Wow Patricia this is amazing. I'm still reading through it. I'm such a huge fan of Bollas by the way.
One could, in OOO terms, imagine Bollas's objects as part of a region of what Harman an I call sensual objects, which inhabit the interzone between things. Or as Marcia, my new (and sadly about to retire) administrator says, "Art happens in the liminal space between things." Tim http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com On Jun 16, 2012, at 7:20 PM, "Clough, Patricia" <pclo...@gc.cuny.edu> wrote: > I am not sure this got through since I am also missing some of Tim's I > think but I will put it here below but first. Just to say that objects in > OOO are not objectifications or mere things or commodities. A turn to > ontology (whether OOO or feminist queer ones) is to give us a sense that > objects differ from themselves; they exude temporality. They are lively > before or without human consciousness. I think this arouses more respect > for the environment and the cosmos not to mention human beings and other > living things. This seems especially important in raising questions about > the boundary between species and organic and nonorganic. If those > technosciences we worry about are doing what they are doing that worries us > we need to imagine an ontology that meets their capacity in order to think > the possibilities of politics. But of course OOO/SR isn't everything that > is needed. And so I am interested in how we write or argue or philosophize > We need poetry a > nd artistry so we can have hesitancy and allusion where causality is > alluring.... And so the reference by Michael ( I think) to transitional > objects is something I want to take up. I prefer Bollas's transformational > objects that Lauren Berlant makes such good use of in her work recently > again in Cruel Optimism. Patricia > > (repeat maybye ) > Well starting off in the last week is difficult. So much going on over the > last three weeks. Thanks to Zach and Micha for the invite and to everyone > else offering some great thoughts to ponder. > > > As for discussion around feminism, queer and OOO/ SR There are (still/even > more) worrisome issues of oppression, exploitation and repression that > come to mind with queer, feminist, postcolonial, anti-race, debility > theoretical/political formations but there also are troubles which are > before us, feminist neoliberalism or pink washing and queer, for examples. > Politically, institutional arrangements are much more complicated than > identity politics sometimes presented itself as being in the demand for > subject recognition which led to decades of debate on the truth of > representation and the deconstruction of the authority of discourse with a > hesitancy to reference the real in support. Here a certain > Althusserian/Lacanianism played a weighty part and then add Derrida > Spivak Butler Foucault Berlant, Sedgwick and more. For many of us this work > has been a go to intellectual and political resource for some time. Clearly > these authors put philosophy intimately i > n play with a politics (often Marxism, and then Marxism plus) that was > easily felt in their work. In OOO/SR , this tight connection is less > obvious if there at all. What I do not want to overlook however is that > OOO/SR came when the former (not necessarily the thinkers themselves) was not > easily working as an intellectual resource in the face of several issues: > what to be said about political economy except to say again and again > neoliberalism or even biopolitics (even though I keep saying those); what is > to be said about subjectivity and the unconscious after deconstruction and > along with a profound transformation in social media; what is to be said > about the human, the organism as figure of life, about matter after > posthumanism and with the development of various technologies we should call > biotechnologies (but now all technology seems to have always been) or even > more incredible nanotechnologies? What to say about the persistence but > varied forms of racism oppr e > ssion exploitation? How to let all this feed back to rethinking our > philosophical assumptions? > > I think that for some of us OOO/SR made us think again about the intellectual > resources for our work and how to address some of the questions I just raised > by turning us to ontological issues beyond constructivism asking us to > critically address the assimilating act of human consciousness embedded in > most of our materialisms (thus the new materialisms and a recent paper by > Liz Grosz on matter and life is exquisite here) . This new materialisms > comes in part as a response to recent developments in technoscience and as a > social scientist (of sorts) I am so aware that social science leans on > scientific assumptions if not ideals that need updating to say the least. But > I think this is the case for many of our materialisms. This rethinking of > technoscience including digital technologies has in part raised interest in > OOO/SR and that is the case for me. But I am not sure that the elective > affinity between digital technologies, the growth of computational studies > and al > gorithm studies etc. and OOO/SR yet has been well stated. I do not think > that all OOO/SR thinkers find this to be central while some do. Debates > around OOO/SR with which Steven Shaviro is involved usually speak to digital > technology (and Bogost of course) All this to say that the 'affect' that > I have most written about is the Spinoza Deleuze Whitehead Masssumi Parisi > version (although I want to talk more about feelings and emotions this week). > The Spinoza Deleuze Whitehead Masssumi Parisi version of affect I believe > has always required an ontological shift (which is central to the Affective > Turn volume). That ontological shift has everything to do with the way > affect is experienced through a technological intensification since it is > otherwise preconscious if not nonconscious and a-social While language > generally is an intensifier I have been more interested in intensifications > that did not necessarily raise to consciousness but simply intensified > experienc e > inciting resonances rhythmicities oscillations etc. and which then could > be about bodies other than human ones or organic ones--queering body. This > seemed to require an ontological shift, one involving matter. I have been > arguing for some time that matter is affective or informational (well maybe > we should just say energy) and this led me to OOO/SR. But before checking > out OOO/SR I was much indebted to Deleuze and the others and since > studying OOO/SR I feel the noteworthy tension between Deleuzians and > OOO/SR (although there are those trying to negotiate the tension as I am). > During the next week I want to offer some thoughts (and can't wait for > response and interventions) about this tension in relationship to affect. I > hope we can discussion more the recent focus on aesthetics which has enabled > me to think in the tension rather than against it and find a way as well to > dwell in rather than simply put an end to the aporia between ontology and > e p > istemology that affect and non-human perception produces. I think > aesthetics and the turn to Whitehead's rereading of Kant points to a way to > engage the liveliness of what Eugene Thacker calls a world without us or > not for us. > > Finally, during the first week I much enjoyed all the sites to which I was > sent and all the efforts to make stuff, queer stuff, with digital technology > as well as with other technologies. This doing along with thinking (crude > way of putting it) seems important to a critical engagement with what we once > would have called knowledge production. Looking forward to ongoing > conversation(s) Patricia > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________________ > From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au > [empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Michael O'Rourke > [tranquilised_i...@yahoo.com] > Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 7:40 PM > To: soft_skinned_space > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] the real and reality in speculative realism and OOO/P > > Hi Tim! Cheers for your thoughts. Take a look at Christina's work here: > > http://www.christinamcphee.net/ > > I think it resonates in many ways with yours. > > M. > > > > --- On Sat, 16/6/12, Timothy Morton <timothymorton...@gmail.com> wrote: > > From: Timothy Morton <timothymorton...@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] the real and reality in speculative realism and OOO/P > To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au > Date: Saturday, 16 June, 2012, 23:25 > > Hi Everyone, > > This is my first (or possibly second if the other got through) message to the > list, and I'm responding to a brief discussion of the notion of flat ontology > initiated by Michael O'Rourke (hi Michael!) and Frederic Neyrat. > > OOO comes in various flavors and is not necessarily flat. Mine and Graham > Harman's has two levels. Levi Bryant's and Ian Bogost's have one, but differ > in how that one level works. > > Other forms of realism such as Manuel De Landa's are flat, or flatter, than > OOO. > > Frederic I'm a Derridean and the idea of the singularity is my idea of the > strange stranger, which is Derrida's arrivant. > > Just apply this notion of arrivant to non-life and you get the OOO "object." > > You can have all the singularities you want in a non-all and by definition > non-hierarchical set, which is the OOO universe. > > Yours, Tim > > > -- > > Ecology without Nature<http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/> > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > _______________________________________________ > empyre forum > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au</mc/compose?to=empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre > > _______________________________________________ > empyre forum > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au > http://www.subtle.net/empyre _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
