moments where Daniela and Luis are beautifully connected with each other both in a tactile and auditory way, but the larger their dance gets the more that tactile connection is lost (it’s visible if you look for it)

“We still have to struggle to relinquish the visual ordination of intellectual knowledge” Jones states, and this reminded me of my experience with tango. As someone who spent most of her life reading--language being one of the optical forms--and quite a bit of it sitting in the classroom watching a teacher a. lecture or b. attempt to lead discussion with the aid of a whiteboard/chalk board and language. So when I was told I was going to need to close my eyes as a tango follow... well, I kept them open for at least a year of that advice. It wasn’t that I was stubborn, but I couldn’t handle being cut off from the visual world. To relinquish my sight would be to relinquish control, in my mind, and if I was going to be led around a floor I wanted to at least know where I was being led. Beyond fear for bodily harm, however, like Jones’s modern subject vision was my primary way of learning, of taking in information, and of interacting with the world. Without my vision I was severely handicapped. For a while I could hardly think with my eyes closed, and because closing my eyes caused me to be so disoriented I was a much better dancer with my eyes opened. No one seemed to take it too poorly, other than the occasional advice to close my eyes, but I remembered there was advice I wasn’t taking.

I would say there are a variety of ways that this primacy of vision manifests in tango, but also a variety of ways in which it is undermined, or at least brought into perspective.


One of the truisms of tango is that it should never be danced for an audience, the dance is between yourself, your partner, the floor, the other dancers on the floor, and the music, all of these are your partners and none of them are the people on the sidelines. There is a lot to be learned from watching, but the dance itself is more tactile and auditory than visual. This is particularly apparent in Hsueh-tze Lee’s dancing and workshops and private instruction, where she primarily teaches musicality and connection, and the bond between the two. Communication is done through physical contact at the chest, arms, and heads, although the dance itself comes from the feet and how they channel from the floor up through a body held as erect as possible while still being relaxed.Here the eyes only come into consideration for the lead, he must keep an eye on the flow of the dance floor and move with it. Ideally the flow of the dance floor has little to do with vision, however, mostly it should have to do with the music, moving to it and how both dancers interpret and physically interact.

For a lot of people how their dance looks takes precedence over how it feels, or even how it sounds. These are the people who move quickly across the dance floor, who take control of their partner--this can come from either the lead or the follow, if they have expectations that the dance will go a certain way, those expectations come through. Sometimes these dances are beautiful, but often they’re rushed, busy, and disconnected. To connect the idea that their mind is in the audience with Jones’s essay, this is because their minds cease to be with their bodies, and are somewhere on the periphery, watching, only that periphery isn’t their periphery anymore. Physically they are on the dance floor but intellectually they are somewhere else, consequently their mind ceases to be connected, and they forget that they are embodied. It’s also worth noting that the more performative the dance becomes the more dangerous it is for other dancers on the floor, another symptom of disembodiment. Ganchos (where the follow kicks back between the lead’s legs) aren’t allowed on social dance floors in Buenos Aires because there’s too much risk of kicking someone else, a traditional milonguera often denies even knowing ganchos, and it seems to offend their sensibilities to be asked about them. To be consumed by the visual side of the dance means the tactile aspect is ranked lower, and on a crowded dance floor forgetting the Narcissus syndrome Jones describes could lead to injury.

Regaining the Self

The shift from naturally experienced sensation to technologically enhanced experiences has been gradual and its impact upon our lives is undeniably apparent upon close examination. However, technology has permeated in such a way that we are not always aware of its presence. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s new media project, a seemingly innocuous, headphone-guided walking tour instead produced a sudden and disorienting hyperawareness of one’s lack of sensorial control. Participants are guided by Janet’s voice and unwittingly succumb to her direction, and in a way, take on her sensorial experiences. Keenly focused on her voice, listeners fail to become aware of their own senses and eventually, the lack of control leads to an anxiety filled moment in which the listeners tear off the headphones in an effort to regain some semblance of the self. Jacobson, who chronicles this development of this art installation, says that this confusion begs for an answer to “Whose future and past, whose dreams and nightmares, whose comforts and fears, whose touch, whose smell, whose sounds, whose lovers, whose identity are we inhabiting?” (58).

The questioning of the self in this experience recalls a deeper social inability to recognize our individual selves due to the inundation of requirements often pressed upon the self by cultural tradition. To a degree, don’t we all forget to be ourselves and instead find it incredibly easy to follow a trend? This ranges from something as harmless as a fashion trend to more substantial trends which often produce a similar shared experience. Though not explicitly stated, it is rather implied, that the dominant social tradition is to get a degree, find a career, pursue a heterosexual relationship, marry in a church, and produce 2.5 children. This hetero-normative tradition, while not in itself a negative aspiration, is often followed without further consideration.

For some, with headphones apparently still plugged in, any deviation from this trend is considered inappropriate, an abomination. Individual preference is lost for the sake of a universal, definable experience. However, it appears as if more and more are becoming anxious and unsettled by the lack of unique sensation and have taken the initiative to rip off their headphones and regain an awareness of their self, their needs and their wants. Social progress and sensation installations seem to follow the same trajectory: a hyperawareness of the individual. For a palpable example in the media, one can compare TV families from decades ago versus the TV family of the present. The "I Love Lucy" family was considered the norm but now a more "Modern Family" is becoming more prevalent

The dynamic of these families show a trend toward an acceptance of difference. The mold of uniformity is being broken in small doses and it is exciting to think of the prospect of equality where the individual is privileged for who they are, rather than who they are told to be.

Of fractals, and lions and lenses.

Unlike Merleau-Ponty, who describes “flesh” as the tissue that composes the essence of our ability to perceive a thing, Elizabeth Grosz seems to favor Deleuze and Guattaris notion of flesh, that as a developer of sensation (which is incredibly poetic).  Grosz goes on to cite Uexkull’s notion of Umwelt which describes an entities ability to perceive something as the constraining element of the environment.  From this paragraph take away the notion that perception is our window into viewing chaos.

Through a lens we are able to see.  But, the “seen” is framed by the limits of perception.  The lens, at times, constrains ‘chaos’ or permits us to see more of it than we can possibly understand.  These ways that we view chaos, or the way that the chaos comes to organize itself can be known as art (broad strokes).

But, Grosz cautions that “Art is the art of affect more than of representation” and reminds us that “all forms of creativity, or production that generates intensity, sensation or affect, music, painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, design landscape, dance, and performance” are all art.

According to Deleuze, art does not produce concepts, but it addresses some of their problems and provocations.  Grosz further states that “a work of art is…not a series of sensations that depend on either a creator…or an audience” (59).  So, perhaps art is then more like the chaos that we can frame.  Something that is- that we do not have to perceive in order for it to be (I guess the tree does make a sound).

In his biblical allegory The Magicians Nephew  C.S. Lewis outlines how the God figure (Aslan, the lion) sings the world into existence.  While theologians and scholars of evolution are often at odds, the ideas that Grosz presents regarding music (and art) are quite fascinating.  Using these ideas, I am less concerned with the notion of which came first (music or language) but in examining the richness of being, the poetic way of describing the rhythms and vibrations of the world.

The rhythms (including those experienced in the umwelt), create a reality for those that perceive it, but is a reality beyond a thing’s ability to perceive (through the lens).  This art thing, is a thing, an incredibly powerful thing that exists, and at times (and in ways) we can perceive it, but is nevertheless a taste of chaos.