interaction, part 1: goodbye.
i may be writing a bit about interaction in the next few weeks. primarily because the project i'm working on sits pretty firmly in the 'interactive' camp of arts practice. but also because i've been reading a bit about the philosophical aspects of interaction have been thinking about the dynamics of human interaction - listening, conversation and relationships.
counterintuitively, one of the first things i'm interested in unpacking a bit about is the interaction of 'goodbye'. i recently wanted to say a formal 'goodbye' to a stack of peeps in perth after spending much time in their tribe. sadly, and for a stack of reasons, not many people were able to make it, and i left wondering about the ritual of saying goodbye.
even though 'goodbye' is the end of an interaction between characters, it is also the beginning of a new interaction. it has its own set of variables and etiquette, rarely discussed in white, australian culture. the country of the laid back 'g'day' are also not so formal with their goodbyes. 'see ya'.
perhaps because i move around a lot, or because i've spent time in cultures for which the goodbye is given (linguistically and culturally) more weight, i'm finding that casual-ness a bit unsatisfying.
in schlock pseudo-psycho terms, there is no closure.
it's a metaphysical sentence that has no full stop. and when there's no punctuation, there ceases to be meaning. there also ceases to be intent. and therefore no beginning of the next interaction - the one of 'still friends, but separated by distance' or something.
in coding/system term, there's no } - no end to the instruction, which creates errors, which means you don't have an interaction. in not saying 'goodbye', one nulls and voids the interaction at all.
ok, so that's abstracting it and perhaps creating an analogy that simplifies things too much - human interactions are far more complex than a missing }, / or . but i do wonder if we lack consideration of the deeper sides to human interaction protocol (HIP) in the same way as we now do our other forms of interaction.
1 comment:
LB - it could be that shrinking global space is the issue here. Everything is seemingly "so connected" that it's hard to believe that you won't be seeing someone again real soon (unless they're an old person who doesn't use the net.) In other words, it feels as if you're just in the next room (rather than on the other side of the country) - why would you say goodbye when you're just popping into the next room?
Or... it could be an issue of time-scale. One of my favourite ruminations by Anthony McCall is the following. He is talking about art, but you could substitute your relationship with somebody:
"Art that does not show change within our time-span of attending to it we tend to regard as “object.” Art that does not show change within our time-span of attending to it we tend to regard as “event.” Art that outlives us we tend to regard as “eternal.” What is at issue is that we ourselves are the division that cuts across what is essentially a sliding scale of time-bases. A piece of paper on the wall is as much a duration as the projection of a film. Its only difference is in its immediate relationship to our perceptions."
In other words - the time to say goodbye will come, but you just need to take its own pace...
Or... one of my fave artists, Scottish Andrew Gryf Paterson who lives in Finland, did a project which turned out unexpectedly to be about dismantling something - a greenhouse social space. He has spoken really interestingly about the work of shutting something down (when we are often excited about setting things up, and then they just drift away unceremoniously)...
http://agryfp.info/
Personally, I sometimes have difficulty saying goodbye to blogging projects. They usually have a set timeframe, but when they end, how do you say goodbye? (especially since they seem to dribble along with readership after the end date...)
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