The Tacit Model

“Is the tacit model that of a museum with a catalogue raisonné?”—Phil

My reference to Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ was not to evoke or advocate a museographical model, but to point out that even a urinal (which is what ‘Fountain’ is) can be ‘serious’, and that serious can be ‘kitsch’, and that it is all just a question of point of view.

  • The tacit model is that of a café.
  • The tacit model is that of “sprezzatura” and the art of conversation at the court of Urbino in 1507.
  • The tacit model is that of the French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th and 18th centuries.
  • And the symbolist salons of the 19th century.
  • The tacit model is that of the Spanish “tertulia”.
  • The tacit model is that of the coffeehouse of 18th century England which Habermas credits with the emergence of the “public sphere”.
  • And the coffeehouse of the 1960’s where folksingers like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan performed.
  • The tacit model is the fine old Irish tradition of boasting as an art form.
  • And “playing the dozens” in the African-American oral tradition.
  • The tacit model is Burning Man, book groups, Karaoke, amateur theatricals, and breakdancing.
  • The tacit model is all those occasions where “self-consciousness” is experienced as opportunity rather than anxiety.

At the same time, the tacit model is also Wikipedia, and the Decameron, and the Canterbury Tales, and all round-robin storytelling, and Linux, and Lascaux, and graffiti, and the shrines and grottos of the French countryside. The tacit model is a coral reef.

But as Michael observed, there can be such a thing as too much meta-discussion, especially if there’s not much “there” there.

“Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock? ... Let me tell you, Sir, it was a very unseasonable question at least, — because it scattered and dispersed the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the HOMUNCULUS, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception.” — Tristram Shandy, Lawrence Sterne

Posted by jeff on January 21st, 2008

5 Responses to “The Tacit Model”

  1. phil says:

    Right, but you don't carry a closet full of stuff to a cafe, or salon. Why the "stuff focus"? Why a public sphere growing out of stuff? A book, a news clip, last night's tv show - there is so much to talk about online, why the focus on moving physical items through space? Object-fetishism in a consumer culture? I can't believe that in your case, so I assume this is from Maureen's museum background, the fetishistic posing of an object before its murmuring admirers. I understand about not talking too much about the intent of a site or a game, but I mistrust our focus on objects. It is the people who are interesting. So, the object is the pretext - a conversation piece, as in small talk in a living room among strangers? I wholly endorse the end in view, and appreciate the historical precedents.

    January 21st, 2008 at 09:16 AM

  2. Jeff says:

    "The WELL felt like an authentic community to me from the start because it was grounded in my everyday physical world." - Howard Rheingold As I said to Debbie in a comment on your post in Brass Flamingo: "I recently saw a little netsuke statue of Otafuku that made me think of Phil... (Otafuku is the Shinto goddess of mirth.) In the picture she is sitting in a mask, offering sake and throwing beans to drive out daemons. If this were facebook, I could mail him the picture (for $1) with a little cheery message." Instead I sent you a genuine replica of the statue. (aka unsolicited, kitschy knickknack.) The point being not that I'm a terrific guy but that this irruption (not a typo) of the physical world into the virtual actually carries some benefits. Not just due to the aesthetic and experiential aspects of the object per se, but because I actually had to go out to post the thing. Sure it would have been more convenient if I had just had it drop-shipped directly to you. Just like the orgasmatron is more convenient than sex. Convenience is not always a virtue. Among other things, when I sent it I was trying to make a point about objects, our relation to them, and their importance. Part of the reasons that they are so important is that they are not reducible to signs. They don't have a meaning. They resist interpretation. I am certainly critical of "object-fetishism in a consumer culture", but I do NOT think that the solution is to retreat into a world without objects. That is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The solution is to rediscover a healthy relationship to the physical world. And that includes embracing it's ineluctable inconvenience. There is a famous Buddhist saying that "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences." But it does have the inconvenience of making it impossible to go out of one's way for others, which still matters for lots of us. It isn't so much a museum thing, for me. It is a question of developing satisfactory object relations. That is not merely a play on words. There is a danger that virtual reality can become something of a phantasm. (Of course, at the same time, that phantasmaticality is also an opportunity.) I would say that the object is at once a pretext, a memento, a touchstone, and a kind of ballast. The problematic nature of the object manifests itself in various ways to each of us. For some it is experienced as expense, for others as inconvenience, for yet others as loss, or as dissonance (kitsch). Emotions, like objects, are often inconvenient. But that does not mean we should avoid them. But I am not trying to convince you, I am just trying to explain.

    January 21st, 2008 at 10:50 AM

  3. Jeff says:

    One very important thing we need to learn in life is how to let go. (One of the early slogans I came up with for Handmeon was "practice letting go". Interestingly, some people found it too macabre. Just like some people found "practice generosity" too preachy. ) But shunning objects as a strategy of overcoming our fascination with them strikes me as a kind of materialistic anorexia. In Freudian terms, 'doing without' is to 'letting go' as 'repression' is to 'working through'.

    January 21st, 2008 at 11:13 AM

  4. Gerry says:

    Thanks Jeff. I think it is a wonderful experiment. If Phil would make me one of his contacts, I would invite him to one of my handmeon experiments.

    January 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 AM

  5. Gerry says:

    Phil, not a closet full of objects, just one or two that you want to have a conversation about and pass on so that you may have more conversations around and about it as it passes along. I have an object I am creating that consists of a poster of a chip I designed in a coarse at MIT and the book for the course. A work friend already has the book (I have to get the number from him, I put the sticker in the book before creating the handmeon object, and I wrote it down wrong) and I have uploaded a digital photo of the poster. You'll get to see it when I activate the object. Part of the fun of this is like Jeff says that I get to create the object (I still need to mount and frame the poster). Before having something like this to do with it, it was gathering dust on the wall in my basement. The friend who has the book doesn't know he is getting the other part yet, but it was fun bringing the book to work and passing in around the office. He is a bright young engineer who didn't get the sort of educational opportunity that I did, and I am glad to pass this object along with the stories and for him to add more stories and pass it on again. I don't need the object, but I wouldn't want to get rid of it, and someone else might enjoy displaying the framed poster and reading this classic test.

    January 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 AM

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