tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32723577.post6058024717418120526..comments2023-10-03T17:37:08.845+02:00Comments on documents: Black Metal And Play (pt. 1)valterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00239129101855356246noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32723577.post-21468577450393120872008-02-24T19:59:00.000+01:002008-02-24T19:59:00.000+01:00A nice question. My first thought concerns the var...A nice question. My first thought concerns the variety of intersections between these different categories. So I want to think them as elements or dimensions, rather than types, of play. I suppose arguments can be made that in various forms of play a specific dimension dominates, but with regard to the experience of play I see them as very mixed up and interdependent, agon as operation of power over alea, ilinx as aporetic experience of mimicry (not being oneself) and so on.<BR/><BR/>My second thought is that Black Metal seems especially invested in ilinx, in the sense of producing/indulging in aesthetic/conceptual experiences which have to do with cutting away the foundations of quotidian experience, with abyss, vacuum, absence, non-dualism, apophasis, and other categories through which have to do with going affectively behind and underneath things, with accessing the placelessness of place. I am writing a paper right now called “The Sorrow of Being in The Cloud of Unknowing,” which I all about the sorrow that one is, which the text identifies as true and perfect sorrow, sorrow over the fact of one’s own existence. I think this is very very Black Metal. <BR/><BR/>My third thought is about metal more generally as invested in experiences of exuberance, which is certainly interpretable in tune with the classic definition of play as an activity which is its own end. The whole headbanger as berserker is on target here and points to the ways in which metal is about opening up a kind of ever-repeating transition or transformation from agon to ilinx. The main point of heavy metal ‘battle’ is not the fight but what happens to oneself within it, the way of being in battle, which again I would associate with apophatic mysticism, with the double negative of being “neither oneself nor someone else” (Pseudo-Dionysius). <BR/><BR/>Look forward to part 2.Nicola Masciandarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01279665722551517693noreply@blogger.com