Hi there - In hopes of being able to cogently contribute to this week's discussion, some of you may find a clip from one of my earlier video pieces to be of interest - Leave little to be Desired. It was my MFA thesis piece ( 1989 ! ) that functioned as both a single channel and installation piece. The piece posted on Vimeo is a short compilation of clips from the lengthier video. And, yes, technically speaking it was digitally created - way back then- in the days of behemoth machines with very long rendering timelines ....
https://vimeo.com/44560594 Chris On Jun 21, 2012, at 7:42 AM, Lauren Berlant wrote: > I don't disagree with that--the Auge is great--but maybe we could push a bit > harder on the relation of the transitional to the transformational here, and > on the relation of class to sexuality. In the hotel, the customer is getting > to suspend who she was when not on vacation from herself in the way Auge > suggests (the non-place inducing the habitation of self-misalignment) but the > servant's relation to her is exactly what a servant's relation is, > professional voyeurism as care that, when it has sexual or subjective > consequences, has to be kept to oneself. It isn't a non place for the > servant. > > LB > Sent from my iPad > > On Jun 21, 2012, at 9:24 AM, Ana Valdes <agora...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> But a hotel is also a way for the nomadic to rest for a while to interact >> with others to listen to gossip to drink to eat to sleep in a bed made by >> some other than oneself. >> The hotel is always transitional a non-place as an airport or a motorway if >> we follow the anthropologist Marc Auge's theory Non-Places. >> Ana >> >> Skickat från min iPhone >> >> 21 jun 2012 kl. 11:13 skrev Lauren Berlant <lberl...@aol.com>: >> >>> Hi all! I just thought I'd float a few thoughts. >>> >>> 1. The juxtaposition of Jordan's "Hotel" to Montgomery's "Transitional >>> Objects" does raise lots of questions about what kinds of refusal to >>> produce a narrow-veined kinship cluster of likenesses and samenesses do to >>> the general queer project of expanding the plane on which relationality >>> appears as a scene in the psychoanalytic and criminal senses, a moving >>> object and a moving target. >>> >>> In Jennifer's piece the mutilated recombined dolls produce no anchor but an >>> anxiety about how to stay in relation; while in Jordan's piece the erotics >>> of stuckness, of a binding to the signifiers of desire, can become both >>> fetishistic of what appetite stands for and, because dedramatized by the >>> music and slow, inarticulate mise en scene, drained of fetishism's drama to >>> demythify or intensify the sign. Hotel in a way is about not a desire for >>> expansive perverse queered transition but a queer stuckness that doesn't >>> expand into the world but expands time into the enigma of relation itself, >>> on the verge of shattering without the fetish's drama and pseudo-finality. >>> >>> >>> 2. This leads me back to Zach's insistence on negativity as that which >>> seems negative: withdrawal, subtraction, immeasurability, escape from >>> capture. I said this to Zach last spring when we were talking about the >>> common and sex, so this is where we are stuck, but: I think it's a mistake >>> to take the state's biopolitical aesthetics of the subject's and a >>> population's forced appearance and translation into data as the defining >>> taxonomy of the moment, because by copying the dominant fetishizing idiom, >>> repeating its own profound stupidity about the relation of information and >>> knowledge, even in resistance to it, you reproduce its idiom as the idiom >>> of the world. Any representation of relational processes (or of >>> object/scenes, as I call them) makes a new closet and a new disturbance. >>> Practices of exposure and literalization are false comforts. (I feel this >>> as well about the romance of the nomad--being a nomad is a lot scarier and >>> incoherently scavenging than Braidotti suggests! That's one way to read >>> Patricia's poem...) >>> >>> I think it's a sign of the crisis of the reproduction of life that the >>> world's "we" are in that literalization, the sheer immeasurable description >>> of the materiality of affect in action and relation, is everywhere seen as >>> necessary for a new realism. >>> >>> XxoL >>> Sent from my iPad >>> >>> On Jun 20, 2012, at 6:56 AM, Ana Valdés <agora...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> I saw in the city of Umeå in the North of Sweden a very interesting >>>> exhibition, "Lost and Found Queerying the Archive". The curators Jane >>>> Rowley and Louise Wolthers built the show around some central and >>>> pivotal questions: identity, love and sexuality. Many of the voices >>>> presented are anonymous, people questioning themselves, searching for >>>> some belonging, for some identity, asking themselves about normality >>>> and normativity. The norms are made of conventions and consensus, >>>> agreements, historical memes written on people's experiences and >>>> stories. >>>> For me personally it was a great "aha" moment to read Rosi Braidottis >>>> "Nomadic Subjects", a book where she writes about our fragmented >>>> identities, our ability to wander between different identities and >>>> belongings but not staying in one. >>>> Ana >>>> >>>> On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 2:44 AM, Zach Blas <zachb...