[...]e sounds in the movie, Cinderella's articulations are perceived much more “adult,” sexually textured, of how a young female sounded like in the Iranian consumer culture of the 1950s. Recollecting that Cinderella now reveals something else that corresponds with my research, an attic bestiary, a mini universe of meanings and beings with whom she is in conversation with and in a permanent collaboration of worlding.


Cinderella lives with the precarity of a family who torment and insult her on a daily basis. I kept asking myself, why doesn't she become estranged? Cinderella is circumscribed in all sorts of ways, yet she is capable of knowing new things about the animals she lives. She incorporates a form of transhumanity that lies in (1) the way she is inhabiting and composing with a place that she is not a master of nor can she escape from, and (2) in the way animals give her power and meaning. Can we think of Cinderella as an amateur ethologist? A skilled practitioner of attention to animals, for whom the ways that attention is addressed matters. A Cinderella who does her job is bizarre. It engages us in a totally different manner than a Cinderella who is the victim of evil circumstances. Not considered as a victim, she becomes much more present, inviting more interesting questions about her labor of knowledge production. This opened for me a space to think about her inhuman gesture of endurance, her know-how of being in a world that proliferates with chaotic zones of improvisation with animals. From Cinderella one can learn cross-species politeness and exploring ways of imagining what animals are capable of, with and because of her labor. This is her mice-trap. Steeped in routines of schizo-affective hallucinating with talking animals, her technique of trap-making is not a category of human behavior, but a model for a form of intelligence. I argue that as a lover and interlocutor of mice, her traps are in the form of a net in which her subject becomes entangled. Lures are frequently needed to prompt meaning to an animal. Cinderella to the mice, is an alluring producer of sociality. Her mice-trap produces the meaning of the social. The mouse is captured not as prey but as material comrade and ally.


[....]


Sometimes there is no maker behind the trap. They are created by the world, by random, emergent, coalescence of elements in the environment. In a witness-fable by Kelileh o Demneh we have a moment of problematization of cunning intelligence. The story goes, once a fox was walking down his forest when he noticed animals were escaping from something. Upon further investigation he found out they were running from a special sound that scared them, a loud drum. At this stage, he is curious but vigilance and not afraid, because he knows the forest is all deceit and trickery. His inner thought is opportunistic or playful, he thinks there must be something juicy there that I can get my hands on. Lured in the other direction than other animals, he goes to the source of the sound, and puts his paws in it. He realizes that the sound was created by the force of wind moving a tree branch to hit the remains of an animal fat and skin caught in the branches. Disappointed and victorious, he calls the illusion and moves on. Here we have the fox revealing the techne of the lie: an assemblage of skin, fat, tree, and wind, that others are trapped in. What is the problem with the fox? What kind of wit or intelligence does he possess? Is the fox detached from the mimesis of the forest? How do we not get caught in certain traps? My question here is, in which context do you say yes to the trap?


The fox of Kelileh o Demneh is smart, someone who embodies “metis.” Metis is ancient Greek for wiley intelligence. Metis [pointed out by Detienne] refers to patterns of thought relating to an effective adaptable cunning, the exact opposite of contemplating about unchanging essences. The art of metis encompasses a coherent body of mental attitudes and intellectual behaviors that cultivates shohood (intuition شهود), makr (cunning مکر), ferasat (perspicacity فراست), farib (dissimulation فریب), badiheh (improvisation بدیهه), hushiar (vigilant attention هوشيار), be-ja (timeliness بجا). In the world of Kelileh o Demneh you are a hunter and the world is made of traps and animals are full of cunning. This is precisely the metis’ field of operation, a world of movement and ambiguity in the battle of perspectival will. For the Greeks and Kelileh o Demneh, continuous metamorphoses is the name of the game. A disconcerting divided shifting world of multiplicity that creates (1) polymorphous monsters (mistrustful mobile elusive beings) and (2) metamorphing minds (mistrustful mobile elusive minds).


The notion of metis that we have is articulated in Greek deities powers. It is the form of knowledge of Athena, Hephaestus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Zeus, and Prometheus. The Greek gods often found themselves in either position of victory or as vanquished. Metis is the power of binding in situations of confrontation.


The fox and octopus master of bonds


Trap is polymorphism, the opposite of what it seems to be, in Greek, dolos mechanos. Dolos readers to cunning, that which is woven, braided or interlacing. It is about the ancient techniques of fitting together different pieces that articulates a whole. A skill of making knots, meshes and nets that surprise, trap and bind. A net is the invisible (mesh of) bonds, the favorite technique of metis. Bond is the combination of two things, weave and twist.

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[*]bond = weave + twist
[*]net: invisible (mesh of) bonds <-- favorite technique of metis


arm = bond
every part of its body is a *bond* which can secure anything (but nothing can seize)


*fox = a living bond* (can bend, unbend, reverse its own position at will)


Oppian is all about bonds, ropes, cords

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Cinderella’s position neither victorious nor vanquished.


