Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

I worry about dilettantes as much as master, for example people working 
in bioart potentially releasing organisms into the environment without 
understanding the chemical flows of biomes and organisms (no one 
understands all of this today!). One of the things I've learned to respect 
is the hardness of science; I'm interested in the foundations of math for 
example and since category theory and its offspring have flourished, I 
feel lost, and lost for good reason - these things are complicated and 
require a lot of study and commitment. So the dilettante worries me as 
well...


- Alan, but yes !

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Gretta Louw wrote:


Oh, and let's revive the dilettantes! No more supposed experts, would-be 
'masters'. Surely no one who uses this language - even in relation to 
ostensibly abstract problems or inanimate matter - has read and understood 
anything about intersectional feminism, digital colonialism and the corrupt 
power structures that permeate every aspect of human 'progress'.

Let's have the *delight* in (self/personal) discovery, knowledge, exchange, 
exploration, and the humility of non-experts joining fields of knowledge, 
bridging gaps, applying so-called expert knowledge. Marion Schwehr (German 
literature and media scholar) and I are working on a new lecture performance 
loosely titled 'Dilettantes Unite!', which I am beginning to think will include 
a critique of accelerationalist/neo-liberalist notions of mastery...

Sent from the road


On 25 Apr 2016, at 07:52, Gretta Louw  wrote:

Death to the ludicrous, imperialist notion of 'mastery'!

I lean more towards Alan's thoughts on the role/impact of humans but think that 
this is probably besides the point because, yes, we are all heading towards an 
end and a new beginning and more ends anyway. I'm the meantime, though, this 
idea of 'mastery' - the belief that anything approaching it is even possible - 
seems to be at the heart of the majority of suffering; that which we cause 
ourselves (humans) internationally, inter-culturally, locally, personally, 
psychologically, but also the damage that we inflict on environments and other 
species. This is where #additivism is inflential: embrace the abyss; surrender 
rescue/savior fantasies; find the best and weirdest thing to do in the 
meantime. Queer everything.

g.

Sent from the road


On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:01, John Hopkins  wrote:



"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global


...snip...


it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."


Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and turn my 
worm farm :-)

What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, the 
removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was wide-scale 
enough, the population drop would start the process of a post-human 
re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.

jh
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[BishopZ]

"The soul of wit, is the very body of untruth." -Aldous Huxley

So sharp? So definitive? Is there not room for debate?
at least can you e-lab-or-ate?
Bz

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 6:15 PM, Simon Biggs  wrote:

> Nope - don’t buy it. Quackery…
>
> best
>
> Simon
>
>
> *Simon Biggs*
> si...@littlepig.org.uk
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk
> http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
> http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
> http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs
>
>
>
> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:36, Pall Thayer  wrote:
>
> From Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (
> http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/
> ):
>
> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
> problems or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be
> distinguished from that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment.
> The clockwork universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient
> information, is long gone from the agenda of serious scientific
> understanding. But this is not to align ourselves with the tired residue of
> postmodernity, decrying mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately
> illegitimate. Instead we propose that the problems besetting our planet and
> our species oblige us to refurbish mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst
> we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can determine
> probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be coupled to such
> complex systems analysis is a new form of action: improvisatory and capable
> of executing a design through a practice which works with the contingencies
> it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
> artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
> seeks the best means to act in a complex world."
>
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Can you say more?
>>
>> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>
>> > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
>> >
>> > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >   I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
>> >   doesn't
>> >   adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
>> >   walrus,
>> >   migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
>> >   holding-back,
>> >   learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
>> >   problem I
>> >   think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
>> >   micro-
>> >   biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
>> >   rewritten as
>> >   we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
>> >   ignorance.
>> >   Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
>> >   that
>> >   accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
>> >   man-based for all
>> >   that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
>> >   we do, for
>> >   example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
>> >   which is
>> >   exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
>> >   to deal
>> >   with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
>> >   to life and
>> >   lives everywhere -
>> >
>> >   Alan
>> >
>> >
>> >   On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
>> >
>> >   > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
>> >   >
>> >   > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
>> >   an acid bath
>> >   > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
>> >   >
>> >   > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
>> >   where the wider
>> >   > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
>> >   are also
>> >   > fatally eroded.
>> >   > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
>> >   "our kind"
>> >   > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
>> >   Gretta!)), but
>> >   > beyond, with other species, and materials.
>> >   >
>> >   > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
>> >   which Simon
>> >   > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
>> >   validate the
>> >   > 'use' of humans.
>> >   >
>> >   >
>> >   >
>> >   >
>> >   > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>> >   >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
>> >   >
>> >   >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
>> >   revolutionising
>> >   >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
>> >   of
>> >   >   

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Simon Biggs]

Nope - don’t buy it. Quackery…

best

Simon


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs



> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:36, Pall Thayer  wrote:
> 
> From Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics 
> (http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/
>  
> ):
> 
> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over 
> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global problems 
> or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be distinguished from 
> that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment. The clockwork 
> universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient information, is long 
> gone from the agenda of serious scientific understanding. But this is not to 
> align ourselves with the tired residue of postmodernity, decrying mastery as 
> proto-fascistic or authority as innately illegitimate. Instead we propose 
> that the problems besetting our planet and our species oblige us to refurbish 
> mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst we cannot predict the precise result 
> of our actions, we can determine probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. 
> What must be coupled to such complex systems analysis is a new form of 
> action: improvisatory and capable of executing a design through a practice 
> which works with the contingencies it discovers only in the course of its 
> acting, in a politics of geosocial artistry and cunning rationality. A form 
> of abductive experimentation that seeks the best means to act in a complex 
> world."
> 
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  > wrote:
> 
> 
> Can you say more?
> 
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:
> 
> > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim  > > wrote:
> >
> >   I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
> >   doesn't
> >   adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
> >   walrus,
> >   migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
> >   holding-back,
> >   learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
> >   problem I
> >   think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
> >   micro-
> >   biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
> >   rewritten as
> >   we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
> >   ignorance.
> >   Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
> >   that
> >   accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
> >   man-based for all
> >   that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
> >   we do, for
> >   example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
> >   which is
> >   exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
> >   to deal
> >   with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
> >   to life and
> >   lives everywhere -
> >
> >   Alan
> >
> >
> >   On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
> >
> >   > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> >   >
> >   > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
> >   an acid bath
> >   > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> >   >
> >   > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
> >   where the wider
> >   > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
> >   are also
> >   > fatally eroded.
> >   > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
> >   "our kind"
> >   > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
> >   Gretta!)), but
> >   > beyond, with other species, and materials.
> >   >
> >   > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
> >   which Simon
> >   > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
> >   validate the
> >   > 'use' of humans.
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> >   >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
> >   >
> >   >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
> >   revolutionising
> >   >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
> >   of
> >   >   production, and with them the whole relations of
> >   society.
> >   >   Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered
> >   form,

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Simon Biggs]

I agree with Alan.

The human species has evolved to the point where it is no longer adapted to its 
environment. Humans now seek to adapt the environment to the species. That is 
not working. If the human species was to become extinct today that would be the 
best thing that could happen to the planet (putting aside the power-plant 
melt-downs, dam breaches and chemical disasters that would be the consequence 
of lack of infrastructural maintenance). But it will take us longer to go 
extinct than that… biology is not as slow as geology, but it is slow compared 
to human history. We will devolve. The current migration crisis is a phenomena 
of devolution, as the species panics in the face of the ecological destruction 
it has wrought.

best

Simon


Simon Biggs
si...@littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk
http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs







> On 25 Apr 2016, at 02:51, Alan Sondheim  wrote:
> 
> 
> You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is this 
> is the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % of 
> ocean life scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, 
> microspherules, etc., the situation is a mess. Yes, there will be something 
> afterwords. But we're slaughterers trashing the planet, and for me that's 
> unacceptable.
> 
> - Alan
> 
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:
> 
>>> learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I
 think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
 biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
 we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
 Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
 accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
 that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for
>> 
>> Acceleration, in mechanical physics, is the result of the application of 
>> directed (vector) energy to a body. It is a quantity -- 
>> meters-per-second-per-second (how fast am I going faster!) -- that results 
>> in ever-increasing velocity -- meters-per-second (how fast am I going?). 
>> Acceleration cannot occur without an ever-increasing energy input to the 
>> system. Velocity can be maintained with a steady-state energy input. Stasis, 
>> death, requires no energy input.
>> 
>> In a system with finite energy, acceleration has a limit, as does velocity.
>> 
>> We are not destroying the planet, we are temporarily altering the local 
>> energy balance. We are merely another expression of Life on the planet. 
>> Doing its thing. Pulsing, expanding temporarily.
>> 
>> Acceleration occurs in the presence of locally excessive eneergy. This is 
>> demonstrated at many scales in living systems where there is an energy 
>> excess. When that energy is entropically dispersed through a combination of 
>> expansion/growth, it slows down...
>> 
>> Pulsing (temporal, spatial) is a regular feature in bio-systems.
>> 
>> When we fixate on particular material manifestations of Life (as in a 
>> particular species), we miss the fact that Life is a continuous feature of 
>> the planet, and will continue long after we are gone *no matter what we do*. 
>> In my mind, the fixation on the material is what brings us to the hubris of 
>> the Anthropocene. Which, okay, plutonium makes a fine geo-marker. But what 
>> about the traces of Life from the Late Carboniferous? Talk about geo-marker, 
>> and Life leaving traces! The huge Applachian coal beds are the remains of 
>> Life at that time -- accelerated based on temperate climates (Appalachia was 
>> at the Equator), and abundant energy sources. And it altered the chemistry 
>> of the planet...
>> 
>> So it goes.
>> 
>> jh
>> 
>> PS -- as for all the preparatory conceptualizing on the word 
>> 'accelerationism' -- it seems mostly to be a symbolic discussion that has 
>> little to do with the real world except as simply another 'ism' to be 
>> discussed ad infinitum. if it cannot be connected to the real world, what's 
>> the point? Maybe we need to calculate how much carbon is emitted from 'The 
>> Cloud' each time we email the word.
>> 
>> PPS -- I heartily support the concept of listening in any and all contexts. 
>> It has the effect of healing many problems!
>> -- 
>> ++
>> Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
>> grounded on a granite batholith
>> twitter: @neoscenes
>> http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
>> ++
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>> 
>> 
> 
> ==
> email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
> web 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Gretta Louw]

Oh, and let's revive the dilettantes! No more supposed experts, would-be 
'masters'. Surely no one who uses this language - even in relation to 
ostensibly abstract problems or inanimate matter - has read and understood 
anything about intersectional feminism, digital colonialism and the corrupt 
power structures that permeate every aspect of human 'progress'.

