Self-Reception

Speculation begins beyond the zero point of meaning. When words are 
liberated from their burden of information, they go into ecstasy and set 
out exploring. Once they go their own way, they can follow any logic and 
anticipate any information with which they could ever possibly be 
saddled. Speculating with language follows the maxim, "Prevention is 
better than deconstruction." During the working hours of the adilkno 
options market, concepts, data and unavoidable situations are 
short-circuited to a possible vanishing point in the future. The adilkno 
speculator operates beyond the future, away from potential reader's 
markets. The proliferation of words evokes a chaos field through which 
the text determines its fatal course, leaving everybody dumbfounded, 
including the mixmasters themselves.

These speculative practices operate in a vacuum which the urge for text 
renewal has not been able to fill. The columns do not fulfill the 
legitimate desire for the shrieking assertion of the manifesto, nor for 
the careful openings of the essay. There are theories that are tired of 
academic discourses or journalistic impressions and simply wish to air 
the mind. These favorite and serene ideas soon get out of hand when they 
are accidentally caught up in an adilknoist line of reasoning. "Every 
sentence an open end" does not purify the mind, it simply makes you clam 
up.

The experiments with words in the twentieth century were expeditions to 
the center of language, and still make for neat T-shirts. Speculation, by 
contrast, seeks the outer edges of language, where shadows from elsewhere 
become legible. Here too lie the "zones of neglect" where garbage 
accumulates, vague rumors circulate and the riff-raff scuttles about, 
hatching plots and yanking at the slot machines in the hope that the 
right combination of discourses will produce the winning sentence, after 
which the profits can immediately be put to use for new speculations. In 
the end, writing only costs adilkno money, just like with the gambling 
addicts.

Adilkno never states its sources. This is not based on a desire for 
secrecy. In the media, the text needs no context, which can only increase 
the information load. Once the quote is pulled out of its context and 
perverted, magic words sprout from the textual remainder: imploded 
universes that do not even need to be unfolded. The magic word is not the 
result of reduction by data compression. It is not that which remains 
after all extraneous wording is deleted; the keyword simply presents 
itself. It does not invite to historical hermeneutics, but shifts to the 
future during writing.

There exists a certain pleasure in the thought of posterity who may set 
about deciphering it all - but that is not the issue here. The exegesis 
of compact text quickly reaches overload, a typical problem in 
contemporary text production. Speculation does not look for quality or 
quantity, but for amazement about the now or never of the jam session of 
discourses. It won't make you any richer or wiser; rather poorer, since 
the accidentally compiled soc/pol/cul/eco/hist ballast gets pulverized 
during the instant consumption of the adilkno product. Larger 
connections, eras, entities, themes, moralities and world issues 
disappear like a snowball in the sun. We would probably have stated the 
opposite tomorrow.

The unbearable lightness of the media does not have to be compensated for 
by diligent archivist labour. Adilkno is not expressing the fear that the 
text has one foot in the grave, but joyfully acknowledging the victory of 
the media. The old-fashioned text is thus finally relieved of its 
obligation to have a solid meaning, and may become impossible. The holy 
Script has become a toy ever since world language has consisted of images 
instead of words. Planetary pictoralization campaigns tread the familiar 
path of crisis, war and catastrophe in order to convince the public at 
large of the importance of what goes on in the world. In this visual 
civilization, text is assigned the role of support function. As a 
subtitle or credit it disappears to the edge, while in the visual 
language of the video clip it flashes in the center as a rhythmic 
eye-catcher. Impossible theory does not compete with these media in a bid 
for popularity, but lets itself be dictated by the media it cannot do 
without. The world offers unlimited material, but ideas are limited and 
transient.

The formulation of adiltexts is drudgery compared to the dimension of 
data communication. Although notes are preferably made in a flush of 
intoxication, production time seems endless. Not because it is preceded 
by such thorough research, or because the final version took so long. 
Deleting, rewriting, improving or discussing is remarkably unpopular 
among adilknoists, and is done only on pain of a whole new story - "'tis 
only text." To us, satanic verses are not worth a war. Words are things, 
ways of looking at the world: and the eyes need a long time to adjust to 
a new view. Adilkno only works for slow media; after months of deadlines, 
it never sees its texts again (if at all) until six months later, by 
which time of course it has changed its outlook again.

