----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Dear Alessandra,
thank you for your reply. Along the pole of an analytic that is able to
be performed immanently, with aesthetic as well as analytical
possibilities, is there not a risk here of falling into what Whitehead
called the "fallacy of concretization"? The aesthetic dis-assumes the
substance that the analytic presumes; liquid disavows the concreteness
that blackness needs for analytical efficacy. (This is a common fallacy
for rhetorics around performativity and "immanent critique".)
But I have not yet read your essay and perhaps you answer this there.
Beckett, re-membering (it is not present in Augustine) St. Augustine's
"beautiful sentence": "Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved; do
not presume, one of the thieves was damned."
Best,
Simon
On 17/04/16 02:13, Alessandra Raengo wrote:
----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Dear Simon,
liquid blackness is meant to do at least two things, which I have described in
this discussion as its two poles:
one the one hand, it is meant to work as a diagnostic tool which helps us
understand the tremendous amount of desire and affect that is attached to
blackness, even when it is not immediately understood in racial terms (the way
it works in Under the Skin, as already discussed, is a great example of that;
or, as I have written about, the way it works in Nick Hooker’s video for Grace
Jones, Corporate Cannibal: https://vimeo.com/1306326 ). So in this sense, I
would not say that liquid blackness is wearable, but rather that it describes
fantasies of wearability and immersion.
On the other hand “liquid blackness” expresses aesthetic possibilities where
blackness is understood to function as an expansive force. Here it can function
also as a reading strategy that looks for lines of flight, modes of expansion,
experimentation, and so on. It is post-identitarian, not in the sense that it
leaves black people behind, but rather in the sense that it is not attached to
a representational paradigm.
Since the beginning of this month’s discussion I have been trying to offer a
short and snappy version of an essay I wrote to prepare for our first symposium
on liquid blackness which had Derek Murray and Hamza Walker as keynotes (Spring
2014). Two weeks into our discussion I realize that there are a lot of moves
that essay makes which I cannot summarize without depleting the argument from
some of its nuances. So, if you are so inclined, maybe some answers might be
found there.
The essay is on our website (under “publications” and it’s contained in LB2),
or you can access it through this link:
https://www.academia.edu/7234487/Blackness_Aesthetics_Liquidity
There I tried to show not only the ambivalence of liquid blackness but also how to move
through it, so to speak, in order to perform what I am now beginning to understand might
be some type of “immanent critique”. In this sense, the challenge and the productivity
of the idea of "liquid blackness" lies in the fact that it is a “lens” that
matches its objects (a terrible metaphor in this case, because it’s not liquid at all)
and yet it remains also always in excess of them.
This is why I believe that, even though one might get the sense that “liquid
blackness” is everything and nothing at the same time, or that its ambivalence
is so profound that it becomes useless, I actually think that it is something
one has to get in the thick of, for it to work as an analytical tool.
I hope this helps.
I welcome these opportunities for clarification. I hope I was able to provide
some
Alessandra
Alessandra Raengo, PhD
Associate Professor, Moving Image Studies
Department of Communication, Georgia State University
PO Box 5060, Atlanta GA 30302-5060
Office: 25 Park Place South, #1010
404 413-5691
arae...@gsu.edu
www.liquidblackness.com
https://gsu.academia.edu/AlessandraRaengo
http://gsucommunicationgradstudies.wordpress.com
On Apr 15, 2016, at 6:34 PM, simon <s...@clear.net.nz> wrote:
----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Dear <<empyreans>>, Derek, Alessandra,
a question, reentering the discussion, after confer(abs)ence (one that plays in
some part into the discussion with its themes, Ritual & Cultural Performance,
being a Hui and a Symposium, and having a strong Maori presence, liquidly
endarkening ...) ... What, given its ambivalence, given it can suit the individual
user or wearer, is liquid blackness meant to do?
(And in appreciation of the confer(abs)ence of a subject)
Best,
Simon
On 16/04/16 01:45, Derek Murray wrote:
----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Hi Murat,
My apologies for the slow reply.
Blackness is a highly contested terminology, so I would say that my
definition of it would defer from the other respondents. Perhaps we
should individually define it? I suggest asking Tommy, since I was
initially responding to his query.
Derek
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3a%2f%2fempyre.library.cornell.edu&data=01%7c01%7caraengo%40gsu.edu%7c478180510173417d667b08d365952618%7c515ad73d8d5e4169895c9789dc742a70%7c0&sdata=qGC3a4hU0GljT0016QmA%2fPh2eR5ADzrjwc0QpD7J8W4%3d
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
