[...] practices it, should often involve triangulation and the drama of departure?
I found myself (also) tempted to reduce her/him/you to sameness,
“meant to be,” relying on a kind of metaphysical latency.
invasion with little violation(?)
(In rhetoric:) citation = apostrophe [address to an absent or imaginary person, calling to the other]
(i am late. i am transed late. translation and trans-relations has everything to do with latency. )
Avital: For Bataille, friendship is part of the sovereign operation and is linked to reading.
apostrophe (citation) for Derrida is the possibility of postmortem discourse --> memory, acts of bringing back, recalling
can we take out no insurance policies to safeguard thinking or writing or building?
(Lyotard's) différend: a dispute or difference that cannot be resolved by the cognitive or linguistic resources we have at hand --(indicating rather)--> a rupture in the presentation of testimony (~ litigate)
something you could turn your tattooed back on
(#my work on [post-feminist] harem)
(companionship and sexuality and installations of community) --> The Inoperative Community [Bataille, Blanchot, Nancy]
(how to) create community wherever I go?
(establish relationships: humor, kindness, attention, reworking, “re-”, festivity, moderate arousal, silliness, playfulness, support,)
learning making a “fictive kin group in training” (how to learn to notice each other? how to learn to be in the same game?)
to insisted on community without relying on transcendence =/= communion
(community without illusions about itself)
a community that is self-annulling but rigorous (rigorously perverse)
(--the duties of the survivor)
-this is about creating convivial spaces (=/= urban design ideology)
(to set up around) work =/= (bodies of) knowledge
(let's make this an obligation:) to create an atmosphere in which interesting mistakes can get made
let's bring a huge amount of material what we get into trying to digest
--> [an effect of being in Europe ==>] is harem about having a space/time to claim as my own? [it can never be?] an actual space which i can dream of and re-create and hope toward? retrieving a mythic place of origin [that cannot be rebuilt]?
•*the harem girls my ancestors* --> Cinderella
=/= longstanding tradition of seeing the female experience as ‘inherently’ painful (as in the pathos of The Handmaids Tale TV series)
(#harem Manifesto)?
..telos of anything {in apass, my bow and arrow? (=/= a generalized claim) --> it was about knowing the energy of each other and trusting the honesty and coherence of directional postures and responsive movements. [#harem] (*) one's game might be geared to build success according[...]
(1)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%32.8[...]ning of) morality and principles of justice in a postmodern world: [democracy's western ethos:]
•recognition of human needs
•courage
•solidarity
•justice
•prudence
•(virtue of) participating in rational discourse
(Sardar's reading:)
•stating the obvious with a sense of grand discovery is an essential postmodern disease
•what modern science and technology, free market economy and multinational corporations are doing in the name of freedom, justice and fairness
--> despite wonderful sentiments, and all the arguments for justice and equify, we end up with more of the same
(problem of the East with) modernity: a European cultural construct based on specific historical legacy and condition, and its basic goal has always been to shape science, politics, arts, morality and the world according to its own image and inner logic
+
much of postmodernist thought is a sitnilar European construct and continues the old programme in a renewed attempt to justify neomarxism or new brands of liberal humanism
-what is a a genuine, radical departure from postmodernism?
religiosity: that which transcends the world (can be expressed in Fascism, Communism, Nationalism, Scientism, Aestheticism, Nuclearism, or in several other secular religions)
[*]secularism: a dishonest kind of religiosity***
(mark of out time:) *necessity of recovering our sense of oneness with nature* <-- our total alienation
[?my artistic research is the very expression of] (Griffin's) postmodernism : a new relationship with the past (and the future) <-- postmodernism acknowledges, appreciates and wants to learn from the wisdom of traditional societies ~= neoconservative religious fundamentalism =/= constructive nihilism
[the strive for a new ‘enchanted science’ (=/= sacred science) that] overcomes the separation between truth and virtue, value and fact, ethics and practical necessity
(Falk's) Disneyland postmodernism:
•abstract affirmation of a holistic harmonious future
•homogenized uniformity (based on a colonizing logic and westernization of the globe)
•reinterpret science and natural reality as confirmatory of a spiritual grounding for human
•holistic possibilities of encompassing conflict
•***postmodernism as an expression of the privileged status of the West***
*greek gnosis is the Terminator in its guise of mystic* (which provided the Enlightenment with its springboard and modernity with its mission to subjugate non-western cultures)
arrogance and authoritarianism are intrinsic in both Greek rationalist and mystical thoughts:
•Socrates --> worshipped reason and was an arrogant and obnoxious man who enjoyed ridiculing ordinary folks
•Buddah --> worshipped nature and produced a totally[...]
(2)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.5[...]es among us [@Leo] --> ***partial translations happen all the time***
to take the risk of making a mistake --[the only way you can]--> affirm something positive : the positive knowledge pins on the possibility of mistake --(@Setareh; Goda wants to avoid mistakes?)
(learning from Foucault:) power = actual arrangement of the world (and not something ‘out there’)
(learning from Derrida:) responsibility is about the excess of it all (and not the irony of it all [*irony: incongruity of expectation and occurrence])
(learning from biology about:) differences organize themselves by ecologies (and not by binaries) --> ecologies have many scales (of temporality and physicality)***
scientific research + artistic research + contemporary philosophical critical inquiry ==> *topographies of difference* [--> important for Goda's use of the term “privilege” flattening differences]
(“+” are exchange zones, i am learning their differences of idioms)
[apass = partners locked into mimesis]
(my problem with the idea of) privilege: a special right, advantage, or immunity granted to a particular group or individual --assume--> the only way for a particular demographic to advance is at the expense of another
•communism which was a form of collectivism (defined itself against privileges) wiped out large populations
•it is easier to politicize gender and sexuality --to--> demand change
@Leo: the question of (should this be the way of) ‘how do we inhabit our situation and to make connection with each other’ --> (?can i suggest to Leo) to drop the stance of comprehensive theoretical political position [without giving up the labor-intensive work of theory]
(to talk about...) as an abstraction of seriousness
*if one is really serious about the kinds of interupted and entangled abstractions it is no longer good enough to do it from the Greeks-on*
(not scolding post-colonial but actually) not to let philosophy or science or any other rest of it any longer be that unmarked set of categories
*situated ground: that we know something*
(not to let:) ‘not to know something’ (about living and arriving at the time of human-induced mass-extermination and mass-genocide) as the only way of being a serious person ~ extinguish abstractions in order to act
[learning from Haraway + Latour:] ‘to take something seriousness’ is not to run off and explain it by something else, is to be at risk to it's ‘thisness,’ to be available to it, to be undone and redone at encounter ~-> specualtive thought
(always asking) what other abstractions are to think with?
[my interest in the past -->] your head screwed backward, not so much looking for relevant novelty [and not in search for meaning] (not so of past but also) not quite so enamored of the new and of the creative
-extinctions are happening at extraor[...]
(3)[...notes/midday review.txt]%0.7[...]onstitute flourishing?* [@collapsology =/= one is seduced, curious, interested, and intrigued ‘to what is going on there?']
[species are often] risks for your ongoingness
(work of) [*]hope: care not being possible out of the place of sheer joy
...................................
my issues with the commons
i have a problem with the conceptual and material apparatus called ‘resource’ that the commons takes uninterrogated. (and there is no way out of it because commons must take ‘a’ definition of resource for granted--and that makes it too easy to deconstruct). and it is too embedded within a political framework and vocabulary. and political is the most difficult syntax to start with, which won't allow it to access other literacies.
in this way the commons alone cannot properly address issues such as pollution, extinction, human-animal problems, rhetoric, inheritance, logic, alienation, and so on, that need multidisciplinary thinking.
•what is ‘feeling’ for Lili
•the issue of ‘similarity’ for Luiza
•zones of connectivity and presubjective singularities for Xiri. (what is even better than justice? kindness?)
(Xiri's use of the implicit element of ‘surprise,’ she is trying to communicate the ‘importance’ of her contents.) (trauma-story almost always silences other stories. -- she is compelled by her own storytelling --> baring witness to the injustice therefore resisting it.) --when the victimized personal veils the larger context of evil, the illusion of the true perpetrators - which is around you. (she stated the danger which is all around us.)
-the issue of immediacy for Xiri
-‘you can only heal what you have wounded’ (Wagner's Parsifal “only the weapon that made it will ever cure the wound.”)--what does this mean for our caring activities? @Sina: is this what you mean by western modern rationalization, and that is why you are thinking within the western/eastern philosophies, is the modern tools the antidote to themselves? (this is too soon for me to say and understand this question.)
what is my ‘will to’?
Xiri wants to abolish injustice?
Thiago, abolish selfishness?
Maarten, abolish weakness?
Aela, abolish entropy?
Sana,
Seba, abolish enmity?
Lili, abolish feelings?
Varinia, abolish obedience? [--what shortens our leash?]
Sina, abolish selfhood?
Vladimir, abolish non-disambiguity?
@Esta, her enunciated need for “framework” [~->? instruments of economization], could she be needing “pathway”: path instead of frame, and way instead of work. [frame =/=? overflowing (--> my method of script?); identity =/=? avidity, hers;]
interplay of scales
the scale of intimacy, (of skin, of shared heartbeats and feelings)
data and surveillance and seduction
intimacy: still an unpredictable force?
intimacy: the biol[...]
(4)[...notes/midday review.txt]%0.8[...](Matthew Carey)
i have been building my own islamology or islam-studies department, through a low-voice critical mildly blasphemic rant about imagination
(anthropology of non-experimental imagination in the islamicated worlds)
[there is a difference between **experimental imagination** and imagination]
we are at the edge of extinctions
many species and lives are migrating to “where” and nowheres, pushing to the oblivion.
my issue with the ‘timing of understanding’ --> i don't want to be understood by you, i want to be loved by you ==> messenger + message --> so how do i produce lovers? (=/= Don Juan's type of love) --> there is a genius in your everyday talks that transforms me and has nothing to do with understanding (with the information that i grasp)
(using Martha Kenney thinking:)
i am interested in crafting words, phrases, and languages that reworlds us. (reworlding is about reorienting us in the world differently. --> is that what i meant by changing the rhythm of somebody's story?) what is important for me is ***what words ‘do’ rather what words ‘point at.’*** --> if not evidence then ‘what’?! *****the magic of the right word*****
...................................
communicating knowledge is always also making it
(false: backstage making knowledge, finding truths, connections etc. and then all of this gonna be communicated by publication, teaching, exhibition, etc.)
all the useful ideas i ever had, have happened in the process of deliberating, communicating, exchanging, and so on.
**trying to communicate is the same as making knowledge
(i don't make, i communicate)
...................................
from paf:
-lunching a counter-exotic movement toward the Book of Wonders: (1) postponing immediate information. (2) ...
•if everything is not exotic then nothing is.
•framing as ‘tool,’ every tool is and has power, and is built in a discourse of power. tools are not innocent, nor can we do without them. they make us. what would be an idea of the ‘worst tool’ you can work with? poetics for me? [to write-about =/= to write-with the Book of Wonders. to use a language-tool that produces the most ambiguities and most misunderstandings, but that is the only way, there is no tool that can prommis clarity. evey tool produces its own ‘clear'--for someone, for some purpose. these makings are all tool-specific: making dichotomies, making similarities, making diferences, stc.]
•how far your research can host an encounter with alterity? and how this encounter can help you undo your prommises of communication, positionality, and conceptual buildings? weave new worldling entanglements with the problem--not to solve it, but stay with it. dissolve essential differences between dichitomies such as: knowledge and expression (or ‘knowledge’ and the ‘communication of knowledge’), experimental and ethic[...]
(5)[...notes/midday review.txt]%1.1[...]ruths, connections etc. and then all of this gonna be communicated by publication, teaching, exhibition, etc.)
all the useful ideas i ever had, have happened in the process of deliberating, communicating, exchanging, and so on.
**trying to communicate is the same as making knowledge
(i don't make, i communicate)
...................................
from paf:
-lunching a counter-exotic movement toward the Book of Wonders: (1) postponing immediate information. (2) ...
•if everything is not exotic then nothing is.
•framing as ‘tool,’ every tool is and has power, and is built in a discourse of power. tools are not innocent, nor can we do without them. they make us. what would be an idea of the ‘worst tool’ you can work with? poetics for me? [to write-about =/= to write-with the Book of Wonders. to use a language-tool that produces the most ambiguities and most misunderstandings, but that is the only way, there is no tool that can prommis clarity. evey tool produces its own ‘clear'--for someone, for some purpose. these makings are all tool-specific: making dichotomies, making similarities, making diferences, stc.]
•how far your research can host an encounter with alterity? and how this encounter can help you undo your prommises of communication, positionality, and conceptual buildings? weave new worldling entanglements with the problem--not to solve it, but stay with it. dissolve essential differences between dichitomies such as: knowledge and expression (or ‘knowledge’ and the ‘communication of knowledge’), experimental and ethical, joke and seriousness, interiority and exteriority, mysterious and clear, uncovering and veiling. produce creative impossibilities that do not resolve to bionary answers easily, that unstable possitionality for good, that open for forms of consiounesses to experience thoughts which differ from itself. to think and entertain both particularities and generalities (of logic, ethics, politics, aesthetics, etc.) encounter can be both infinitly singular and general. that is a form of suggestive work that can deal with the specific as well. (think about ‘chicken’ as an anstract idea in our semiotic world and as an individual being in our material world)
•using the notion of delinking (reminded by Juan) with my research on the Book of Wonders. going from parable-thinking --to--> religious-thinking --to--> poststructuralist-thinking --to--> poetic-thinking --to--> riddle-thinking --to--> biological-thinking --to--> deconstructionist-thinking --to--> ...
•this other universe is always at the beyond--the other cosmos is a lure (?)
•all cages have wheels
•boat, as an image for both construction and destruction
•i don't need to be alone in destroying the boat
•how to move the boat =/= destination
possible workshops for Einat's project:
•moonwalk dance
•database programing --> how to live[...]
(10)[...notes/midday review.txt]%1.2[...]d and understand database early in elementary school. databases are fundamental parts of our political social ethical cultural processes...
•regular expression --> how computer programming reads and patterns text
•text-based internet --> cyberfeminism
•intervention in the digital hegemonies (digital ==> cultural ==> material) (changes to the built digital environments, possiblities of reconfiguration --> production of space, articulations about ‘us’)
•what does it mean to look at a code? (a critical introduction to computer programming for artists)
•How to implement a programming language in (JavaScript?)--parsing, regexps, (http://lisperator.net/)
•teaching German with Holderlin's “Andenken” poem
•to create a *feast* (to celebrate is to become free of the habitual, becoming inhabitual. celebration is the tensional coming together of the unlikes --> through which human beings and gods could meet and greet. The festiveness that the celebration encourages constitutes the original Greeting. [Avital])
...................................
what i have beeing trying to mean by saying that i have been dependent on others to create spaces that a telling can happen, is actually a fundamnetal ellement of storytelling: the ***community. i need and depend on community in my tellings. (this has noting to do with the imperative of “communication” or having a “message”)
(is it what Stengers calls to promote an “oikos”?)
[Stengers]
“the *predominance* of the *concern for relevance* (-rabt-) builds up memory and experience”
political ecology : there is NO knowledge that is (both) relevant and detached
political ecology : relevance + attachment = knowledge
art of staging = designing a scene
[the House TV series, the issue of the protagonist is] the distinguish between the figure of the expert and the figure of the diplomat.
*expert: ones whose practice is not threatend by the issue under discussion --> knowledge = relevance
*diplomat: ones who provide a voice for those whose practice, mode of existence, (and what is offen called) identity are threatened by a decision. to cause the experts second thoughts. --> knowledge ~= decision
[this is core in storytelling] [then, i am political. i used to use the word embassador, but it means also ‘diplomat.’ stories that can hold another story hanging. Sina's shy embassador ~=? ] (but what about the weak ones, the idiot, the one's who ‘rather not’ contribute to the political project?)
-diplomats are situated*
[for *Lili this is also a delima, she is torn apart between her expert self and diplomat who crafts relevance
diplomat--the relevance of feelings --> what is the knowledge in the kiss? (the kiss that she rendered as ‘irrelevant’)] [for me kiss is essentialy important. “it (everything) started with a kiss."]
universal k[...]
(12)[...notes/midday review.txt]%1.3[...]rganic, cyborg, any form, but always an agent. tell us why/how this or that feature helps the bodyguard with its task
•generation stories, describe and follow your object in three generations, its child and grandchild
•[for the second day or warm-up first day?] constraint based writing: (Kenney > Christian Bök's “literary genetics” poetics of encryption of data; poetic vectors, to “infect” the language;) describe/story your object (or an operative “verb” within your discourse) with univocalics: without using “e” or only using a single vowel. or, first write with 3, then 2, then 1 vowel.
-the workshop is about: what other stories (of your object) are possible?
-in the workshop (I take a temporary position to) challenge others to re-tell the story of their ((epistemological) found) objects
-a ‘generative constraint’ might help opening up paths before you, away from our habits of storytelling
-it is about getting a feeling for the resistances and potentials of language in our (sometimes mundane) descriptive practices, “strange richness of missing the letters we need” (Kenney)
the metaphors are dormant in our routines of talking and noticing each other. how then, by traversing the routine, our “knowledge” and “community” took on new meaning, as they get a chance of being rearticulated in different languages (or differenlty infected literature)
~-?==> changing the system of classification (of thought)
-in a way the workshop is about an *approach* to knowledge generation (and not necessarily a rigorous critique nor directly evaluating the production of our knowledges)
***nothing is never merely a metaphor***
[some fables from science studies:]
•Emily Martin's egg/sperm story --> stories of atomism, distribution of agency, ----[The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles]
- Hayward's microscope --> tropes of natural history docu, ----[Enfolded Vision: Refracting The Love Life of the Octopus]
•Kenney/Haraway's origin/nature fable --> the omnipotence of the “origin” story in our descriptions and interactions with the natural world
•Scott Gilbert's immunological “bouncer” story =/= immune systems as inclusive agents of symbiosis
•Lynn Margulis: life (made possible) by “combat” [the survival fable that TV series “The 100” and “Kelile Demne” for instance is based on] --✕--> life by networking
•Haraway: the tale of “organism = a system of division of labor with executive functions” (==> extraction of wealth among us)
•Morton's causality-story
•brain/body story --> where the “move” came from?
•Sina's “standing on the shoulders of giants” --> knowledge/continuity, role of authority and humility in science ----[http://www.sinaseifee.com/giants.html]
•Sina's 3 little pigs --> architecture/tech/ echics[...]
(15)[...notes/midday review.txt]%1.6[...]olf in sheep's clothing (Aesop's “A Case of Mistaken Identity”)
a wolf thought that by disguising himself he could get plenty to eat. Putting on a sheep skin to trick the shepherd, he joined the flock at grass without being discovered. At nightfall the shepherd shut him with the sheep in the fold and made fast all round by blocking the entrance. Then, feeling hungry, he picked up his knife and slaughtered an animal for his supper. It happened to be the wolf.
--> a character that does not belong to one can involve one in serious trouble
[*]fable: (name of the) *literary thing* that aime to *teach responsibility* --Keenan--> self-understanding of the free subject (<--fable--we are exposed to something in language that troubles the possibility of that understanding)
[in my lecture performances with] fable [I aim to] offer an allegory-of unreading, of reading without limits and without guarantees --> freedom
governmental concepts:
•subject
•agency
•will
•choice
•freedom
•rights
}--deconstruction--> limitation of ethico-political responsibilities
for Keenan: **question of responsibility = question of freedom**
the free community of rational beings cannot simply be (regulatively) invoked
calculable & programmable law
responsibility: (names the predicament in which) *coincide the necessity/inevitability of action & the failure of law*
•politics (and ethics) --name--> the urgency and necessity of a response
•responsibility (and freedom) --name--> the impossibility of response with guarantee
ethical =/= actual
| |
impossibility =/= totality of what is
***impossible =/= not-possible***
--Derrida--> the impossible occurs at every moment (that belong to the effort of reading)
“have we not acquired the right to say everything?” (Sade)
who reads, and how, a text addressed to no one?
what status does it have?
[Lode Lauwaert]
for Blanchot Sade (libertine aristocrat novelist) was the writer par excellence
we should think about Sade in explicitly revolutionary terms [Sade's work ~= Robespierre's Reign of Terror]
•Sade's ideal of society is a reactive reality (it takes form specifically in reaction to something external) --> undertaken endlessly efforts against modes of social organization that are based on an stable internal point of reference
in Sade:
1. selfishness has an ontological (not a moral) meaning : ‘the essence of man = negation of the value of the other's existence’ (+ a destruction of the positive meaning other people have in normal life) =/= being-for-the-other
2. characters with theocentric universe (who deliver extended theological discussi[...]
(16)[...notes/midday review.txt]%2.8[...]of being ill
(capital gains concentrated in the) self-production of identity
subject occupied full time in itself
the logic of “do it yourself”
obliged to make countless small decisions in all areas
subject mixed up with the incessant movement of its own alienation
*hyperactive life --> poverty of experience*
the banality of “i Like”
(maybe interesting for Laura:) *fatigue* is the instant of stopping and pausing [of exercise and beautification] (after which a diversity might be possible)
[*]fatigue: capable tiredness --> politicizes discomfort
[#we are in the domain of passivity, disappearance and inaction]
Peran suggests a position of fatigue where (some time ago) was occupied by melancholy
“is this not a mere “don't like” that re-enters the spiral of our mobilization?”
“we are left with just the option of making an index, a collection of trails and marks [...]”
sunday: “empty time that forces us to fill it through apparently free decisions that, if they are resolved properly, please us and re-constitute us” (Peran)
*freedom of action for self-realization* --> unstoppable egocentric machine
space of perpetual connection (@ERG's website)
(pseudo) communicative action by way of technological devices --> camouflaged alienation
“The promise of self-realization and the demand for visibility organize the mobilization of desire, turning it into work.”
do we need to formulize and formalize our uncomfortable concerns and experiences?
@apass, artist research
i want to *give connections*
...................................
#semester/seminar on destruction
-care, suffer, fubar,
[fubar: “fucked up beyond all recognition"--a term from veterans returning to the United States in 1960s]
#semester on Hojum
(surge,) on performance, media, sculpture, and surplus
Hojum has to do with the hojum (~=? ‘bodies’) of people to get in front of the line, the hojum of enemy, of friend, of information, also includes the plural form of ‘hajm’ (حجم)
#seminar on the history of translation
archaeology, interpretation, spaces of difficult translation, reading out of time, technology and transformational studies, semiotics, poetry, writing,
...................................
#on Situated Knowledges
-approach the text by creating intensity and my own partial perspective
-the elephant parable (against it)
-objectivity (disembodied view from nowhere)
-neutrality (biologically insane)
-marked people (my own story)
-situatedness of the situated
-The cyborg is a figure in which situatedness makes possible adventures with the beyond.
-globalization-as-situatedness: global is precisely space/place/time/situation
[...]
(17)[...notes/midday review.txt]%3.2[...] شطح (=/= shar’ شرع, or even sharh شرح?), shathiat (شطحیات) in Tasavof (تصوف), rend رند, rendane رندانه]
-so, instead of “being” she proposes “splitting”: heterogeneous multiplicities that are simultaneously salient and incapable of being squashed into isomorphic slots or cumulative lists. --> The knowing self is partial in all its guises, never finished, never whole, stitched together imperfectly [that is what she means by ‘split'] ==> join with another (without claiming to ‘be’ another) {if i am allowed i can map Haraway's “partiality” onto Deleuze's “schizophrenia” --> Greek for “split brain” (Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception, p.38) According to Beuler, “The selectivity which normal attention exercises among the sensory impressions can be reduced to zero, so that almost anything is recorded that reaches the senses.” One reason for the admiration which Deleuze and Guattari professed for the schizophrenic must lie in this complete lack of inhibition (khod-dari خودداری).} (a confusion of voice and sight, rather than clear and distinct ideas) ([to discriminate message types:] *to confuse literal and metaphorical*, the schizophrenic either does not know his responses are metaphorical or cannot say so --> the breakdown of his metacommunicative system : does not know what kind of message a message is --> the schizophrenic looks for hidden meanings everywhere (assuming everything is metaphorical) or tend to accept every message as literal) (Lacan: schizophrenia: breakdown in the signifying chain of language ==> experience of pure material signifiers [<-- personal identity is the effect of the temporal unification of past and future with one's present, and that such an active temporal unification is itself a function of language.])
subjectivity is multidimensional ==> vision is multidimensional
(an instruments of vision:) optics : politics of positioning --> one example of optical illusion: rationality (projected from nowhere comprehensivel)
(some perspective are more guilty : master point of view)
No one ever accused the God of monotheism of objectivity, only of indifference. The god trick is self-identical, and we have mistaken that for creativity and knowledge, omniscience even. (self-identical [having self identity] =/=! creativity/knowledge)
Technology: skilled practices. (How to see? Where to see from? and so on.)