 Let's have the *delight* in (self/personal) discovery, knowledge, exchange, 
exploration, and the humility of non-experts joining fields of knowledge, 
bridging gaps, applying so-called expert knowledge. Marion Schwehr (German 
literature and media scholar) and I are working on a new lecture performance 
loosely titled 'Dilettantes Unite!', which I am beginning to think will include 
a critique of accelerationalist/neo-liberalist notions of mastery...

Sent from the road

> On 25 Apr 2016, at 07:52, Gretta Louw  wrote:
> 
> Death to the ludicrous, imperialist notion of 'mastery'!
> 
> I lean more towards Alan's thoughts on the role/impact of humans but think 
> that this is probably besides the point because, yes, we are all heading 
> towards an end and a new beginning and more ends anyway. I'm the meantime, 
> though, this idea of 'mastery' - the belief that anything approaching it is 
> even possible - seems to be at the heart of the majority of suffering; that 
> which we cause ourselves (humans) internationally, inter-culturally, locally, 
> personally, psychologically, but also the damage that we inflict on 
> environments and other species. This is where #additivism is inflential: 
> embrace the abyss; surrender rescue/savior fantasies; find the best and 
> weirdest thing to do in the meantime. Queer everything.
> 
> g.
> 
> Sent from the road
> 
>> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:01, John Hopkins  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
>>> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
>> 
>> ...snip...
>> 
>>> it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
>>> artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
>>> seeks the best means to act in a complex world."
>> 
>> Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
>> manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, 
>> I've got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, 
>> and turn my worm farm :-)
>> 
>> What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
>> http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
>> un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
>> fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
>> changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
>> going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, 
>> the removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was 
>> wide-scale enough, the population drop would start the process of a 
>> post-human re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.
>> 
>> jh
>> -- 
>> ++
>> Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
>> grounded on a granite batholith
>> twitter: @neoscenes
>> http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
>> ++
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
___
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Gretta Louw]

Death to the ludicrous, imperialist notion of 'mastery'!

 I lean more towards Alan's thoughts on the role/impact of humans but think 
that this is probably besides the point because, yes, we are all heading 
towards an end and a new beginning and more ends anyway. I'm the meantime, 
though, this idea of 'mastery' - the belief that anything approaching it is 
even possible - seems to be at the heart of the majority of suffering; that 
which we cause ourselves (humans) internationally, inter-culturally, locally, 
personally, psychologically, but also the damage that we inflict on 
environments and other species. This is where #additivism is inflential: 
embrace the abyss; surrender rescue/savior fantasies; find the best and 
weirdest thing to do in the meantime. Queer everything.

g.

Sent from the road

> On 25 Apr 2016, at 03:01, John Hopkins  wrote:
> 
> 
>> "21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
>> society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
> 
> ...snip...
> 
>> it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
>> artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
>> seeks the best means to act in a complex world."
> 
> Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
> manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
> got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and 
> turn my worm farm :-)
> 
> What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
> http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
> un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
> fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
> changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
> going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, 
> the removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was 
> wide-scale enough, the population drop would start the process of a 
> post-human re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.
> 
> jh
> -- 
> ++
> Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
> grounded on a granite batholith
> twitter: @neoscenes
> http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
> ++
> ___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
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[NetBehaviour] the wake

[Alan Sondheim]

the wake

http://www.alansondheim.org/twisted8.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/thewakes.mp3
http://www.alansondheim.org/memento07.jpg

the keyboard is limited: one note at a time, no 'return' (i.e.
holding down C, then F, then releasing F, doesn't sound C
again), but the clack of fingers and nails on the keys, and the
_wake_ that the melodic leaves behind create imaginary envelopes
- as if there were a dynamics descending from the imaginary.

i've been thinking about _wakes_ - the wake of a human or other
organism moving through a space (gases, liquids, sounds, sights,
pressures - in short an expansion of schlieren optics through
electromagnatic, chemical, and acoustic spectra) -

how, for example, several notes of equal volume and no dynamics
beyond the usual onset/offset (an inexpensive keyboard here) can
create the sensation of musical shaping, almost a voice -

& as in a wake for dearest friends, in this deep and mournful -
our senses leave a wake in the world. boot-strapping occurs
throughout the wake among sentient beings; the re-mark of the
wake is history; the mark of the wake is death.

our alpsong dreams, sadly vanquished, lost in the wake of memory
... on the other side; in real life, === the residue the wake
was an === of === of the wake we leave behind us === of the wake
which disappears ===

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Re: [NetBehaviour] My name is [Your Name Here] and I am an Accelerationist

[BishopZ]

My name is Bishop Zareh and I don't know much about the topic, but like
what I have read so far.

I really connected with the 3D Additivist Manifesto and its description of
a Junk Body, the body left behind by technology and obsolescence - the
biological equivalent of Koolhaus' Junk Space - a shopping mall forever
under construction.

Visually, the images associated with these works are the most distinctive
aesthetic to come from theory journals since Glitch. I created a pinboard
for them:
https://www.pinterest.com/eduatx/accelerationist-additivist-accelerationism/

I see a lot of connection to Virilio's work. Even before Dromology, in War
& Cinema Virilio writes about the apparatus of perception control. As we
move from Mass Media to Mass Technology, the same apparatus appears. The
Internet's always-on resilience is also a product of military invention.
Left Accelerationism seems to make a call to action towards creating a
beneficial technology with remnants of the corrupted commercial systems.
Are they attempting a middle path between the extremes of "use the API" and
"get off the grid"?

>From Alan's question:

does accelerationism deal with issues of pollution, extinction, and so
forth? Can one wait for accelerationism? Has one already waited?

My guess is that they also split a middle path between Kurzweil-style
utopian futurism and doomsday dystopia. Saying something like, The future
is set, we are going there anyway, lets just get on with it already. I
could be completely wrong.

Anyway, thanks for the article Rob and discussion Ruth, much needed!
Bz


On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 12:48 PM, Rob Myers  wrote:

>
>
> On April 21, 2016 10:27:26 AM PDT, ruth catlow <
> ruth.cat...@furtherfield.org> wrote:
> >
> >This is less about speed (as distinct from Futurism) than it is about
> >rates of change.
> >
> >The technologies that we use are bound up with with advanced
> >capitalism.
> >We watch our political and social infrastructures unable to evolve fast
> >
> >enough to solve the wicked problems - for environment, democracy,
> >justice and a good life- than they create.
> >
> >I think we can take two attitudes
> >
> >1) Save ourselves! Take what we can carry, run for the hills and build
> >the best fortresses we can with people whose values we share.
> >
> >or
> >
> >2) coordinate and collaborate in the higher interests of all living
> >beings - constantly working out who and what these are- and using all
> >means at our disposal.
> >
> >I like the idea of living in the hills.
> >But not under siege, and not in earshot of future generations of
> >bemused, brutalised, alienated people.
> >
> >The dominant model of global coexistence is that of endless economic
> >growth and Neoliberalism (the (increasingly automated) marketization of
> >
> >everything). This  tends to centralize power and resources and renders
> >less effective the usual ways of blocking and resisting; of work-based
> >and traditional-identity based solidarity.
> >
> >Instead Contemporary Accelerationism suggests (I think) that we use in
> >new combinations all the tools, tactics, and knowledges in an attempt
> >to
> >perform a series of judo moves (using the force rather than resisting
> >the force), or to sling-shot our way through the mess we are in.
>
> Yes definitely 2. :-).  This is wonderful description of the spirit of
> contemporary left accelerationism.
>
> >As always, there needs to be a way to accommodate the visions and
> >madcap
> >schemes of all sorts- many islands rather than one land mass as Paul
> >said. That's why this discussion here and now.
>
> Yes absolutely. My first thought on reading some of the MAP was "this has
> the potential to be a bit totalitarian". Srnicek & Williams very
> thoroughly address how to ensure an open society in their follow-up.
> Reflecting what you wrote above, they do this in part by reference to
> neoliberalism, ironising its negative examples of international movement
> and regional mutaton into positive proposals.
> --
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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Re: [NetBehaviour] aesthetics examples ... forked from : Re: Accelerationist aesthetics

[Pall Thayer]

It just occurred to me that this artwork has already been suggested by Kurt
Vonnegut in Rabo Karabekian's "Windsor Blue Number Seventeen".