The adiltext is difficult, but never causes misunderstandings regarding 
the permissibility of its point. Here, the dangerous text about the risky 
subject is played out and ruled out. Adilkno takes a warm interest in 
every taboo in the world, but feels no urge to break them. It is not 
concerned with open flirtations with (or another rehash of) the body of 
thought of the glorious 1920s and '30s which examined the limits, depths 
and heights of existence in the era of technology. With adilkno, the 
world begins after 1945. The text has lost its deadly sting, and will 
never regain it. This observation lies at the basis of every adiltext.

Adilkno the author has always been a third mind: two guys and a 
typewriter. The acquisition of PCs has done little to change this 
attitude. Adiltexts cannot be produced by a single author; it takes two, 
four, many. The con-cocted text is not the sum of individuals, but 
something completely different, an accumulation of insights and blunders 
which the adilknoist alone could never have cooked up. The components of 
the perfect Gesamtauthor all carry their own data, stubbornly connecting 
them to small grievances in order to formulate adilknowledgeable 
patterns. The presence of the others ensures that biases and pettiness 
are mutually extinguished, leaving the adiltext with "observation as 
ideas." Adilkno is a mind-expanding substance. 

The author's name is not an alias, but symbolizes a gay method, a 
short-circuiting, a telephone conversation. Adilkno is both cheerful 
theory and "happy writer." It is not a group, movement, syndicate, 
commune, or society, although oddly enough it is known as an agency in 
Greater Germany. From the beginning, it has been a foundation in 
formation. Adilkno has no membership or sponsors, although it does have a 
traveling ambassador, a special honorary member for life and a political 
commissioner. Without taking the least interest in each other's 
particular angles, all participants just dump whatever they happen to be 
carrying along. It all depends on who or what drops in on an adiltext in 
progress. 

"Sometimes a third party will call me up and say, "Did you see or read 
such & such 'cos that was totally Adilknoish," and I would have to 
disagree completely because it falls far below any standards of 
Adilknoship. Usually. Furthermore, I get the impression that Adilkno is 
often seen as a signal, a horn, or a guard dog; however, we may bite but 
we neither bark nor honk."

In dealing with the media, adilkno does not ask itself how one may be 
initiated, but excommunicated. The text does not write itself out because 
it constantly switches from association to idea to info to deduction to 
the next sentence, but because it disconnects and causes breaches in 
thinking, theoretical casualties and discontinuities. The rule of 
switching is that one thing leads to another; that of disconnecting, that 
one thing leads to something entirely different. The goal is not 
profundity, but tension. Analysis does not try to make, but to break 
connections. The result is textual frictions, disagreements, 
misunderstandings, failed or successful pranks. Concepts which once kept 
each other at a distance now collide. In interrupted writing, the rites 
of passage are reversed: from initiation to excommunication. Adilkno has 
achieved its goal if the general attitude becomes that of "Blah-blah-blah 
- oh well, it's only media." To tear and pull at the concept of "media" 
is a gratifying task. Media are a container with an unprecedented volume. 
They seem to encompass the entire world. Media theory sets out on an 
expedition over the edge of the medial planet, quite aware that it is 
round. It turns out that media omnipotence can be denied by going 
extraterrestrial. "We are here to go." The media are no primordial 
uncarved block - their surface reveals cracks and patterns, which are 
brought to light by the alien angle. 

Media theory extracts its energy and materials from the media. It is not 
after symbiosis, but seeks to suck its host dry as parasitic theory. Its 
stake is not the revivification of connections, nor the return of the 
social, nor the reconstruction of the interhuman, nor the recovery of the 
decaying body. There are no positive goals to be discovered. Media theory 
is fatal to media. 
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