@Sana, ‘observation’ and ‘technologies of positioning’
how to see?
the science question in military
the science question in colonialism
the science question in capitalism
the science question in feminism
...
master theory =/= webbed accounts
(what does she mean when she dichotomises theory and account?)
instead of (creating and mastering) ‘theory’ she proposes webbing ‘accounts’***
-‘webs’ can have the property of being syste[...]
(18)[...notes/midday review.txt]%3.5[...]istory.
she suggests to be accountable for (the intricacies of) visualization technologies in which we are embedded that we will find metaphors and means for understanding
and intervening in the *patterns of objectification* in the world.
--> politics and epistemologies of location, positioning, and situating
partiality =/= universality
*partiality: view from a body, always a complex, contradictory, *structuring, and structured body* (what does she mean by ‘structuring and structured body’?)
--the sciences and politics of interpretation, translation, stuttering, and the partly understood.
*Feminism: critical vision ==(consequent upon)==> a critical positioning in unhomogeneous gendered social space.
location --> vulnerability ~~> (full of limits and contradictions)
“rational” knowledge : to be free from interpretation, to be free from being represented : to be fully self-contained (~ fully formalizable)
-no! let's make Rational Knowledge a process of ongoing critical interpretation among “fields” of interpreters and decoders --> a power-sensitive conversation
-accountability and responsibility for translations
. Situated knowledges are about communities, not about isolated individuals
(pinocchio and geppetto parable)
objectivity = positioned rationality
=/= images of escape and transcendence of limits (filled in Hollywood and sci)
faithfulness of our accounts to a “real world” (no matter how mediated for us and no matter how complex and contradictory these worlds may be)
Sex is “resourced” for its representation as gender, which “we” can control
Situated knowledges require that the object of knowledge be pictured as an actor and agent
-which version of “realism” is she argueing for?
“[...] we are not in charge of the world. We just live here and try to strike up noninnocent conversations by means of our prosthetic devices, including our visualization technologies.”
in the rich feminist practice in science (more than anywhere else) passive categories of objects of knowledge are “activated”
The biological female peopling : When female “sex” has been so thoroughly retheorized and revisualized that it emerges as practically indistinguishable from “mind,” --> the ‘difference’ is theorized biologically as situational, not intrinsic, (at every level from gene to foraging pattern, thereby fundamentally changing the biological politics of the body.)
-(example: Emily Martin)
points in SK:
1-finite partial perspectives
2-split and contradictory self
3-objectivity (--> positioned rationality, object of knowledge as an actor, mutual and usually *unequal* structuring, it is about taking risks)
how and why Haraway as a feminist fight[...]
(19)[...notes/midday review.txt]%3.6[...]hero, enlightener, rescuer knowing more, knowledgeable pedagogue/leader “helping students find themselves,” [--> my failed transference with Saeed])
-->? Discourse of the University* : (systematic) “knowledge” replaces the nonsensical master signifier in the dominant commanding position; in this case the sujet supposé savoir dependent upon the related knowledge of the Other, or the source of “the field” (journals, textbooks, etc.) ==> (arbiter of) truth --> *to transmit knowledge that is already given*
[account of knowledge as a symbolic and social network, master signifier, subject positions,]
in placing the ‘text’ in the position of a knowing expert who has the answers Lili (unconsciously) idealizes her texts, and of course when her ‘texts’ fail to satisfy that desire she demands ‘knowing’ from them in terms of cynicism: the feeling or state of being annoyed and irritated by them. this is a structural space of ‘demand’ in her. for me what is at stake is the complex nature of encounter between Lili and text which takes place in an artificial space--a symbolic space--that is at the same time the place of real investments of her desires.
@Lili; is she (like the rest of us humans) looking for an active, predatory art?--> if non-communicative non-predatory non-kinetic [a common issue with the students of choreography and dance in general] art exists on this planet, then we kave to learn “a whole new set of techniques.” [La Guin])
--the meter of ‘time,’ that essential element, matrix and measure of all kown human-animal art. what if there are other metric systems? art not as an action, but a reaction? not a communication, but a reception? {---> go to my master studies Diploma on passivity in performance art}
registers of ‘complaining’ in Lili's discourse. she is a bit like Faust groaning, habe nun akhhhhh Philosophie and so on. [Ach of Sprache] (that they have done all the work, they know everything, yet know not enough of what really counts [that is the incalculable] and cannot be satisfied by mere knowledge available to them. nor can they keep themselves to the restricted zone of knowability.) so Lili saying “it's too much!” is a hysteric wish for ‘more’?
(Freudian joke, the hysteric says: “is that all there is!?” while the neurotic says: “this is too much!” to the same object)
*it was Goethe who invented the super-ego, Freud named it following him.
the all-or-nothing view: i know everything or i don't know anything, problem of scale, problem of ‘circumstance = reality’
kloAQsvRkFY
the figure of the ‘accuser’ and the ‘straight talk’ for Lili
...that people would speak literally
going from proof to proof, from necessity to necessity --> displacement (=/= detour)
...................................
@Ekaterina; some other characters:
the jealous, the impassioned, the persecutive, the er[...]
(20)[...notes/midday review.txt]%4.2[...]'t! --> we must try to work to locate modalities of stagnancy (rokud) without necessarily seeing the Exit. how do we live with these catastrophic markers that mark us?
-Paleonymics: a certain operation according to which one continues to put old words to work. The use of a pre-existing word in a new context. -- we are stuck with old pomping meanings.
--(Stengers) connecting materialism with struggle --> (in apass) we are descendants of this trope
for Luiza, the meaning of ‘infold’? instead of ‘unravel’? --> interface*
(i want to point out the ‘synthesis’ in her work rather than the ‘analysis’ implied in the term ‘unravel’)
Lacoue-Labarthe made Heidegger possible to read for Avital
(and that is what Avital does, make a lot of things possible to read for me)
(to incorporate a) *rigorous hesitation* (=/= Leo's “slowness”)
going step by step in the confrontation (essential to the unfolding of thought)
**not turning ‘weakness’ (or metaphorical weariness) into a (compelling) paraconcept [<-- Levinas does it]
-taking on the the big topoi of the day like a warrior
courage --comes--> from the *abyss of needling fearfulness*
*German romantics invented the always-with-community, a living-with, a Mitsein practice of living life philosophically (full of moments of restricted solitude, pressure zones, etc.)
(office of friendship...) i am friend in a Freudian ambivalence, that means i undermine the friend, try to trap him and catch him off guard
-if you are so calm, then i will try to bring you over to my side of the barricade of obsessional neurotic (a condition in which the mind is intruded upon against her will by images, ideas, or words. consciousness remains lucid and power to reason remains intact ==> temporarily deprivation of individual of freedom of thought and action [<== intrapsychic conflict of sexual origin that mobilizes and blocks all flows of energy (in the case neurotic a source of pleasure to the child =/= hysteric)])
-when we write do we need to demonstrate a far-ranging grasp of the political consequences of every possible metaphysical move?
...prime mover or suspects such as Plato, Heidegger, Derrida
*acceleration: that we are result-oriented, business-oriented, under the gun of gains, and subject to the push towards scientific objectification =/= i try to work with different degrees of attention: slowing down for checkpoints, allusive clusters and dense indicators, that are also problematic and short-circuited (in my lectures) ==> to get to the *notational space* that we can calmly observe, examine and explore together.
-to be lucid about your own part taking in narcissistic economy
*mimesis*: those things we are still stuck in in very covert and unavowed ways ~-> ‘destiny’ (a term i use when i mean mimesis for us [-a disease that shows symptoms characteristic of another dise[...]
(22)[...notes/midday review.txt]%4.5[...]resent-at-hand --> ontological relationship to the world (----the characters want to go and have an icecream when they are finished with all the magical fights.)
this notion of magic as tool (=/= epistemological object) in use achieves (what Don Ihde calls) *instrumental transparency* --> It “withdraws” when in use, but becomes conspicuous again when broken or missing [--> this is precisely the standard account of technology in high-techno-scientific capitalist sunny societies] --> the idea that magicians can “forget” (or “lose”) their magic suggests a guarantor of instrumental transparency of magic (or knowledge).
-the popular vision of magic hinges around the desire for total transparency**
-this instrumental rationality is the heart of the modernizing project (which characterizes capitalism) --> the value-free calculable efficiency of administrative processes (--> a project of domination and denial of dependence) (=?=> Auschwitz)
(how to make The Magician's bounded utilitarian individualism unthinkable?)
(Frankfurt School:) technology ~= instrumental reason ~= reification (madiat, jesmiat) as reason
(Habermas:) systems rationality, economic and bureaucratic rationality (==> patterns of meaning rendered functional) =/= communicative processes that sustain the lifeworld
the same Platonic tradition produces: {theory =/= practice} ==> {mind =/= body} ==> {"conceptual” =/= “material"} (and privileging one over the other)
(for the Frankfurt School) truth = "a moment of correct praxis”
what is at stake is the way ‘The Magician’ heroes’ way of non-relating to an entire environment and with it to an implicit “world” that they inhabit.
...that science is an ‘account’ of reality not a ‘tool’ for coping with it
...when the world and the instrument interact
descriptions of the affordances of indissoluble instrument / world complexes are at stake
then how can we think magic/knowledge/science without instrumentalization (‘something in order to’)?
the notion of ‘world’ and ‘worlding’ in other Hollywood sci-fi franchises, and the way a world (for example survival in Mars in ‘The Martian,’ surviving “outer space” in ‘Gravity,’ “pure wonder” and “abyssal unknown” in many Icarusian space exploration moves and movies, the deprived Earth in ‘Interstellar,’ and so on) is rendered dead or dangerous or prosperous, ideologies of anthropocentric extensionalism.
(this directly concerns my ajayeb apass research about the past, because hollywood constantly making science fictions about the past.)
[as much as Matt Damon is schizo-constructing a social environment (on “dead” Mars trying to contact “home”), Cinderella's schizo-affective relation with the talking animals is doing the same: talking back to a world that talks to her, where Matt is only able to talk to home station. I think we have bet[...]
(23)[...notes/midday review.txt]%5.1[...] distinction between the ego and its reflection in the mirror
--> narcissism helps the infant in trying to distinguish himself from the mother/other
narcissism beyond infantile sexuality -->
narcissism: structure (=/= state) <== when the burden of desire on the subject becomes intolerable
(?what are new structures of) artistic narcissism
*an occasion to erotisize your own body*
to erotically emphasize a particular memory
stitching together of the naked ethnic body
hupersexuality
...those who are undersexed
...................................
%note on Alice's workshop:
how the idea of mimesis came when we were not sure what she meant by “make note.” the signifier of “note” defined itself in a collective mimetic semi-conscious way.
(=/=? my work on how signifiers transmit and transform --> parasitism, rumorology, etc. ... weaker neighborhoods of thought)
Alice's notions:
•explosion <--> dance
•the “generative” notion in her discourse (--> notion of “active,” and “conscious intentionality” [--> a property of human agency and agential exceptionality. (the metric of) her work/workshop distinguishes the self-aware active entity from non-communicative receptive entity, ***intransitive =/= transitive-->{her privileged object}, and that distinction is not useful for me right now])
•the authority of the trope “practice” for Alice
(what would be a nonmimetic understanding of eachother? @Juan)
•the workshop was not her ‘thinking’ or ‘making’ in process or an open question or a not-knowing, rather the workshop was based on her (finished) ‘notions,’ with her ‘indisputables,’ her ‘literal’ objects; (dance, active, body, imagination, practice, generative, creative, etc.)
•production of the “I” in her work; (a nasty side-effect: collateral individuation) (when were the moments in the workshop that an interesting “we” was created and for whom?)
•the problematic difference between ‘literal’ and ‘metaphorical’ at the footing of her thinking (--> my whole apass research is about this)
•(artist's) imagination as a magic wand that can transform things
*what helped me was the idea of thinking with a ‘dormant metaphor’ (in my own work) and ‘activate’ it, in a way that the problems and pleasures of thinking with that metaphor is felt. by ‘dormant metaphor’ what i mean is an operative word that one is using often and is left uninterrogated. for example the problems of “landscape” as a particular ontological tool for me became apparent only after i committed myself to that metaphor in the course of the interview with Pierre and Alice. to stay with a story, to live its contradictions. (and the position of it in a sentence)
•“it was ‘landscape’ talking; not me!”
•why i was seeing Tehran as the ‘ghostly landscape’? (matter of a confrontation with Tehran? ex[...]
(24)[...notes/midday review.txt]%5.4[...]a distance between man and the world
(2) systematizes and stabilizes the external universe
***factuality is not intrinsic, it is rhetoric (that we live with)
history of the idea of nature
‘ajayeb's architects of a naturalistic cosmology who establish hierarchies and discontinuities among them =/= cosmogenesis of modernity's subjectivity's illusions of continuity
[Descola's “configurations of continuity"]
(ajayeb creates) hierarchical order according to the levels of the exchange of information that is reputed to be possible.
-which parties are set on the same level of reality (in ajayeb)?
(what are the human and nonhuman) proliferation of forms in ajayeb (?)
who are the “mothers of games” there? snake, Div, etc. (spirits that protect the game)
technical know-how to create intersubjective ambience/ambivalence --> regulated relations between one person and another }--these are--> cultivated plots
how can i, starting with apass, learn to create theaters of a subtle sociability (in which beings with different forms of language and physical aspect are ontologically indistinguishable)?
the category of “persons”: variations in the modes of communication that are made possible by an apprehension of perceived qualities that are unequally distributed
whose dialects are mutually intelligible?
human narcissism : that if a being possess a soul is only then capable of recognizing humans
---then let's give everyone souls!
...................................
(Massumi > Deleuze's) critique ~= modulation --> actively modulated from within the situation, immanent to it {
-augmenting* (taking a certain tendency to the limit)
-diverting* (deflecting it into a different tendency)
-transmutational* (interacting with other tendencies in a way that invents a whole new direction as a kind of surplus value of interaction)
-or, it can lead to a clash that stops the process
asking people “to be true to what they represent” ==> having them “encapsulated in already arrived-at opinion and judgment” ==> blockage
war of “disqualification” ~ Stengersian non-event
being (represented and) legitimated in proxy war
...................................
@Zoumana; “decadent gardener” that connot keep distinction between kin and pest, nature and culture
what is a garden full of indirections, snakes?
...................................
#my trope-findings, (bilingual nonsystematic comparative thinking for storytelling) (work with Avital?):
•پیر Pir / sujet supposé savoir (--✕-->? پیر فلک Pir-e falak in Hafez)
•غر Ghor / complaint (--> shekayat شکایت, and then, khamush خموش in Hafez)
•تعارف Tarof / greeting
•transcend <--> darajat درجات (-> Attar)<[...]
(25)[...notes/midday review.txt]%5.5[...]and your work, ask myself ‘what else’ comes to mind? in a sense, my project on ajayeb is that kind of training
also in apass i want “to catch you in your acts”
it is my privilege to recognize you (as...)
asking:
1- what do I know?
2- what am I told?
3- (how getting good at to) explain what somebody else said
1- the first question has no clear answer, what i know is not placed somewhere in me, it is always an articulated matter of ‘with’ or in interaction with, it is a sym, changes before i can grasp, knowing is done always with a figure or a thing, it includes all sorts of optics and technologies, (affect theory, media theory, epistemology,)
2- the response to the second question is also not clear, i am not sure what i am told, i don't remember or hear, what i am told is infolded in what i know, (when i started with my islam lecture series i was testing the waters of these two questions and the possibility of staying with them without freaking out of ambiguity or ploting an answer)
3--> #cat's cradle
#on hypertext note:
i am becoming skilled at looking at my notes:
{(1) what are the *skills necessary* [=/= tabula rasa (of the reader, of the audience) of the communo-capitalism's standard of “user-interface"--the strange idea that the interaction and reading doesn't need or must not need learned-efforts or skills, that it should be “easy” and “effortless” --> fallacy of the unskilled listener.] to engage, interact, and get involved with the interface, data-set, grammar, and literacy of (my) reservoir? }--> ** let's ask that question with every apparatus that engages us into desire, movement, articulation, ...
skills --> to become ‘literate’ in this particular way --> situated knowledge includes this situated literacy and skills of reading particular to the object of “text” (in that case how do i address my interest in the pervert reader? the skills of the unlearning*)
the skills necessary for my work to work comes with time, attention, and desire ~-=>? #harem (=/= ladies room)
--> (2) this skills of (my) reservoir, what set of questions or problems equip me to address?
varzidan, varz, varzide, ورزیده
Sennett's love for his subjects is extraordinary (=/= iconoclasm, futurism) and it influences me deeply, his voice and care when he opens his reflection, findings, etc.
ok, again, the ‘skill’ question:
•1--> what are the set of skills needed for my work?
•2--> which problematics these skills equip me to address?
•3--> can i (or should i) not know these problematics in advance?
the bow and arrow --|)-> ♥ in my apass endweek (as sound object) was a relic of our shared physical energetic space, the nondiscursive --> how to keep it inarticulate?
•a way to record space, which is always social =/= silenced with no agency of [...]
(26)[...notes/midday review.txt]%6.2[...]'s work)
[structural possibility:] proximity of fear-object --is--> possibility of future injury
impressions of coherence, “sticking together”
(that is perhaps why dictionaries and bestiaries are interesting: because their elements do not “stick together” in the sense of an affective economy [of inquiry and narrative] #lists)
ontology of insecurity --> (naratives of) crisis ==> “return” (to values) --> fetish
-production of crisis is crucial for insecurity
-declaration/announcement of *crisis* reads the fact/figure/event and transforms is into a fetish object that then acquires a life of its own
-it must be presumed that things are not secure, in and of themselves, in order to justify the imperative to make things secure (again)-->(the word “again” in the rhetoric of safty becomes itself the fetish object with its own life)
[security is bound up with “the not (me/us)"]
being invaded by inappropriate others [in histories of Iranian modes of intersubjectivity: ‘being invaded by the appropriate other’ ~=? being of Tasavof, #slave manifesto, let me know if you want me to kill your master.]
(in the 1999 film Matrix we see the image of the ‘strengthening the will’ of the human community in the face of the nunhuman machine others: Matrix ==> “us”)
(Matrix's) narative logic of an internal strength being posited as responsible for recovery, survival, and moving forward of the human race. (@Maarten, displacements of weakness and strength)
values that garantee survival
technologies that garantee survival
--> they become moral
those who____
speak (against) the “truth” of the world, cause the “ruin” of the world
...................................
say your name before talking
it's a Q and A, a lecture
--> it is a violent day
asking for your name is intrusive enough, even before asking where you come from [--> #estizah]
(learning from Heidegger:) abbreviation is already an effect of technology
case of Germany specially
and persian san'at (صنعت techniques and technologies) of subject-making
•‘is’ --> information system
•‘ich’ --> intangible cultural heritage
[#contract, concerning modalities of being-with:] anxiety, Sorge, (~ care?) is *disclosive*, for Heidegger, is an ontologically fundamental mood that opens you up to the possibility of understanding, anxiety is the leading mood that allows understanding
(in Heidegger) anxiety ==> understanding
(in Farsi) negarani نگرانی --> vision بینندگی --> basirat بصیرت ==> ta'amol تأمل (modalities of meditation and speculation)
(in psychoanalysis) anxiety =/= fear
(in capitalism) anxiety --> boredom ==> capital
(in settler white colonialism) anxiety ==> safty
(in Ahmed) anxiety --> app[...]
(27)[...notes/midday review.txt]%6.6[...]is often no evidence that the automatic thought is true
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/521a7b2ee4b0ee587906d191/t/5774531e03596e22f1d2c844/1467241246388/CBT+Case+Conference+Handouts-1.pdf
(a deep problem with behavior analysis is that it comes from the study of animal learning in the 20th century... observing cats trying to escape from home-made puzzle boxes, and things like that)
(for Eszter:) complex ~= coherent (=/= *contradictory*)
Eszter could benefit from learning about collective behavior sociology
/individual behavior is completely unpredictable
/collective behavior is to a large extent predictable
contagion =/= convergence
(Kelile Demne: evil is convergent)
*contagion: crowds exert a hypnotic influence over their members
*convergent: people who want to act in a certain way come together --> crowd diffuse responsibility but the behavior itself is claimed to originate within the individuals
*emergent-norm: people find themselves in a vague, ambiguous, confusing situation ==> new norms “emerge” on the spot, which may be at odds with normal social behavior
*value-added: release valve سوپاپ for built-up tension within community
*complex adaptive systems: autopoiesis or self-creation of patterns and new entities
...................................
(footnote on) personality disorder
deviating from ‘orders’ accepted by the individual's culture
-your distinguished and enduring behavioral and mental traits that differ from social norms and expectations
it is in relation to others --> cognition, emotiveness, interpersonal functioning, impulse control ==> personal, social, occupational disruption
egosyntonic personality disorders are most difficult to treat (such as: narcissistic personality disorder, anorexia, gambling problem)
*egosyntonic: in harmony with the needs and goals of the ego [--> defences ==> maladaptive coping skills ~=> anxiety, distress, depression]
*egodystonic: in conflict with the needs and goals of the ego, in conflict with a person's ideal self-image
obsessive-compulsive disorder --> egodystonic
obsessive-compulsive personality disorder --> egosyntonic
Freud: psychic conflict arising when the original lagging instincts come into conflict with the ego (or egosyntonic instincts) [such as: erection problem ==> egodystonic]
...................................
[*]personality disorder: (a type of psychological disorder generally defined by) the lack of insight into the disorder
borderline personality disorder =/= shades of gray
(a view that sees) significances as unfair and uncaring (devaluation) or flawless (idealization)
(a standardized criteria of diagnosis since 1980) a certain class of neurotics who, when in crisis, a[...]
(28)[...notes/midday review.txt]%7.3[...]ces
-practices of concern
(attentive to the plant that was a) shared “thing” between us
what was mediated, navigated and articulated with that plant in apass 4th floor?
(with this i am trying to ask about the) kinds of imaginative world-making at work
gathering forces
-
the mice, and the pattern of rice, how did we become the reader of mice's text? --> reader is always always constructed.
the mice disconnected us from global digital networks and wrote something on the floor...
(which objects of our systems design supporting some and not others) leaving out what are locally perceived as “nonpeople” can mean nonworking system. (biologists not seeing their secretaries as doing real science, artists in apass not seeing the mice doing real work, etc.)
--> *(Leigh Star's) “ethnography of infrastructure”* -infrastructure is both relational and ecological, both transparent and opaque. it is part of the balance of action, tools, and the built environment. [*]infrastructure: a dense interwoven fabric of shared visions of possible and acceptable dreams (of the inovative, as techniques, knowledge, know-how, and the institutions).
...................................
my previous lectures have been communicating something I don't quite understand to an audience that doesn't want to know. but still somehow they became not indifferent to my madness and we managed to establish lines of interest and interference (=/= restoring the phalus to its proper place, or getting a membership)
i am building another wit =/= you know when you are on some kind of auto-respond, those smart fast answers. my wits take ages to come through. in a way i have been slowing down certain kinds of wit. that's also why it is so easy to silence me.
i have been also busy with the timing of understanding. how to keep understanding open and ongoing? there is this standard general sense that becomes very upset when things are not immediately understood (#double-click democratization of communication,) my workings have been perhaps invested in keeping my own (not-fully-)understood alive for a while. if things were instantly understandable we wouldn't be here.
...................................
question at Hoda
how to make her interested in metaphysics? in queer studies and practices
physics is the river of phenomena
meta: above, among, beyond
ontological commitment to:
sense of wonder
sense of sadness
sense of madness
what (else) literature can be if not elegy?
sonic level of sign-making and significance in her act
soft-spoken adjectives
“sigh”: poetry's start-up engine, aaaahh
somewhere between lament and mourning
proper address of the mother
which ‘scene of modern or classical language’ you are opening?
‘[...]
(29)[...notes/midday review.txt]%7.5[...]e mice doing real work, etc.)
--> *(Leigh Star's) “ethnography of infrastructure”* -infrastructure is both relational and ecological, both transparent and opaque. it is part of the balance of action, tools, and the built environment. [*]infrastructure: a dense interwoven fabric of shared visions of possible and acceptable dreams (of the inovative, as techniques, knowledge, know-how, and the institutions).