On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 2:18 PM Pall Thayer  wrote:

> Based on my understanding of Accelerationism, I would think that the ideal
> "Accelerationist" artwork would be work that you get typical art-investors
> to pay a shit-load of money for but that is inherently ephemeral so that no
> portion of the original "investment" can ever grow or even be recouped.
>
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:24 PM ruth catlow 
> wrote:
>
>> Yes Annie,
>>
>>  > Ok let's discuss concrete art works, activities etc - let's leave for
>> a moment the theorethical philipoli stuff
>>
>> More examples would be good.
>>
>>  > In this discussion we have until now Ruth's work
>> http://gtp.ruthcatlow.net/ on time: human time, life time, computertime,
>> scientific time, stone time and Rob's examples in his article
>> http://furtherfield.org/features/articles/accelerationist-art  - what
>> are these doing, what duscussion, thoughts they further ...
>>  >
>>
>> To answer your particular questions about my work
>>
>>  > I just watched Ruth's work again, I like the reflexion it brings, how
>> it articulates all these times.
>>  > I have a question: - What do the people who go to the installation
>> get from this, is there a live video projection?, Can they understand
>> how time is at stake in this work? (In the catalogue text I read Edward
>> mentioned a projection, but so far I didn't see any photos of it)*
>>  > I admit I had difficulties understanding the complexity of the piece
>> in the beginning but now, at the end I can enjoy it's beauty.
>>  > So probably what I want to know Ruth, is where was your focus on the
>> final video object or on what happened in the installation ...
>>
>> I think/hope that the work is totally explicit for gallery visitors.
>> But now I understand that the documentation needs more clarity for
>> online viewers
>>
>> The plasma screen displays this webpage http://gtp.ruthcatlow.net/ which
>> shows the most recent image taken by the web cam, along with the looping
>> video to which images are added every 3 or 4 images.
>>
>> People can pose for the web cam, or might be caught looking at the video
>> in which they are soon to be portrayed.
>>
>> Here is a photo which shows the set up.
>>
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/60673926@N02/24540097322/in/album-72157663958436545/
>> Here you can scroll through a set of images showing selected stills from
>> the video, as well as some installation shots
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/60673926@N02/albums/72157663958436545
>>
>>
>>  >
>>  > What did I get out of the examples Rob gave in his article? They are
>> almost all art, just art, as far as I can see. Objects, you can show and
>> sell. They function mostly in the Artworld. Holly Herndon and probably
>> also Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke seem to be a bit different in
>> the sense that they also engage with other domains and feel "whole".
>> They reach out.
>>  > As feel "whole" for me someone like Hito Steyerl whose work I like a
>> lot.
>>  >
>>
>> http://www.e-flux.com/journal/a-sea-of-data-apophenia-and-pattern-mis-recognition/
>>  > the dissappearance of an horizon - acceleration as stasis
>> https://vimeo.com/81109235#t=99s
>>  > Does this have anything to do with accelerationism? I don't know and
>> would that be important to know?
>>
>> Acceleration as stasis. Yes I think this is right Annie.
>>
>> Yes! more examples
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> :)
>> Ruth
>>
>>
>>  >
>>  > Please diversify examples ...
>>  >
>>  > Thanks for these discussions!!
>>  > Annie
>>  >
>>  > *I found a photo of a screen showing what?
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/24284339460/in/pool-wana2021/ a
>> still, a looping video?
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Gretta Louw
>>  wrote:
>>  >
>>  > This makes so much sense to me, thank you Ruth. I see so much of
>> this in Europe, North America and the western, urban mainstream; an
>> utter inability (and, probably, unwillingness) to look outside our own
>> narrowly defined cultural lens when purportedly studying/attempting to
>> understand technology, media, digitalisation, and their impacts. It
>> hampers real discussion and cross-fertilization of ideas. Preaching to
>> the (mostly white, educated, urban, western, northern) choir - as most
>> tech/ digital/ futurist and possibly accelerationist (I hope I'm wrong
>> about the last one, still too early to tell)
>> festivals/meetings/discussion do - is a futile endeavor and exhausting
>> to watch. Diversification is essential, but the way the discourse has
>> developed around diversity actually is counterproductive to achieving
>> greater diversity. Just as an example, there are studies that have shown
>> that reminding applicants of their 'diverse' (one must ask, according to
>> 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Anthony Stephenson]

While the original Nietzschean wish for capital to play itself out, I’m
thinking that the (Left) Accelerationism of the past twenty years might
have more to do with a flash on the possibility to "Seize the Means of
Production". With the popularization of computing and cybernetics, some
might have felt that DIY will finally bring utopia.

As a graphic designer, I have worked alongside those who had started their
careers with a centuries old technique of using hand-set type (hot type) as
we moved from cold type (photographic) output to computerized systems. This
type of publishing was very expensive. We continued to evolve from
all-in-one, turn-key systems to what I later found to be referred to (by
government contractors) as off-the-shelf (OTS) components made possible by
the personal computer. Then came the internet. And now the smart phone.
Distribution and material are not as pricey for someone in online
publishing. Theoretically, almost anyone can be a publisher today.

But what I think we are really seeing is that as OTS becomes today’s
appliances, news, entertainment, and who knows what with 3D printing,
stratification becomes more apparent as economics plays itself out.
Doctors, lawyers and anyone who knows that what the market will bear
sometimes knows no limit, will only contribute this disparity until, let’s
say, a personal version of something like Chile’s Cybersyn is made into an
app freely available to help each citizen of the world.

-- 

- *Anthony Stephenson*

*http://anthonystephenson.org/* 
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

The crux, again, is this - you say -

I doubt the
capabilities of our species are any more than any other in the ability 
to alter the fundamentals of Life.


- but from everything I've read and researched, this just isn't true.

The disagreement is deep; for one thing I don't feel guilty, but a need to 
act. The argument that 'this too shall pass away' can be applied to 
anything - seriously, why worry about what ISIS is doing, when ISIS won't 
last, any more than we will? Why do anything? I'm not trying to be 
specious here; perhaps I feel an urgency that you don't, or an urgency 
that involves withdrawal and listening as well as acting; too often fast 
actions result in fast disasters...


Again, I may be missing the point (and if I carry decelerationism to the 
limit I'll turn into a rock) -


- Alan


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:


Hi Alan -

You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is this 
is
the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % of ocean 
life
scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, microspherules, etc., 
the

situation is a mess. Yes, there will be something afterwords. But we're
slaughterers trashing the planet, and for me that's unacceptable.


I hear where you are coming from, and no disrespect, just disagreement about 
how to act/react.


It's there I disagree -- in the differentiation of us as some special 
life-form, separate from everything, above, better at trashing, whatever. We 
are doing what Life always does: helping wind down the universe to its heat 
death, whatever, by expending available energy to maximize our (Life's!) need 
to project itself into the future.


In terms of historical geological epoch, I was not talking about an 
extinction event, but more of the geodynamics of Life at that point in 
history. Carboniferous coal beds came from a vast anaerobic dead/dying zone 
that evolved on Pangea's equatorial region -- as a result of a massive 
fluorishing of Life that came from the easy availability of energies at that 
time. The life-forms that fluorished in that environment gave their lives 
into creating higher-level (energy packaging) hydrocarbon bonds that our 
life-form is now releasing, eventually, back into space as waste heat. We are 
not special.


Guilt driven by ethereal or unrealized altruism needs to be replaced by 
active awareness and actions that the species is capable of. I doubt the 
capabilities of our species are any more than any other in the ability to 
alter the fundamentals of Life. Consume available energy until it is gone, 
then pass away. At best, offer ones own body as sustenance for others to gain 
from, for a time, until they too shall pass... etc.


JH
--
++
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grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[John Hopkins]

Hi Alan -


You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is this is
the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % of ocean life
scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, microspherules, etc., the
situation is a mess. Yes, there will be something afterwords. But we're
slaughterers trashing the planet, and for me that's unacceptable.


I hear where you are coming from, and no disrespect, just disagreement about how 
to act/react.


It's there I disagree -- in the differentiation of us as some special life-form, 
separate from everything, above, better at trashing, whatever. We are doing what 
Life always does: helping wind down the universe to its heat death, whatever, by 
expending available energy to maximize our (Life's!) need to project itself into 
the future.


In terms of historical geological epoch, I was not talking about an extinction 
event, but more of the geodynamics of Life at that point in history. 
Carboniferous coal beds came from a vast anaerobic dead/dying zone that evolved 
on Pangea's equatorial region -- as a result of a massive fluorishing of Life 
that came from the easy availability of energies at that time. The life-forms 
that fluorished in that environment gave their lives into creating higher-level 
(energy packaging) hydrocarbon bonds that our life-form is now releasing, 
eventually, back into space as waste heat. We are not special.


Guilt driven by ethereal or unrealized altruism needs to be replaced by active 
awareness and actions that the species is capable of. I doubt the capabilities 
of our species are any more than any other in the ability to alter the 
fundamentals of Life. Consume available energy until it is gone, then pass away. 
At best, offer ones own body as sustenance for others to gain from, for a time, 
until they too shall pass... etc.


JH
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

sounds good to me, the idea of unmastery resonates -

thanks -


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:




"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global


...snip...


it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."


Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and 
turn my worm farm :-)


What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, 
the removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was 
wide-scale enough, the population drop would start the process of a 
post-human re-balancing of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.


jh
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[John Hopkins]

"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global


...snip...


it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."


Good excerpt -- I couldn't manage the patience to drive through that whole 
manifesto -- I feel the answers do not need such bloviating -- & anyway, I've 
got to work on my water-harvesting landscaping, prune my grape vines, and turn 
my worm farm :-)


What is said there, I've been writing into a practice-based curriculum at 
http://ecosa.org -- the idea of systems-thinking approaches to holistic 
un-mastery of the biosphere that we are merely transitory parts of. I 
fundamentally do not like the concept of design, though, as it pre-supposes 
changing that which flows around us. Maybe an adaptive, consciousness-raised 
going-with-the-flow ... sensual improvisation that would include, perhaps, the 
removal of our selves from living viability. If this approach was wide-scale 
enough, the population drop would start the process of a post-human re-balancing 
of the planet's dynamic equilibrium.


jh
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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Re: [NetBehaviour] My name is [Your Name Here] and I am an Accelerationist

[Rob Myers]

On April 21, 2016 10:27:26 AM PDT, ruth catlow  
wrote:
>
>This is less about speed (as distinct from Futurism) than it is about 
>rates of change.
>
>The technologies that we use are bound up with with advanced
>capitalism. 
>We watch our political and social infrastructures unable to evolve fast
>
>enough to solve the wicked problems - for environment, democracy, 
>justice and a good life- than they create.
>
>I think we can take two attitudes
>
>1) Save ourselves! Take what we can carry, run for the hills and build 
>the best fortresses we can with people whose values we share.
>
>or
>
>2) coordinate and collaborate in the higher interests of all living 
>beings - constantly working out who and what these are- and using all 
>means at our disposal.
>
>I like the idea of living in the hills.
>But not under siege, and not in earshot of future generations of 
>bemused, brutalised, alienated people.
>
>The dominant model of global coexistence is that of endless economic 
>growth and Neoliberalism (the (increasingly automated) marketization of
>
>everything). This  tends to centralize power and resources and renders 
>less effective the usual ways of blocking and resisting; of work-based 
>and traditional-identity based solidarity.
>
>Instead Contemporary Accelerationism suggests (I think) that we use in 
>new combinations all the tools, tactics, and knowledges in an attempt
>to 
>perform a series of judo moves (using the force rather than resisting 
>the force), or to sling-shot our way through the mess we are in.

Yes definitely 2. :-).  This is wonderful description of the spirit of 
contemporary left accelerationism.

>As always, there needs to be a way to accommodate the visions and
>madcap 
>schemes of all sorts- many islands rather than one land mass as Paul 
>said. That's why this discussion here and now.

Yes absolutely. My first thought on reading some of the MAP was "this has the 
potential to be a bit totalitarian". Srnicek & Williams very thoroughly 
address how to ensure an open society in their follow-up. Reflecting what you 
wrote above, they do this in part by reference to neoliberalism, ironising its 
negative examples of international movement and regional mutaton into positive 
proposals.
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

Hi Pall,

Here's the crux of the problem:

" whilst we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can 
determine probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be 
coupled to such complex systems analysis is a new form of action: 
improvisatory and capable of executing a design through a practice which 
works with the contingencies it discovers only in the course of its 
acting, in a politics of geosocial artistry and cunning rationality. A 
form of abductive experimentation that seeks the best means to act in a 
complex world."


-- but "precise" is what is needed. Note: with fungi, almost all of them 
are still unknown, unclassified - yet the 'woodnet' of forests which 
relies on them for carbon etc. transport - is absolutely critical. the 
instrumentality described here won't do, either will "cunning rationality" 
- what's absolutely necessary is a form of declerationism if you will, 
again, one that _listens_ environmentally. as you know, even deforestation 
is increasing rapidly, 'bushmeat' has critically endangerd almost every 
primate on the planet except ourselves (so far); something slow is 
necessary to understand and combat these things. when I read acc. texts - 
and this is surely my own shortcoming here - I don't find listening; I 
find rhetorical responses.


How do you deal with "geosocial artistry" without understand ocean 
currents and the carbon cycle? This is the problem. The world is speaking 
to us, in a sense (sorry for the poetics), and we're just speaking _back._


- Alan


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:


From Manifesto for an Accelerationist 
Politics(http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-ac
celerationist-politics/):
"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
problems or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be
distinguished from that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment.
The clockwork universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient
information, is long gone from the agenda of serious scientific
understanding. But this is not to align ourselves with the tired residue of
postmodernity, decrying mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately
illegitimate. Instead we propose that the problems besetting our planet and
our species oblige us to refurbish mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst
we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can determine
probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be coupled to such
complex systems analysis is a new form of action: improvisatory and capable
of executing a design through a practice which works with the contingencies
it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  wrote:


  Can you say more?

  On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:

  > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
  >
  > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim
   wrote:
  >
  >       I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the
  biosphere
  >       doesn't
  >       adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of
  sealions,
  >       walrus,
  >       migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a
  form of
  >       holding-back,
  >       learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The
  fundamental
  >       problem I
  >       think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems,
  energy,
  >       micro-
  >       biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are
  being
  >       rewritten as
  >       we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
  >       ignorance.
  >       Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems
  to me
  >       that
  >       accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
  >       man-based for all
  >       that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And
  what do
  >       we do, for
  >       example, with the increasingly violent drought in the
  Mid-East
  >       which is
  >       exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow,
  dirty work
  >       to deal
  >       with it, culture theory which listens, not only to
  humans, but
  >       to life and
  >       lives everywhere -
  >
  >       Alan
  >
  >
  >       On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
  >
  >       > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
  >       >
  >       > All human traditions, values and communities are
  dissolved in
  >       an acid bath
  >       > of everlasting 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Rob Myers]

Some of the epistemic accelerationists are interested in the work of the 
philosopher Robert Brandom, who talks about rational, revisable norms. There's 
been some criticism of that from the point of view of "Risk Society" (Suhail 
Malik in Collapse Journal VIII).

I'm uncomfortable about normativity. But I suspect that normativity is 
unavoidable, so if I had to have it I'd rather it be easily revisable.

On April 23, 2016 6:12:31 PM PDT, Simon Biggs  wrote:
>This quote from Marx and Engels certainly describes current management
>practices. I have experience of management workshops where the socially
>and psychologically disruptive methods outlined in the quote below are
>promoted and explicitly employed. The aim is to keep workers on their
>toes - constantly off balance, not certain where next they will be
>required to jump. It’s quite nasty and all done in the name of economic
>efficiency. The workers are considered as a raw resource, that can be
>made redundant if they don’t do what is required of them, whether they
>are an administrator, researcher or Professor. It is pure McKinsey
>poison and they predicate it on pseudo-science - which makes it even
>worse because the theory is so flakey. The latest wheeze is to employ
>neuro-science to validate their practices.
>
>Foucault would role in his grave - but I imagine he would also role in
>his grave if he read the Accelerationist Manifesto. I’ve not read it,
>but the quote Ruth gave from Gottlieb’s review makes it sound like the
>other side of the same coin as McKinsey. It is also promoting normative
>values, just with a different character. I’m pretty sure I’m not an
>Accelerationist (or that I consciously subscribe to any other ism).
>
>best
>
>Simon
>
>
>Simon Biggs
>si...@littlepig.org.uk
>http://www.littlepig.org.uk
>http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
>http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
>http://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/school-of-art/simon-biggs
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On 24 Apr 2016, at 01:08, Michael Szpakowski 
>wrote:
>> 
>> Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
>> "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
>instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and
>with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes
>of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first
>condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant
>revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
>conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
>bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
>relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
>opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before
>they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is
>profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his
>real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." <>
>>This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since
>and it still stands perfectly well...
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>
>
>
>
>
>___
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>http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

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Re: [NetBehaviour] aesthetics examples ... forked from : Re: Accelerationist aesthetics

[Pall Thayer]

Based on my understanding of Accelerationism, I would think that the ideal
"Accelerationist" artwork would be work that you get typical art-investors
to pay a shit-load of money for but that is inherently ephemeral so that no
portion of the original "investment" can ever grow or even be recouped.