I use the word “trap” because it is more problematic and dangerous than lures


[For the record, Plato completely opposed the idea of hunting with traps, because these techniques were thought to cultivate cunning and duplicity which were against what a virtuous political man should be. For Plato embodiment was a form of distraction to true knowledge.]

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The cunning of “getting to know them” [...]
You politely approach in order to get to know them, research as a lure for yourself to be transformed by the encounter. The nontransportive investigation is in fact full of transformations.


It is important to think about traps not as something great and necessary, but in a sense that we should be able to recognize and choose sometimes not to do it. I think we need lures, because the world is transient, shifting, disconcerting, ambiguous, and so are we. The question always is which trap are you caught in? How does it look like? Are you alone in it? Which Cinderella is making you a trap?

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________________

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points
* define cunning intelligence
   * greek notion of “metis” (you are a hunter: the world is made of traps and animals are full of cunning)
   * bonds --> fox + octopus
   * fox forest story kelile demne
      * is fox detached from the mimesis of the forest? Is this what critical intelligence looks like? by putting his paw and breaking that fragile assemble of skin, fat, tree, and wind. he reveals a lie. what other animals are trap engagers?
      * in which context you say yes to the trap?
* differentiate metis from Cinderella’s mouse trap (mechane, techne)
   * * trap as research method, but it has a double bind, it is as much as a lure for oneself as for the other
   *



my mimetic preoccupations --> with memory


(from mnemonic devices) to mimetic devices (lure)
mimetic participation with X
(with lures and traps we have mimetic participation)


a useful and necessary difference, synthesized by the Greeks--Plato and Aristotle
diegesis =/=? mimesis
(telling) -- (showing)
(recounted) -- (enacted)


you don’t get necessarily fossilized by it


mimetic =/= semiotic
enacted showing other than you (=/= telling)
figuration by trying to imitate
to copy = mimesis + techne
(summoning =/= mimesis)
getting caught in a form
it is form, but it is not about form
industry of fashion is about mimesis
problem of realism =/= problem of mimesis

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________________

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2. a better mouse trap
Cinderella

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and now I tell you...
what exactly a trap is made of...
text: condensed, everything

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1. mouse trap
◦diary of Cinderella, a lover and interlocutor of mice
who is a mouse lover, a mouse career, a mouse interlocutor (somebody who listens and tells stories), but she is also a shepherd.
◦“which trap are you caught in?” is always relevant question
2. spider web




1. Benjamin Alberti
◦minoan culture (pottery in ancient Greek)
◦artifacts and appendices --> traps
2. Eva Hayward
◽animal thinker
◽transanimality
◽[*]trap: a mouth, a mode of utterance, the “O” curve of lips and throat that sounds out and names the apprehension of being embodied
--> ***positionality ~/= situatedness = to be trapped*** (to speak and receive ranges of sensuous input from one's environment) --> *our bodies are not endlessly available to intentionality*
3. Marcel Detienne
◦[*]metis: intelligence which operates in the world of becoming, in circumstances of conflict = forethought perspicacity + quickness and acuteness of understanding + trickery + deceit
◦[*]trap = polymorphism (the opposite of what it seems to be)
◦dolos mechanos
◦(dolos -->) [*]cunning: woven, braiding or interlacing, *fitted together* <-- ***ancient techniques that use the pliability and torsion of plant fibers to make knots, ropes, meshes and nets to surprise, trap and bind*** <-- the idea that ***many pieces can be fitted together to produce a well-articulated whole*** (~=? art)
4. Vinciane Despret




dictionary of crafts and arts (D+A)
extraordinary gesture of collecting and describing in details the skills and techniques of not the elite but the ordinary craftsman
older styles of trap-making
it is important to include the violence (asymmetry) of trap-making, that it is not a consensual relation to the other


kelile demne
indian courts to teach the young princes the art of cunning
putting your paw in the source of the thing (fat)
what is the problem with the fox?
what kind of wit or intelligence is that?
are there other ways of reading random combination of environmental elements that signal something accidental to you and orient the other animals in the forest?


once you starting thinking with trap, you start to see them everywhere?


you are always trapped, the question is which trap are you caught in?
can it be dismantled? do you bring others in it?
do you move with the trap while being stuck in it?
which Cinderella is making you a trap?