...................................
my previous lectures have been communicating something I don't quite understand to an audience that doesn't want to know. but still somehow they became not indifferent to my madness and we managed to establish lines of interest and interference (=/= restoring the phalus to its proper place, or getting a membership)
i am building another wit =/= you know when you are on some kind of auto-respond, those smart fast answers. my wits take ages to come through. in a way i have been slowing down certain kinds of wit. that's also why it is so easy to silence me.
i have been also busy with the timing of understanding. how to keep understanding open and ongoing? there is this standard general sense that becomes very upset when things are not immediately understood (#double-click democratization of communication,) my workings have been perhaps invested in keeping my own (not-fully-)understood alive for a while. if things were instantly understandable we wouldn't be here.
...................................
question at Hoda
how to make her interested in metaphysics? in queer studies and practices
physics is the river of phenomena
meta: above, among, beyond
ontological commitment to:
sense of wonder
sense of sadness
sense of madness
what (else) literature can be if not elegy?
sonic level of sign-making and significance in her act
soft-spoken adjectives
“sigh”: poetry's start-up engine, aaaahh
somewhere between lament and mourning
proper address of the mother
which ‘scene of modern or classical language’ you are opening?
‘sigh’ is important, sigh initiates (many including german and iranian) literature
iranian historical comfort zones
where literature starts with sigh
when and how did you learn to sigh?
sigh is from the family of the specialized languages of complaining?
temporal climate of your remembrance (as mourning) --> related to the past?
mourning and memory are sojourn for her
incorporating the object of (her) loss
(holding onto) the unhappy objects of difference
anger, pain, misery, ...
which (good or bad) feelings saturates her poem?
question of saturation
which feelings modified by which poetics sutures which wounds? زخمبندی
or to be more psychoanalyticall[...]
(30)[...notes/midday review.txt]%7.6[...]isagree with each other as well as agree, that no statement is going to be taken as evidence of being the enemy (--> we face this in apass)
•learning how to recognize authority (as a mentor and participant) (the problem of the inability to deal with authority, common in early feminist movement, traces in Xiri) --> being alert to how hierarchy shut people up that one don't acknowledge the hierarchies that emerge out of that *{alarm ==> hierarchy}*
•in apass i am trying to remember what my peers are doing, and when i see things i think of them, and they are in my citation network (they are all over ajayeb.net) and i am aware of what they have told me. words they are inventing are in my vocabulary too (that is why i am so energetic calling in Xiri's category change for example “generous suspicion”)
•collective research environment works by networks* (--> a problem with apass)
[*]epistemology = stories knowledges tell
sometimes practices demand:
•exclusive expertise (~ focus)
•extensive scholarship ==> linking and speculating
•attaching unexpected agencies and territories to each other
(better) understanding the mechanisms and affects of inclusion and exclusion in communities of practice
for example in apass (we are dealing with):
•suffer <== mutual incomprehensions
•pain <== heterogeneous knowledge worlds
•anger <== unevenly distributed power
•fatigue <== exposure to intensity
•tension <== different styles of knowing
unacknowledged suffering --(in past and present)@Hoda--> as well as pleasures
(what do you make out of reading your gender material?)
Greek brainwomb
feminism ~/= feminist theory-->{highly diverse, located in many domains of practices in and out of the university, and understood to be this highly diverse activity}
the talks i have been giving are done by someone with a kind of mind and soul that just makes connections fast. i work orally. the lectures are heavily prepared (and some important ways unprepared in the manner of its performance: all those connections happening during the talk not knowing them beforehand, they happen by the encounter*) and full of cue (سخن رهنما، ايماء، اشارت) and quirk (تزئينات، تناقض گويى، تغيير ناگهانى فکر). my notes and scripting are invisible to my audience, but they are there at work. and it gets people excited. and that's the point. i work with confusion and excitement. i have not been good at laying out groundwork of skills, going to next level and so on. i am working with that feeling of “i am not sure what i am getting, by i think i am getting it”. i also always come back, loop again through the same material, go back to the question we were raising before and ***“watch what is happ[...]
(31)[...notes/midday review.txt]%8.2[...] *a perverse pleasure in believing in inevitable failure*
*transference is descriptively very apt for what goes on in artistic moves [<-- to be careful of]
**to risk a feeling of (despair, of...)
the ways some of us risk things intellectually and emotionally different than each other
prima donna: doing whatever one does without any particular effort to nuance anything
*multiple impossibilities
learning from religion, the ways of which the name of God has become an impossible category. both catholics and muslim shia (#islam) are wellprepared for feeling this way, some kind of recognition of impossible thing. let's take that “being good at recognizing and affirming impossible things” and bring it to the name of women. that means as soon as you name what you mean by ‘women,’ you have told some kind of really impossible lie.
(how my muslim trained sensibilities are working and mattering in my ajayeb research? ways to respond to *the deadliness and the irreplaceable liveliness of religion* [کشندگی و سرزندگی یکتای مذهب], a semiotics with implosion of sign and flesh)--> (i am so happy that) i cannot not know what it is like to be in a believing community (a faith-based community)***
...out of your own particular little historical traditions
*because my research is about ajayeb it can never only be about ajayeb*
you can't do feminist theory without paying attention to the details of women lives
your mode of attention to women in the world ==(shapes)==> your mode of attention to:
•the way databases get set up
•the ways interdisciplinarities get crafted
•how you think about tools and genomics
my main point of my project has been about getting better at how to inherit your histories without trashing them*** (even figuring out how to inherit a history that you don't want to inherit)
(Islam, shyness, kindness, ajayeb, Iran, stuttering, being all too ready to find complexities, )
•to become relaxed about predigested version of ‘this is what ajayeb is about’ (or Tasavof, etc.) --> ‘what is going on there’ (in ajayeb) is so built-in to ideologies of many kinds (of progress, deep ecology, of history, and so on)
•to build a little taxonomy (in apass)
•working to give up the series of self-certainties around secularism ==> giving ways to talk to the religious ones : getting to grasp what the world looks like in faith-based communities (=/= check-list of dogma)
•category thinking: get into differential liveliness (with all sorts of inequalities:) *who gets parsed how* [#archive, #articulation, #storytelling] (and thinking about what it means to take up these relationships in cultures saturated with science and technology)
Xiri was doing her research[...]
(32)[...notes/midday review.txt]%8.5[...]
...out of your own particular little historical traditions
*because my research is about ajayeb it can never only be about ajayeb*
you can't do feminist theory without paying attention to the details of women lives
your mode of attention to women in the world ==(shapes)==> your mode of attention to:
•the way databases get set up
•the ways interdisciplinarities get crafted
•how you think about tools and genomics
my main point of my project has been about getting better at how to inherit your histories without trashing them*** (even figuring out how to inherit a history that you don't want to inherit)
(Islam, shyness, kindness, ajayeb, Iran, stuttering, being all too ready to find complexities, )
•to become relaxed about predigested version of ‘this is what ajayeb is about’ (or Tasavof, etc.) --> ‘what is going on there’ (in ajayeb) is so built-in to ideologies of many kinds (of progress, deep ecology, of history, and so on)
•to build a little taxonomy (in apass)
•working to give up the series of self-certainties around secularism ==> giving ways to talk to the religious ones : getting to grasp what the world looks like in faith-based communities (=/= check-list of dogma)
•category thinking: get into differential liveliness (with all sorts of inequalities:) *who gets parsed how* [#archive, #articulation, #storytelling] (and thinking about what it means to take up these relationships in cultures saturated with science and technology)
Xiri was doing her research with categories of victim and opressor, and now they suddenly disappeared from her work. that category change or vocabulary change was suspiciously effortless
*remembering is an extremely creative practice (-note to Hoda-)
memories are like ecotone کناربوم (transition area between two adjacent ecosystems)
#(very important concept partly shaped by practices of Darwin into our lives:) “collect” --> lies (necessary?)
the frenzy of the 1700 of surveying nature and collecting speciment ==> bioinfomatic
‘collect’ promises nontransformation
--> metaphors of archive, information-intense ways of thinking about life on earth
*“demonstration” coined by science
...................................
(with Scout Calvert) the ways the digital apparatuses are working, and the kinds of tensions and creativities between the cyber infrastructures and the other kinds informational management discourses displace other book discourses *** --> categories explode in library practice
[Calvert donig brilliant discourse analysis of library sciences --> has direct impact on practices of reading#, different kinds of knowers]
techno-biblio-capital: techno-capital and library practices embedded in each other -->{ [*]technology: assemblages of [...]
(34)[...notes/midday review.txt]%8.5[...]ological optimism; *the technological question is cruicial to questions of power and knowledge*
-library science tends to position library as power-neutral spaces
-(Foucault: resistence to power is always present)
“freedom to” is always disciplinary (because there is always a particular subject enjoying that) [citizen of liberal democracy who exercises the freedom of representative government, so much as a consumer who exercises freedom of choice of commodities]
patrons as constituent مولفه (==> new knowledge + themselves as knowers) =/= seamless information consumer discursively produced as an unmarked singular independent self-contained stable universal white male heteronormative technophilic subject [<-- this donesn't realy exisit as a person, rather as discoursive productions]
(now) our electronic recreation is work: our every click is surveilled, generating data about our desires and curiosities that feeds back into our formation as techno-capital subjects (@Sven's enthusiasm with social media--how can Sven has a real chance of producing resistance knowledge?) --> this is not freedom! (-an account of freedom for one entails reciprocal unfreedom for others) --> mixtures of work and play in this new economy, (Calvert > Bateson) the meta-communicative nature of *play[= strict rules with genuine freedom, the dual essence of play: curiosity and relationality];
(Calvert arguing for) “knowledge-makers” who engages in creation of situated knowledges by activity adapting, processing and sharing knowledge within the ecology of library ~= *bibliographic apparatus*
(Calvert's heuristic device to imagine what library practices might emerge:) imperfectly literate constituent seekers
-a double consciousness of play, where cognitive sensation amid multiple affectivities are continually teased between assertion and rejection
-a doubled unconscious connoisseurship of realist conventions pressured at new horizons
[Katie King]
...................................
(women's) mini-encounters with god --> kind of materiality of god that don't fit any of the available categories
now-but-not-then quality of continuities
Haraway's deep commitment to the ties of science and competence, pleasure, empowerment, ([*]science:) this craft where you did this incredibly fragile, important, hard work of asking questions of the world in such a way that you might have half a chance of knowing if you are wrong***
you get it “there” ==> (you have a chance of) figuring out something else*
(sustainable life ways that involve) breeds =/= factory farming
Haraway's problem with veganism's moral, wholistic, complex claim that they make on us (also a necessary kind of contemporary witness): that people's practices with animals as food and fiber and work animals, turning into nothing but museum pieces at be[...]
(35)[...notes/midday review.txt]%8.6[...]g the rough terrain of bodies, sensuous accumulation, impact
“Sometimes when you hear someone scream it goes in one ear and out the other. Sometimes it passes right into the middle of your brain and gets stuck there.”
(cryptic and as) crystal clear as a scream
[a question or something else] lodged in a tactile sensate anxiety --> aesthetic scene (of the senses) --> scene --> shape
(anxiety has to do with the sensate and tactile and opens onto asthetic)
(some do this all the time [unknown shock of anxiety in the morning]:) morning --> mourning --> sudden dread and start scanning () () [], (trauma as an) everyday walking path
traumatic realism: a figuring that, like traumatic memory, fails to represent the inflicting force as an object in a symbolic order and therefore feels compelled to literally re-present it over and over, *miming the original haunting impact.* (Stewart > Hal Foster)
-the subject surging to bear an affect, surging toward an actualization, passionate connection of the subject who goes with the flow in an intoxicated moment (=/= sober distance)
(Hoda's impact of) shocked subjectivity (--> the real understood as traumatic) --> conjure up memories of death --?--> communal grieving
{referential vs. simulacral readings @Hoda, Marialena (‘referential object for’ / ‘empathetic object in’ /or ‘criticality of’ [<-- i don't agree with these clear cuts of ”/"]; what is “the reality of suffering and death” (or “reality and suffering of death”) for Hoda? (Xiri's interest in her) object's “total integration” into the political economy}
(Stewart's) signs of the senses
satisfaction in the making of sign-shrine
(question of satisfaction at Hoda:) satisfaction as a force, and end, in itself spoken through the bright, blunt, sensate aesthetics of the sign
-something slashes [= a wound made by cutting] at itself and spits at the world (/ politics of slashing --> poetics of slashing / the young girls who “cut” themselves so they can feel alive or, literally “come to their senses”) -- dramas of surge and arrest --> They do not ask for interpretation or construct the subject who would assign them a meaning, [they refuse] reference to “underlying systems” of signification that make them readable as texts
-something refuses to disappear
-(Hoda's land is) the land of sheer circulations --> (the question of) equilibriums --> how can she with her audience (let's say “we”) enter the unnatural calm of another form of arrest? to feel the scene resist synaesthesia
a state of the senses making contact with pen and paper (and matches)
(my enduring love of watching images, my) optical eye
“[...] young embodiments of a modern middle-ground-in-the-making came face-to-face with an otherness that compelled a closer look” --> violently affective contact
sur[...]
(36)[...notes/midday review.txt]%9[...]>
my work is *to mix stories*
everyday engagements with other kinds of creatures (in my case: ajayeb) ==> opens new kinds of possibilities for relating and understanding
cosmoecology: multiple beings (gods, jinns, animals, humans, living, dead, etc.) each bearing the consequences of the others’ ways (of living and dying)
‘the ecological question’ is about the needs that ought to be met in the ongoing creation of rapports and connections --> the questions are how does this being achieve the task of holding onto its existence =/= “does this being really exist, or is it not a representation”
==> (Despret:) *we may never know (safely and reliably, either ahead of time or a posteriori) which beings will bear/enjoy the consequences of the concrete attention we give to them*
...................................
on Kate Rich work
feral --> before or without a political state --?--> state of nature [a lot of moral political philosophers of the state asking “What was life like before civil society?"]--> in feral there are only freedoms ==> contracts (}--> what cultural anthropology has to say about that?)
she is in the Rousseauian tradition of *how to establish a ‘political community’ in the face of the problems of ‘commercial society’* (---> go to Rousseau's The Social Contract & Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men)
fighting the system --> feral tropes --> arsenal of the Enlightenment (Kant's motto: “Dare to think for yourself!” ~= “I don't follow orders!”), application of Reason in the public sphere of human affairs
with her work we are in the Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, resourcing authority and legitimacy, ideals of individual liberty and progress --> Kate's thinking founded on philosophical fictions of the 18th century (--Foucault--> problematic legacy of the Enlightenment)
•the legecy of 20th century: (Kate's dialectical negativity) to define and work in negative way, an ‘exit,’ a ‘way out’ --> transcendental [---> go to Singh, Khan,]
•question of contemporary reality --> Kate does a totalizing elevation (like many other artists)
•the realm of obedience --> artists’ childish attitude of never accepting someone else's authority (#fighting the system; should we fight the system systematically? @Nicolas)
...................................
basically everything i do is related to the question of reading --> make us better readers
my excessive use of footnote --> the most decisive indication of the concerns of a text are to be found in its margins & no ‘proper’ starting/ending point for reading
each of my performances/projects reflect on their own status as examples of reading/misreading =/= achieving correct reading
literature: the problem of misreading (=/= the language it uses)
[with De Man]
i [...]
(37)[...notes/midday review.txt]%9.6[...]nt and explore (in a ‘psychosocial moratorium’ [allowed adolescent role confusion]) ==> firm sense of identity
(experimentation is about identity formation?) --> [according to Erikson] only when identity is established [~ experimentation stopped] the questions “What have I got?” and “What am I going to do with it?” can be asked
[*]identity: to identify the object of one's fidelity***
-identity crisis for persons of genius is frequently prolonged
-->? genital stage
-(20-39 years) Intimacy / Isolation --> Love
[Can I love?]
[*]distanciation: “the readiness to isolate and if necessary, to destroy those forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to our own, and whose territory seems to encroach on the extent of one's intimate relations”
-(40-64 years) Generativity / Stagnation --> Care
[Can I make my life count?]
guiding the next generation
-(65-death) Ego Integrity / Despair --> Wisdom
[Is it okay to have been me?]
(only now is able to) develop integrity
...................................
you have a ‘bad day’
(in Socrates:) because you are ignorant of geometry
(in Feminism:) because you are a man
(in communicative capitalism:) because you are ‘boring’
how to plot to take over the world?
(Rilke)
“I wish to help and expect to be helped. Everyone's eternal mistake is to take me for a healer when, in fact, I am only attracting others, for my own profit, in the trap of a simulated assistance.”
(your) interview and interruption
I would take a bullet for you
/////
you go for the knife and i prepar myself to die
...................................
duty ~= Dienst nach Vorschrift
(the problem is that it is not enough to have a duty, rather, you have to define what ‘duty’ is. that is the only duty)
...................................
MADMAN#1: i like to think, “i am rich they can't hurt me.”
MADMAN#2: that's a mistake.
MADMAN#1: i am being punished for making my job look easy... Although, that kid, guy, he has a spark. He is a pure account man.
MADMAN#2: and what is that job all about?
MADMAN#1: i don't know. it's about listening to people and never saying what's really on your mind.
MADMAN#2: no. it's about letting things go so you can get what you want.
“I could tell the minute she saw who I realy was, she never wanted to look at me again, which is why I never told her.”
--> i am not telling you anything, because the minute you see who i realy am, you never want to look at me again.
“...but nobody knows what is wrong with themselves, and everyone else can see it right away.”
...................................
is this an honour?
(a) better thug
[...]
(38)[...notes/midday review.txt]%9.8[...]vity --> commitment based on care]
موقعیت mogheyiat (situtation, circumstance, condition) =/= واقعیت vagheyiat (reality)
(?one should) to live by vagheyiat, not mogheyiat
[i am educated to base research and knowledge both on mogheyiat and on vagheyiat --> crisis of situated knowledge in interpersonal relations: to feel about others based on mogheyiat/situation is a bad idea(?)]
@Hoda: turning mogheyiat into vagheyiat
(verb <--> adjective)
do the right thing (or take the right side) جانب حق را گرفتن [a form of closing off distance =/= disembodied seeing] <--> righteous حق به جانب [a form of embodiment, zero distanciation]
“your joke is the right of the other person”
you are hurt ==> “the other was bad” (is not the conclusion that is helpfull or capable of giving an opening, and it ends badly)
=/= people make mistakes
>
roshd رشد =/= pishraft پیشرفت
roshd --> shodan, becoming
pishraft --> to gain, progress,
selfishness =?=> being nice
khod khahi خود خواهی ==> nagozashtan-e tasvir/tasavor bad dar digari ["this is me, not you!"]
selfish = good at communication (do taraf-e miz khub harf zadan), bad at relating (nazdik shodan)
shakhsiat farasu-negar (cannot see themselves; ~=? selfish personality) =/= narcissistic pesonality (they have better chances for healing --> small doses of narcissism is necessity for self-interogation and integrated ego formation[?])
*anger is cheating*
(behaviour hal, negah be mozu-ha --> bazi بازی, hoghe حقه [transvaluated into innocence])
farar az ta'rif-haye ejtemayi فرار از تعریفهای اجتمایی ~-> farar az ejtema فرار از اجتماع
paying attention to others doesn't mean that you are understanding them (in the case of lonliness)
[title]
thousend and one questions
dark answers
why aesthetics of cooking and feeding new in art doesn't work in iran?
negah dogane نگاه دوگانه
[duality] dual perspective: if it is not X then it is Y (=/= X)
...................................
savad سواد = list, siahe, سیاهه, marginal note
...................................
being ambivalent (disinterest): (masking anxiety and insecuruty,) gaurding oneself against disapointment, defensive alufeness
ethos of “resistence” --> moral authority --> moral supeiority movement
narcissism (of the artist) as part of a process (of building something creative)
•interiorizing things [is part of narcissism]
•thinking about things and self's problems --> writer's memoir
low self esteem ==> building up
...................................
“nothing is more impor[...]
(39)[...notes/midday review.txt]%10.1[...] />
researcher's questions
in your obscure (elaborate and awkward) meditations, (?can we ask:) what is sacrificed, what is recooked, canibalized, chewed over, and eventually buried? in which economy of pleasure and pain is this mobilized? which harmful (or hedonistic) sensualism is deployed? which hallucinating enfant is writing? which raw material is being transformed into the gold of humanity?
-the question of will: which world is murdered and repopulated by the act of (your) will alone?
a research method of starting a conversation, for apass
*take me to you reader* --> bring me to the subject who you think is reading you, receiving your work in some sort,
...................................
few things (that i hate hysterically) that i think i urgently need (and any artist) to have a very good grasp of (within modern capital economy):
•marketing (--> integrated storytelling)
•fashion (--> manipulative regimes of time and place)
•journalism (explanatory technologies of news and opinion, vox, kurzgesagt, corporate media, immersive journalism, forensic aesthetics)
•politics (=/= political science): achieving and exercising positions of governance that have control over communities
•hollywood/comics (*corporate-produced fiction* --> business-decisions connecting cross-overs; ideas of: customer and merchandise)
i can't shake off the idea that behind every marketing strategy there i a predatory behaviour concealed
***there is nothing quite so humiliating and disempowering as trying to prove the truth***
‘trying to prove the truth’ is the worst position you can find yourself in and it means you are fucked. because you are doing it to empower yourself in the face of a biger power that lies and claims you. the conditions that had let that happen are the question, not the truth of the matter --> that is why i find journalism most of the time useless
impossibility of having an interview with iranians (myself included): [<==? chaotic subjectivity]
deflection --> dodging: not giving meaningful answers : gradations of non-answers you are receiving
taking a keyword, repeating it, sounds like answering the question, introducing a nonsequitur to trip up the host
==> more confused & less informed
...................................
#project Puchberg landscape Austria
shifting baseline syndrome: reshaping the landscape and forgetting what was before ==>{ (new) reality = shaped and ruined landscapes
(Emirates was for me such reality of shaped ruin)
admiring one landscape and its biological entanglements (Puchberg Austrian meadows, with it cows and horses, place of beauty and leisure) ==entails==> forgetting many others --> ‘forgetting’ (~ privileging one assemblage over others) ==remakes==> landscapes
(yet) gh[...]
(40)[...notes/midday review.txt]%11.2[...]br />
epoptes (an initiate in the Eleusinian mysteries; one who has attended the epopteia)
shaman
an initiator
guru of the body*
root metaphor of psychology (?)
(until 1700: pattern = patron) --Hillman--> to discover this pattern [the general myth of our field] = to search for our patron: the father who creates and is the creative principle in us
[because] [we are uncertain of what we are:] we are uncertain of our author, from whom would come both our authority and our authenticity
tracing things back --> preserves of the mother-childhood and family (dominanting psychology) --> we come to her: ***materialism = maternalism (in acceptable disguise)***
...................................
(with the critical bestiaries magazine idea) is my work about defining a new mode of cultural discourse?
...................................
-philosophy (like mathematics) is a priori disciplines (or has an a priori methodology) at its core
-the posibility of *true answers* for “artistic questions”(?) --? can anybody outside your field be made to care whether you're right?
a priori =/= contingent
higher-order truths of...
self-supporting community of experts (= trap)
“philosophy is garbage, but the history of garbage is scholarship” -Burton Dreben
...................................
act of cultural and economic exchange
act of reciprocal exchange, of creative mutuality (to benefit in a myriad of ways related to our professional status, our institutional ‘worth,’ the social and cultural capital perceived to be attached to the ‘networks’ in which we operate)
[to interrogate] concepts of artistic labor and value
time, labor, and the creative investment that was embodied within [the object that you make]
[you might start with] requiring a catalogue containing critical essays to institutionally ‘legitimate’ your exhibition --yet--> sophisticated, playful and interesting ways to comment on and engage
*numerous ways in which cultural forms (in this case contemporary art) are simultaneously entangled in a number of spheres of meaning, value and mediation* ==> activate ongoing dialogue
[*]capitalist marketplace:
•people in both established and emerging ‘global’ economies forced to fulfill their everyday needs
•‘the market’ is naturalised and reified within social relations in ways we don't necessarily always recognise or acknowledge --> suffused and sublimated within creative production, our lexicon and gestures
(19th century anthropology's) the idea of [*]alterity: understanding how ‘other,’ ‘primitive’ societies operated ‘outside’ of modernity --assumption--> ‘small scale’ societies exchange (barter, gift exchange, and so on) would always, with evolution, give way to more ‘sophisticated’ means of trade
•Malinows[...]
(41)[...notes/midday review.txt]%11.6[...]icular world that is in the image of mar-e noh-sar
haft modaber هفت مدبر
jealousy as affect --underlying--> Farsi ghazal
ابومعشر بلخی Abu Ma'shar Balkhi
الهی - فلک نور
اثیری - ۸ فلک آسمانی
هیولانی - جزء زیر قمر
...................................