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:24 PM ruth catlow 
wrote:

> Yes Annie,
>
>  > Ok let's discuss concrete art works, activities etc - let's leave for
> a moment the theorethical philipoli stuff
>
> More examples would be good.
>
>  > In this discussion we have until now Ruth's work
> http://gtp.ruthcatlow.net/ on time: human time, life time, computertime,
> scientific time, stone time and Rob's examples in his article
> http://furtherfield.org/features/articles/accelerationist-art  - what
> are these doing, what duscussion, thoughts they further ...
>  >
>
> To answer your particular questions about my work
>
>  > I just watched Ruth's work again, I like the reflexion it brings, how
> it articulates all these times.
>  > I have a question: - What do the people who go to the installation
> get from this, is there a live video projection?, Can they understand
> how time is at stake in this work? (In the catalogue text I read Edward
> mentioned a projection, but so far I didn't see any photos of it)*
>  > I admit I had difficulties understanding the complexity of the piece
> in the beginning but now, at the end I can enjoy it's beauty.
>  > So probably what I want to know Ruth, is where was your focus on the
> final video object or on what happened in the installation ...
>
> I think/hope that the work is totally explicit for gallery visitors.
> But now I understand that the documentation needs more clarity for
> online viewers
>
> The plasma screen displays this webpage http://gtp.ruthcatlow.net/ which
> shows the most recent image taken by the web cam, along with the looping
> video to which images are added every 3 or 4 images.
>
> People can pose for the web cam, or might be caught looking at the video
> in which they are soon to be portrayed.
>
> Here is a photo which shows the set up.
>
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/60673926@N02/24540097322/in/album-72157663958436545/
> Here you can scroll through a set of images showing selected stills from
> the video, as well as some installation shots
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/60673926@N02/albums/72157663958436545
>
>
>  >
>  > What did I get out of the examples Rob gave in his article? They are
> almost all art, just art, as far as I can see. Objects, you can show and
> sell. They function mostly in the Artworld. Holly Herndon and probably
> also Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke seem to be a bit different in
> the sense that they also engage with other domains and feel "whole".
> They reach out.
>  > As feel "whole" for me someone like Hito Steyerl whose work I like a
> lot.
>  >
>
> http://www.e-flux.com/journal/a-sea-of-data-apophenia-and-pattern-mis-recognition/
>  > the dissappearance of an horizon - acceleration as stasis
> https://vimeo.com/81109235#t=99s
>  > Does this have anything to do with accelerationism? I don't know and
> would that be important to know?
>
> Acceleration as stasis. Yes I think this is right Annie.
>
> Yes! more examples
>
> Thank you
>
> :)
> Ruth
>
>
>  >
>  > Please diversify examples ...
>  >
>  > Thanks for these discussions!!
>  > Annie
>  >
>  > *I found a photo of a screen showing what?
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/24284339460/in/pool-wana2021/ a
> still, a looping video?
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Gretta Louw
>  wrote:
>  >
>  > This makes so much sense to me, thank you Ruth. I see so much of
> this in Europe, North America and the western, urban mainstream; an
> utter inability (and, probably, unwillingness) to look outside our own
> narrowly defined cultural lens when purportedly studying/attempting to
> understand technology, media, digitalisation, and their impacts. It
> hampers real discussion and cross-fertilization of ideas. Preaching to
> the (mostly white, educated, urban, western, northern) choir - as most
> tech/ digital/ futurist and possibly accelerationist (I hope I'm wrong
> about the last one, still too early to tell)
> festivals/meetings/discussion do - is a futile endeavor and exhausting
> to watch. Diversification is essential, but the way the discourse has
> developed around diversity actually is counterproductive to achieving
> greater diversity. Just as an example, there are studies that have shown
> that reminding applicants of their 'diverse' (one must ask, according to
> whom, diverse from what??) background in a job ad by specifically
> stating that one is an equal opportunities employer etc, will in fact
> reduce the number of applicants from diverse backgrounds.
>  >
>  > I am rambling, but this issue is always tacked on to the
> sidelines of debates around the pressing issues of our time; an

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerate Marx [Was: Re: Accelerationism]

[Rob Myers]

In terms of the economic analysis very little.

In terms of the wider "left" regarding that economic analysis as relevant or 
basing any real political ambition on it, an awful lot. That's what 
contemporary left accelerationism is a critique of.

The project outlined in "Inventing The Future" isn't an "if I want it, it is 
so" one, it's a serious long-term effort to put socialist ambition back on the 
table in politics. Changing the world *is* hard work, and this is a suggestion 
for some strategies to actually do so.


On April 24, 2016 3:03:48 AM PDT, Michael Szpakowski  wrote:
>Hi Rob, everyone, yes - I chose that particular passage because it is
>so clear. It raises the question "What's new?". The historically
>progressive role of the bourgeoisie in terms of constantly
>revolutionising production is an absolute given in Marx.
>Equally given and ubiquitous is his back of the hand, swatting a
>mosquito, demolition of the "if I want it, it's so" utopians - Fourier
>and his conversion of the oceans into lemonade being a particularly
>brilliant example,  but it applies equally to Owen, Proudhon, Kropotkin
>and others... The accelerationists strike me as a version of the
>utopians but nearly 180 years too late ( and there is such a strong
>temptation to quote Marx on"the first time as tragedy, the second time
>as farce" that I'm going to yield) What characterises them is a
>profound *mistrust* of ordinary people  -the Owens, the Fouriers 
>were great system builders -*they* and only *they* would bring
>enlightenment with their precisely ordered and often deeply odd
>systems. The key thing being the they were the great enlightened
>ones.Don't get me wrong -I'm all for dreaming and artists in particular
>do that well, they are often the storm petrels, the windsocks, of
>impending social change. But when hen we mistake our dreams and our
>systems as a substitute for the hard business of actually changing the
>world , when we fall in love with our own cleverness, the problems
>start. Cambodia stands as the most terrible practical warning here.
>michael
>
>  From: Rob Myers 
>To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
>; Michael Szpakowski  
> Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2016 1:58 AM
> Subject: Accelerate Marx [Was: Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism]
>   
>There's also the discussion of machines in the Grundrisse, which the
>"Accelerationist Reader" book starts with as "Fragment on Machines"
>(from "once adopted into the production process of capital, the means
>of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is
>the machine" here:
>
>https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch13.htm )
>
>This is probably where Left Accelerationism originates as an attitude
>towards and seeking to work through or escape the process Marx & Engels
>describe below.
>
>What's particularly interesting in relation to "Inventing The Future"
>is its discussion of automation and free time. And it touches on the
>quality of the alien in a way that might, in a funhouse mirror way, be
>recognizable in *some* other post-70s Accelerationism.
>
>
>
>On April 23, 2016 8:38:21 AM PDT, Michael Szpakowski 
>wrote:
>Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
>"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
>instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and
>with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes
>of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first
>condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant
>revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
>conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
>bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
>relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
>opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before
>they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is
>profaned, and man is at last compelledto face with sober senses his
>real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."   This does
>the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it still
>stands perfectly well...Sent from my iPhone
>NetBehaviour mailing list
>NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>
>-- 
>Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Pall Thayer]

>From Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/
):

"21. We declare that only a Promethean politics of maximal mastery over
society and its environment is capable of either dealing with global
problems or achieving victory over capital. This mastery must be
distinguished from that beloved of thinkers of the original Enlightenment.
The clockwork universe of Laplace, so easily mastered given sufficient
information, is long gone from the agenda of serious scientific
understanding. But this is not to align ourselves with the tired residue of
postmodernity, decrying mastery as proto-fascistic or authority as innately
illegitimate. Instead we propose that the problems besetting our planet and
our species oblige us to refurbish mastery in a newly complex guise; whilst
we cannot predict the precise result of our actions, we can determine
probabilistically likely ranges of outcomes. What must be coupled to such
complex systems analysis is a new form of action: improvisatory and capable
of executing a design through a practice which works with the contingencies
it discovers only in the course of its acting, in a politics of geosocial
artistry and cunning rationality. A form of abductive experimentation that
seeks the best means to act in a complex world."

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 1:22 PM Alan Sondheim  wrote:

>
>
> Can you say more?
>
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
> > Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim 
> wrote:
> >
> >   I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
> >   doesn't
> >   adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
> >   walrus,
> >   migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
> >   holding-back,
> >   learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
> >   problem I
> >   think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
> >   micro-
> >   biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
> >   rewritten as
> >   we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
> >   ignorance.
> >   Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
> >   that
> >   accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
> >   man-based for all
> >   that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
> >   we do, for
> >   example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
> >   which is
> >   exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
> >   to deal
> >   with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
> >   to life and
> >   lives everywhere -
> >
> >   Alan
> >
> >
> >   On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
> >
> >   > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> >   >
> >   > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
> >   an acid bath
> >   > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> >   >
> >   > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
> >   where the wider
> >   > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
> >   are also
> >   > fatally eroded.
> >   > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
> >   "our kind"
> >   > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
> >   Gretta!)), but
> >   > beyond, with other species, and materials.
> >   >
> >   > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
> >   which Simon
> >   > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
> >   validate the
> >   > 'use' of humans.
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   >
> >   > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> >   >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
> >   >
> >   >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
> >   revolutionising
> >   >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
> >   of
> >   >   production, and with them the whole relations of
> >   society.
> >   >   Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered
> >   form,
> >   >   was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence
> >   for all
> >   >   earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
> >   >   production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
> >   conditions,
> >   >   everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
> >   bourgeois
> >   >   epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
> >   relations,
> >   >   with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
> >   >   opinions, are swept away, all 

Re: [NetBehaviour] aesthetics examples ... forked from : Re: Accelerationist aesthetics

[ruth catlow]

Yes Annie,

> Ok let's discuss concrete art works, activities etc - let's leave for 
a moment the theorethical philipoli stuff


More examples would be good.

> In this discussion we have until now Ruth's work 
http://gtp.ruthcatlow.net/ on time: human time, life time, computertime, 
scientific time, stone time and Rob's examples in his article 
http://furtherfield.org/features/articles/accelerationist-art  - what 
are these doing, what duscussion, thoughts they further ...

>

To answer your particular questions about my work

> I just watched Ruth's work again, I like the reflexion it brings, how 
it articulates all these times.
> I have a question: - What do the people who go to the installation 
get from this, is there a live video projection?, Can they understand 
how time is at stake in this work? (In the catalogue text I read Edward 
mentioned a projection, but so far I didn't see any photos of it)*
> I admit I had difficulties understanding the complexity of the piece 
in the beginning but now, at the end I can enjoy it's beauty.
> So probably what I want to know Ruth, is where was your focus on the 
final video object or on what happened in the installation ...


