Re: [-empyre-] Meillassoux / Harman
Dear All I agree with Ian that reading is helpful and interesting Just finishing Democracy of Objects by Levi Bryant I can say there is quite a bit of exposition there. Difference between him and Graham (and much that is similar) Differences between him and Deleuze (also some similarities) and Lacan and Zizek all there and clearly. And all clarifying about ideas and materiality, objects and subjects and even politics. I think what gets confusing is how to take this new upsurge in philosophical thought and I think that is a matter of one's own intellectual searchWhile OOO has been accompanied by an interest in objects and animals and computers (in the rather conventional sense) OOO is not primarily about thatIt is an ontology and so has to be brought to those different inquires in a way that demands one's own desires interests not to mention a subject matter that may be alluring.For me this is a matter of writing or creating--to join with the creations shared over the past weeks. Writing is my way of queering the intimacies between philosophy, politics, aesthetics and my own field sociology. P From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Ian Bogost [ian.bog...@lcc.gatech.edu] Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 11:28 AM To: soft_skinned_space Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Meillassoux / Harman A chair is a chair. A picture of a chair is a picture of a chair. A definition of a chair is a definition of a chair. None are all chairs, but all have something to do with chairs. At least, that's the OOO contention. There are no planes of existence… except for Harman (and Tim, to some extent), who distinguishes sensual from real objects. For Graham, the idea of a chair is different from the real chair, which recedes from all encounters. I think this is maybe the conclusion you arrive at in your second paragraph below. NOTHING about OOO privileges the material (i.e., the tangible, physical) chair primacy over the others. As for the same weight — well, that depends on what you mean by weight. What do you mean? I hate to say it, but it's maybe not possible to make further progress without reading some of this material in depth… Ian On Jun 25, 2012, at 3:13 AM, davin heckman wrote: Ian and Tim, Do the differences with which we treat objects syncs up with ontological difference, and thus, is there something to some of the different categorizations we could possibly develop for objects? I do think there is plenty of room to see these things from a fresh perspective, but I also wonder if not, for instance, Kosuth's chairs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_and_Three_Chairs highlight the ways that discrete objects can differ from each other, but also the ways in which there are consistencies that can yoke them together in odd ways. A picture of a chair is not a chair, a definition of chair is not a chair, instructions about a chair is not a chair, a chair as a sculpture is not necessarily a chair. yet, in some fundamental way, all are chairs in a general sense of their concept and recognition. Put all three things together, and you have a chair which occupies all three planes of existence simultaneously. On the other hand, they can occupy niches within conceptual frameworks (a chair within a game, for instance, can be very real to the other objects in the game). Each way of recognizing the chair (the picture, instructions, the chair as chair, chair as sculpture, three chairs as conceptual work, etc) would suggest that each is a distinct object in some sense, which makes me wonder then, whether or not all other possible thoughts about a chair have being, or if we afford the material object of the chair primacy. In which case, does a digital rendering of the chair carry the same weight as an unexpressed idea about a chair, too. At some point, doesn't ontology lead into this thicket? Davin On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 9:08 PM, Ian Bogost ian.bog...@lcc.gatech.edumailto:ian.bog...@lcc.gatech.edu wrote: There is no reason why holding that everything exists equally entails reducing all that can be known about a being to a simple recognition of being. Ian On Jun 24, 2012, at 5:44 AM, davin heckman wrote: I agree, this is a good starting point that all things that exist have being as their common condition of existence (that is, they are not not beings), which is a sort of foundational ontological similarity. But if the only significant ontological claim we can make about things is either yes or no, do they exist or not, then this means all things carry this single quality, which is to say that there is no difference between things. If we admit difference, then we must account for those differences in meaningful ways. For instance, waffle #1 differs from waffle #2 in a different way than waffle #1 differs from a toaster (or waffle #1 changes in the
Re: [-empyre-] Week 4 - Bio/Nano/Materialisms
Yes my more Deleuzian self argues that affect is at every scale of matter. Matter is affective. Luciana Parisi also has recently argued similarly. This would not work with all OOO's or speculative realism. p From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Heather Davis [heathermarga...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2012 8:27 PM To: soft_skinned_space Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Week 4 - Bio/Nano/Materialisms Hi all, Apologies for my tardy arrival. I am so excited to be a part of this conversation with each of you, and find myself stunned by the quality of thought and engagement of my brilliant interlocutors here. Thank you for your contributions so for and to Zach and Micha for initiating and curating this conversation. I am curious about the way in which the nano, in each of your work, becomes a kind of significant imperceptibility. I am thinking about how, in a previous discussion this month, the idea of 'queer is everywhere' was broached. My initial reaction to this was a kind of doubt, not trusting the utopic overtones, nor the amorphous quality of the statement that lacked the dissensus that characterizes politics. What I appreciate about the nano, in each of your works, Pinar, Ricardo, and Elle, is the way in which this kind of utopic moment of the viral meets with an politics of imperceptibility not as simply an aversion or counter-move to surveillant systems (of sex, the state, n eoliberal corporate models, etc.) but as an imperceptibility that moves through the body to make significant changes. It makes me wonder about the nano as being a kind of material corollary of affect - that which carries a force, but is seen through its effects, rather than in a chain of causes or origins. this is indeed a queer position, a kind of passing that is important in its movement, of what it touches and shifts, that is locatable in its actions. the nano seems particularly adapted to this kind of effect, movement. I cannot present here as beautiful a summary of the work that I am doing, as it has yet to begin. Aside from dirt, which I love because of its contaminating/contaminated qualities, because of its amorphousness and its ability to be distinct while encompassing a range of materials, metaphors, etc, I have become increasingly fascinated with plastic. It marks our current age that is seemingly ubiquitous, unfathomable (in its scale, duration, reach) and also makes the nano a human possibility. for it is only because of the creation of purely synthetic polymers that we both have the ability to manipulate things at a nanoscale, and are able to perceive the nano as a separate measurable scale. I am interested in the way in which plastic, as a medium, connects to a politics of imperceptibility. heather. On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Clough, Patricia pclo...