--> a way of thinking about ways of being with technical objects without mastery or understanding them or being an engineer. we are not in a engineering relationship with traps, we are in heuristic relation with something that catches you long enough.


teasing with the negativity of traps (the entrapment)

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we are not having engineering knowledge about the technicality of the object (trap), we are moved by the heuristic fascination for it.
temporarily
“the negativity of the trap” :
violence of trapping
not voluntary
surprise

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kelile demne
fox sound in forest story


we are always related, composed into something
the bullshit of “freedom”: if you’d be free, you’d have no story, no connections, no memory.
it is a kind of story that more than anyone the marketing industries today wants us to be free --> freedom is the cornerstone of consumer culture


for me: trap is at the core of understanding knowledge, of the relationship to the other, to crafts, to art


trap: corpus of zoo-anthropo-biomorphic artifact
the trap-maker imagining what is the perspective of radically different being
if you make a trap for other animals you are fully engaged in multi-species perspectival game
the body is fully engaged in a perspectival communication


perspectival battle of will
construction of affect
being in relation to “variety”
when you are in the business of trap-making you are in the realm of knowing different things (differential, different things that have little to do with each other)


incite, to cite, to bring the source of others
to incite: to encourage violent behavior by unorthodox behavior

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trap research
1. physical body, sensual relationship
2. (literal/virtual) abstraction: you turn the environment into an abstraction to construct something through it
1. abstraction: an erotic lure for the soul
3. mimesis: how meaning is formed
(--> propositions)


lure
in the sense of house of candy in Hansel and Gretel


to be able to be caught in traps, even if their are accidental, just created by random, emergent, coalescence of elements in the environment. sometimes there is no maker behind the trap.


making images as lures for my research
“making” is not an expressive medium (not a medium of communication), but a research tool
(Line) “gentle trapping towards something you want”

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Despret
she asks how scientist relate to animals when they do field study
your test experiment is a form of a trap that you gain knowledge from
is there a way that we can ask the animal what interest them?


if you are investigating, how to make conjectures? conjecture: a kind of temporary hypothesis that allow you to go to the next
investigative research: your subject does not speak english to you --> what is interesting for the other


art of the lure
art of learning from those whose enigma you are trying to solve (and have no intention in helping you)
to solve the enigma (of the raven, or the artwork of the student) --> you have to make interesting and radically speculative choices in how you produce knowledge about the work of others


fishermen and hunters, at the edge of the forest or the shore, where animals come to check out the other realms, is where they build the trap
--> fishermen and hunters are the original thinkers of this kind of intelligence, you transform knowledge by learning from animals. it is prolonged, practical, and crafty

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spider
expert at waiting ---> go to Cinderella’s waiting
building environment from body liquids --> becoming bodily = the near-by-ness of things
=/= fox: suspicious

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being lured into desiring and trusting <-- this is basically the game (at the school)


critique is an art that tangles with what you are proposing
fox --> lure
octopus --> best lure-engagers (they love the trap, they can’t get enough of it)

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the O
the curved lips
apprehension of that which to be embodies


to be trapped = to be situated
situatedness =/= positionality

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we are not fully intentionally engaged with things
what we do is not intentionally all the time

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all of this is not contextualized in adult political discourse, but I put it in children fairy tales (the Cinderella)
this is where I want the notion of trap to be situated (comprehended).

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Enrica's transcription



trap in relationship to knowledge, art

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Trap is a zoo anthropo biomorphic artifact
if you make a trap for another animal, you think from trans species perspective
it is a dangerous game
a body fully engaged in a perspectival communication

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perspectival battle of wills


trap making = in the realm of bridging different sort of knowledge that has nothing to do with you
•To cite =/= to incite (unorthodox behavior)




Searching paths:
•bodily capture
•violence of the construction
•mimesis : how meaning takes form




But also traps get me trapped
lore - hansel and gretel’s house: doesn’t look like a trap but …
sometimes there is no maker behind the trap (is this a scandal? is this emptiness?)

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how to make you interested in my trap/chapter?
images making/painting as a research tool/assemblage
gentle trapping yourself to where you like to stay

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Vinciane Despret, “What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions?”
a conversation between scientist and animals in wild
your text experience is a trap, something that you gain knowledge from. Is there even a way to politely ask animals a question?
investigative research - how to deal with another subject that doesn’t even speak English to you? what trap am i being constructed into? what is the raven interested in?
and we are different things


the art of the lore and the tricks, learning from enygma - I’m interested in how do you produce knowledge from the work of others? [Sina, in the position of coordinator of the Master/educator]
edgy (transsectoral worlds): the edge of the forest, where sea and forest meet - where hunters/fishermen meet (...)


FOX suspicious - someone who s smart
“Sina, don’t be tricked!” my mom would tell me
a lore into desire
my needs =/= lores


OCTOPUS
best engagers
tentacles

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Abstraction as an erotic lore of the soul
eroticism is here in the book
an open trap in the forest as an open mouth that names the apprehension that embodies
to be situated (how you are trapped/Haraway, how do you receive ranges from the environment you are caught in) VS positionality (i’m white, 40 years old, Italian, … and than you speak from that - it actually excludes possibility of hybridization)
we are not available to intentionality all the time [i need to take some time to think with this sentence]


time focuses on individual
trapping implies relationality
a trap/trapper/the trapped ones

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a story from Kalila and Dimna: rabbit, mouse, frog are trapped together and they bond about how to get rid of it. eventually they start to move from within it (not from escaping the trap) as a monstrous hybrid.