I think/hope that the work is totally explicit for gallery visitors.  
But now I understand that the documentation needs more clarity for 
online viewers


The plasma screen displays this webpage http://gtp.ruthcatlow.net/ which 
shows the most recent image taken by the web cam, along with the looping 
video to which images are added every 3 or 4 images.


People can pose for the web cam, or might be caught looking at the video 
in which they are soon to be portrayed.


Here is a photo which shows the set up.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/60673926@N02/24540097322/in/album-72157663958436545/
Here you can scroll through a set of images showing selected stills from 
the video, as well as some installation shots 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/60673926@N02/albums/72157663958436545



>
> What did I get out of the examples Rob gave in his article? They are 
almost all art, just art, as far as I can see. Objects, you can show and 
sell. They function mostly in the Artworld. Holly Herndon and probably 
also Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke seem to be a bit different in 
the sense that they also engage with other domains and feel "whole". 
They reach out.

> As feel "whole" for me someone like Hito Steyerl whose work I like a lot.
> 
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/a-sea-of-data-apophenia-and-pattern-mis-recognition/
> the dissappearance of an horizon - acceleration as stasis 
https://vimeo.com/81109235#t=99s
> Does this have anything to do with accelerationism? I don't know and 
would that be important to know?


Acceleration as stasis. Yes I think this is right Annie.

Yes! more examples

Thank you

:)
Ruth


>
> Please diversify examples ...
>
> Thanks for these discussions!!
> Annie
>
> *I found a photo of a screen showing what? 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/24284339460/in/pool-wana2021/ a 
still, a looping video?

>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Gretta Louw 
 wrote:

>
> This makes so much sense to me, thank you Ruth. I see so much of 
this in Europe, North America and the western, urban mainstream; an 
utter inability (and, probably, unwillingness) to look outside our own 
narrowly defined cultural lens when purportedly studying/attempting to 
understand technology, media, digitalisation, and their impacts. It 
hampers real discussion and cross-fertilization of ideas. Preaching to 
the (mostly white, educated, urban, western, northern) choir - as most 
tech/ digital/ futurist and possibly accelerationist (I hope I'm wrong 
about the last one, still too early to tell) 
festivals/meetings/discussion do - is a futile endeavor and exhausting 
to watch. Diversification is essential, but the way the discourse has 
developed around diversity actually is counterproductive to achieving 
greater diversity. Just as an example, there are studies that have shown 
that reminding applicants of their 'diverse' (one must ask, according to 
whom, diverse from what??) background in a job ad by specifically 
stating that one is an equal opportunities employer etc, will in fact 
reduce the number of applicants from diverse backgrounds.

>
> I am rambling, but this issue is always tacked on to the 
sidelines of debates around the pressing issues of our time; an 
afterthought or a nod to political correctness. It needs to be at the 
core: we should not discuss these issues unless we have sufficiently 
broad input, otherwise we are just talking ourselves into 
insignificance. NB: I am talking generally and from some disappointing 
experiences at European 'digital futures'-type round tables and panels, 
not about netbehaviourists. I do think that we all need to take a much 
more radical approach to inclusivity though. Let's not participate in 
mutual back-slapping or hand-wringing with ppl only from 

Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

Can you say more?

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, Pall Thayer wrote:


Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:

  I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere
  doesn't
  adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions,
  walrus,
  migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of
  holding-back,
  learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental
  problem I
  think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy,
  micro-
  biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being
  rewritten as
  we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of
  ignorance.
  Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me
  that
  accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps
  man-based for all
  that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do
  we do, for
  example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East
  which is
  exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work
  to deal
  with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but
  to life and
  lives everywhere -

  Alan


  On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:

  > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
  >
  > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in
  an acid bath
  > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
  >
  > What this passage does not describe though is a situation
  where the wider
  > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend,
  are also
  > fatally eroded.
  > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with
  "our kind"
  > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES
  Gretta!)), but
  > beyond, with other species, and materials.
  >
  > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to
  which Simon
  > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to
  validate the
  > 'use' of humans.
  >
  >
  >
  >
  > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
  >       Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
  >
  >       "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
  revolutionising
  >       the instruments of production, and thereby the relations
  of
  >       production, and with them the whole relations of
  society.
  >       Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered
  form,
  >       was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence
  for all
  >       earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
  >       production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
  conditions,
  >       everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
  bourgeois
  >       epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
  relations,
  >       with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
  >       opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become
  antiquated
  >       before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into
  air, all
  >       that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled
  to face
  >       with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his
  relations
  >       with his kind."
  >
  >          This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything
  written
  >       since and it still stands perfectly well...
  > Sent from my iPhone
  >
  >
  > ___
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  >
  >
  >
  > --
  > Co-founder Co-director
  > Furtherfield
  >
  > www.furtherfield.org
  >
  > +44 (0) 77370 02879
  > Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce
  > Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i
  >
  > Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows,
  labs, & debates
  > around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
  >
  > Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
  > registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
  > Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand
  Arcade, Tally
  > Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
  >
  >

  ==
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  web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

You know well that the diff. between this and the Perm. for example is 
this is the result of a particular species running amuck. And with 40-50 % 
of ocean life scheduled to disappear, etc. as a result of climate, 
microspherules, etc., the situation is a mess. Yes, there will be 
something afterwords. But we're slaughterers trashing the planet, and for 
me that's unacceptable.


- Alan

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, John Hopkins wrote:


learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I

think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for


Acceleration, in mechanical physics, is the result of the application of 
directed (vector) energy to a body. It is a quantity -- 
meters-per-second-per-second (how fast am I going faster!) -- that results in 
ever-increasing velocity -- meters-per-second (how fast am I going?). 
Acceleration cannot occur without an ever-increasing energy input to the 
system. Velocity can be maintained with a steady-state energy input. Stasis, 
death, requires no energy input.


In a system with finite energy, acceleration has a limit, as does velocity.

We are not destroying the planet, we are temporarily altering the local 
energy balance. We are merely another expression of Life on the planet. Doing 
its thing. Pulsing, expanding temporarily.


Acceleration occurs in the presence of locally excessive eneergy. This is 
demonstrated at many scales in living systems where there is an energy 
excess. When that energy is entropically dispersed through a combination of 
expansion/growth, it slows down...


Pulsing (temporal, spatial) is a regular feature in bio-systems.

When we fixate on particular material manifestations of Life (as in a 
particular species), we miss the fact that Life is a continuous feature of 
the planet, and will continue long after we are gone *no matter what we do*. 
In my mind, the fixation on the material is what brings us to the hubris of 
the Anthropocene. Which, okay, plutonium makes a fine geo-marker. But what 
about the traces of Life from the Late Carboniferous? Talk about geo-marker, 
and Life leaving traces! The huge Applachian coal beds are the remains of 
Life at that time -- accelerated based on temperate climates (Appalachia was 
at the Equator), and abundant energy sources. And it altered the chemistry of 
the planet...


So it goes.

jh

PS -- as for all the preparatory conceptualizing on the word 
'accelerationism' -- it seems mostly to be a symbolic discussion that has 
little to do with the real world except as simply another 'ism' to be 
discussed ad infinitum. if it cannot be connected to the real world, what's 
the point? Maybe we need to calculate how much carbon is emitted from 'The 
Cloud' each time we email the word.


PPS -- I heartily support the concept of listening in any and all contexts. 
It has the effect of healing many problems!

--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[John Hopkins]

learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I

think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for


Acceleration, in mechanical physics, is the result of the application of 
directed (vector) energy to a body. It is a quantity -- 
meters-per-second-per-second (how fast am I going faster!) -- that results in 
ever-increasing velocity -- meters-per-second (how fast am I going?). 
Acceleration cannot occur without an ever-increasing energy input to the system. 
Velocity can be maintained with a steady-state energy input. Stasis, death, 
requires no energy input.


In a system with finite energy, acceleration has a limit, as does velocity.

We are not destroying the planet, we are temporarily altering the local energy 
balance. We are merely another expression of Life on the planet. Doing its 
thing. Pulsing, expanding temporarily.


Acceleration occurs in the presence of locally excessive eneergy. This is 
demonstrated at many scales in living systems where there is an energy excess. 
When that energy is entropically dispersed through a combination of 
expansion/growth, it slows down...


Pulsing (temporal, spatial) is a regular feature in bio-systems.

When we fixate on particular material manifestations of Life (as in a particular 
species), we miss the fact that Life is a continuous feature of the planet, and 
will continue long after we are gone *no matter what we do*. In my mind, the 
fixation on the material is what brings us to the hubris of the Anthropocene. 
Which, okay, plutonium makes a fine geo-marker. But what about the traces of 
Life from the Late Carboniferous? Talk about geo-marker, and Life leaving 
traces! The huge Applachian coal beds are the remains of Life at that time -- 
accelerated based on temperate climates (Appalachia was at the Equator), and 
abundant energy sources. And it altered the chemistry of the planet...


So it goes.

jh

PS -- as for all the preparatory conceptualizing on the word 'accelerationism' 
-- it seems mostly to be a symbolic discussion that has little to do with the 
real world except as simply another 'ism' to be discussed ad infinitum. if it 
cannot be connected to the real world, what's the point? Maybe we need to 
calculate how much carbon is emitted from 'The Cloud' each time we email the word.