***don't read (or make) theory as a means of empowerment*** (a tool to fight or flight oppression)
...................................
[title]
king real
...................................
my problem with
•conceptual art: jumping (transcending) from material to meaning
•viscerality: every expression matters as long as it affects the viewer in the stomach
(call of) phenomenology: to return to the appearing of that which appears
political philosophy
political science
political art
in Tehran (?how are made) the boundaries of jorm (جرم =/= law), gonah (گناه =/= god), and ? (=/= norm)
--> norm, law, sin, akhlagh اخلاق
•[thanks to Gesellschaft =/= Gemeinschaft ==>] jamee جامعه society =/= ejtema اجتماع community = norm + place (+ identity)
◦ ejtemayi اجتماعی social =/= ejamyi اجماعی collective
•tars ترس fear =/= ezterab اضطراب anxiety
•sharm شرم shame =/= khejalat خجالت shyness
آتش آب خشک را پر میکرد از آتش تر
ab-e khosht = piale
atash-e tar = sharab
tar تر = allude آلوده = sabok سبک
khosro shirin
tarof ghabl az bad o bira goftan
shenidan (niushidan) ~= fahmidan فهمیدن
...................................
*negative bias = the negative is more ture*
negative bias: negative stimuli elicit a larger brain response than positive ones
(can then negative bias explain racism? <-- we are shaped by negativity)
positive-negative asymmetry
(in trying to) make sense of the world --> focus more on the negative
bad ==> attention
negative news is more likely to be perceived as truthful
ambiguous stimuli rated as threatening --> survive
(gestalt) law of closure: we perceive pieces of objects as part of a whole when grouped together
to produce counter-knowledge [~= to contest a problem] =/= (we need more) to *seduce our evacuation from the terms that establish the problem*
(Shapiro)
•stressor ==> emotion (short, intense)
•emotion + meaning (cognitively processed repeatedly) = feeling (lasting, less intense, combined)
•emotions هیجانی + feelings احساسی = [*]affect ~= mood
(in apass)[...]
(42)[...notes/midday review.txt]%12.5[...]al economy of Marx is entirely a priori.
[--Laclau--> essentialist conception of both society and social agency in Marxism <== holistic approache : a “founding totality” (expressed at the surface of social life) which presents itself as an intelligible object of ‘knowledge’ (in Marxism notion of ‘ideology’) =/= {relational character of any (social) identity + infinite play of differences}= discourse --> ‘the social’ always exceeds the limits of the attempts to constitute ‘society’;
& (in advanced capitalist societies:) identity = the unstable articulation of constantly changing positionalities, ‘social agent = decentered subject’ --> how can we, then, say the subjects misrecognize themselves in this kaleidoscopic movement of differences? =/= (Marxism's notion of) ‘false consciousness’; can we do without (the concept of) ‘misrecognition’?
--> (Laclau suggests) the ideological* (~=? will to totality):
•misrecognition of a positive essence = ultimate suture (بخيه bakhie)
•nonrecognition of any positivity =/= ultimate suture
(society institutes itself <==) closure: nonrecognition of the infinite play of differences }--> ‘ideological ==> social’ ~(the social is impossible without some fixation of meaning) : “utopia is the essence of any communication and social practice” --!,]
[--Delanda--> (the mode of ‘downward thinking’ when we think in terms of) ideology (~ the established relations of a particular society constitutes people's identities) ~= intrinsic: the identity is created by relations {the fantasy of ‘seamless totality'} =/= (Deleuzian) extrinsic: the relations are real but don't determine identities]
what are artists (particular <-=> general) propositions (Angebot)?
•proposition: a declarative that can be right or wrong =/= a sentence, grammatical entities
•exposition: a systematic interpretation/explanation of a specific topic
•disposition: an affective orientation, knowledge attitude
e attitude
[Marx's ruthlessness: criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions]
what are the sources of “value” in ajayeb?
(sun, photosynthetic, micro-organisms, etc.)
fermentation, photosynthesis, respiration
ajayeb is the (shared, individual, or experienced) “memory” of which organizational layer or process of which communities of practice?
rethinking “invisible hand”
(dynamic between supply and demand. “planning system”?)
... against ... the dualisms that have been transmitted to us in the history of philosophy (matter vs. meaning, micro vs. macro, inorganic vs. organic vs. social, realism vs. social constructivism, etcetera.) and argue in favor of a new ontology according to which “mechanisms are largely causal, but they do not necessarily involve linear causality”
Neo-Materialism =/= Creationism: matter is an inert receptacle for forms that c[...]
(43)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%13[...]ty institutes itself <==) closure: nonrecognition of the infinite play of differences }--> ‘ideological ==> social’ ~(the social is impossible without some fixation of meaning) : “utopia is the essence of any communication and social practice” --!,]
[--Delanda--> (the mode of ‘downward thinking’ when we think in terms of) ideology (~ the established relations of a particular society constitutes people's identities) ~= intrinsic: the identity is created by relations {the fantasy of ‘seamless totality'} =/= (Deleuzian) extrinsic: the relations are real but don't determine identities]
what are artists (particular <-=> general) propositions (Angebot)?
•proposition: a declarative that can be right or wrong =/= a sentence, grammatical entities
•exposition: a systematic interpretation/explanation of a specific topic
•disposition: an affective orientation, knowledge attitude
[Marx's ruthlessness: criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions]
what are the sources of “value” in ajayeb?
(sun, photosynthetic, micro-organisms, etc.)
fermentation, photosynthesis, respiration
ajayeb is the (shared, individual, or experienced) “memory” of which organizational layer or process of which communities of practice?
rethinking “invisible hand”
(dynamic between supply and demand. “planning system”?)
... against ... the dualisms that have been transmitted to us in the history of philosophy (matter vs. meaning, micro vs. macro, inorganic vs. organic vs. social, realism vs. social constructivism, etcetera.) and argue in favor of a new ontology according to which “mechanisms are largely causal, but they do not necessarily involve linear causality”
Neo-Materialism =/= Creationism: matter is an inert receptacle for forms that come from the outside imposed by an exterior psychic agency: “Let there be light!”
r />
--> matter has morphogenetic capacities of its own and does not need to be commanded into generating form.
one of the idealisms that have been generated by postmodernism: that we know already how all past discourses have been generated, that we have the secret of all past conceptual systems, and that we can therefore engage in meta-theorizing based on that knowledge
Delanda: I am not convinced that avoiding dualities is the key to a new way of thinking (particularly if one simply adds new ones: modernism-postmodernism, rhizome-tree, power-resistance).
reified generalities that do not really exist: The Market, The State, and The People.
The duality emerges when one ignores the zone of overlap and reifies the averages.
...................................
[in ajayebnameh عجایب نامه...] to map the morphogenetic changes of the real
... bewildering hete[...]
(44)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%13[...]lls, collapses certitudes, and lives by failure-lives by dying or, at least destroying.
The one register of testing offers results-certitudes-by which to calculate and count on the *other.*
the culture of Versuch, test or trial
(farhange kushesh, ghasd, sue ghasd, va emtehan)
(measuring and) testing that support, among so many others, political, religious, and educational institutions
testing has everything to do with the way the policing of political sites and bodies takes place, in modernity and with our experience of reality in general.
testing ~=/?==><--> the real
(elliptical circuit established between test & real)
Freud was working on to tests which are lost now: Aktualitätsprüfung to distinguish between reality and immediacy
Lacan has linked testing to the subject's creation of a first “outside"----a space that is no longer the same as “reality”
the way the state takes possession of the body presumptively on drugs.
-in this way, drugs are seen as eccentric: what is outside, or moves outside the center, can center it, they are animated by an outside already inside
-how drugs are isolating or how they establish community (of those who are somehow together or with nonpresence.) anything that refigures individuality or collectivity that brings you together with the other and absolutly keeps you apart from the other
drug: Dionysian frenzy, aspirin, religion, dirty language,
-I am sorry I have no drugs to offer you today!
-not everyone in civic societies has the privilege of getting high and mind-altering (that which supposedly suggests vulnerability,) running arround drunk staggering and out-of-it, they will be beaten the hell out of it, they have to be sober, on alert and self-protective
your pee belongs to the state----new civic readability
{four bodies don't belong to themselves: children, addicts, outlaws, and ghosts, are all busted by the state or certain legislated majority}
destructive (and artistic) modes of production.
test, does it have an essence? Is it pure relationality?
Avital's “speculative telephonics”
Heidegger: sign = cutting edge, Zeichen --Holderlin--> “we're cutting out” =/= (Avital:) schizo knows how to disconnect, how to depart, how to cut the shit
the place where a call can break into a body[=? orificial openings of a subject]
emergency verification: we are still trying to cut into the emergency line (that we are on) after the crashing down of the transcendental signifier
in the (technologically enabled) disappearance of long-distance what happens to the ‘elsewhere’ calling to the schizobody?
how our pretechnological ears were (trained) before the telephone?
[...]
(45)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%14.7[...]ormation defines the limits of each individual; values, desires, and preferences. ---- in a way that I realize that a ‘hailing’ was addressed at me, thinking ‘that means me,’ and the answer is what transforms me into a subject : a “mis-recognition” [--> we can open a dossier on prophet and ‘answering’ the call]; [~-> what Tarof hails?] ---- for Althusser being aware of the other is a form of ideology. (how to recognize ourselves outside of ideology?)} (Foucauldian/Althusserian: passively defined by identity ==> mobilizing around these identities --?--> potential for resistance)
(Althusser's) police officer [محتسب mohtaseb?] --hails--> concrete subject
(Foucault's) expert discourses --hails--> sexuality
(Adorno's) mass media --hails--> passive consumer
(Gauntlett's) uncritical consumption --hails--> assumption --> bad worlding
(Mulvey's) cinema --hails--> male protagonist
(Butler's) boy/girl --hails--> gender identity
(Sina's) تعارف Tarof --hails--> divnity ??
***(crafted faithfully?) more potent the tropes, the truer the story***
(without being distracted by scandals and meta-stories?!)
stories traffic in tropes, figures of speech
(the dogmatic and bizzar idea of) “trope-free communication”
*metaplasm, remodeling, remolding,,, inverting meanings, transposing the body of communication,
(in my graphs, or rigs, what a substitution in a string might change the meaning?)
what is the “troping that makes a fleshly difference”?
origin story (~=> establishing origin) ~=> sober scientific report ~=> scales of intelligence ~=> human as master
the “mere” village dog:
-canine Eves surviving in their mitochondrial DNA
-canine Adam through his Y-chromosome legacies
which metaplasmic, remodeled versions of ‘name’ could give ajayeb's being
(in apass I have been against the “what do I want as an artist?” question:)
pay attention to significant otherness =/= reflection of one's intentions
what is the name of the game? complexity, flexibility, opportunism, (finite worlds called:) domestic, wild, feral,
[who is naming the world what?
•accelerationism: “game-over”
•capitalism: “resource”
•technophobia: “obsolescence”
•technophilia: “information”
•monotheism: “transition”
•science: “taxa”
•multinationalism: “system”
•modernism: “globe"]
immune systems (in natureculture) determine where organisms, including people, can live and with whom.
“There is no time or place at which genetics ends and environment begins” [...]
(Haraway > Gilbert)
“All stages of the life histories of evolving animals had to adapt to eager bacteria colonizing them inside and out.”
To be animal is to become-with bacteria
[...]
(46)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%15.6[...]--> (who has ?) the power to explain, (who/what decides what kind is ?) relevant knowledge
[Stengers] (wonder has everything to do with stories,) wonder incites storytelling
1 --> importance of narratives in our knowledge-making practices
2 --> politically robust narratives (that world us differently)
can the ontological be addressed without the ethical?
(feminism's answer is ‘no’) --> a materialism that is immediately ontological, epistemological, and ethical (=/=? Delanda's materialism)
ajayeb (+ my work on it ?) is a pragmatic project to fabricate a different kind of knowledge assemblage (Stengers > Kenney > Sina)
=/= (21st century) logics of capitalism
=/= toxic categories of modernity
i need (to learn) an inviting rhetoric
(Roughgarden)
([focus narrowly on] sexual selection =/=) social selection : “...selection for, and in the context of, the social infrastructure of a species within which offspring are produced and reared”
co-parenting, animal friendships, same-sex sex, non-reproductive sex, and other reproductive social behaviors
*physio-semiotics: physical traits that have social functions, that communicate to other members of the social group
(Darwin sexual selection : claims that in humans, men are more jealous about sexual infidelity of their partners, whereas woman are more jealous of emotional infidelity. their theories based on a sexual conflict model, is that this is an evolutionary adaptation that helps males ensure that they raise their own offspring and helps females ensure that the males will stick around to provide for their children.) --> is there another story? (this is a speculative + empirical question) --> multiple evolutionary stories are possible
(Roughgarden demands) a more rigorous relationship between narrative and evidence (=/= prevalence of studies where the “[raw] data are mined to effect an appearance of the confirmation of [a single] hypothesis”) ----she returns to the most potent fables of sexual selection and re-tells them --> these new stories make real species-shaping difference by contributing to the social infrastructure within which offspring are produced and reared
***how many plots can the data hold?*** --> pragmatic---the answer is many not infinite [Strathern: “more than one but less than many"]
-practices of *doing accuracy* --> storytellers
relationships between story and evidence --> an invitation to invent new forms of accuracy that might be unfamiliar or awkward but could be epistemologically narrativelly politically generative (Kenney)
(sometimes: story ==> data) the work to craft just one good story from the chaos of the data is (not only political challenge @Jassem, but also) an epistemological challenge
(Lynn Margulis)
*[...]
(48)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%16.6[...]ge-learning with animals can help us learn) restating and inverting the question of control
*exchange can only be achieved when there is “a continous reprisal of translations and betrayals of meaning”* ==> understanding itself is compromised
[*]ajayeb: a non-stop betrayal of translations (of perspectives) and continuous redressal of meanings (of things)
“as if” has to do with misunderstanding
“meanings are constructed in a constant movement of ‘attunement,’ which makes them emerge.”
(Despret, animal breeding practices)
(my work on ajayeb is also much about) *language-learning* [...]in its pragmatic function: it is an effective means of acting and of making others act
keep your end up
[*]type: identifying language use with modes of existence [Wittgenstein's mistake] (maybe useful to reanimate the question of ‘becoming’ for Marialena)
the mode of existence of lions is subordinated to that of an essence “lioness,” guaranteed by the identity of the species and the stability of its repertoire of behaviour ==> a burdensome conception of the naturalness of animals
***the question is not what ‘is’ a lion, but “how does one become a lion,” not only in lion community and species, but also in the work of scientists, constructing what it is to be a lion.
--> this is about becoming: of that of which the animal is rendered capable by the apparatuses that interrogate it
how can what I say about lions or baboons (or oceans or jinns) be authorized by them?
[*]we: constituted by the assemblage of different (animal-, nonhuman-, machine-, human-)beings equipped with an apparatus aimed at making them talk well --{by taking an interest in what constitutes the appropriateness of a material apparatus that transforms those it interrogates}--> fully agreeing to situate oneself in a regime of transformations and accomplishments =={that mingle with and give form to}==> *desires*
-researcher's desire is one the modes of their efficacity
-“our” problems are not a priori
a “we”:
+ “know full well”
+ “are different”
+ “who work”
rhetorics of pronouns, acts of crude generalizations: something is being specified and something generalized. [@Xiri's “I am the one who... your...” the specificity and generality of “I” and of “you” in her text. how the difference of “you” and “I” was envisaged in her poem?-->{I, the effected by =/= you, the haver} how can this I/you impose itself not as the effect of a strong-arm tactic? =/=? I want to find out how to live together; refuse to deepen the contrast between “us” and “them"] [in Xiri's poem: who/what makes her pronouns?] [to address people ‘as’ refugees, subjugated, poor, or victim, to recognize them by these identities, only repeats the process of exclusion(?) could be experienced as disabling.]
[...]
(49)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%17.9[...]
#my work in apass is about:
•bestiary: archaeological anthropology of human-animal practices
•rhetoric: scaling, modeling, figuring out fields of practices
•ontology: circumscribe, address, or deal with the processes of ontological transformations
•storytelling: mobilizing different kinds of mental resources and literacies
•performance: what it would be to know together
•sociality: that which joins categorically separate mode of agencies
•
#my findings/questions, so far:
•animal subjectivity ~=? human imagination
•bestiary ~=? affect + episteme
•medieval bestiaries: world ~= phenomena
•definition ~=? ontological choreography ==> worlds are created
•metaphores of self ~-> body image ~=? image of world
•list ~=? reason
•
I found myself oriented towards a kind of ‘multispecies ethnography’: a new way of writing and mode of research in which creatures previously appearing on the margins of interest--as part of the landscape, as food for humans, as symbols (for mystic projects)--have been pressed into the foreground of interest.
(what are my) symbolic + symbiotic attachments
what/who is coughing, counting, working, communicating sited between divine and bestial in ajayeb?
-is my ajayeb a (dead/alive) multispecies art project? studying Indo-Arab-Iranian illuminated manuscripts as to be reading a paper in ecology or molecular biology or art.
unlike Alex Arteaga's question of “inevitable altruism” {started from “conscious human subjects” and ended there} (in his talk 30.05.2017 apass,) I would insist on giving an account of the metaphors of ‘self’ in the history of body and mind (that matters to ‘you’) [my findings of self: maginc lantern, iceberg's tip (==> unconsciousness), wasteland/wilderness, greedy beast within, ... {--> these are all (classical) basis for “higher” cognitive capacities}] [also I am against Alex's notion of “destablizing stabilities as the task of artistic research.” I choose to refuse to put what is in flux against what is stable or attempting to stabilize. (I am in alignment with Katie King sharpening for me that) we constantly share our stage, settings, performances, sensoria, reenactments among agencies and species, creating varying stabilities, some fragile, some robust]
*account--synonymous with: description, information, list, reason, record, statement, story, sum, tale
-a contractual relationship
-giving an itemized account of recent transactions and resulting balance (of your metaphors = material-discursive apparatuses that are materializing your found empirical objects)
-accountability is always also about remaking those relations that produced your objects
-detailed explanation of money held in trust, to count, enumerate* -->{telling =? enumerating}
counting your senses
*accountability is [...]
(50)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%19.5[...]my Rigs diagrams are ‘swarms’? -a multitude of different creative agents
ajayeb.net (how can it be:) not a website but a “para-site”
•am i creating an ego (for ajayeb) in my ajayeb.net? if yes, that would be interesting how?
topos/topic of hypertext, spatial character of electronic writing
topic [from Greek ‘topos’: a place, in ancient rhetoric used to refer to commonplaces, conventional units, or methods of thought] exist in a writing space that is not only a visual surface but also a data structure in the computer --> Hypertext: “is not the writing of a place, but rather a writing with places, spatially realized topics.” (Bolter < Hubert)
-in my hypertext, which writing materials, cognitive mappings, itineraries of reading, textual stability, loops and reductions are addressed?
•in ajayeb.net the so-called url address or location bar, is itself a control panel, a graphical user interface widget; how did i come to use “?q=” : rhetorics of technologized inquiry in place before i even could think about how do I allow my objects constituted by “?”, “q” and “=” of the language and grammar of internet
•(when i uploaded my hypertext i faced immediately the big data:) google webmasters tools is my first readership, it communicates its reading with me; (did i have a desire to make the hypertext for a machine?) who/what is doing the reading (in the world of big data)? the interpretive work that is going on, in a writing and reading done by computers ==> ethical and social values
•url pased in facebook post, results into a link to فلزیاب، مطالب علمی و آموزشی / مدار فلزیاب و دستگاه فلزیاب تضمینی, a series of websites for selling treasure finders, finding metal under the ground, ganj, and so on...
the English (since second world war) --> (1) international lingua franca of high technology, (2) the language of computers
-in ajayeb.net the enforcement of standard spelling and even grammar is week or nonexistent
-the amount of linguistic replicators that circulate through my ajayeb hypertext are bound to a colloquial English, they are nevertheless “English”. but this English is being changed and adapted by my foreign use in different ways
-a flourishing of a neo-English and Farsi miniaturization of Eng
...................................
sometimes the answer to the question is to investigate the question itself
Despret asking with Rowell: how can we be sure that primates have a more complex social life? --> how did we build the comparison?*** --Latour--> if they are so intelligent, how did they get the ‘chance’ to become so ‘well equipped’?
(in this question can be raised an unexpected animal)
[(how) the makhlughat/مخلوقات/creatures/beings of ajayeb were well equipped (with agency, will, intention,)]
sheep, ‘the epitome of the silly animal'
[...]
(51)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%19.6[...]this morpheme has come to mean (since mid-15th century) “form” and “nature”? (this is about thinking of making)
“physis” requires the different perspectives of the four causes (aitia):
•material --> source of matter
•efficient --> power/motion
•formal --> containing its form
•final --> end
zoopoiesis --> zoopoetics, explorations of how animals (zoo) shape the making of text, study of ‘the literary animal’
...................................
Katie King
“flexible knowledges” on the edge of validity ♥ (--> almost invalid*)
fantasy of education
culture wars
intellectual enterpreneurs
upheavals and connectivities of globalization
changing patterns of interaction
(aren't we here to) change the patterns of interaction
(aren't we here to) change the faith of letters and love stories
reenactments (are fantasy practices and realities) =/= simple, accessible, and democratized (knowledge)
“layers of locals and globals”
[somehow I couldn't feel in his long term project what is Kobe's relation to] (processes and their product that require) developing and learning new skills, pleasures, and communities
-at the end many of us (are busy with or) want to (or inhabit the “will to”) modelling reality
this is also what ajayeb was busy with
***we are always doing both “purification” and “hybridization”
[]we direct our attention simultaneously to the work of purification and the work of hybridization ==> we immediately stop being wholly modern --> *our future begins to change* / *our past begins to change*
[my work on ajayeb (“hybrids down below” {Latour}) is precisely about (this kind of) transformation of pasts and futures] ==> meeting companion species {if my work on ajayeb doesn't teach me how to meet the dog in my street, the pigeon on my window, the juju on the edge of my paper, what is it good for then?!}
(*)companion species: assemblages of living and non-living ‘species’***
(Janina is all along engaged with companion species)
(an strategy:) allocation of responsibility for grasping information
assemblage at various levels and sublevels characterizes *explanations* and *practices*
technoscientific tsunami that will obliterate prior practices and cultures...
(learning to) see old and new forms of confusions, docility, subjectivity, morality, agency, empowerment (when we are together)
(to recognize and make) new sites of negotiation
Alberti: bodies of Minoan figurines “wear” the appropriate gender for a specific ritual practice, they don't “bear” gender (as their essential feature) ==> gender salience is always in question, not a propor presupposition
“sex has emerged as a salient attribute [...]
(52)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%19.9[...]is gained and what is lost when “tidying up the archive”? (a german problem)
prescriptions for speech and silence
“politeness phenomena”
‘plain speech’ for Quakers: rejection of ‘idle’ speech. preaching was another version of sacrificing seld-will, and was appropriate speech.
public preaching in particular was also a challenge to social relations and interaction --> a challenge to gender, speaking public was a cultural humiliation for individual women --> the Quaker women practiced preaching as a personal humiliation instrumental to their own salvation [! in a weird way i also did this to my self] #becoming woman-->{a liquefying aspect: “womanhood” was used metaphorically to identify those who could not preach, the surrender of (male) authority to God by men was “female”
•inhibiting woman's prophetic agencies
•“lack of discipline” becomes discipline --!--> forms of discipline that appear “undisciplined” or out of control
(Katie King > Mack:) “Quakers not only bathed in a sea of polymorphous sipritual nature and eroticism; they occasionally wrote as if they had succeeded in floating above gender altogether”
“going naked as a sign” (and Quaker's “plain style”) --> Tasavof, ajayeb, and communication strategies of the so-called new science of the same time (of Quakers)
‘nakedness’ was simultaneously literally his own, a figure of the world, an example of many others, the abstract principle, and the essential truth of the one addressed
-simplicity, economy, and plainness; to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style
preferring language of artisans, countrymen, merchants, of wits and scholars
How sin is strengthened 1657
Milk for babes 1661
A message from the spirit of truth 1658
realized eschatology
انا الحق, an-al-hagh
(Damrosch:) the performance of the sign thus entailed a doubly negative aspect: in the person exhibiting it, a conviction of fulfilling a divine mandate in opposition to personal self-interest; and in those who witnessed it, an offense to ordinary social standards that actually served to authenticate it.
