The Hypertext Triomnibus

Without Aid or Supervision

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tagstriad, difficulty/4, kind/shared-form-or-method, kind/genealogy-influence, kind/oblique-structural

4 min read

Triad 12 of 32 · 2026-10-05 · Difficulty 4 · Shared form or method, Genealogy/influence, Oblique/structural

The thread

Three books in which a made thing exists because it is described, and in which grammar decides whose hands made it. Roby, Technical Ekphrasis (2016): Greek and Roman machine prose; Philo makes the reader see his artillery ‘even if he never builds the machine’ (p. 214); passives and third-person imperatives create ‘a depopulated or impersonal construction space, in which the artifact seems to come together without human intervention’ (p. 205); the Helping Hand, ‘not about what we can do, but about what can be done’; Hero’s automata ‘designed to mystify an audience’ (p. 5). Roussel, Impressions of Africa (1910): technical ekphrasis of machines that exist only in prose and were generated by puns (‘language itself is the sole motor and guide’, Polizzotti); Bedu’s river loom, ‘Invisibly moved by the driving belts’ (ch. VI), weaves the Flood/shipwreck and runs ‘without aid or supervision’ (ch. X); Louise’s lensless painting machine (ch. IX); the novel is built like an automaton theatre, with the performance (I–IX) before the mechanism (X–XXVI). Levé, Works (2002): 533 works ‘conceived but not brought into being’ (#1), 271 of 517 parsed entries opening in the agentless passive; #418 weaves a tapestry of a homonym of Roussel, a double of doubles. Shared method (description as fabrication), genealogy (Roussel to Levé), structural (the passive voice as an ethics of agency). They disagree about what a description owes the world: buildable (Roby’s authors), ‘nothing real’ (Roussel), building left to whoever wants it (Levé).

The three books

Notebook

  1. Three voices, one work: write three unrealized works of your own (gesture, installation, book), each three ways: Levé’s agentless present passive (‘A picture is painted’, #29); Philo’s second person (Roby p. 214); Roussel’s past-tense spectator (‘Invisibly moved’, ch. VI). Which voice makes it ‘come together before the reader’s eyes’ (Roby p. 199)? Which makes it yours?
  2. The plank and the pediment: Hero hides his works behind a plank with a pediment (Roby p. 5); Roussel gives nine chapters of performance, then seventeen of mechanism. Write one essay’s gala and its backstage as separate texts; then the paragraph beginning ‘It seems to me that it is my duty to reveal this method…’ (Polizzotti’s Introduction).
  3. A double of a double: using Levé #418, write the provenance chain of one image from your commonplace book, each link ‘a double (x) of a double (y)’, until you reach a non-copy or admit you can’t; then write it as #316, someone known less for his buildings than for his writings on other people’s.

Rabbit holes

Links as checked on the day of the reading.

To carry

“The reading ends when no one asks him to continue.” — Édouard Levé, Works, #533, trans. Jan Steyn

Themes

agency · audience and mechanism · automata · conceptual art · copy/double · description vs instruction · ekphrasis · enargeia · generativity · Helping Hand · Hero of Alexandria · instructions · loom · machine · painting machine · passive voice · Philo of Byzantium · procédé · Roussel · technical ekphrasis · unrealized works · Villard de Honnecourt

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