PPS -- I heartily support the concept of listening in any and all contexts. It 
has the effect of healing many problems!

--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Pall Thayer]

Alan: But isn't that the whole idea behind left-acceleration?

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:46 AM Alan Sondheim  wrote:

>
> I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere doesn't
> adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions, walrus,
> migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of holding-back,
> learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I
> think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro-
> biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as
> we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance.
> Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that
> accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all
> that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for
> example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East which is
> exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work to deal
> with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but to life and
> lives everywhere -
>
> Alan
>
>
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:
>
> > Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> >
> > All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid
> bath
> > of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> >
> > What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider
> > ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also
> > fatally eroded.
> > We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind"
> > (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)),
> but
> > beyond, with other species, and materials.
> >
> > This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon
> > points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the
> > 'use' of humans.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> >   Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
> >
> >   "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising
> >   the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of
> >   production, and with them the whole relations of society.
> >   Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form,
> >   was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all
> >   earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
> >   production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,
> >   everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois
> >   epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations,
> >   with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
> >   opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated
> >   before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all
> >   that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face
> >   with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations
> >   with his kind."
> >
> >  This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written
> >   since and it still stands perfectly well...
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >
> > ___
> > NetBehaviour mailing list
> > NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
> > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Co-founder Co-director
> > Furtherfield
> >
> > www.furtherfield.org
> >
> > +44 (0) 77370 02879
> > Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce
> > Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i
> >
> > Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, &
> debates
> > around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
> >
> > Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
> > registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
> > Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade,
> Tally
> > Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
> >
> >
>
> ==
> email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
> web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
> music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
> current text http://www.alansondheim.org/tx.txt
> ==___
> NetBehaviour mailing list
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-- 
P Thayer, Artist
http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Alan Sondheim]

I agree and the problem precisely is acceleration; the biosphere doesn't 
adapt well to accelerated change, as the plights of sealions, walrus, 
migrant birds, ocean lives, indicate. If anything, a form of holding-back, 
learning to listen, listening, is necessary. The fundamental problem I 
think is that we're blind when it comes to ecosystems, energy, micro- 
biomes, and so forth. The fundamentals of mycology are being rewritten as 
we discuss, and what's emerging are whole universes of ignorance. 
Meanwhile we plow ahead, destroying the planet. It seems to me that 
accelerationism is so fundamentally human-based (perhaps man-based for all 
that), that it really overlooks collateral damage. And what do we do, for 
example, with the increasingly violent drought in the Mid-East which is 
exacerbating warfares and genocides? This needs slow, dirty work to deal 
with it, culture theory which listens, not only to humans, but to life and 
lives everywhere -


Alan


On Sun, 24 Apr 2016, ruth catlow wrote:


Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.

All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid bath
of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.

What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider
ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also
fatally eroded.
We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind"
(expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), but
beyond, with other species, and materials.

This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon
points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the
'use' of humans.




On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
  Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:

  "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising
  the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of
  production, and with them the whole relations of society.
  Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form,
  was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all
  earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
  production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,
  everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois
  epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations,
  with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
  opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated
  before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all
  that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face
  with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations
  with his kind."

     This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written
  since and it still stands perfectly well...
Sent from my iPhone


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--
Co-founder Co-director
Furtherfield

www.furtherfield.org

+44 (0) 77370 02879
Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce
Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i

Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & debates
around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997

Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee
registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.
Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, Tally
Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.




==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Gretta Louw]

Absolutely agree with this Ruth. The imperialist and colonialist attitudes that 
dominate most contemporary, western thinking are extended, of course in 
exaggerated form, into thinking about other species, non-human structures etc. 
The anthropocene is colonialistic. 

On this, I would highly recommend everyone to look into the work that Chris De 
Lutz and Regine Rapp are doing at Art Laboratory Berlin. They put out an 
excellent publication last year on bio art projects and are currently working 
on non-human subjectivities.

g.

Sent from my iPhone

> On 24 Apr 2016, at 18:15, ruth catlow  wrote:
> 
> Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
> 
> All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid bath of 
> everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
> 
> What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider 
> ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also fatally 
> eroded.
> We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind" 
> (expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), but 
> beyond, with other species, and materials. 
> 
> This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon 
> points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the 
> 'use' of humans.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>> Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
>> "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
>> instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with 
>> them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of 
>> production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of 
>> existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant 
>> revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social 
>> conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois 
>> epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their 
>> train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all 
>> new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid 
>> melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled 
>> to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations 
>> with his kind."
>>This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it 
>> still stands perfectly well...
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> 
>> ___
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
>> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
> 
> 
> -- 
> Co-founder Co-director
> Furtherfield
> 
> www.furtherfield.org
> 
> +44 (0) 77370 02879 
> Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce 
> Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i 
> 
> Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & debates 
> around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
> 
> Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee 
> registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205. 
> Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, Tally 
> Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.
> ___
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[NetBehaviour] F-oldin' money

[Michael Szpakowski]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/26498869502/in/dateposted/


cheersmichael

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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[Michael Szpakowski]

Hi Ruth 
I couldn't agree more. Of course there are areas which for all sorts of reasons 
M  didn't have anything to say about, and there were things about which they 
were plain wrong. I'm not interested in a cult or religion.My point is about 
baby and bathwater or, more, about not doing work that has already been well 
done.I would say in passing that M & E were not indifferent or ignorant to the 
kind of questions you raise. Here's an interesting review of a book on the 
topic - http://monthlyreview.org/2015/12/01/marxism-and-ecology/and here's a 
short article from the international Socialism Journal by the book's 
author:http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj96/foster.htm
warmest wishesmichael






  From: ruth catlow 
 To: netbehaviour@netbehaviour.org 
 Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2016 11:15 AM
 Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism
   
 Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.
 
 All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid bath of 
everlasting agitation and uncertainty.
 
 What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the wider 
ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are also fatally 
eroded.
 We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind" 
(expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), but 
beyond, with other species, and materials. 
 
 This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon points 
with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the 'use' of 
humans.
 
 
 
 
 On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
  
 
Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
 "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with 
them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of 
production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of 
existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of 
production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting 
uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier 
ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and 
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become 
antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that 
is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his 
real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."    This does the 
*descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it still stands 
perfectly well... Sent from my iPhone 
  
 ___
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour 
 
 -- 
 Co-founder Co-director
 Furtherfield
 
 www.furtherfield.org
 
 +44 (0) 77370 02879 
 Meeting calendar - http://bit.ly/1NgeLce 
 Bitcoin Address 197BBaXa6M9PtHhhNTQkuHh1pVJA8RrJ2i 
 
 Furtherfield is the UK's leading organisation for art shows, labs, & debates 
 around critical questions in art and technology, since 1997
 
 Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company limited by Guarantee 
 registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205. 
 Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, Tally 
Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.  
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationist aesthetics

[ruth catlow]

Gretta,

These points are very well made, and they chime with the sense of 
exhaustion and suspicion I have heard expressed by many people (who are 
not full time intellectuals) in connecting to the  bunch of 
Accelerationist stances, concepts and strategies.


I respond very positively to your words, because you speak with the 
voice of an activist- informed by a daily practice in which you must 
make decisions about which new ideas, networks and actions to include 
and exclude...this is not (primarily) about career, reputation or 
"getting on" but about making judgements and being effective in the world.


So this debate is a bit of a gamble with the energies of 
Netbehaviourists. I guess that we all have to search our own consciences 
on the matter of whether we participate in these kinds of discussions, 
and if so, whether we do so with the right attitude.


Respect!
Ruth

 On 24/04/16 02:33, Gretta Louw wrote:

This makes so much sense to me, thank you Ruth. I see so much of this in 
Europe, North America and the western, urban mainstream; an utter inability 
(and, probably, unwillingness) to look outside our own narrowly defined 
cultural lens when purportedly studying/attempting to understand technology, 
media, digitalisation, and their impacts. It hampers real discussion and 
cross-fertilization of ideas. Preaching to the (mostly white, educated, urban, 
western, northern) choir - as most tech/ digital/ futurist and possibly 
accelerationist (I hope I'm wrong about the last one, still too early to tell) 
festivals/meetings/discussion do - is a futile endeavor and exhausting to 
watch. Diversification is essential, but the way the discourse has developed 
around diversity actually is counterproductive to achieving greater diversity. 
Just as an example, there are studies that have shown that reminding applicants 
of their 'diverse' (one must ask, according to whom, diverse from what??) 
background in a job ad by specifically stating that one is an equal 
opportunities employer etc, will in fact reduce the number of applicants from 
diverse backgrounds.

I am rambling, but this issue is always tacked on to the sidelines of debates 
around the pressing issues of our time; an afterthought or a nod to political 
correctness. It needs to be at the core: we should not discuss these issues 
unless we have sufficiently broad input, otherwise we are just talking 
ourselves into insignificance. NB: I am talking generally and from some 
disappointing experiences at European 'digital futures'-type round tables and 
panels, not about netbehaviourists. I do think that we all need to take a much 
more radical approach to inclusivity though. Let's not participate in mutual 
back-slapping or hand-wringing with ppl only from our own sub-cultures...

