Chess RHIZOME and Phase Space: Mapping Metaphor Theory onto Hypertext Theory

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Intcrtcxa, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1999 Chess RHIZOME and Phase Space: Mapping Metaphor Theory onto Hypertext Theory Martin E. Rosenberg K e t t e r i n g U n i v e r s i t y I n t r o d u c t i o n Chess RHIZOME is ahypertext Ihave constructed to explore across disciplinary boundaries the range of references to chess, the chessboard, its pieces,itsrules,andthepeculiarrolethattimeplaysintheprocessof unfolding the game itself (Figure 1). The method informing RHIZOME’sdesigndrawsontheworkofGillesDcleuzeintheforgingof contingentalliancesamongthedisciplinesofscience,philosophy,andthe arts,forthepurposeofconductingepistemologicalinvestigations.The motiveforthisprojectistoexploremetaphor(ortropesmoregener^y)as asite for interdisciphnary study. Particularly, Chess RHIZOME exploits the unstable nature of Richard Boyd’s Theory Constitutive Metaphor (TCA^ as aground for epistemological criticism, by mapping the logics of Ae drift of the chess trope across disciplinary boundaries, in order to make visible its culturalwork.Thethreeparticularlogicsthatthishypertextprojectat¬ temptstomodelare:1)genealogical:thecausaldriftofatropefromone to another; 2) naive: the opaque, unselfconscious use of apamcm^ trope, with an uncritical acceptance of its epistemological baggage; and 3) ironic:thetransparentandself-conscioususeofaparticulartrope,witha skepticalperspectiveonitsepistemologicalbaggage.LaterintWsessay will discuss these three tropic logics as amethodology for interdisciphnary science studies. Fundamentalquestionsneedtobeaskedabouttheroleofmetapor andothertropesintheformationofepistemologyattheheartofscieimc practices.Atthesametime,questionsalsoneedtobeaskedaboutow tropicborrowingsfromthesciencesbythoseoutsideofthesciencesproper becomeimplicatedinandseducedbythoseepistemologies.Inother words:howdothoseoutsideofsciencegoaboutcarryingtheepistemologi¬ cal and ideological baggage that becomes transferred to other domains by meansofthesetropes.^Howself-consciousaretheyofthatbaggage? Gilles Deleuze speaks specifically of the need, in order to understand whatispossibletoknowataparticularmomentinhistory,tocreatelinks amongphilosophicalconcepts,artisticconstructs,andscientificfunctions. Healsoarguesthattheforgingoftheselinksrequiresacertainflexibility,so thatthemobilityoftheimpliedrelationshipsreflectsthecontingenciesof the historical moment in which these relationships are forged. Icall the u s e r 1 4 7 1 4 8 I N T E R T E X T S Game Theory Linguistics Computational Science Thermodynamics C o m m u n i c a t i o n s Military Science P o l i t i c a l S c i e n c e Mao Tze Tung John von N e u m a t m John H o U a n d C l a u d e S h a n n o n H e n r i Bergson M a r k M c P h a U Physics Philosophy Mathemadcs Ludwig Wittgenstein Chess History and Theory F e r d i n a n d d e S a u s s u r c H i s t o r y Henri Poincari I r o n i c N a i v e C l e r k M a x w e l l Ilya Ptigogine Chess RHIZOME i n t r o d u e d o n Richard Feynman Allegory M o d e l Oswald Spcngler Hayden White Jacques Derrida Richard Boyd Metaphor Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari S a e v a n B e r c o v i t c h Walter Benjamin Marcel Italo Calvino Lionnais Duchamp Samuel B e c k e n E z r a P o u n d Georges T . S . E U o t L e Perec V l a d i m i r N a b o k o v Raymond Queneau JorgesLuisBorges Edgar Allan Poe Joseph Beuys John T h o m a s Pynchon Cage John T. Irwin H u b e r t D a m i s c h U m b e r t o E c o A r t H i s t o r y Literary Cridcism M u s i c V i s u a l A r t s Poetry D r a m a F i e d o n Figure 1. “Chess RHIZOME” navigational map. The academic disciplines are arrayed on the outside, while individual authors from all disciplines using the metaphor, and the range of linkages among them, are grouped on the inside, as if to visually represent how the investiga¬ tion of their use of metaphor lies in arealm beneath or between individual disciplines. conceptual space where such links may be forged as “the field of interpre¬ tive immanence,” and this space must be defined in terms of these links themselves and in terms of the specific historical moments where different domains of knowledge intersect. That field may be conceived in terms of the structures of varying stability (often described...