Fables: Cinderella precarious situation
I want to break with Artaud idea (“to be powerless” is a bad idea): plea for traps:
care, writing, work happens when you are trapped!

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________________

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trap


[*]trap
(enigma of the apparently inexplicable behavior) --> *how to ask the ravens, with the same politeness, to take a position in relations to all the possible conjectures of the investigation?* how to ask them to teach us the good explanation, the right motive? ==> the researcher will have to learn the ***art of the trap and the net*** = the art of the lure and the trick = ***the art of learning from those whose enigma you are trying to solve*** (and have no intention of helping you) --> ‘how that which counts can count for them’
•*the art of metis / cunning intelligence* : the particular form of intelligence that the greeks (learning from hunters and fishermen) cultivated = intuition شهود + cunning مکر + perspicacity فراست + dissimulation فریب + improvisation بدیهه + vigilant attention هوشيار + sense of timeliness بجا (<-- this type of “getting to know” was constituted exaclty to be found in a domain where human intelligence is constantly at grips with the land or sea animals in an are where humans saw their intelligence and techniques transform in learning from animals**** [-how to prolong the possibility of this transformation?]) <-- *it is the only way of getting to know that can hope to address intelligent highly flexible* (Despret > Heinrish) = ravens who require of those who want to know them the same flexibility and the same intelligence
}-->[reading ajayeb bestiary as enigma; Bambi's mother studies; little mermaid; (using Despret's ethological research to think about) art of feedback ~= getting to know you =/= audience engagement]

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strange politeness
art of cunning (lures + manipulation) --> enticing ravens
*seeing without being seen*
obliging them : luring them to actualize the choices : ***creating situations as if they were natural*** (so as to let the birds do the talking)
(it is a matter of) rendering them more robust [giving them the occasion to resists, of giving them *the power to send the researcher/storyteller to work* =/= to disarticulate (what Ferdosi does in Shahnameh to the Div)]

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to find an enticement that interests them ~= to let himself be recruited by them
[from Latin “cresc-” grow, rise ==> crescent, crew, decrease, crescendo, recruit]


to trust them = to act like them
@apass feedback (differential knowledge that is created because of not trusting)

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the lure could be used to respond to this question: the ravens fall for the trick
...not only do the ravens not respond to questions but they pose new ones

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---> the story of birds entrapped escape away with the cage

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THE prey and THE visible (both are categories of forest life survival stories. also have high stakes in iranian culture, thought, and philosophy)
--> what is important for a living self?


(bab-e) hekayat-e dusti-e kabutar o zagh o mush o bakhe o aahu o ...
بابِ / حکایت دوستی کبوتر و زاغ و موش و باخه و آهو و ...
[everyone?]
[the story of the friendship of these animals; the quality, properties, and pitfalls of relation]
•what is (re)activating the *imaginary friend*? (is it really fully on shut-down?) ---> trap to abstract thought? ---> this ‘abstract thought’ is dangerous for “sadness” to get lost in it, but it is amazing for “joy”
•how much we need sadness?


why jackal is so persistent and play-full (full of “plays”) in Kelile o Demne's bestiary?

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bird people
,
fox people


,


‘shekar’ [شکار prey] and ‘ashkar’ [آشکار visible], two entities in play, like the game of stone-paper-scissors, a link in our shared literature that relates the perceptible to the subject of hunt. in a discourse of friendship and enmity, the visible anticipating itself as target for violence, becomes meaningful when we approach it in a game-theoretic-semiotic linkage, relating and tying together issues of voyeurism, surveillance, violence, mediation, and predation in poetic itineraries.


reading and greeting

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metis

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speeches (logos) and artifices (mechane)


dolos, mechane, techne, kerdos, apate, aiolos, poikilos, haimulos
quick, supple, wiley, deceitful, to confront the unexpected on every occasion,


wiley intelligence: effective adaptable cunning =/= contemplating unchanging essences
(patterns of thought relating to metis:)
craftsman's skills
theogony
myth
sovereignty
metamorphoses of a marine deity


metis: Zeus’ first wife


metis =? zerang زرنگ, rend رند


[*]wiley: a mind able to twist and turn in every direction


forms of knowledge of Athena, Hephaestus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Zeus, Prometheus --?-->
•a hunting trap
•a fishing net
•skills of a basket-maker
•skills of a weaver
•skills of a carpenter
•the mastery of a navigator
•the flair of a politician
•the experienced eye of a doctor
•the tricks of a craft[...]