All the best to everyone, and thank you for sharing your thoughts. xx


On 23 Apr 2016, at 21:54, ruth catlow  wrote:

Here Baruch Gottlieb reviews “Inventing the Future”by Srnicek & Williams  
(co-authors of the Accelerationst Manifesto)
https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/inventing-future-beholden-present-review/2016/04/08

He says

"visions or projects for teleportation, nano-surgery and socialist Mars colonies, 
are not going to convince capitalists to stop attacking socially produced value every way 
they can. We need more fundamental knowledge about how the present is reproduced in this 
first place, the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and slavery in the very 
devices we use to understand such things, and we need social and cultural technologies to 
integrate that consciousness into new behaviours, new sociabilities, new modes of 
exchange."



On 23/04/16 13:15, ruth catlow wrote:
So is this the accelerationist aesthetics question?

Q. How can we as artists and people use the logics & tools of automation and 
markets as part of making better art and better life for us all?

: )

Tom said

when it appeared that the prognostications of the first wave of

accelerationists had partly came true: namely, that the accelerations
inherent in capitalism, specifically the tendency to mobilize more
surplus labour and resources at greater rates of efficiency and
abstraction, would exacerbate the system's inherent contradictions to a
catastrophic point. Only partly came true though: the system did not
collapse but massively reorganized itself (all those would-be John Galts
suddenly all too happy to accept government bail-outs, massive
expropriation of assets from the poor). This required a recalibration of
the theses of that first wave of accelerationists, a recalibration that
perhaps either is reflected in art, or in which<<<

The unfettered development of automation and market-forces is currently seen as 
the preserve of people on the political right (who seek to preserve the status 
quo or enhance their wealth and power). But who may at some points ask for 
time-out (and bail-outs) in order to re-set their position of advantage.

Rob 

[NetBehaviour] aesthetics examples ... forked from : Re: Accelerationist aesthetics

[Annie Abrahams]

Ok let's discuss concrete art works, activities etc - let's leave for a
moment the theorethical philipoli stuff
In this discussion we have until now Ruth's work http://gtp.ruthcatlow.net/
on time: human time, life time, computertime, scientific time, stone time
and Rob's examples in his article
http://furtherfield.org/features/articles/accelerationist-art  - what are
these doing, what duscussion, thoughts they further ...

I just watched Ruth's work again, I like the reflexion it brings, how it
articulates all these times.
I have a question: - What do the people who go to the installation get from
this, is there a live video projection?, Can they understand how time is at
stake in this work? (In the catalogue text I read Edward mentioned a
projection, but so far I didn't see any photos of it)*
I admit I had difficulties understanding the complexity of the piece in the
beginning but now, at the end I can enjoy it's beauty.
So probably what I want to know Ruth, is where was your focus on the final
video object or on what happened in the installation ...

What did I get out of the examples Rob gave in his article? They are almost
all art, just art, as far as I can see. Objects, you can show and sell.
They function mostly in the Artworld. Holly Herndon and probably also
Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke seem to be a bit different in the sense
that they also engage with other domains and feel "whole". They reach out.
As feel "whole" for me someone like Hito Steyerl whose work I like a lot.
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/a-sea-of-data-apophenia-and-pattern-mis-recognition/
the dissappearance of an horizon - acceleration as stasis
https://vimeo.com/81109235#t=99s
Does this have anything to do with accelerationism? I don't know and would
that be important to know?

Please diversify examples ...

Thanks for these discussions!!
Annie

*I found a photo of a screen showing what?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/24284339460/in/pool-wana2021/ a still,
a looping video?



On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 3:33 AM, Gretta Louw 
wrote:

> This makes so much sense to me, thank you Ruth. I see so much of this in
> Europe, North America and the western, urban mainstream; an utter inability
> (and, probably, unwillingness) to look outside our own narrowly defined
> cultural lens when purportedly studying/attempting to understand
> technology, media, digitalisation, and their impacts. It hampers real
> discussion and cross-fertilization of ideas. Preaching to the (mostly
> white, educated, urban, western, northern) choir - as most tech/ digital/
> futurist and possibly accelerationist (I hope I'm wrong about the last one,
> still too early to tell) festivals/meetings/discussion do - is a futile
> endeavor and exhausting to watch. Diversification is essential, but the way
> the discourse has developed around diversity actually is counterproductive
> to achieving greater diversity. Just as an example, there are studies that
> have shown that reminding applicants of their 'diverse' (one must ask,
> according to whom, diverse from what??) background in a job ad by
> specifically stating that one is an equal opportunities employer etc, will
> in fact reduce the number of applicants from diverse backgrounds.
>
> I am rambling, but this issue is always tacked on to the sidelines of
> debates around the pressing issues of our time; an afterthought or a nod to
> political correctness. It needs to be at the core: we should not discuss
> these issues unless we have sufficiently broad input, otherwise we are just
> talking ourselves into insignificance. NB: I am talking generally and from
> some disappointing experiences at European 'digital futures'-type round
> tables and panels, not about netbehaviourists. I do think that we all need
> to take a much more radical approach to inclusivity though. Let's not
> participate in mutual back-slapping or hand-wringing with ppl only from our
> own sub-cultures...
>
> All the best to everyone, and thank you for sharing your thoughts. xx
>
> > On 23 Apr 2016, at 21:54, ruth catlow 
> wrote:
> >
> > Here Baruch Gottlieb reviews “Inventing the Future”by Srnicek &
> Williams  (co-authors of the Accelerationst Manifesto)
> >
> https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/inventing-future-beholden-present-review/2016/04/08
> >
> > He says
> >
> > "visions or projects for teleportation, nano-surgery and socialist Mars
> colonies, are not going to convince capitalists to stop attacking socially
> produced value every way they can. We need more fundamental knowledge about
> how the present is reproduced in this first place, the legacy of
> colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and slavery in the very devices we use
> to understand such things, and we need social and cultural technologies to
> integrate that consciousness into new behaviours, new sociabilities, new
> modes of exchange."
> >
> >
> >> On 23/04/16 13:15, ruth catlow wrote:
> >> So is this the 

[NetBehaviour] Auto-Re: aesthetics examples ... forked from : Re: Accelerationist aesthetics

[土木建筑学院]

 
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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism

[ruth catlow]

Yes Michael, and this is profoundly poetic.

All human traditions, values and communities are dissolved in an acid 
bath of everlasting agitation and uncertainty.


What this passage does not describe though is a situation where the 
wider ecologies of non-human planetary life, upon which we depend, are 
also fatally eroded.
We need to sense and engage not just the real relations with "our kind" 
(expanded to engage people and perspectives of all kinds (YES Gretta!)), 
but beyond, with other species, and materials.


This must include a correction to systems of dominance - to which Simon 
points with his example of improper use of neuro-science to validate the 
'use' of humans.





On 23/04/16 16:38, Michael Szpakowski wrote:

Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:

"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, 
and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old 
modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first 
condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant 
revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social 
conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the 
bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen 
relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and 
opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before 
they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is 
profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his 
real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."


   This does the *descriptive* job as well as anything written since 
and it still stands perfectly well...

Sent from my iPhone


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Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerate Marx [Was: Re: Accelerationism]

[Michael Szpakowski]

Hi Rob, everyone, yes - I chose that particular passage because it is so clear. 
It raises the question "What's new?". The historically progressive role of the 
bourgeoisie in terms of constantly revolutionising production is an absolute 
given in Marx.
Equally given and ubiquitous is his back of the hand, swatting a mosquito, 
demolition of the "if I want it, it's so" utopians - Fourier and his conversion 
of the oceans into lemonade being a particularly brilliant example,  but it 
applies equally to Owen, Proudhon, Kropotkin and others... The accelerationists 
strike me as a version of the utopians but nearly 180 years too late ( and 
there is such a strong temptation to quote Marx on"the first time as tragedy, 
the second time as farce" that I'm going to yield) What characterises them is a 
profound *mistrust* of ordinary people  -the Owens, the Fouriers  were great 
system builders -*they* and only *they* would bring enlightenment with their 
precisely ordered and often deeply odd systems. The key thing being the they 
were the great enlightened ones.Don't get me wrong -I'm all for dreaming and 
artists in particular do that well, they are often the storm petrels, the 
windsocks, of impending social change. But when hen we mistake our dreams and 
our systems as a substitute for the hard business of actually changing the 
world , when we fall in love with our own cleverness, the problems start. 
Cambodia stands as the most terrible practical warning here.
michael

  From: Rob Myers 
 To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity 
; Michael Szpakowski  
 Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2016 1:58 AM
 Subject: Accelerate Marx [Was: Re: [NetBehaviour] Accelerationism]
   
There's also the discussion of machines in the Grundrisse, which the 
"Accelerationist Reader" book starts with as "Fragment on Machines" (from "once 
adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes 
through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine" here:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch13.htm )

This is probably where Left Accelerationism originates as an attitude towards 
and seeking to work through or escape the process Marx & Engels describe below.

What's particularly interesting in relation to "Inventing The Future" is its 
discussion of automation and free time. And it touches on the quality of the 
alien in a way that might, in a funhouse mirror way, be recognizable in *some* 
other post-70s Accelerationism.



On April 23, 2016 8:38:21 AM PDT, Michael Szpakowski  wrote:
Marx & Engels on accelerationism in 1848:
"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the 
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with 
them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of 
production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of 
existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of 
production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting 
uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier 
ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and 
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become 
antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that 
is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelledto face with sober senses his 
real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."   This does the 
*descriptive* job as well as anything written since and it still stands 
perfectly well...Sent from my iPhone
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-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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