*the function of the sign was to bear prophetic witness rather than to get practical results; it fulfilled its purpose simply by being performed*
#shath, shathiat ==> tazkirat, --->{ what the saints of Tasavof (reported by Attar-{his “virtual witnessing” of “awliya” اولیا as a “realized"}, Quakers [as illegal nonconformist sect]) put together was their own writing technology infrastructure** ==> **routinization of charisma** <-- organizational structure ["advices and queries” نفحات الانس nafahat ~-> rationalized systematic intellectualizations]}
pattern of suffering that the believer literally and personally relives
(is Tasavof developed Christian[...]
(53)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%20.1[...]t kind of “optically dense” and “less elegant” kind of corporeality in our work on Olearius#]
(Haraway + Potter + Shapin + Schaffer:) elaboration on the idea of modest witness in which “modesty” might flip between either two sides:
1- historically masking a masculine solipsism as a preciously unmarked category: modest witness =/= haec vir : God forbid that the experimental way of life have queer foundations
2- (working across partialities) to create “a more adequate, self-critical technoscience committed to situated knowledges”
a nameless sin about which, without describing, he sought counsel
oratory
tension between dedication and prevarication (zaban bazi زبان بازی)
([let's not] being a member of) a “class” of those whose truth-telling was privileged
in certain sorts of people credibility was embodied
ajayeb.net's style of writing =/= a style of writing driven by the needs of readers who are relatively unskilled (in practical divinity, casuistry, or theology, and so on)
*** what kind of classification work, work of historical representation, is necessary now to show over time with greater clarity, in cooperation with more and more communities of practice, that in the best of all possible worlds, at any given moment, the past could be reordered to better reflect multiple constituencies now and then? ***
(Katie King + Bowker + Leigh Star)
[my ajayeb-making is about] partial connections (across time) ==> communities
([my point in work on ajayeb:] we need) the possbility of competing and shifting claims on individuals (=/= self-making individual), rather persons with partial connections (across time) and queer relations with pastpresent ==> negotiating forms of evidence ==> units of analysis ==> past reordered
[with the help of Katie King's figure of writing technologies:] i am interested in and interested to help make historical representations of nonhuman iranians in writing technological ecologies (which are inevitably products of new social movements, new research agendas, new publics of interest, and new contests for historical meaning)
with ajayeb this became immediately my concern: *infrastructures of historical representation*
...................................
(what are the) stickiness of ajayeb's being (?) or, in which affective economy they are ‘passed around’? [social goods, accumulating affects, contagious مسرى? it tends to pick up whatever comes near, or gives us a certain kind of angle on what comes near*]
•wonder
•cause ==> ?
•
}--> social bond is always rather sensational*
(Ahmed suggests) thinking through affect as “sticky”: affect is what sticks, or what sustains or preserves the connection between ideas, values, and objects
{ affec[...]
(54)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%20.4[...] stickiness of ajayeb's being (?) or, in which affective economy they are ‘passed around’? [social goods, accumulating affects, contagious مسرى? it tends to pick up whatever comes near, or gives us a certain kind of angle on what comes near*]
•wonder
•cause ==> ?
•
}--> social bond is always rather sensational*
(Ahmed suggests) thinking through affect as “sticky”: affect is what sticks, or what sustains or preserves the connection between ideas, values, and objects
{ affects as contagious =/= (inside/outside) “outside in” model of emotions (for axample, when we say: atmosphere “getting into the individual”)-->[part of the intellectual history of (crowd) psychology and the sociology of emotions] }--> affect becomes an object only given the contingency of how we are affected
“what we will receive as an impression will depend on our affective situation” --> Julia's post-Lacanian feedback: bodies never arrive neutral
*everything depends on the angle of our arrival* (<-- my point in lecture-performances) ~-> **pedagogic encounter is full of angles** (--> is that why i am becoming increasingly pedagogic?)
(by distinguishing between “did/how it work for you” and “did/how it work for the artist” -->) *internal communication =/= external communication* [what goes on inside the text on the level of fictional mediation is not to be confused with the non-fictional realm inhabited by the reader nor by the author]
(we are facing the right way -->) *aligned =/= alienated* (<-- we are out of line with an affective economy)
***(then how to) share an orientation [, also refuse to share an orientation toward certain things]
[an aesthetic question which is moral. how two of my teachers, Julia and Phil, did this?]
to get along =? to share direction
politics of good feelings
(slide between) affective and moral economies
*how feelings participate in making things (good) <--✕--> germanicity
how bodies turn toward things
[*]affect-->{
•messiness of the experiential
•unfolding of bodies into the worlds
•drama of contingency
“hap” -->{
•happening --> chance
•happiness --> stickiness
}--> contingency of what happens as something good --> *worldy question of happenings*
=/= (21st century) hard work, Aufgabe, happiness as an effect of what you do
happiness is
•intentional: directed toward objects --> phenomenological sense
•affective: contanct with objects
happiness puts us into intimate contact with things, [...] even if that something does not present itself as an object of consciousness (Ahmed) --> *coming and going of objects*
“to be affected by something is to evaluate that thing”
#my Rigs? simulate a course of action of desc[...]
(56)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%20.5[...] />
(Robin:) happiness does not have an object
(Freud:) anxiety does not have an object
=/= (Ahmed:) correspondence between objects and feelings is not any simple ~~--> proximity, “unattributed happiness”
[...] <-- ( us )"subject” --> ( ♥ )"object”
things --move--> us --make--> things ~~> ...
@Arjang, how happiness is displaced by the how of its arrival
(happiness can often recede or become anxious, when the feeling becomes an object of thought)
what it means for happiness to be thought in these terms (as an end for its own sake)
what it means for apparatus to be thought in these terms (of Agamben)
what it means for ocean to be thought in these terms (of Marialena)
in Islam, how does the good life get imagined through the proximity of objects?
[*]taste: “manifest preferences”: “practical affirmation of an inevitable difference” (Bourdieu)
history becomes second-nature ==> affects become literal ==> (we assume we experience delight because) “it” is delightful
(often with animals) the affective differentiation ==(basis of)==> (an essentially) moral economy
cheerfulness is the most communicative of emotions (♥ Ahmed)
(Ahmed's take on) loving (happily): knowing the peculiarity of a loved other's likes and dislikes, an intimacy with what the other likes and is given --> on conditions that such likes do not take us outside a *shared horizon*
***who/what introduces what feelings to whom?***
‘question of power' = do you go along with it?
sometimes the Iranian orientation is toward maximal comfort of the others
(maintaining) ‘comfort' = (your or some) bodies “go along with it”
bond-->{ affect ==> we search for an object }
...certain objects already circulate as socila goods before we “happen” upon them --> we do not just find happy objects anywhere (--> how happy objects are found in Tasavof? located, lost, transported, sold, advertised, criticized, etc.) *happy objects point us somewhere, a “where” from which we expect so much (--> happy objects of Tasavof [or HOT] {Qur'an, khezr, woman, poetry, .../ قرآن / خضر / زن / شعر}-->their sense of values, practice, styles, and aspirations; where do they point Iranians? beyond, Zolmat, animal, shadow, everyday objects, etc. what are the feelings involving the “points” of alignment wuth these objects?) ~~--> relocation of expectations:
•from beyond to earth
•from global to local
•from future to now
•
in situations where feelings are shared or are in common (which is usually the case in the environments that I am involved with,) how do I usually play a role? ==> (re)location of responsibility
self-exclusion
to mak[...]
(58)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%20.6[...] me (?)
--> these are instances of resistance against biomimesis in ajayeb (?) [biomimesis is involved with mirroring, imitation, or reflection, and other tropes of “sameness"] =/= trans-materialities of the creatures of the world, they transgress the sacrosanct divides between techne and episteme
(many creatures of our shared world have) evolved in intra-action with their environment, and old bestiaries, such as ajayeb, critically inhabit a mode of description and affect situated within the intra-activity of technologies of writing and perception
•the creatures of the mud know better not to get caught up in a “geometrical optics of knowing”
we are seeking a different genus of knowing =/= mediating machine, inscription devices, lenses, panopticons, and various other epistemological tools that many science studies and cultural studies scholars fancy. (is that also what Marialena fancies? her list of tools)
[*]intelligibility: an ontological performance of the world in its ongoing articulation
not a specifically human capacity, intelligibility does not require an (usually human) inttelective agent
the problem with design is that designers (as well as scientists and engineers) are busy with building ‘enhanced communication networks’ and principles of ‘usefulness’, in the way they relate to the “forms” of nature
*connections and commitments (come together)*
the copyright symbol © should be a sign not of the right to copy but, if anything, of the responsibilities entailed in producing differential materialization (for whom and at what costs?)*
Barad ♥
(brittlestar, the plant in my room, ajayeb's creatures,) ...their being is a flexible distributed growing and regenerating multi-oriented shape-shifting topologically variant dynamical system of diffraction gratings
(rhetoric of) re-veiling, which provokes the seeming need for a revealing of nature
entanglement --> inseparability --> spatially separated particles in an entangled state do not have separate identities
there is no epmirical evidence of such a disjunction ontologies at a particular scale, “micro-world” and “macro-world”
who insists on “quarantining quantum queerness”?
quarantining scale and time
quarantining Sadra to “his” time, or ajayeb to an older another temporality, and therefore irrelevant for us “today”
[*]scale: intra-actively (re)configured in the ongoing intra-active becoming on space-time-mattering
...................................
Khezr and San'an, the most repeated points of reference in tasavof
like you, Hafez, full of struggle, sensation, love,
our resistance and breakdance
(Mehran Rad:) Hafez preferences on Farsi over Arabic:
Deir دیر / Some'e صومعه
Pir پیر / Sheikh شی[...]
(59)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%20.9[...]rability, etc.]
tey-ol-arz metaphysics is based on the idea of a radical and infinite superposition of states: insides and outsides ~= heres and theres : are figures and ground to each other (--> #beyond)
--> there is no interior space to the body (~ there is no there/beyond to the body,) just an invisible body
#work on an exposure of work with tey-ol-arz with other interested artists
in Tehran, maybe in my parents house, informal space for opening a discussion in Farsi-English
(involve Pierre? where to get money?)
*campus: (a place where) new kinds of conversations are being invented in stabilized and social forms (sometimes departments, sometimes just research clusters)
i need to make that kind of mini-scale of quasi-organization between Tehran and Brussels: workshops, episodic and travel-mediated knots of practice
**(Alberti 2013 argues that) anything in the immediate, intimate vicinity of people can be subjectivized or personified through exchange and shared affects** --> an argument for ajayeb
‘to know a thing' = 'to subjectivize it’ : to add the maximum amount of intentionality to them (--> #equip them to talk well)
pots made to:
•to communicate (to an audience)
•to establish (relationships)
•to persuade (others of their point of view)
de-subjectivization: sometimes (objects) left deliberately partially subjectivized, semi-potent in their potential to know and be known
the intensely subjectivized pots --> *impede activity and enable knowledge*
•convince
•avtivate
-
•persuade
•communicate
•establish
eyes wide open: inability to see the invisible
*to see is to be seen*
buried pots, relational bodies firmly in place, teaches the dead to see properly, to maintain a perspective (Albeti)r />
[title]
(with Alberti) trap-thinking for ajayeb storytelling --> to make capable of knowing different things, invoking, quoting, reciting, citing, exicing, inciting different kinds of knowledge [cit- : to call, start] --> mobilizing #citational apparatuses --> they enter into a ‘type’ of relation particular to each
[*]traps(/pots): bodies fully engage in perspectival communication and battles of will, variously constructed and provided with affects and capacities, capable of knowing different things and of inciting different kinds of knowledge through the types of relations they entered into
______________
archaeological material ~= myrtle (=/= marble)
[*]ontology: a theory and experience of what exists
*hylomorphic model of production (underlined by the substance ontology) ~= marble
=/= myrtle
=/= ajayeb's inscribings
a ma[...]
(60)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%22.8[...] know a thing' = 'to subjectivize it’ : to add the maximum amount of intentionality to them (--> #equip them to talk well)
pots made to:
•to communicate (to an audience)
•to establish (relationships)
•to persuade (others of their point of view)
de-subjectivization: sometimes (objects) left deliberately partially subjectivized, semi-potent in their potential to know and be known
the intensely subjectivized pots --> *impede activity and enable knowledge*
•convince
•avtivate
-
•persuade
•communicate
•establish
eyes wide open: inability to see the invisible
*to see is to be seen*
buried pots, relational bodies firmly in place, teaches the dead to see properly, to maintain a perspective (Albeti)
[title]
(with Alberti) trap-thinking for ajayeb storytelling --> to make capable of knowing different things, invoking, quoting, reciting, citing, exicing, inciting different kinds of knowledge [cit- : to call, start] --> mobilizing #citational apparatuses --> they enter into a ‘type’ of relation particular to each
[*]traps(/pots): bodies fully engage in perspectival communication and battles of will, variously constructed and provided with affects and capacities, capable of knowing different things and of inciting different kinds of knowledge through the types of relations they entered into
______________
archaeological material ~= myrtle (=/= marble)
[*]ontology: a theory and experience of what exists
*hylomorphic model of production (underlined by the substance ontology) ~= marble
=/= myrtle
=/= ajayeb's inscribings
a making which assumes that form is inscribed onto passive matter
that pots accrue (انباشتن منتج) meaning through their processes of manufacture and role in social relations
~ form is brought to matter by an agent with a design in mind (Ingold) --> a concept of material culture in which “brute matter” is shaped by cultural agency
traces of action --> skilled means of representing a mental image
~= ‘design’ (as conventionally conceived) : to ‘project’ future states
[*]perspectivist theory: the conception according to which the universe is inhabited by different sorts of persons, human and nonhuman, which apprehend reality from distinct points of view (Viveiros de Castro)
-it suggests that there is no interior space to the body, only superposition of body and soul: the human form is, as it were, the body within the body, the naked primordial body [hayula]--the soul of the body --> infinite superposition of states #tey-ol-arz
--> the body, not the mind (or ‘soul’), is the seat of knowledge, different parts of the body know in quite distinct wa[...]
(62)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%22.8[...]epresenting a mental image
~= ‘design’ (as conventionally conceived) : to ‘project’ future states
[*]perspectivist theory: the conception according to which the universe is inhabited by different sorts of persons, human and nonhuman, which apprehend reality from distinct points of view (Viveiros de Castro)
-it suggests that there is no interior space to the body, only superposition of body and soul: the human form is, as it were, the body within the body, the naked primordial body [hayula]--the soul of the body --> infinite superposition of states #tey-ol-arz
--> the body, not the mind (or ‘soul’), is the seat of knowledge, different parts of the body know in quite distinct ways: (loci/organ of knowledge:)
•hand knowledge (meken una)
•eye knowledge (bedu una) (particularly prominent sometimes...)
•ear knowledge (pabinki una)
•liver knowledge (taka una)
•skin knowledge (bitxi una) <-- knowledge of sun, rain and wind is acquired through the skin
(painting, ear piercing can also facilitate the absorption of knowledge into the body)
[*]bodies ~= artefacts : sites of subjectivity
•the body is fabricated, just like the pot [Alberti]
•as ‘lived experience’ performs, communicates and extends personhood through inscriptive and representational practices that fully incorporate material culture and the surrounding world. (Joyce)
•people are made: bodies are composite transformations of artefacts from the time of myth* [for example] Wari pay much attention to human bodies to ensure proper growth, which is regarded as a collective responsibility: they are moulded and shaped by kin from foetus through to adult. actions carried out on the body, such as massage, painting and piercing [and negarani of iranian mother] are seen to have profound and lasting effects
•each being is stabilized through acts of care --> what are babies for iranians (and iranian mothers)? {[*]affect: dispositions or capacities which render the body of every species unique: what it eats, how it moves, how it communicates, where it lives, whether it is gregarious دسته اى or solitary ==(such practices ensure that)==> **individuals act and see in the same ways as their kin** }--> is this what mother does? (has to do with the ability or threat of transformation? -->) *#practices of care and نگرانی negarani are the production of a distinctly human body ~ naturally human ~=> different bodily constitutions of the subject ==> different worlds
a process that crucially entailed inconstancy: a continuous creative response to the exigencies of somatic uncertainty and ontological risk =/= intentional image into a realized product (a bad story of technology)
let's resist:
•the vessel metaphor
•the body's dual character as biological and cultural
archaeologists’ understanding of what bodies and artefact[...]
(63)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%22.9[...]larly prominent sometimes...)
•ear knowledge (pabinki una)
•liver knowledge (taka una)
•skin knowledge (bitxi una) <-- knowledge of sun, rain and wind is acquired through the skin
(painting, ear piercing can also facilitate the absorption of knowledge into the body)
[*]bodies ~= artefacts : sites of subjectivity
•the body is fabricated, just like the pot [Alberti]
•as ‘lived experience’ performs, communicates and extends personhood through inscriptive and representational practices that fully incorporate material culture and the surrounding world. (Joyce)
•people are made: bodies are composite transformations of artefacts from the time of myth* [for example] Wari pay much attention to human bodies to ensure proper growth, which is regarded as a collective responsibility: they are moulded and shaped by kin from foetus through to adult. actions carried out on the body, such as massage, painting and piercing [and negarani of iranian mother] are seen to have profound and lasting effects
•each being is stabilized through acts of care --> what are babies for iranians (and iranian mothers)? {[*]affect: dispositions or capacities which render the body of every species unique: what it eats, how it moves, how it communicates, where it lives, whether it is gregarious دسته اى or solitary ==(such practices ensure that)==> **individuals act and see in the same ways as their kin** }--> is this what mother does? (has to do with the ability or threat of transformation? -->) *#practices of care and نگرانی negarani are the production of a distinctly human body ~ naturally human ~=> different bodily constitutions of the subject ==> different worlds
a process that crucially entailed inconstancy: a continuous creative response to the exigencies of somatic uncertainty and ontological risk =/= intentional image into a realized product (a bad story of technology)
let's resist:r />
•the vessel metaphor
•the body's dual character as biological and cultural
archaeologists’ understanding of what bodies and artefacts are ==> a model (based on analogy) ==> “pot =/= body”
****sex and aging, defined as the real “physical characteristics” of the body that underpin human experiences --> usually remains unaltered
(for instance check the TV series Six Feet Under, how David's gay-ness is an intrinsic absolute fact of his body that underpins all his experiences)
we “wear”:
•sex
•aging
•personal feelings
•Iranian, or German, (basically being anything)
•
(basically in all Hollywood imaginings and standard archaeology) artefacts are only assigned secondary agency --> animacy is not considered as inherent attribute of the artefactual *** (Gell)
--✕--> pots as living organisms subject to processes of growth
[...]
(64)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%22.9[...]le's reality)
Latour's modes of existence: ontological tendencies that exist more or less precariously under the assault of modernization
conversion of ontological questions into epistemological questions ==> deontologizing other peoples’ *ontological commitments* [--> that Goda mistook for ideology]
*problem with pluralizing “reality” is that it might appear to be a form of cultural relativism, (demotion of) “ontology ~= culture (~ cultural beliefs about reality =/= reality)” ==back==> cultural construction
anti-Cartesian, relational, and antiontological exceptionalism
[a] Heideggerian idea: *the world we encounter is preinterpretive*
posthuman ~ nonrepresentational ~ realist ~ new materialism
(realism: an ontological approach)
•Latour's network
•Ingold's meshwork (commonality of processes across the ‘life =/= not life’) --> processes ~ becoming ~ growth ~ decay
•Barad's entanglement (relations are primary and relata are a consequence of relating ==dynamics==> intra-action {phenomenon = experiment + measuring device + techician + previous results + setting + ...})
•DeLanda's assemblage (how humans and nonhumans produced communities that changed in composition and through time... =/= linguistic model of context)
•
**relational ontology : stronger your “allies” are, the more reality you can claim** [= (Latour's notion of) truth]
[critique of human exceptionalism ==>] open ontology --> contingent categories: phenomena and assemblages are temporary, contingent, and unbounded
flat ontology: one made exclusively of unique, singular individuals, differing in spatio-temporal scale but not in ontological status --symmetry--> *to get at differences without determining what they are in advance* (<-- useful for ajayeb studies)
•archaeological types/objects: reified sets of relations
•job of the archaeologists: establish alternative taxonomies of being
ruin memories
nonrepresentational =/={"world of ideas =/= world of things” ~= the ideas must correspond to a truth demonstrable in the world of things}
(Lucas's) materialization: we can still say things about the past with great certainty
theories + apparatuses + material remains
ontological realism --claim--> objectivity and truth may be contingent but are nonetheless demonstrable and robust
archaeologist ontological approach: working on “material pasts in the present” ~= ‘how past actually gathers in the present’ =/= “material record = fragmentary evidence of history”
•(material's temporary sensitivity ==>) [*]residue: the idea of memory objects, material entities in which the memory of a moment in time is recorded
(it is precisely the) past --endures-in--> assemblage
[...]
(65)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%23.1[...]>
nonanthropocentric zoological studies
(nomenological explorations of animal representations in Attar and tasavof)
what kinds of beings existed within the social universe of pre-Columbian Andean peoples
(renovated concept of) animism: ethnographic meta-analogy for past ontologies --> models of relationality for archaeologists to interpret material patterning in the archaeological record
investigations of personhood
(building toward a) taxonomy of past ontologies --✕--> ontological critique
(Alberti >) Viveiros de Castro's project: to systemize amerindian thought into a metaphysics such that it can have a reciprocal effect on anthropological thought and “naturalist” or Western metaphysics
ontological realism ==>{
new language attempt to imagine the complex topology of relational realities:
•Latour --> network: things exists as a consequence of the strength of their articulation
•Ingold --> meshwork =/= Aristotelian hylomorphism
•Barad --> entanglement = Quantum physics + queer theory ==> properties belong to the phenomena in question =/= inherent to things
•DeLanda --> assemblage: how humans + nonhumans produced communities that changed in composition and through time in neolithic and bronze age
assemblage --replace--> context
assemblage = phenomena --> temporary, contingent, unbounded
Latourian critique of categories =/= beyond human correlationalism
pluralizing ontology ==> charges of relativism <-- ‘objective knowledge =/= contingent foundations’ }--> nonrepresentational approach =/= over interpretation, abstraction
archeology operates by seeking strong and effective articulations between theories, apparatuses, material remains
ontological realism (=/= naturalism, constructivist) --> objectivity and truth are contingent, but also demonstrable and robust
@Chloe
material record: an expression of **how past gathers in the present** (=/= fragmentary evidence of history <-- forensic approach)
past continuously unfolding and therefore changing
Alberi --> (social) ontology: a new interpretive tool
additive work (=/= reconstructive)
archeological accounts of other's ontologies
animal turn in archeology --> nonanthropocentric zoological studies
Willerselv
Viveiros de Castro
Amazona --> animism (more than any other anthropological material) has provided modes of relationality to archeologists to interpret material patterning in archeological records --> [*]animism: an ethnographic meta-analogy for past ontologies
•blurring between nature and culture
•relationship with other-than-human agencies (animal, spirit, artifact)
==✕==> ontologic[...]
(66)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%23.2[...]eaves out other modes of knowing, those that i care and haunt for (and i am claimed by them) in specific mystic muslim theology and eastern bestiary (---> go to Marks)
Amerindian “people” : spiritual unity and a corporeal diversity
possessing a soul ==> having a point of view ==> being a subject
==> event = action
(action =/= expression of intentional states)
[*]object: incompletely interpreted subject
“a muddy waterhole is seen by tapirs as a great ceremonial house”
(objectivist epistemology's) ‘to know' = to desubjectify, to make explicit the subject's partial presence in the object =/= (Amerindian shamanism epistemology's) ‘to know' = to personify, something that is always a someone
-the problem is that only the shaman and some rogue artists know how to personify. i want to personify Viveiros de Castro!)
-his rendition of objectification is insufficient and not specified (in which discipline by who and when how ---> go to Barad)
-[in contemporary performance art: “becoming animal” --> a modality of narcissistic ego-formation]
“perspectives should be kept separate. Only shamans, who are so to speak species-androgynous, can make perspectives communicate, and then only under special, controlled conditions.”
perspectivism: something is a fish only by virtue of someone else whose fish it is
(any) exchange: exchange of perspectives ==> 100 percent relational universe ==> everything is primary fact (-then how would Viveiros de Castro explain deceive and lie? ---> go to Kohn)
multiculturalism --> relativism --> diversity of subjective and partial representations, each striving to grasp an external and unified nature
(different specificity of) bodies ==> perspectives
[*]affect: dispositions or capacities that render the body of each species unique ==> [*]body: assemblage of affects (ways of being) that constitute a habitus, bundle of affects and capacities
**humanity: a moral condition that excludes animals**
human-animal has a physical continuity [==> natural sciences] and a metaphysical discontinuity [==> humanities]
(what would be a *nonanimistic metaphysical continuity* between human-animal and other things? --> we need categorical mistakes and catachresis)
spirit/mind --> distinguisher (of cultures, species, etc.)
body --> connector (of material beings)
(Amerindian) spirit/mind =? reflexive form =/= immaterial inner substance
the neophenomenological appeal to the body as the site of subjective singularity
projects of “embodying” (the spirit) --?--> eliminative materialism
(culture: modern name for Spirit)
integration =/= *interspecific metamorphosis fact of nature* that understands bodies as inherent transformabilities, [...]