@gc.cuny.edumailto:pclo...@gc.cuny.edu wrote: Thanks to all who engaged during week 3 and welcome week 4Patricia From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.aumailto:empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.aumailto:empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Elle Mehrmand [ellemehrm...@gmail.commailto:ellemehrm...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:43 PM To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.aumailto:empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Subject: [-empyre-] Week 4 - Bio/Nano/Materialisms Hello out there, I am honored to have this opportunity to neuro-jaculate on this list. The notions of materialisms/ immaterialisms/ bio-materialisms/ -erialisms, within the context of the bio-political, bring to mind the pixellated flesh of my holographic/ fauxlographic clones who live in my most recent performative installation entitled fauxlographic. For the past year I have been working within the speculative space of an ethno-dysphoric cloning laboratory, where diasporic anxiety is analyzed through the process of fauxlographic cloning. The clones enact sonic rituals, singing in Farsi, English and Perz-ish [a faux-ish language], based on multiple sources of information including embodied memories, wikileaks cables, and textual/ visual/ aural references concerning Iran and Persia. The ethno-dysphoric scientist analyzes her dislocated subjectivity by performing a daily neurotic ritual within a glass computing chamber while wearing an EEG neuro-headset. As she neuro-jaculates with the clones in order to (pars)e their data streams, the diasporic computing sounds of the EEG oscillate in pitch based on her neural activity. When high levels of CO2 are detected by the lab's sensors, the clones become aware of those gazing upon them, resulting in an anxious act of erasure and multiplication of their pixellated flesh on the fauxlographic screen, reciprocating the affective presence and implications of other bodies within the laboratory.
Re: [-empyre-] Meillassoux / Harman
You are right I should do more reading. I find the thoughts engaging and, since I am in transit, I am eager to get more information where I can. Ultimately, underneath my questions, I suppose, are some thoughts on relationality and time. You have all of these things that have to do with chairs, but only the chair is the chair. And there are these things that have to do with chairs, but which are real in their own right. But an idea about a chair kind of flickers in and out of consciousness, never having a discrete edge, and only become something definitive when their edges are marked out in some way. It's tempting to think that one's writing about a thought is separate from the thought itself, but typically the act of writing or performing a thought tends to calcify and reinforce it through a feedback loop. Every time one thinks about a chair, one does not invent a new object. Similar to a computer program pulling modular entities and reusing them again and again, our thoughts repeat the concept in our imagination. On the other hand, imaginary iterations are not the same as digital iterations. Less like a computer, we pull the modular concept into action and interpret it with a variety of tones. I wouldn't want to say these singular thoughts don't exist, but on the other hand, they don't have the same reality as those thoughts which are articulated and taken up into collective discourse and even still, a discursive thing gains a level of significance when it represents some empirical process. I care about this because a chair changes from one moment to the next. It becomes materially altered as time unfolds, yet we are comfortable saying that the chair on day one is that chair on day five. In other words, each moment does not unleash a separate chair. In my mind, weight might be its subjective intensity, its empirical durability, its social hegemony, its procedural utility, its digital ubiquity, its aesthetic elegance though none of these qualities are directly analogous to the other, suggesting that there are a variety of types of being. All these thoughts are a jumble I'll take your advice and do some reading. Davin On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Ian Bogost ian.bog...@lcc.gatech.edu wrote: A chair is a chair. A picture of a chair is a picture of a chair. A definition of a chair is a definition of a chair. None are all chairs, but all have something to do with chairs. At least, that's the OOO contention. There are no planes of existence… except for Harman (and Tim, to some extent), who distinguishes sensual from real objects. For Graham, the idea of a chair is different from the real chair, which recedes from all encounters. I think this is maybe the conclusion you arrive at in your second paragraph below. NOTHING about OOO privileges the material (i.e., the tangible, physical) chair primacy over the others. As for the same weight — well, that depends on what you mean by weight. What do you mean? I hate to say it, but it's maybe not possible to make further progress without reading some of this material in depth… Ian On Jun 25, 2012, at 3:13 AM, davin heckman wrote: Ian and Tim, Do the differences with which we treat objects syncs up with ontological difference, and thus, is there something to some of the different categorizations we could possibly develop for objects? I do think there is plenty of room to see these things from a fresh perspective, but I also wonder if not, for instance, Kosuth's chairs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_and_Three_Chairs highlight the ways that discrete objects can differ from each other, but also the ways in which there are consistencies that can yoke them together in odd ways. A picture of a chair is not a chair, a definition of chair is not a chair, instructions about a chair is not a chair, a chair as a sculpture is not necessarily a chair. yet, in some fundamental way, all are chairs in a general sense of their concept and recognition. Put all three things together, and you have a chair which occupies all three planes of existence simultaneously. On the other hand, they can occupy niches within conceptual frameworks (a chair within a game, for instance, can be very real to the other objects in the game). Each way of recognizing the chair (the picture, instructions, the chair as chair, chair as sculpture, three chairs as conceptual work, etc) would suggest that each is a distinct object in some sense, which makes me wonder then, whether or not all other possible thoughts about a chair have being, or if we afford the material object of the chair primacy. In which case, does a digital rendering of the chair carry the same weight as an unexpressed idea about a chair, too. At some point, doesn't ontology lead into this thicket? Davin On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 9:08 PM, Ian Bogost ian.bog...@lcc.gatech.edu wrote: There is no reason why holding that everything exists
