Interesting that at a time when planetary survival is in jeopardy, analysts shd return to a geological metaphor. Does history then equal stratigraphy?
> On Apr 25, 2021, at 11:27 AM, Brian Holmes <[email protected]> > wrote: > >  >> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 3:27 AM <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> This depth narrative has never been without its critics later >> structuralists and post-structuralists inverted the story by celebrating >> the surface at the expense of depth. [...] From a visual arts standpoint >> I have always seen this tussle as echoing the arrival of Warhol on the >> scene whose slippery serious anti-seriousness effectively disrupted >> Abstract Expressionism’s existentialist claims to psychological depth. > > I think the notion of "depth" stands in for interpretation, aka hermeneutics. > There can be a liberating effect when a dominant hermeneutic is swept aside, > but then, disorientation ensues. I experienced that pretty strongly in the > 1980s, when both the post-structuralist "free play of the signifier" and the > recombinant commercial imagery of pop art (eg, Jeff Koons) were at their > height in the US. At the time a novel by Don DeLillo, "Mao II" which directly > references Warhol, allowed me to understand the relationship between those > two trends. > > Today, most societies are affected by profound disorientation in the face of > inequality, climate change, and their knock-on effects (fascistic populism, > revolt of oppressed peoples). In the US right now there is a pervasive > concern with hermeneutics or so-called grand narratives. The analysis of big > data is supposed to reveal the hidden mechanisms of social interaction - > that's one version, a mathematized hermeneutics. The history of colonialism > is supposed to reveal how racialized injustice is rooted in White > subjectivity - that's another version, connected to highly active minority > struggles. Broader histories of the rise and fall of civilizations (Hariri, > Tainter, even David Graeber) are supposed to reveal what comes after the fall > of liberal empire. All of these are, for sure, secularized versions of the > interpretative practices of religion, particularly Christianity which is > hermeneutic to the core. > > I don't think this hermeneutic turn can be brushed away. For people in > distress (and that's a lot of us) finding "meaning" is nothing other than > reconciling your perception of a damaged world with your aspiration to a > better one. Currently I belong to a group called Deep Time Chicago. Its aim > is to understand how the relative stability of the earth system is disrupted > by the "fossil institutions" that we can see at work in our city - the steel > mills, the refineries and petrochemical industries, the airports and > freeways, the water and sewage systems, the conversion of all the arable > hinterland to GMO agriculture for global trade, etc. Our approach comes > directly from geology (the model of scientific depth interpretation, as David > pointed out), but it's a geology that in its turn has been transformed by a > full-fledged master narrative: earth system science, also known as Gaia > Theory. > > Struggles over interpretation are difficult and fractious. But if you want to > set a collective course toward a viable existence, I am not sure there is > another way. > > thoughtfully, Brian > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
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