(67)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%23.7[...]mblage of affects (ways of being) that constitute a habitus, bundle of affects and capacities
**humanity: a moral condition that excludes animals**
human-animal has a physical continuity [==> natural sciences] and a metaphysical discontinuity [==> humanities]
(what would be a *nonanimistic metaphysical continuity* between human-animal and other things? --> we need categorical mistakes and catachresis)
spirit/mind --> distinguisher (of cultures, species, etc.)
body --> connector (of material beings)
(Amerindian) spirit/mind =? reflexive form =/= immaterial inner substance
the neophenomenological appeal to the body as the site of subjective singularity
projects of “embodying” (the spirit) --?--> eliminative materialism
(culture: modern name for Spirit)
integration =/= *interspecific metamorphosis fact of nature* that understands bodies as inherent transformabilities, bodies as the great differentiators
integration cosmology --presume--> singular distinctiveness of minds ==> solipsism[= potentially absolute singularity of minds ==> fear that we will not recognize ourselves in our “own kind”; solipsism: ‘natural similarity of bodies =/=> a real community of spirit'] --multiculturalism--> spiritual: the locus of difference ==> theme of spiritual conversion
=/= bodily metamorphosis
(a traditional problem in the West:)
*how to connect and universalize*
individual substances are given, while relations have to be made
=/=
(Amerindian problem, and problem of ajayeb:)
*how to separate and particularize*
relations are given, while substances must be defined
transformation ==> nature <=/= creation
transference ==> culture <=/= invention
*culture = acculturation*
*exchange = transformation of a prior exchange event*
*to act = to response*
poiesis (creation/production/invention model of action ==> objectification: question of ‘documentation’ in art) =/= praxis (transformation/exchange/transfer model of action ==> subjectification: question of ‘what is/has changed?’)
story of “we had to steal fire from a divine father”
(god forbid the origin of our abilities be animal or queer)
mythology: a discourse on the given, the innate
myth: that which must be taken for granted
affinity and alliance --> exchange (amerindian)
parenthood --> creation/production (modern western)
-the “exchange” (=/= “parenthood”) that Viveiros de Castro talks about fits seamlessly with capitalism's free exchange of knowledge
warrior/shaman/artist --> conductors of perspectives
relative
relational
enmity: full-blown social relationship, extreme exchange
sch[...]
(68)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%23.8[...]y past and present are so easy to separate?
(~~--> how our vision of past and future creates our present?)
==> directions, spinning dynamics,
in a sense my work on ajayeb is a critique of “presentism"[= overvaluing historically and culturally local constructions of the meaning and importance of a particular set of stories and their conditions of production (of “ours”). (for example the “future” story)]
-->? speculative presentisms (Dinshaw's queer historiography)
*globalization: “that travelogue of distributed, heterogeneous, linked, sociotechnical circulations that craft the world as a net called the global” (Haraway)
~= processes responsible for the power and mobility of media, money, politics, sexualities, and knowledge practices*** --> these meanings and powers can be “glocalized”: altered, filled in, indigenized, and reunderstood *within local agencies*(: people, art forms, practices of everyday life)
(globalization processes) ==> academically uncomfortable and sometimes politically reprehensible سزاوار سرزنش forms of hybrid histories
(Katie King's flexible knowledges:) layers of locals and globals
my aim in my research is creating *struggle for understanding* [= many communities involved in reading, writing, interpreting,] --> ***we are all members in these communities struggling for understanding***
Urton paying attention to decompiling intermediaty positions between so-calles reading and writing --> string records --> numerical accounts or maps or... ==> histories and narratives
my research on ajayeb in apass as a practice is about *disassembling and reordering classifications we use to access pasts*
the excursion i did in Vladmir's block was somehow about examining sites of implicitly or explicitly knowledge production in commercialized forms
museum, TV documentry as a metaphor {a richly contaminated set of crafty metaphors and realities} and narrative frame, a momentary melding of pastpresents in imaginative reenactment --> economic globalization figuring in artistic/academic capitalism
(--> ajayeb is also of this kind,) *site of heritage* culture as promoting particular versions of history, nation, science, art, and religion*** --> (the excursion made me) with ajayeb to be careful with ‘the commerce with global knowledge production’ --(what is at stake)--> structure of pasts, peoples, and sensation
*heritage culture ==(impress)==> public histories* --> appropriation of national and personal identities; today (specially in university) no one is “immune from governing pressures of heritage culture or the impression of corporate management assumptions, styles, funding requirements, and money-making imperatives in enterprise culture” (Katie King > Morley & Robins) [i can imagine apass is struggling with this specially in Brussels]
(@Vera's position as a museum[...]
(69)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%23.9[...]d as nature* are central to Freud's system
*** Freud (, Brown, and Firestone) are useful tools in a dissection of the theories of the political and physiological organs of the body politic because they all begin their explanations with sexuality, add a dynamic of culturla repression, and then attempt to liberate again the personal and collective body
civilization = body politic
(in iran:)
personal body =/= social body }--> both not natural
(a fundamental human condition:) through labor, we make ourselves individually and collectively in a constant interaction with all that has not yet been humanized ♥
[animal body politic]
[the science of animal]
animal sociology (in fables since millennia [--> Kelile Demne stories of natural basis of cultural cooperation and competition]):
•construction of oppressive theories of the body political
•science of animal groups
•a tool in the reproduction of world
•enhancing material power
*animals* (played an importan role in)
•the project of human engineering: the project of design and management of human material for efficient, rational functioning in a scientifically ordered society (or in belief communities)
--> animals were/are:
1- plastic raw material of knowledge (subject to exact laboratory discipline)
2- having special status as natural objects that can show people their origin [--> Attenborough's civilizer films], and therefore their prerational, premanagement, precultural essence
***animal societies have been extensively employed in rationalization and naturalization of the oppressive orders of domination in the human body politic***
3- naturalization of patriarchal division of authority in the body politic and in reduction of the body politic to sexual physiology [--> Tehran's mice cannibalistic libido]
--> animal science of the body [<-- is important for everyone]
we might free nature in freeing ourselves
become aware of “fallacies of the claim to objectivity” and not to “permit facile (باسانى قابل اجرا) rejection of scientific discipline”
we cannot dismiss the layers of domination in the science of animal groups as a film of unfortunate bias or ideology that can be peeled off the healthobjective strata of knowledge below
if you are not freeing others, in freeing yourself, your freedom is total bullshit
(Sina)
for him intelligence is the perfect expression of evolutionary position ==> experimental comparative psychology --> intelligence test --> species, racila, and individual qualities were fundamentally tied to the central index of intelligence
#merchant
*entrepreneur in primate studies* --> (merchant seeing himself) working to foster a rational society based on science and pre[...]
(71)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%24.3[...]**
(for Bishop) animal presence engenders an experience of joy
(the animal presence provokes, engenders what in Attar?)
-our speech rushes in where there are no words
ajayebnameh --> our acts of description --> bridges to animal life and evidence of our distance from them
descriptions (actually?) describe the consciousness
various and lusterous enough (to reflect back the complexities of the) self that is doing the looking
description: a mode of thinking
=/= that would make a claim about what reality is }--> that is why i can't read theoretical philosophy about the “real” or “being” anymore (of Simondon for instance), the lack of *description of the speaker's world* in his work [--✕--> every leaf is made up of a complex interaction of shades] --> (is this because i studied drawing?): people who have studied drawing know that *you have little idea what is in front of you* (in the visual landscape)
***what philosophy does to your mode of perception?
‘chain of definitions,’ a catalog of names --?--> a mode of *litany* [مناجات وعبادت تهليل دار (تحلیل دار), colloquy with God (--> #prayer, modes of consciousness and rhetorics used to commune with the divine =/=? “building a tower in order to thunder back at the old thunderer” -Doty)] (--> this has been my mode of consciousness in my lectures)--> a way of accumulating terms of praise (can also easily grow numbing)
*accumulation of descriptive phrases*: a dynamic, forward-moving thing, one that includes evidence of struggle -->[*connection lies behind the “catalog of inadequate terms”*]
(one effect of my quirky talks is as if we have) climbed a ladder of phrases
...struggle to reconcile the delights of earth with the demands of heaven* [_i am keeping in touch with a way of talking (doubling phrases,,,) in performances which intensifies the audience's sense of the speaker's character, his enthusiasm, his giddy متزلزل pleasure in being overcome by what is (for him) the *sensory evidence* (of the divine, or an excessive described world)]
(in my performances) through description, twining strands of meaning, braiding together elements of [my] thinking and perception to make an image both elusive and unforgettable, unparaphrasable نقل بيان نشدنی
*density* ==> melds perception with thinking and feeling ==> making a new generative reality
(the speed of my talking has to do with the quick and compressed that) operates on us before we have even had time to think about what is happening ~=> a world that is both immediate and immense, a moment out of context, a pouring stream of being (on the way so somewhere else) [a viscerality that Vanja reported after experiencing my performance; my #routines]
-when you look at my performances there is a feeling of it is not quite figured out how he is yet, there is n[...]
(72)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%24.8[...]see’
the more accurate and sensory the apparent evocation of things, the more we have the sense of someone there doing the looking (<-- USA spectacle knows this)
X in Y's translation
“a fish never makes an aesthetic mistake” --> it sends us hurrying to every visual image of fish we can think of, to see if it could be true*
(a good) description: an evocation of the sensory world also suggests the limitations of such evoking, maintaining a sort of open space
in which meaning isn't closed or completed, but remains instead generative
a title sometimes does the useful work of placing us specifically, so that the body of the poem can turn its attention to the heart of the matter
(it is surprising how strongly the) naming of particulars ==(bring color into)==> poem's (or text's) perceptual web
distortion's power to suggest but not define linkage
◾the use of ‘like’ --> would draw a firm line between the two elements
•not using ‘like’ --> no firm gesture of equivalence ==> we confront a metaphor that is far more alive in its associations, far more ambiguous, and more crucial --> both an evocation of alienation and a recognition of communality --tonally--> composed of *equal portions of sorrow and wonder* --> forcing us *to remain in the position of interpreter* of something that is perpetually open =/= direct statement
Blake (and Attar?) wouldn't be the great poet he is if he could allow his bloom to be entirely symbol
--> a bloom attached to the speaker, a memeber of Lord Death's troops, an assistant to the disruptive powers of the night
=/= transcendence
crucible بوته اهنگرى, this nere-archaic word with its connotations of flame and molten metal, magical heat and transformation
sunflower: the cry of the determined survivor**
(differently depicted) sunflower gain power from resisting the flower's conventional associations
the poetic =/= reinscribing the already known
“it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” (George Eliot > Doty) ♥
description = giving us the world + the inner life of the witness
evoking texture of experience --> beauty = accuracy
“whatever ‘what is’ is is what i want.” tosif توصیف
(Galway Kinnel)
“the deeds and sufferings of light.” -Goethe @Foad
into the reader's internal eye
Foad's paintings: ...two textures have now been added to the color, and in “rough” there is even a suggestion of place--it doesn't sound domestic, or urban--and of age
(coming close to an) impossible, longed-for accomplishment
[...]
(73)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%24.9[...]plants were exotic and labor was coerced slavery
only with **hierarchy and managed antagonism** in place enormous profits (+ complementary poverty) could be produced
plantation produced the wealth and the modus operandi that allowed Europeans to take over the world
(not technologies and resources, rather) *plantation system made the navies, science, and industrialization possible*
taking the alienation of people (from their crops) for granted
==> human subspecies were formulated and enforced : biology came to signify the difference between free “owner” and coerced “labor” --> racial divisions were produced and reproduced in each dowered marriage and inheritance
-poor families needed more labor, particularly where child labor kept many adults alive
-privileged families were charged with the advancements of the race, women must bear its heirs --> late 19th century discourse of scientific hygiene and eugenics اصلاح نژاد informed white women's species segregation
{ boundaries of home = boundaries of love }--> fetishization of the home as the space of purity and interdependence ==> extra-domestic intimacies (within/between species) =
•archaic fantasies (the community, small farmer, etc.)
•passing affairs (feminism, animal rights, etc. )
+
outside the home = domain of economic rationality and conflicting individual interests
--> mid 20th century allowed other species accepted: pets are models for family devotion. but the model of the loving and the beloved pet does not spread love; it holds tight inside the family (-Tsing)
[biosocial plan:] other people & other species are judged by their ability to live up to one standard of domestic intimacy (USA or iran):
they love their children and pets ==> imagine themselves as compassionate and moral --> makes them ‘good people’ ==> equip them to make decisions for the whole world ==> moral hierarchy (~ your goodness is qualification for global goodness) ==> other people & other species are judged --> project to improve the world ==> *collateral damage is unfortunate but not inhumane*
urban jungle
jumble of diversity + imperial planners
excessive teams
technique of unmapping, for separating paired projects and effects and places and things. (for example unmap state and capital from diversity places)
•spread obscurity
•to know something from disordered edges (=/= ptoductive edges)
•what grows in the seam (to begin with)
•pleasure of variety beyond the domestic
•how places are differentiated and specific
...................................
Global Futures
(a game of) possibilities of contingent connections
a game that develops our ideas of the productivity--for better or worse--of contingency
a game to appreciate conting[...]
(74)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%26.5[...] of: folkloric ballads, existential meditation, doomsday rant, elegiac oration, children lullabies --into--> a singular blast of an account of a devastated space --mobilizing--> legend, omen, song, myth, fairy tale, mutated war cry
[these potent signs are sneaking in the work “stranger within,” it is not just a historical dreamscape]
-the masked actors on stage have taken a venom (becoming faceless engravers) to cross into the next level of temporal experience --> ???
-muted rage and ecstasy indeterminacy positioned as creeping towards the midnight of moving & no longer moving... (as human? --> conflicting ways of being human; to acknowledge human & violence;)
--travel--
visiting an alchemy of domestic proclamations (homes) with its own lethal consortiums of drives (conversations); visiting sites of pure participation, the most savage, the most modern, creating a respond characterized as both ultra-alertness and insomnia of anticipation (acts by which the future can be nailed down) ==> becoming a *faceless engraver* (to remain fugitive and errant --> a course of action supposing a discontinuity that must be overcome in order to define a trajectory)
(Jassem and Mia are capable of being) bodies fully engaged in perspectival communication and battles of will, provided with affect and capacities, capable of knowing different things, types of relations they entered into =/=? poltergeist
--research--
trap <--> omen
lava <--> ice
•unstable space
•process ~= performance ~= meeting -->{
◦dinner --> *transaction* (what did you learn from the dinner that you bring?)
◦invite (exchange???)
◦respect & resist
now:
•something need to be named
•something need to be staged
•(something need to be styled)
Jassem's model:
you go through 5 minutes of hell then you arrive and unleash all your powers (--> talk about questions, art, history, self, etc.) then go there and perform together
contract of misunderstanding the “dance” (proposed by Jassem and Mia)
--?!--> categorically dance is misunderstood, dinner is understood
the rawness and minimalism of the performance <--?!--> richness and density of the research
(“<--?!-->” : question of reference?)
(not to make the performance mimetic)?
(but make it mnemonic --> designed to aid the memory)?
(but not anticipatory ==> omen)
for Jassem and Mia:
•what is the sign of danger?
•what is the sign of death?
•what is the sign of transformation of perspective (=/= change of perspective)?
•
chronically unstable bodies (--> mesopotamian)
anthropomorphism manifest in distorted corporeal forms and appendages ضميمه
[...]
(75)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%26.9[...]trophy: the material, sensory labor of attending to loss, ***labor of looking at damage***
wasting away; withering; decrease in size caused by disuse
the feeling of being in the middle of something dirty, inevitable, watching it unfold
[deculturation: making a culture ‘previous']
(~ the imapct of capitalism/colonialism on indigenous)--> [nightmare image of social entropy] destablizing effects of non-meaning (~ nonanimal Udyr monster) --> (representing as) existential-cultural atrophy
[Cinderella doesn't experience atrophy after insult upon insult =/= Bambi's memory]
transculturalism ~ “seeing oneself in the other”
*language and materiality interact within an unstable locus of historicity* (specific historical conditions) [--> a european model of conviviality]
<== modern globalism --> reinventing of the new common culture /humanism [<==> coalescence: meeting, intermingling of different people and species and cultures and goods --> could be damaging and unintentional, hurting the world: decay, emergent, atrophy, new identities, crisis in language, confusing boundaries, challenges of life,,,]
(origins of bad feeling -->) looking at:
•damaged bodies
•damaged subjectivities
•damaged communities
•damaged relations ==> Udyr monster
•damaged ecologies
•damaged histories ==> insomnia
•
(@Jassem and Mia) is there (only) death at the end of entropy?
sequence of events from the point of view of plague narrative
extermination + determination, laws of identity, repetition
the material despair of a colonial capital modern condition leading in high speed to the entropy of cultural-individual ethics, under the overwhelming weight of tangible misery --(Jassem and Mia)--> cognize the immediate material urgency of the endangered subjectivity
--faceless--
nonanimal --> nonhuman + nonanimal ==> destabilizing effects
with their flexible plasticity, has an issue with appearance --> subjectivity's disassociation from the world
[in no (or which) calculus of assurance are they moving?]
ruined main body (of the performance)
ruin is (a fictional being) adding additional variety to technical being (frontier technologies) of Norway
-obsolescence (and why not adjustment? =/= extremist position ==> to emerge fanatically from the ruins)--(can we use our imagination not for world scale future speculation, and rather for small adjustment of this space?)
-give expression and meaning to the material culture
--landscape--
using it in the performance: a lens that refuses the abstraction of elements relation in a vacuum (as its optics, not a Blickmaschin)
show us: big stories take their form from seemingly minor contingencies, asymmetrical encounters, and moments of indeterminacy
[...]
(76)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%27[...] accounts of social”)
-
dreams of modernity: mobilization of a agricultural cooperative movement ==> industrial disengagement + intimacy of family's farm
slow disturbance
mode of inquiry: take small details and ask big questions with them
living in ruins
--Jassem--> maybe is a nightmare story
--Tsing--> maybe is a mushroom story
(capital/genocide/...)
(destroyed by...)
rats, rabbits, and algae seaweed
your abilites to nurture and tell stories --tales--> *life emerging from damaged human comunities* (and blasted landscapes) --> not exactly a story of hope (=/= towards a better sleep, the “less you know better you sleep” kind of story), stories of displacement and losses (due to war and concentration of wealth in our time)
=/= *big narrative of progress* : a single world trajectory and time [=/= *time of surprise*] of which “everybody takes part” (*moving forward together* --> #sci-fi series of transnational crew on a spaceship) ...powerful ways of knowing the world [<==?== renaissance] (--my ajayeb project is about those ways of knowing, stories of what sets the world on motion, such as universalism & cultural relativism)
--> *building communal agenda* ~ (dream of) transculturalism [~ blend communal identities] (<== Jassem and Mia's Norway: humans get richer, more efficient, and more make the natural world work for them), is given to us by “men” (that we don't have to follow)
[*]progress: anthropogentic landscapes haunted by imagined futures
--or--> (you might) leave your home and run into a vast new problem
stability is a privilege
[what is?] the future of your dreams
[what are?] the nunhumans worth noticing
species that signal “i am available”
[capitalist accumulations + insult upon insult upon insult ==>] diversity
diversity: (in Germany, considered archaic and chaotic) collateral damage of improvement, necessory victim of progress
fire, herding, farming,
--> creating niches for hunting and forging
--> messing with (nature)
-the question of how much (of human, neighbor, etc.) disturbance we can live with
-what is to consider other's (species, peasant, etc.) ways of life-making trajectories along ours? [==> world-making (requires this)]
the question of niche-making
-niches interact with one another
[*]alienation: the ability to stand alone (--> Nietzschean ethics =/= niche-making entanglement *always imperfect and continent*)
==> (people, things, and species become) [*]assets: mobiles that can be moved from their lifeworlds to be exchanged elsewhere--everything else is waste (=/= eating others)
}--> progress: search for assets =/= art: unalienated critical work, **[...]
(77)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%27.2[...]small stories, convexe,
=/= house --> has foundation
=/= your monument
=/= building
...................................
[title]
ecologies of nothingness***
premise of my lecture:
•*all places are polluted and difficult*
•‘abuse of language’ is every time you open your mouth
•the social always always includes nonhuman
•there is no encounter without the contractual
..and i can't tell grave from garden
-perhaps i have been unconsciously working on the question of “why are we here?” or “am i here?”
-cartographies of thinking--&--how i am inscribed in them
(itineraries i am stuck with)
going to a place =/= embrace it as a site
--> always i have a resistance to where i am:
•the ways we lose a sense of place --> displacement
•the ways we experience livability through places
(has to do with my own broken/corrupt/fubar link with ancestry <-- only “your people” can show you how to imagine it, the center/home)
transportation --{traumatic & distruptive}--> transformation
time of surprise ==> nonanimal (udyr)
-nature-culture patchworks
-perspectival and performative
-contaminative and communicative
*fantastic and real vision*
-things that don't fit together, yet, there *are* together --> sym (=/= bifurcation) --> awkward relations & interrupting categories
•(necrophobia)
•schizophrenic relations to...
•deconstruction of presence...
(for you there is also) ***many fantastically large set of contexts within which to say “yes”***
(Tsing's) *contaminated diversity* (complicated, ugly, humbling) [=/= ‘endangered species’ and cultures (innocent victims of human progress)]
-implicates survivors in histories of greed, damage, and destruction --> cacophony of troubled stories --might--> help to learn something about the cultural and natural histories at stake
-difficult to love and relate
joint organs {part plant, part fungus} interspecies phisiology ==> *mushroom*
*tumble: falll down as if collapsing (from upright position), thrown together (in mess, and very difficult to rewind)
=/= transcend
=/= entropy
•bodies tumble into bodies --> monsters
•histories tumble into histories --> ghosts
•stories tumble into stories --> lures
(material lifeworld tumble into) forests tumble into fables tumble into politics tumble into ...
***dispersal & entanglement*** {
•dispersal --> shattered, torn, broken, dispersed, made particulate, whisked away on the breeze (--> smoke, Urashima turning into particls, dud to cough with سرفه sorfe) [<-- Jassem and Mia] --> time is crossed out ويرانه
•entanglement --> patchwork, care, weave, (together, reconnected, ackn[...]
(79)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%27.3[...]down or crushing down the watching post
-(disclosures and) promises of frontier technology
-
ghosts of the project:
/poltergeist --> not really capable of knowing different things and different types of relations they are entered into, bad at perspectival communication
/Hamlet's father --> wanting you to remember ~= revenge
/Cinderella --> doesn't show any psychological symptoms (she has no psychology?), she is not the master of anything, not even her name
/ruin --> place of unsettled identities
questions of:
•doom [=/= adjustment, management]: “contamination = end”
•subject surging to bear an affect, subject who goes with the flow in an intoxicated moment
•traumatic realism
•(endangered ==>) survival: fighting for “your right against others”
•less-than ideal livable collaborations
•
•constructing interest (not that ‘you want to know’ --> historically crafted and naturalized modalities of “knowing more”)
•contingent (~ lure, abstraction, fragile [--> they create interested bodies]) =/=? analytical [--> they create disembodied subjects]
[poem can do all of these:]
/proposition --> right/wrong declaratives
/exposition --> systematic explanation
/disposition --> affective orientation ~~> attitude ==> perspectives ==> selves
poet [=/= archivist] can be responsible for the ‘remainders’ --> good at greeting =/= traumatic realism
(1) traumatic realism
(real understood as traumatic:) “shock ==> subject”
a way of figuring that fails to bring the inflicting force (of real) into the symbolic order ==> mime, miming: you bring it into the present literally over and over (re-present)
|
(2) atmospheric attunement
a way of being in the noise
labor-intensive process that stretches across imaginaries [such as travel, house, haunt] -->[...]
