Wark on Wark (chart reloaded)

hi Jodi,
with both Hacker and Gamer i drew a lot of diagrams, usually on the envelope the ms was in. With Gamer i decided to put them in the book. They are mostly to be taken as parodies of the diagrams in real Game Theory books. That's why they have the classic 'Fig. C' type titles. That particular one is a highly schematic version of the America chapter, which i would describe as cod-hegelian. The historical succession of spatial orders (topos -> topography -> topology) implies a change also in the form of mediation (novel -> cinema -> game) and so on. So, yes, "the chart goes left to right, typical time on x axis." Of course the times for each series don't quite add up. The ethos series might be what is residual within each spatial order, whereas genre is prospective. I would not defend the actual sequences in the chart, but i would defend the hegelian position that forms have their times. In his aesthetics the sequence is art -> religion -> philosophy. For Lukacs there's definitely a sense of the novel as the form that corresponds to a certain stage of capitalism, etc. You could also read it as "either a gamer or a designer (in terms of levels or a database/algorithm)." Which would be to read it more along the vertical axis. The vertical axis has a base/superstructure thing going on. Topos, ethos might replace forces and relations of production. Of course the top right quadrant, for the theorist of gamespace is blank. It was Jean Baudrillard until the proof stage. Hacker was probably the last book he read and he sent a very gracious note about it. He didn't live to read Gamer in either English or French.

k