Keywords in the Post-Mechanic Codex Davin Heckman & Matthew Wolf-Meyer

<1> In the past, pursuit of knowledge was dictated by univocal sources of information, emblematized in the Oxford English Dictionary and the Encyclopedia, composing, in their conjunction, a codex of all human knowledge. This pillar has been either surpassed or amplified in the pursuits of scholars who attempt to "flesh out" particular entries, these more susceptible to (and obviously the products of) the politics of the individual than the original codex maintains (of course, it intended to be entirely "objective" in its white, patriarchal, upper class dictations). Slowly the process of "entry-making" lost any pretense whatsoever of being related to the codex, but, inevitably, being written and stored in the library, the codex expands to include it spatially as well as ideologically, while simultaneously condemning the book to storage. Eventually the victory of the book (often seen as a "rise") occurred, and the body, the individual scholar, becomes only an extension of the life-giving, knowledge-providing (if there can be said to be any difference whatsoever) codex -- the codex made flesh. Thus was born the contemporary university and the information-making machine of personal analysis.

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<2> Bred along with this eradication of the written was an inscription of hubris into the mind of the individual scholar. Aided by the special effects of the written word, which strip information of its density and ambiguity, the scholar is the gatekeeper of the variety of valid entries by which the abstractions of the word are mapped onto a corresponding "reality" -- the word made flesh. Words tell the truth -- all else becomes "false consciousness."

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<3> The internet has the potential to return the codex to the world. Rather than being sequestered spatially in the library and university, the internet brings the search for information to the hands of the individual. The search engine flips through the copy of its known world, presenting a cross-section of all knowledge within its reach, regardless of its cultural weight. A search for "codex" on Google yields approximately 422,000 results in 0.12 seconds. In the space of a few weeks, this very mention of the codex will add itself to the hundreds of thousands of entries on the subject. Books, games, mistaken identities written in foreign tongues. Let's make deliberate near-spelling -- "cadex" -- 0.40 seconds later, about 6,550 results are logged, to which my disinformation will also be added. Every day, a creation takes place as new uses, new mistakes, new copy is generated, each creating a new meaning for the shape of things to come. And as the world of information broadens, so the lens tightens and advanced searches with smarter engines pare down the overwhelming offerings placing "codex" within codex within codex, each successive generation recreating in itself a world in miniature. The world of a word is inhabited by various incarnations, so that the word "codex" will have its own expression as its signifying power is attached to new meanings and significance. Like automatic writing, the search engine puts us in contact with another dimension: Enter terms, "codex" and "plumber" -- 84 hits; "codex" and "eats" -- 1,220; "codex" and "nudist" -- 576; "codex" and "pirate" -- 2,510; "codex," "plumber" and "pirate" -- 3; "codex," "plumber," "eats," "nudist," "pirate" -- not yet, but it's only a matter of time before this parallel world is born (in fact it just has been) -- a bizarre and mysterious plotline anchored to the "codex." Our plotline will add itself to the 7 that appeared for the simple search string, "Plumber eats nudist pirate" at the time of this writing.

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<4> Although search strings are themselves tangled up in the specifics of spelling, they lead us to uses of words that are manifold. A search for information on a topic leads into another way of knowing what it is the words (can) mean. Contrary opinions, dead ends, ghosts, errors, marketing campaigns, and party lines all lead through the haphazard maze towards a realization of definition that is indefinite and infinite, that grows and changes with time. A world of words invested with the capricious playfulness of the everyday. This is not to say that expert opinions will vanish -- many people are content to settle on an authoritative source for information. But this demands an act of "settling," or deciding to look no further. In a post-structuralist world, in which reality is ambiguous and uncertain, the internet as codex, provides the model for our post-structural epistemology. And we are all the new mechanics.

 

Note: The phrases separating paragraphs, above, were all search strings that brough internet users to Reconstruction within the past 6 months.