(80)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%27.7[...]planation of the singular event: this death, of this individual, in this moment (not death in general)
~-> for Bubandt, witchcraft: reproduction and valorization of this aporia (between the transcendental and the empirical)
James Siegel naming the witch (not only a political history but an investigation into the entire history of anthropological discourse on witchcraft and sorcery)
-he links the crisis of recognition brought on by the collapse of an authoritarian state that *had appropriated for itself the function of recognition*, to the rise of witchcraft accusations, to efforts to name a witch --> witches and not witchcraft were seen to proliferate after the fall of Suharto
•how the labor to designate the source of a menace that exceeds the empirical and that fails to explain the singular is inevitably failed
•the misrecognizing belief that eliminating witches could eliminate witchcraft
discern death drive in the very place that there is an effort to escape death
{ radical empiricism = close reading }==> attentive listening
...................................
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/689012
(two competing conceptions and aspirations,) two paradigms of communication:
•an ideal public sphere that recognizes the task of mediation but also requires its effacement
•to bypass mediation through apparently immediate forms of speech that range from visual slogans to messianic utterances that can be heard even by the dead (--> frustrated by deferral)
Morris: the social scene is technologically heterogeneous ==> epochal and ontological schemata of mediatic displacement must thus be rethought
structure: an eruption of the mediaticity of the medium onto the horizon of reflexive consciousness (Kittler)
(in still decolonizing nations) the function of mediation has implicitly emerged as an agonistic exchange about the very possibility of exchange (not of deliberation) --> possibility of political representationalism
..stranded in its imaginary between the twin phantasms of the mining town in postapartheid South Africa
aspiring to a radical openness and threatened by it...
limits and the contradictions of democratic consciousness
environment as a monstrous hybrid of statistical hysteria and narrative compulsion as well as real violence (that takes its shape under conditions of largely racialized economic inequality)
[i have been working and listening to that which] call our attention to ***other spaces, identities, and structures of obligation*** (=/= defensive strategies)
cell phones
•technological mediums of absent voices
•lighting up, buzzing, or ringing
•ciphers of a profane immanence
•fetishes in which are concealed the histories of mining and labor elsewhere
[...]
(81)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%28.5[...]’ illiteracy, not eligible for a public sphere that depends on literacy. for without literacy, they cannot submit to the law. *defined in its essence by legality* (sustained by a desired opposition between language and violence)
a signature (sign your own name): a form of writing recognizable across all (mainly romanized) languages and is the ideal condition of possibility of recognition from within its constitutional order
mimic the address of someone wit charisma (~= authority)
(Morris on) mediaticity of speech (and not merely of media technologies)
Morris reading of a scene (of quotidian exchange) in HIV/AIDS NGO office: a metonym and a metaphor for a kind of South African public sphere that aspires to inclusiveness but is terrorized by its incapacity to know what that opens it up to
•arms itself against potentially aggressive others
•narratives of violence work *to reinforce the sense of necessity* (for a general securitization)
•work in the mode of a **negative meritocracy** (= those who would violate the rights of others are to be excluded, but no others --but--> how to know in advance who has perpetrated or intends to perpetrate such a violation?)
...in the shadow of communicational technology's fashion industry
...bountiful banality of the technologies and artifacts of mass reproducibility
[...] --> lithography --(superseded by)--> photography --(gives way to)--> cinema --(transformed by)--> sound technology --(displaced by)--> integrated and multiplatform digital media --> [...]
(teleological fantasy:) ontologized in epochal schema (these sequences become something more and different) --> analog media are said to be displaced by digital media ==> logic of representation gives way to that of information
=/= (Morris questioning) the conflation of media with mediation, which is itself symptomatic of both a technological determinism and an effort to ontologize technology --> a crises of mediation (not media): the communicative aspiration and the presumptive unity of medium and message in language are brought to their limit (--> media technologies play a role in this drama, but they do not explain it. @OSP & Femke)
-women's understanding of improper English of Zuma's speech: a communicational fail that (from their perspective) is associated with illegality, corruption, and violence
(not to embrace) the kind of logocentric historiography that imagines literacy to constitute a secondary mediation of a primal and autoaffective orality
witches: *technicians of a speech* in which the identity between word and world reaches its maximal extent, when the mere utterance of a spell (even when that utterance is nonverbal) is thought to cause things to happen
zamazama's literacy: the means for communication across difference ==> the mastery of mediation and thu[...]
(82)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%28.7[...]s but is terrorized by its incapacity to know what that opens it up to
•arms itself against potentially aggressive others
•narratives of violence work *to reinforce the sense of necessity* (for a general securitization)
•work in the mode of a **negative meritocracy** (= those who would violate the rights of others are to be excluded, but no others --but--> how to know in advance who has perpetrated or intends to perpetrate such a violation?)
...in the shadow of communicational technology's fashion industry
...bountiful banality of the technologies and artifacts of mass reproducibility
[...] --> lithography --(superseded by)--> photography --(gives way to)--> cinema --(transformed by)--> sound technology --(displaced by)--> integrated and multiplatform digital media --> [...]
(teleological fantasy:) ontologized in epochal schema (these sequences become something more and different) --> analog media are said to be displaced by digital media ==> logic of representation gives way to that of information
=/= (Morris questioning) the conflation of media with mediation, which is itself symptomatic of both a technological determinism and an effort to ontologize technology --> a crises of mediation (not media): the communicative aspiration and the presumptive unity of medium and message in language are brought to their limit (--> media technologies play a role in this drama, but they do not explain it. @OSP & Femke)
-women's understanding of improper English of Zuma's speech: a communicational fail that (from their perspective) is associated with illegality, corruption, and violence
(not to embrace) the kind of logocentric historiography that imagines literacy to constitute a secondary mediation of a primal and autoaffective orality
witches: *technicians of a speech* in which the identity between word and world reaches its maximal extent, when the mere utterance of a spell (even when that utterance is nonverbal) is thought to cause things to happen
zamazama's literacy: the means for communication across difference ==> the mastery of mediation and thus its effacement (=/= signify the secondary mediation of a primary orality)
...a society that is being reconstituted around a commitment to constitutional multilingualism and democratic proceduralism
rituals of governmentality
delay and deferral
fantasy of immediacy -->
•messianic movements
•direct-action politics
•various kinds of violence
•
}==> language
•hollowed out of ambiguity
•pried away from subjectivity
•instrumentalized in slogans and catchphrases (from obsolescent ideological programs)
*violent drive to immediacy* (~= direct-action politics)
(more than) the leakage of affect into a ritually rationalist space
transmis[...]
(83)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%28.7[...]..]
(teleological fantasy:) ontologized in epochal schema (these sequences become something more and different) --> analog media are said to be displaced by digital media ==> logic of representation gives way to that of information
=/= (Morris questioning) the conflation of media with mediation, which is itself symptomatic of both a technological determinism and an effort to ontologize technology --> a crises of mediation (not media): the communicative aspiration and the presumptive unity of medium and message in language are brought to their limit (--> media technologies play a role in this drama, but they do not explain it. @OSP & Femke)
-women's understanding of improper English of Zuma's speech: a communicational fail that (from their perspective) is associated with illegality, corruption, and violence
(not to embrace) the kind of logocentric historiography that imagines literacy to constitute a secondary mediation of a primal and autoaffective orality
witches: *technicians of a speech* in which the identity between word and world reaches its maximal extent, when the mere utterance of a spell (even when that utterance is nonverbal) is thought to cause things to happen
zamazama's literacy: the means for communication across difference ==> the mastery of mediation and thus its effacement (=/= signify the secondary mediation of a primary orality)
...a society that is being reconstituted around a commitment to constitutional multilingualism and democratic proceduralism
rituals of governmentality
delay and deferral
fantasy of immediacy -->
•messianic movements
•direct-action politics
•various kinds of violence
•
}==> language
•hollowed out of ambiguity
•pried away from subjectivity
•instrumentalized in slogans and catchphrases (from obsolescent ideological programs)
*violent drive to immediacy* (~= direct-action politics)
(more than) the leakage of affect into a ritually rationalist space
transmission and identification needs and secures the appearance of their exteriority
slogan --> traverse the gap between word and deed, convert the difficult tasks of education and redistribution into the clarion call ~-> pop songs (anyone can utter these words and in so doing find themselves enthralled by the strange sensation of speaking someone else's words and simultaneously experiencing them as one's own)
*slogan: a deeply reified speech (at once vacuous and overfull) at the point were the boundary between language and thing threatens to dissolve -->
•(its communicative function:) *solicitation of identity among speakers*
•(its primary signification:) the fact of *collective utterance* (=/= dialogism)
[*]slogan: literalist response to the mundane crises of mediation (in a political rally) [...]
(85)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%28.7[...] />
...a society that is being reconstituted around a commitment to constitutional multilingualism and democratic proceduralism
rituals of governmentality
delay and deferral
fantasy of immediacy -->
•messianic movements
•direct-action politics
•various kinds of violence
•
}==> language
•hollowed out of ambiguity
•pried away from subjectivity
•instrumentalized in slogans and catchphrases (from obsolescent ideological programs)
*violent drive to immediacy* (~= direct-action politics)
(more than) the leakage of affect into a ritually rationalist space
transmission and identification needs and secures the appearance of their exteriority
slogan --> traverse the gap between word and deed, convert the difficult tasks of education and redistribution into the clarion call ~-> pop songs (anyone can utter these words and in so doing find themselves enthralled by the strange sensation of speaking someone else's words and simultaneously experiencing them as one's own)
*slogan: a deeply reified speech (at once vacuous and overfull) at the point were the boundary between language and thing threatens to dissolve -->
•(its communicative function:) *solicitation of identity among speakers*
•(its primary signification:) the fact of *collective utterance* (=/= dialogism)
[*]slogan: literalist response to the mundane crises of mediation (in a political rally) [reduced to the most instrumental dimension]
the awkward trace of dubious literacy (in miners message inscribed on the placard) --> resistance into the communicative process
who/what speaks?
(case of EFF:)
•pidgin, minimal and unambiguous message borders on telegraphic code (men miners)
•typographically standardized form, graphical form of a chant (women demo) --> vocalization of a slogan that anyone can speak ==> resignification and redeployment
(public sphere avowes) necessity of mediation but also of its effacement =/= short circuiting to which the slogan aspires with language that is stripped of ambiguity
messianism: the drive to transcend mediation altogether
(Jassem's mode of) explaining what had happened with all the art of a storyteller and truly Spartican authority
-[Spartan athlete: marked by simplicity, frugality, or avoidance of luxury and comfort]
(leftist activist:) those who claim better representational capacities (because the representative function has been confused with a governing function) + aspiration for something beyond this representation
performance of moral righteousness
exclusion at the threshold of liberation
unconscious mythopoetic structures
insistence on being clandestine = claim of importance
offeri[...]
(86)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%28.8[...]ity of mediation but also of its effacement =/= short circuiting to which the slogan aspires with language that is stripped of ambiguity
messianism: the drive to transcend mediation altogether
(Jassem's mode of) explaining what had happened with all the art of a storyteller and truly Spartican authority
-[Spartan athlete: marked by simplicity, frugality, or avoidance of luxury and comfort]
(leftist activist:) those who claim better representational capacities (because the representative function has been confused with a governing function) + aspiration for something beyond this representation
performance of moral righteousness
exclusion at the threshold of liberation
unconscious mythopoetic structures
insistence on being clandestine = claim of importance
offering oneself in the role of “leader” in the pursuit of immediacy
strike as an ecstatic experience of collectivity and self-presencing =/= self-representation, mediation
Marx's view of the role of the individual in history, in his Eighteenth Brumaire, that *the identity of the workers’ interests does not automatically become the basis of a sense of community* --> workers are blocked in their capacities for self-representation ==> ***eloquent appropriation of the workers’ possible but interrupted capacity for self-representation***
~~> messianism & sublime
(in liberal electoral democratic order:) “having a voice = the mark of political subjectivity” --> (a very bad definition of) power: making oneself heard and heard in a manner to which others must respond
(sensation of presence and immediacy heightened in) face-to-face --> transcendent experience of communication --> that “there be no loss or dissipation between speaking and being heard”
(messianic utterance of) slogan <--> immediacy
-->? banishing ambiguity at the expensive of signification
aspiration to immediacy + communicative fullness --> simple *oppositional corrective*
a substantialized, corporealized figuration of power vs. EFF make themselves into pure proxies
(pedagogy, a horrible and wrong idea of) “perfect transmission of intention ==> production of consensus”
...................................
[explosion of accuracies]
...................................
after death there is:
•rumer
•afterlife
•
...................................
(Nicholas Shapiro shows in his research on) people in ordinary toxic homes: *their apprehension of conventionally insensible domestic chemical exposure was informed by sustained attention to barely perceptible alteration of somatic function and atmosphere*
(Sloterdijk, Latour, Anderson, Berlant, Stewart, Shapiro) to explain body's relation to the wor[...]
(88)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%28.8[...]esentative function has been confused with a governing function) + aspiration for something beyond this representation
performance of moral righteousness
exclusion at the threshold of liberation
unconscious mythopoetic structures
insistence on being clandestine = claim of importance
offering oneself in the role of “leader” in the pursuit of immediacy
strike as an ecstatic experience of collectivity and self-presencing =/= self-representation, mediation
Marx's view of the role of the individual in history, in his Eighteenth Brumaire, that *the identity of the workers’ interests does not automatically become the basis of a sense of community* --> workers are blocked in their capacities for self-representation ==> ***eloquent appropriation of the workers’ possible but interrupted capacity for self-representation***
~~> messianism & sublime
(in liberal electoral democratic order:) “having a voice = the mark of political subjectivity” --> (a very bad definition of) power: making oneself heard and heard in a manner to which others must respond
(sensation of presence and immediacy heightened in) face-to-face --> transcendent experience of communication --> that “there be no loss or dissipation between speaking and being heard”
(messianic utterance of) slogan <--> immediacy
-->? banishing ambiguity at the expensive of signification
aspiration to immediacy + communicative fullness --> simple *oppositional corrective*
a substantialized, corporealized figuration of power vs. EFF make themselves into pure proxies
(pedagogy, a horrible and wrong idea of) “perfect transmission of intention ==> production of consensus”
...................................
[explosion of accuracies]
...................................
after death there is:
•rumer<br />
•afterlife
•
...................................
(Nicholas Shapiro shows in his research on) people in ordinary toxic homes: *their apprehension of conventionally insensible domestic chemical exposure was informed by sustained attention to barely perceptible alteration of somatic function and atmosphere*
(Sloterdijk, Latour, Anderson, Berlant, Stewart, Shapiro) to explain body's relation to the world --> ancillary process of being a living body as:
•becoming sensitive
•embodying atmospheres
•somatically judging environments
•becoming corporeal aware of nonhumans
•protracted low-level encounter with domestic chemicals --accumulate--> *chemical sublime* <== (indistinct and distributed harm of) late industrial material ecologies (=/= enlightenment sublime: spectacle material threat with transcendence of immaterial reason)
silent and invisible microemissions accrue within the envelope o[...]
(89)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%28.8[...]int of view of another) --> distillation of method & disposition (?) <-- when confronted with the question “who are you?” and “what do you do?”
(according to Malinowski: this) privileged relation to the unknown must emerge through the ability to test what is asserted to be real --> a series of subjective trials subsumed within the rubric of “fieldwork”
*presumptions:
•experiential disposition of the analyst ==> understanding of a phenomenon other wise held to be imaginary and fictional
•witnessing and testimony ==> evidence as to the reality beyond the direct experience of the researcher
([Malinowski updated and secularized a much older epistemology of] Luther:) faith = a commitment to the representation of a truth --> Western Christianity's own efforts to discern truth and the nature of the world
proliferation of witches in 15th century Europe
reassuring relief for the pious believer: force Satan (and his followers) from the shadows through an interpretive expertise over the concrete secondary manifestations of God's reality --✕--> (most had no luxury to imagine) *the embrace of life that the devil urges in binary opposition to that of the good*
--> Devil interfering with the most intimate communications with the Divine
-how does one really know who is speaking when prayer is returned?
[for] the demonologists of the 15th and 16th century --> “God must exist because Satan is right in front of me!” : reality of witches ==> Satan
Institoris, Sprenger, Johannes Nider,
the name of the witch ~=> sacrilegious and inhuman deeds (subject to verification)
*inquisitors believed that what was reported to them was possible* (still they desired proof) <== interweaving of learned demonology into the fabric of a dominant theology (<-- sovereignty of God ratified primarily through the worldly evidence of Satan) + invisibility of the spiritual world was expressed as an essential given
{for the inquisitor (witch hunter) it was never enough to simply “believe” <==> a narrative must be produced that at least partially satisfied the demands of evidence}--> *interrogation under torture = an experimental form of knowing in crisis*
truth value of a nonsensical confession made sensible --> human belief, action, and social practices
ethnographic style of early French ethnographers --> **learning truth from lie** was essential to representing the “primitive” reality in order to interpret it in its true picture
-Marcel Griaule's approach to fieldwork: “The crime is the fact, the guilty party the interlocutor, and accomplices are all the members of this society. [...]the abundance of pieces of evidence serving to convict appear to facilitate the inquest, but in reality they guide it into labyrinths--labyrinths that are often organized. [...]The inquest must be treated like a strategic oper[...]
(91)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%29.4[...]century] --arguing-->) the problem of establishing proof in reference to the invisible forces has durably shaped our modes of investigating human social and cultural life
[ajayebnameh =/=]
social or cultural anthropology in the 21st century = (human sciences’ contemporary equivalent of the) *old efforts to master the invisible* -->{test ==> felicitous information as to the “true” nature of obscure forces and their operations within empirical real-world contexts}
[ajayeb: (part of the histories of)] systematic, empirical investigation of strange events, singularities, miracles, and other types of staple phenomena ~~--> scientific method and the forms of knowledge that emerged as the foundation of an ensemble of *sciences proper to humans* --> yet has been unable to expel (the unprovable forces) considering the origins and forms of human diversity
[*]anthropology: the desire to credibly master nonsense
[with ajayeb studies i am learing to be] able to argue for a world below the threshold of perception (of medicine, biology, physics --> defined their relation to the nonsensical via a *visibility to come* ==> [embodied in new technologies:] photograph, microscope, telescope)
Deleuze --> when writing of communication between heterogeneous systems --> [we must pay attention to] what is this agent, this force which ensures communication? (<-- role of difference and resemblance)
forensic anthropology
[title]
imaging and imagining technologies
the confusion of the empirical (knowledge traversed by our everyday observations, sensations, passions) and the transcendental (construction of an ideal knower, now it is the queer) in apass
figure of man foundational to the human sciences [did not exist in classical thought ~ ajayeb] --move-to--> empirically institute the experience, witnessing, and testimony of an individual human subject = *the central linking relay between evidence, judgement, and the real* --> the ability of a human being alone to serve as the sole source of evidence in an investigation of “the real” (#feedback) [=/= Gilgamesh]
(in Qazwini's ajayebnameh the testimony of an individual human subject is ambiguous)
(Baxstrom + Foucault) *insist on rooting our form of knowledge in the figure of the human being and the human being alone --yet--> our gaze is continually drawn to a host of beings and phenomena (the witch, the spirit, the shaman, etc.) that cannot properly be enfolded back within this figure*
fabled definition (@apass relationship with defining)
fable of anthropology (a disposition with regard of the interlocutor other as truly “other”) -->
“This goal is, briefly, to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world. We have to study man, and we must study what concerns him most int[...]
(92)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%30.7[...]iral (the viral proliferation of demonic power beyond the grasp of human intuition and thought)
•proliferation of witches (within the general population)
}==> growing power of Satan on earth --> (sign of impending) apocalypse
==> growing fear and great doubt [--> like today!]
Malleus Maleficarum (on witchcraft, a revolution in early middle ages) -->
1. local relation between investigative procedures
2. constitution of evidence
3. assertion of a fact
--> expertise in matters real but invisible
16th century notions of the positive element of seeing witches, sorcerers, and Satan himself
God's apparent absence *in times of great change and strife* --> an *interpretive expertise* over the concrete, secondary manifestation of God's reality (was reassuring) ==> a relief to the pious believer : “God's embrace of life =/= devil's embrace of life” =/= Heretics managed God's absence without that opposition (a luxury to imagine such a world was denied to most of the people in that period, also denied to the modern subject of the secular present)
how does one know who is really hearing the prayers [of the faithful]?
devil overhearing and interfering with even the most intimate communications
inquisitor <-- 16th century questions of theology (in a world where the trappings of belief are everywhere but there is no incontrovertibly visible evidence of god's...)
demonologists of the 15th and 16th century were not sure about:
god
man
witch: the abyss between god and man = a kind of proof, a reassurance that the evil of the world can be explained (through the various iterations of satan's power)
demonologist --> “God must exist because Satan is right in front ot me!”
***desire to believe =/= (simple) belief***
•['desire to believe’ and ‘belief'] were not the same during the time of the witch craze
•were not the same in the fast-evolving discourses of the human sciences of the 19th century and early 20th century
•are not the same today
@apass:
1. the general tendency to remain an artist ~ a myth, an effect, a warrior
2. to make anomaly the law عمومیت استثنا
hearing the name of the witch --> subject to stict verification
demonologists and inquisitors at this time desired proof <-- viral proliferation of the witch came to provide that proof
***interrogation under torture = an experimental form of knowing in crisis*** [#styles of knowing]
confession -->{ *status of witnessing = a form of truth* }~-> Boyle's New Experiments 1660 revolutionized practical experimental procedures in the laboratory (for gernerations to come...)
•experiments such as the trial by water demonstrates a deep (if not misguided) *appreciation of cause-and[...]
(94)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%30.8[...]ogation and illumination of mobile invisible forces that produced beings wholly unlike us =/={ method of sympathetic association --> participant observation: the felicity of evidence produced through the qualitative experiential methodological instruments [--> comes to define the modes of critical relatedness in apass]
(since 15th century) investigators ==> staking one's claim to the real on the mastery of those forces that relentlessly elude a plain direct visibility or sensibility ~~--> human sciences
*we still hunt ghosts, fueled by a desire operationalized in a method of being close enough to something to sense it, because our form of mastery demands a closeness to things unseen, unprovable, indeed ‘nonsensical,’ yet unquestionably ‘there’* -Baxstrom
...................................
Despret on Derrida's animal
the act of being seen by an animal ==> Derrida groups together on the end hand “scientists and philosophers =/= prophets and poets”
{ Bateson, Goodall, Bekoff, Smuts, and many others have met the gaze of the living diverse animals and in response undone an redone themselves & their sciences =/= Derrida }--Haraway--> why did Derrida leave unexamined the practices of communication outside the writing technologies he did know how talk about? ==> philosopher (speak in the absence of animal) =/= theoreticians (speak face to face with the animal) =/= scientists
•Derrida's original positioning: to speak (starting) from [~ a partir de] a real animal and not about animality [being animal] : to speak in the animal's presence and not in its absence --> this [this way of talking about animal is against his philosophical tradition] is not particularly original, it is part of the very game of philosophy: *to fight with ancestors and contemporaries [~=? recalcitrance تمرد tamarod] about great and noble ideas* (to denounce inequality and violence)
maintaining distance is a characteristic of the episteme of the French philosophical tradition
the topic of animal in French tradition:
•the animal can be a topic of philosophy if it is called up as a figure of otherness (or a figure of deprivation) [--> is that why i started to work and think about animal fables after i moved to germany? because i became identifiable as deprived other? and reading about the naming and denunciation of philosophical violence towards the animal became a proxy for philosophical violence towards myself as a foreigner?]
•animal as ancient ancestor (a search for difference with appeal)
•
}--> **as a figure caught up in theoretical and abstract issues** (a philosophical animal) --> animots: paper animals, abstract inexistent animals
=/= Derrida taking up the topic of the animal ==> to oppose a certain humanist hegemony, denouncing philosophical violence towards the animal
•Derrida's rejection of ph[...]
