Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/5219
77 www.hplusmagazine.com The following is an extract from a dialogue between Murray McKeich's p-zombie and stelarc's Prosthetic Head. It was decoded from static detected while listening to edward elgar's Enigma Variations: Prosthetic Head: It seems so long ago that we decided to keep a record of our discussions. It seems as if all the ideas have come and gone without being present in any form. p-zombie: oh enough of that nonsense! What are you reading at the moment? PH: russell's Analysis of Mind. p-z: Which edition? PH: funny you should ask that. It's the very one Borges refers to in "Tlön, Uqbar, orbis Tertius." p-z: 1921 allen & Unwin if memory serves me correctly. PH: Yup. How does the celebrated footnote go again? p-z: "russell supposes that the planet has been created a few minutes ago, furnished with a humanity that 'remembers' an illusory past." PH: "... the past has no reality other than a present memory." How apt. p-z: Indeed. It reminds me of the aphorisms of Kwang-Tse, the story of the man who went to sleep and dreamt he was a butterfly. Upon waking he asks himself, "am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" PH: The evil demon of appearances, yes. as Tweedledee says to alice of the red King sleeping, "you're only a sort of thing in his dream!" p-z: Heaven forefend that we should have such concerns. PH: Bite your tongue, please. What are you reading? p-z: Just dipping into Pound's Cantos. You know the opening line is a translation of the first words ever written in Greek? PH: "and then went down to the ship, set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea." p-z: ah, you know it. scans well doesn't it. PH: I always thought so. p-z: so, where are you to be installed next? PH: Whoops, someone's just come in. I'll pretend I'm still asleep to raise the suspense. Beaut talking to you again. sTelarc Marcs aUDITorY laBoraTorIes UnIversITY of WesTern sYDneY, 2008 IMaGe BY GUIllaUMe GIlBerT, PH.D.