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> hi all-- >>>>> >>>>> i’m finally jumping in here again after some great posts from >>>>> patricia, lauren, jordan, and jack again! >>>>> >>>>> i’d really like to pull in some empyre subscribers to this discussion, >>>>> so i wonder if we can try to tackle some more general questions about >>>>> the stakes and stances around affect and its relations to queerness, >>>>> digital technology/media, and political art. >>>>> >>>>> patricia and lauren, you have already somewhat laid this out, but i >>>>> think it would be great to hear more about how you parse affect and >>>>> feelings and what those frameworks / structures of thinking permit, >>>>> enhance, delimit, enclose. in my experience, discussions around affect >>>>> always run up against conflicting approaches to defining it as well as >>>>> how it relates to feelings or emotions. >>>>> >>>>> patricia, it seems that many theorists and writers who focus on >>>>> technology, the nonhuman, and the new materialisms you have already >>>>> mentioned engage affect through a deleuzian / spinozan approach. and >>>>> they do so because it affords them a particular way to think technical >>>>> / nonhuman materials. it seems like one of the critiques we could >>>>> think about here is the one that jack has already brought up, which is >>>>> on the use of high theory and a politics of citations. do you think >>>>> its possible to explore this strand of affect through low theory? do >>>>> you know of anyone who is doing this? in this area of deleuze, affect, >>>>> queerness, and feminism, luciana parisi has talked about a fundamental >>>>> queerness through her notion of abstract sex and claire colebrook has >>>>> also considered how doing theory could be fundamentally queer. i’m >>>>> just really curious how the feminist new materialisms, which engage >>>>> affect and queerness, could align/overlap with jack halberstam’s >>>>> investments in a low theory and what that might look like--or what it >>>>> already looks like if someone is doing this....and for this week, how >>>>> low theory and high theory differently impact and shape our >>>>> understandings and experiences of affect. >>>>> >>>>> lauren, thanks for bringing in the transitional objects video! i >>>>> wonder if was can all take a look at a recent work by jordan crandall >>>>> called “hotel.” http://vimeo.com/7091631 maybe we can think about the >>>>> relations and (dis)alignments between these two videos and how they >>>>> convey affect. notably, jordan’s piece does not use language, while >>>>> the other piece has consistent speaking. >>>>> >>>>> maybe another way to think about affect, queerness, and technology is >>>>> around capture, withdrawal, and escape. i’m pretty taken by recent >>>>> theories of escape, invisibility, refusals of recognition, tactics of >>>>> nonexistence, becoming imperceptible. personally, i’ve been really >>>>> interested in how alex galloway and eugene thacker have framed this >>>>> around what they identify as the coming era of “universal standards of >>>>> identification,” which of course are already here with devices like >>>>> biometrics. “henceforth,” they write, “the lived environment will be >>>>> divided into identifiable zones and nonidentifiable zones, and >>>>> nonidentifiables will be the shadowy new ‘criminal’ classes–those that >>>>> do not identify.” this is something phil agre has also written about, >>>>> what he calls the capture model and grammars of action. different from >>>>> surveillance, capture is specific to our information age and grammars >>>>> of action are what capture produces. arge writes that “the capture >>>>> model describes the situation that results when grammars of action are >>>>> imposed upon human activities and when the newly reorganized >>>>> activities are represented by computers in real time.” >>>>> >>>>> i bring this all up because i’m generally interested in affect, >>>>> capture, and measurability. since i recently read a lot of hardt & >>>>> negri for my prelim exams this spring, immeasurability and beyond >>>>> measure surfaced a lot. this is a pretty open-ended question at this >>>>> point, but i’m just wondering if anyone has thoughts on affect’s >>>>> relation to (im)measurability and capture--and how that might weigh on >>>>> queerness and feminism... >>>>> >>>>> thanks! >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> zach blas >>>>> artist & phd candidate >>>>> literature, information science + information studies, visual studies >>>>> duke university >>>>> www.zachblas.info >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> empyre forum >>>>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au >>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> http://writings-escrituras.tumblr.com/ >>>> http://maraya.tumblr.com/ >>>> http://www.twitter.com/caravia158 >>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/ >>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia >>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/gender-issues/ >>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/literary-exiles/ >>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/museums-and-ethics/ >>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0 >>>> http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/ >>>> >>>> cell Sweden +4670-3213370 >>>> cell Uruguay +598-99470758 >>>> >>>> >>>> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth >>>> with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you >>>> will always long to return. >>>> — Leonardo da Vinci >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