(95)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%31.3[...]ation of their existence
-instauration: [re-storying] restoring, participating in a transformation that leads to a certain existence = to more existence, in the case of the deceased: both a biographical supplement and the accomplishment of an existence in another realm of reality ==Souriau==> brilliance of reality (of the dead): regards of the existence of the deceased, provided we agree on the right regime of reality that can be granted to them --> (envisioning definition of the mode of existence)==enable==> to account for what the deceased do and what they have others do ==> describe how they interfere in the lives of the living --✕--> (we avoid the trap of) the tradition that captures and generally freezes the problem, separating the ways of being into two categories: “physical existence =/= psychological existence” ==> the deceased = non-existence, fantasy, belief, hallucinations... (<-- bad for ajayeb)
vigil
the deceased retain thier full relatinoal capacity
the midwives stress that it is important to carry on talking to them, with love, soflty, carefully choosing one's words...
death --> passage --> a medico-scientifice time frame in which the living have work to do (=/= the work of mourning)
body remains vibrant matter <== communication remains possible
taking care of events through their affects
(Despret asks) what do we know about what the body continues to feel and causes the person to feel once it has stopped breathing?
death midwives
share the conviction that death is not a matter of all or nothing
[people] can still talk to those who remain through memories or thoughts that arise in their presence
signs --> remain open to the possibility of being understood differently
death affects the face muscles in such a way that it produces a post-mortem smile (لبخند شهید) --> *smile (that comforts) ==> ‘deceased: a particularly robust being’ that unifies two ways of being:
1. he becomes an expressive relational being
2. his body becomes matter for expressions
midwife ==> a possibility in the sense of “or else, also” (=/= “either or”), in the valuable grammatical register of conjuctions: and, and, and...
these expressive modes that require *only recipients*, [=/= explanation: to give the phenomenon its scientific imprimatur] they just call for one to take into account
-this is tricky if you are in Iran's shia martyrdom culture or in the presense of Western authoritative sensual teacher. can there be a deliberate coexistence [an additive epistemological engagement --> *affirmation of the possibility that multiple and contradictory versions coexist*] of (the current enchanted version:) لبخند شهید and (the comming disenchanted version:) secular imprimatur in present iran?]
the dead body is both *biological & sacred*, object & [...]
(96)[...notes/Ajayeb notes.txt]%31.7[...]lly get a job, love, being greeted,
(you may remain foreign until the other claims your body: the police, the lover, the employer, some microorganism that make you sick, and so on.)
(Nietzsche's view of) the friend as the future***
Holderlin asking “Wo aber sind die Freunde?” (a central complaint of ethical proportions and political consequence), (that they have not come to the place from which the poet is greeting) scattered or not yet in existence --> nature of future friendship. (is he keeping the friend necessarily remote? out of political reach? Avital's asking, accusing Holderlin of singularization)
-Graeco-Roman model of friendship
-(is there a specific Iranian model of friendship? --?--> Tarof)
-political model of friendship (based on reciprocity)
Greco-Roman --> Mediterranean World
-the “swimming-pool and spa” of the Greeks and Romans?
-wherein the cultural preferences, ideas and sensitivities of these peoples were dominant
-their urbanites and cosmopolitan elites
-mutual knowledge
politics of friendship in Kelileo Demne:
undiscovered treasures...
constantly warning of fall on the asymmetry
nonreciprocity
Kelile-o Demne is about communal forms of fragile human existence
a project of (asserted) nonalienation
-destinal velocities (the Turtle, the storks, etc.)
fictioning totality of nature, therefore, state
States of security, nature of illusion,
finite essence of friendship
(is muslim paradice and general idea of akherat in the way of finitude of friendship? what would friendship for a mojud-e okhravi mean?)
octo-paradisic systems
animal husbandry
[husband: conserve, husband, economize, economise, spouse, mate,]
[husbandry: the practice of cultivating the land or raising stock]
the national geography documentary crew and the editors fabulating a nature story which comes to hang around in my family's lunch table culture. the iranian mother and eating your children story of the lions. the multi species contingencies. my family culturenaturally hanged on the story of the wild nature, wildness. what does it mean for my family in their specific temporal location in tehran history? the disappearance of Gonjecshk [Sparrows being replaced by Starlings], parks [numerous stories of devastation], and the anthropocentric state logic [condition of the zoos, hostility towards domestic dogs, etc.]?
-and as is the case with my family, they are so good at changing the subject, and all i have perhaps tried to performe is the ways we can stay with the subject of discussion around our lunch tables, to stay with this particular story and not that. (althought i have been changing the subject constantly myself...)
-the absence (minimum presence) of ani[...]
(97)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%32.4[...]
---> the story of birds entrapped escape away with the cage
---> the story of cat and mouse project
---> bat and owl
---> scorpion and..
Shakespearean villain <== nature [<-- i prefer Ursula, evil corporally located]
modern villain <== power struggle
کلیله و دمنه Kelile Demne is full of disastrous laws of encounter and encounters of law
a sort of a metaphysics of presence (imposing and projecting to and with animals) that regulates the possibility of a pedagogical encounter
•no mediated forms of presence and so on
•nobody breaking the semiotic rules
•what subject-supposed-to-know
•what blocks cordial disposition and animal amity?
•what genital lickings are welcomed or unwelcomed and discouraged or abandoned? and so on
to read Kelile Demne not as something that works as legitimator
reading and greeting
to form (an) intention
all that anthropomorphism performs and withholds on and with animality
...................................
[Rickels]
(my) animal-findings and fairy-tale associations
if dogs communicate through their trainability cats redirect lines of communication through play. the dog waits and watches, the cat looks and looks, which when is your turn to be looked at, can be therapeutic or unnerving.
meeting the cat half-way
...................................
[Avital]
the greeting ‘hello’, the initiatory and inaugural moment of our encounter
the gift sabotaging the freedom of the subject to receive greeting or offering greeting
a gift that becomes a curse for the person,
who has the civic stability to refuse a greeting?
the finantialy challenged and the greeting
explore friendship as a crucial modeling of justice?
configuration of encounter
It doesn't always have to be science fiction, risking the wrong blend and watching the uncontrollable spill of consequences --> hook up friends
friendship, as Avital practices it, should often involve triangulation and the drama of departure?
I found myself (also) tempted to reduce her/him/you to sameness,
“meant to be,” relying on a kind of metaphysical latency.
invasion with little violation(?)
(In rhetoric:) citation = apostrophe [address to an absent or imaginary person, calling to the other]
(i am late. i am transed late. translation and trans-relations has everything to do with latency. )
Avital: For Bataille, friendship is part of the sovereign operation and is linked to reading.
apostrophe (citation) for Derrida is the possibility of postmortem d[...]
(98)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%32.7[...]
friendship, as Avital practices it, should often involve triangulation and the drama of departure?
I found myself (also) tempted to reduce her/him/you to sameness,
“meant to be,” relying on a kind of metaphysical latency.
invasion with little violation(?)
(In rhetoric:) citation = apostrophe [address to an absent or imaginary person, calling to the other]
(i am late. i am transed late. translation and trans-relations has everything to do with latency. )
Avital: For Bataille, friendship is part of the sovereign operation and is linked to reading.
apostrophe (citation) for Derrida is the possibility of postmortem discourse --> memory, acts of bringing back, recalling
can we take out no insurance policies to safeguard thinking or writing or building?
(Lyotard's) différend: a dispute or difference that cannot be resolved by the cognitive or linguistic resources we have at hand --(indicating rather)--> a rupture in the presentation of testimony (~ litigate)
something you could turn your tattooed back on
(#my work on [post-feminist] harem)
(companionship and sexuality and installations of community) --> The Inoperative Community [Bataille, Blanchot, Nancy]
(how to) create community wherever I go?
(establish relationships: humor, kindness, attention, reworking, “re-”, festivity, moderate arousal, silliness, playfulness, support,)
learning making a “fictive kin group in training” (how to learn to notice each other? how to learn to be in the same game?)
to insisted on community without relying on transcendence =/= communion
(community without illusions about itself)
a community that is self-annulling but rigorous (rigorously perverse)
(--the duties of the survivor)
-this is about creating convivial spaces (=/= urban design ideology)
(to set up around) work =/= (bodies of) knowledge
(let's make this an obligation:) to create an atmosphere in which interesting mistakes can get made
let's bring a huge amount of material what we get into trying to digest
--> [an effect of being in Europe ==>] is harem about having a space/time to claim as my own? [it can never be?] an actual space which i can dream of and re-create and hope toward? retrieving a mythic place of origin [that cannot be rebuilt]?
•*the harem girls my ancestors* --> Cinderella
=/= longstanding tradition of seeing the female experience as ‘inherently’ painful (as in the pathos of The Handmaids Tale TV series)
(#harem Manifesto)?
..telos of anything {in apass, my bow and arrow? (=/= a generalized claim) --> it was about knowing the energy of each other and trusting the honesty and coherence of directional postures and responsive movements. [#harem] (*) one's game might be ge[...]
(100)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%32.8[...]wledge
(let's make this an obligation:) to create an atmosphere in which interesting mistakes can get made
let's bring a huge amount of material what we get into trying to digest
--> [an effect of being in Europe ==>] is harem about having a space/time to claim as my own? [it can never be?] an actual space which i can dream of and re-create and hope toward? retrieving a mythic place of origin [that cannot be rebuilt]?
•*the harem girls my ancestors* --> Cinderella
=/= longstanding tradition of seeing the female experience as ‘inherently’ painful (as in the pathos of The Handmaids Tale TV series)
(#harem Manifesto)?
..telos of anything {in apass, my bow and arrow? (=/= a generalized claim) --> it was about knowing the energy of each other and trusting the honesty and coherence of directional postures and responsive movements. [#harem] (*) one's game might be geared to build success according to one's goals, but unless the game engages the other, it is worthless. (* it is about) learning how to wit. (*) my bow and arrow in use, my tropes and abstractions, what are they good for if others don't play/engage with them? to recontextualize ‘method’ and methodology. (*) “incommensurable tacit knowledges of diverse communities of practice” --> “communication” across irreducible difference (where “method” is not what matters most;) (game of) “situated partial connection” ==> subjects
(not always the human language is the medium) two-way conversation =/= naming (~= intention-laden and consciousness-ascribing linguistic practice) --> sometimes not God, logos, or sujet suppose savoir, rather a dog makes you (in whose image?) --> this is about making our categorical labor harder}
it is about a politics disinterested in: self-identity, realization of intention, transcendence, ‘sweet and nice “feminine” worlds and knowledges free of the ravages and productivities of power’ (Haraway 2003), cultural relativism, master-slave discourse,
**mutuality is mutability is contingent is historic** (=/= reciprocity, mo'amele be mesl معامله به مثل)
(things to vandalize:)
•capital claims
•mystical foundations of authorship
•legally protected stores of knowledge
•desire for legitimacy
•control freak of the possibilities of comprehension
•narcissistic comfort of secured sense
•geometrical optics of reflection
(Burroughs:) “steal everything in sight.” (most authors transvaluate theft back into property --> ideologies of “influence”)
narcissistic reappropriation of/as friendship : operate a reduction of the friend to the same or to the friend as other
mystified oneness of the Volk (Germanic trope)
the desired erasure of difference
...................................
friendship in Qur'an:
[...]
(106)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%32.9[...]e violence begins or what gets counted as violence?
the discourse of effacement (امحاء emha’, self-effacement: withdrawing into the background, making yourself inconspicuous)
is there an authority outside inequality? responsible asymmetry, the egological space, tropes of domination?
%this is anout the quality of asymmetry----(are we still in the realm of the human?)
Levinas tactics is spectacular, he runs down patriarchy and meets the majestic escalade of the absolute other, he doesn't escape internment (toghif توقیف)
[patriarchy: when it is “of course” obvious who is the mother]
(where do we go with helplessness directed by the destruction of the world?)
...................................
[Sennett] on authority, trust and cooperation
...in both a subtle and a coherent social structure
inequality makes a profound difference in the lives of children
“earned authority” manages the everyday experience of inequality
cultures in which the *dramaturgical display of yourself* is foregrounded =/= diplomacy as model for social relationships
facebook, an engineered social network organized for display =/= communication
in capitalism, in firms people at the top has more power but less authority, and that is a problem.
in reverse, Lear loses its power but keeps his authority, his lag on administrative change.
authority is a bound, a volunteriy obidience and care-giving
parent-children: something the child needs desperitly, they need direction, they need people not only as guids but as witnesses of what they are doing.
the destructive charismatic authoiry in politics
tests if he/she can keep himself together
the charisma of the user on facebook (marat, jonathan, etc., but both are also very good at face to face communication)
...................................
Sennett
we don't know how to use material objects and machines well
craftsmanship: the quest to make physical things well
•how the head and hand are connected
•doing something well for its own sake --> skill (not honoured in modern society)
==> free the craftsman (Sennett)
in many social relations we do not know exactly what we need from others – or what they ought to want from us
cooperation as a craft --> skill of understanding and responding to one another
urban design is a craft in peril (dar khatar)
•too much urban design ==> homogeneous and rigid
•modern built forms ==> only a faint imprint of personal and shared experience
Sennett --> (better understanding of) ‘material craftsmanship + social cooperation’ ==> cities better made
‘homo faber project’: th[...]
(108)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%33.7[...]d by the destruction of the world?)
...................................
[Sennett] on authority, trust and cooperation
...in both a subtle and a coherent social structure
inequality makes a profound difference in the lives of children
“earned authority” manages the everyday experience of inequality
cultures in which the *dramaturgical display of yourself* is foregrounded =/= diplomacy as model for social relationships
facebook, an engineered social network organized for display =/= communication
in capitalism, in firms people at the top has more power but less authority, and that is a problem.
in reverse, Lear loses its power but keeps his authority, his lag on administrative change.
authority is a bound, a volunteriy obidience and care-giving
parent-children: something the child needs desperitly, they need direction, they need people not only as guids but as witnesses of what they are doing.
the destructive charismatic authoiry in politics
tests if he/she can keep himself together
the charisma of the user on facebook (marat, jonathan, etc., but both are also very good at face to face communication)
...................................
Sennett
we don't know how to use material objects and machines well
craftsmanship: the quest to make physical things well
•how the head and hand are connected
•doing something well for its own sake --> skill (not honoured in modern society)
==> free the craftsman (Sennett)
in many social relations we do not know exactly what we need from others – or what they ought to want from us
cooperation as a craft --> skill of understanding and responding to one another
urban design is a craft in peril (dar khatar)
•too much urban design ==> homogeneous and rigid
•modern built forms ==> only a faint imprint of personal and shared experience
Sennett --> (better understanding of) ‘material craftsmanship + social cooperation’ ==> cities better made
‘homo faber project’: the ancient idea of Man as his or her own maker, man as a maker of life through concrete practices
•limits on desire and will
•the experience of other people's needs (which cannot be reconciled with our own)
+ to recognize and honour what lies beyond us (and before us)
social relations & physical environment
issues of practical skill, tool, meaning, value
***the rebellious child (in me)
United States has become an intensely tribal society
*tribalism* [= adverse to getting along with those who differ, solidarity with others like yourself, & “thinking you know what other people are like without knowing them"], [...]
(109)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%33.7[...]ers like yourself, & “thinking you know what other people are like without knowing them"], in the form of nationalism, destroyed Europe during the first half of the 20th century
--✕--> complex societies:
•workers flowing across borders
•different ethnicities, races and religions
•diverging ways of sexual and family life
“The ‘self’ is a composite of sentiments, affiliations and behaviours which seldom fit neatly together; any call for tribal unity will reduce this personal complexity.”
-Sennett
(for Aristotle:) city = synoikismos(= coming together of people from diverse family tribes--each *oikos* having its own history, allegiances, property, family gods)
[some my german friends are making us all poor in not recognizing this, that similar people cannot bring a city into existence. city obliges people to think about and deal with others who have different
loyalties to (linguistic differences). Germany, lacking direct experience of others, because of lesser colonial encounters in its history, falls back on fearful fantasies with the new refugees coming. integration, a bad response to the problems of living with difference]
(Robert Putnam:) people who live in homogeneous local communities appear more sociably inclined towards and curious about others in the larger world : first- hand experience does not weaken stereotypes
-the case of Brussels: withdraw from neighbours who differ --> to hibernate
attitudes
actual behaviour
[*]cooperation: an exchange in which the participants benefit from the encounter
can be informal as well as formal: experience of mutual pleasure in a bar exchange gossip
difficult kind of cooperation: join people who:
•have separate or conflicting interests
•do not feel good about each other
•are unequal
•do not understand one another
•(different faith communities)
}==> responsiveness as an ethical disposition
rituals of civility
as small as ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ put abstract notions of mutual respect into practice
in the spirit of generosity, let's not write off the banker (or the Mullah) as a human being --> instead of “fuck you” how do we respond to our differences in a difficult social environment such as contemporary Iran --> what skills are needed for this hard cooperation? --Sennett--> dialogic
...................................
what remains from christianity after its self-deconstruction? (Nancy)
(what theology doesn't know about itself?) recovered from the repressive power of religion
Nancy's “shattered love” is the stuff of Hafez
#love (and greeting?) doesn't belong to the realm of giveable things
Lacan's definition of love consists in giving what one does not have, (filling [...]
(110)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%33.8[...]ces, property, family gods)
[some my german friends are making us all poor in not recognizing this, that similar people cannot bring a city into existence. city obliges people to think about and deal with others who have different
loyalties to (linguistic differences). Germany, lacking direct experience of others, because of lesser colonial encounters in its history, falls back on fearful fantasies with the new refugees coming. integration, a bad response to the problems of living with difference]
(Robert Putnam:) people who live in homogeneous local communities appear more sociably inclined towards and curious about others in the larger world : first- hand experience does not weaken stereotypes
-the case of Brussels: withdraw from neighbours who differ --> to hibernate
attitudes
actual behaviour
[*]cooperation: an exchange in which the participants benefit from the encounter
can be informal as well as formal: experience of mutual pleasure in a bar exchange gossip
difficult kind of cooperation: join people who:
•have separate or conflicting interests
•do not feel good about each other
•are unequal
•do not understand one another
•(different faith communities)
}==> responsiveness as an ethical disposition
rituals of civility
as small as ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ put abstract notions of mutual respect into practice
in the spirit of generosity, let's not write off the banker (or the Mullah) as a human being --> instead of “fuck you” how do we respond to our differences in a difficult social environment such as contemporary Iran --> what skills are needed for this hard cooperation? --Sennett--> dialogic
...................................
what remains from christianity after its self-deconstruction? (Nancy)
(what theology doesn't know about itself?) recovered from the repressive power of religion
Nancy's “shattered love” is the stuff of Hafez
#love (and greeting?) doesn't belong to the realm of giveable things
Lacan's definition of love consists in giving what one does not have, (filling emptiness with emptiness) --> to give something i ‘would’ have? --> (giving that which is not a property, not even one's self,) to give behind or beyond any subject, any self? --> *the giving of the fact that i cannot possess myself* ==> ‘to give' = 'to give up’
***love: to share the impossibility of being a self***
----> (Nancy's) ‘body’ (of political thought): not as an organicity, but of community as the living to share precisely an impossibility of being-in-common (=/= ontologize the community, after the death of God, Rousseau: community of mankind as the foundation of politics --> “man” comes from the “contract” and not reverse)
----> “giving” the (Derridean) ‘gift’ cann[...]
(111)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%33.8[...]s small as ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ put abstract notions of mutual respect into practice
in the spirit of generosity, let's not write off the banker (or the Mullah) as a human being --> instead of “fuck you” how do we respond to our differences in a difficult social environment such as contemporary Iran --> what skills are needed for this hard cooperation? --Sennett--> dialogic
...................................
what remains from christianity after its self-deconstruction? (Nancy)
(what theology doesn't know about itself?) recovered from the repressive power of religion
Nancy's “shattered love” is the stuff of Hafez
#love (and greeting?) doesn't belong to the realm of giveable things
Lacan's definition of love consists in giving what one does not have, (filling emptiness with emptiness) --> to give something i ‘would’ have? --> (giving that which is not a property, not even one's self,) to give behind or beyond any subject, any self? --> *the giving of the fact that i cannot possess myself* ==> ‘to give' = 'to give up’
***love: to share the impossibility of being a self***
----> (Nancy's) ‘body’ (of political thought): not as an organicity, but of community as the living to share precisely an impossibility of being-in-common (=/= ontologize the community, after the death of God, Rousseau: community of mankind as the foundation of politics --> “man” comes from the “contract” and not reverse)
----> “giving” the (Derridean) ‘gift’ cannot succeed if the giver knows about his/her gift; *unpresentable*
--✕--> politics and the political always implies fulfillment, law, closed space, *closure*
(Pir's) heaven of value
(Bergson's) supplementary soul
there is a nihilistic way in which we destroy
“everything is political” =/= everything is directly ontologically political ==> totalitarianism: everything belongs to law --> make law about anything (--> Plato's political theology: thought is founded on something; - @Varinia, “management of justice”)
national aestheticism
over-educated ~=? brainwashed
[in my lectures i am trying to teach something (Heidegger, Sa'di, etc.) in ‘a certain way,’ and that ‘certain way’ touches me and i hope touches my audience, even if one don't understand much of it at the time of lecture. i am trying to think by the outside, what comes from outside, being touched by it. right now in apass this outside consists of my (living) peers, getting their quantity of imposed ideas and try to work with that. to ‘take part']
...................................
(how?) the exposure of violence becomes the origin of violence (@Mona)
...................................
a preoccupation (of someone/yours) --into--> analytical solution/terms (for example ‘aesthetics’ and ‘gender’ for St[...]
(112)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%33.9[...]/>
what is the language of war?
(Keenan > Weizman:) we need to understand war as discourse --> *war = a threatened discourse*
-The language component of war exists in the gap between the level of destruction which is “possible” and the level of destruction which is “actually applied” in every given situation.
when war is no longer a means but an end in itself(?) -->? Hezbollah
deterrence: a means of controlling a person's behavior through negative motivational influences
“We are law-abiding, and we go wild.”
violence stripped of semiotics
The logic, the reason, of conflict is thus political ... for Clausewitz, politics is essentially logic, logos, discourse, people reasoning with one another, thinking and speaking, exchanging
@Luis, why conflict could be my concern? because it marks the breakdown of politics, when we can no longer have a conversation, engage in the game, where there is no possibility of further exchange, there is fighting
failure ==> use of force
Saskia Sassen called the attacks of September 11 “A Message From the Global South”
she wrote that the attacks bore witness to a failure in communication or to a “translation problem”
for her the language of September 11 attacks was clear
Sassen's dangerous and depraved rationalization of September 11: south is speaking in a language that needs no translation
the word ‘conflict’ (is coined as a discoursive necessity and) bears with itself an analysis of politics which sees it as a rational enterprise, a structured confrontation or conversation aimed at compromise or reconciliation, the exchange of demands and the negotiation of outcomes --> a Greek tradition : to protect politics from irrationality and persuasion, and that State's monopoly of law enforcement is the only legitimate violence --> (as a term) ‘conflict’ carries with itself a telos of consensus (etefagh-e ara اتفاق آرا Übereinstimmung), agreement ==> perfect understanding ~~--> (Greek -->) democracy's dream of overcoming internal opacities of mediation or signification, dream of a final unification, dream of a clear universal language
(Barthes’ fable of) the woodcutter[~= an agent of change] ==> language = act (without mediation or image, operating *an immediate transformation* ==> politic) :
If I am a woodcutter and I am led to name the tree which I am cutting down [j'abats], whatever the form of my sentence, I speak the tree, I do not speak about it. This means that my language is operative, linked to its object in a transitive way; between the tree and myself, there is nothing but my labor, that is to say, an act. This is a political language: it presents nature to me only to the extent that I am going to transform it, it is a language by which I act the object; the tree[...]
(115)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%34.1[...] the tree, I can only speak of it, about it.
@apass @Femke
(Barthes:) political = operative (~ active, transformative, destructive) --> this is an important fable for artists
talking about ‘conflict’ is also like this, is a “political” speech, an “operative” language, it “presents” the object of my action to me, which is democracy, and not Colombia
(some figurative ‘violence of language’ =/= [Austin, Derrida, Butler ==>] i am talking about paying attention to) the language used in a certain manner by certain agents --> studying in KHM media school teaches me to be careful with the erasure of distance, mediation, reference, representation, to be careful with the collapse of hermeneutic (in any discourse) --> the labor of transparency [@Mona @Ali ]
(the very strange claim [made by political leaders] that) force is a kind of language, and not just any language. It is one which solves the problem that seems endemic to all things linguistic, namely: failure, indirection, misunderstanding, drift. [...]that the language of force actively and successfully delivers its message --> a fable: “everybody understands the language of force” (unlike ordinary, diplomatic, political language) --> the readability or communicative power of the utterance, violence is seen as continuous with discourse --@Mona
[*]violence: “speaking the (only) language of the other” --> (very strange fable:) that violence is noninterpretive direct(~ umediated) and nonanalytic, that it is unmisunderstandable, that it takes hold and transforms its listener [--> fantasy of affective communication], hermeneutic and cognitive of the language is effaced and what is left is only *delivery* itself [@Ali's way of talking has a hint of this (a self-erasing speech,) he “delivers” his (political) message to me #tattooing me }--> the silencing/elimination of his interlocutor, **the little annihilatory gestures** of my friends], that it [violence] aspires to a *pure present*
•this is a translational problem? Keenan
•how do we know when things cannot get any worse?
•when/where the translation should stop? @Ali @Sina --> this is about the ethical risks (we are making all the time) in mistaking an annihilatory gesture for a discursive or political one
there is no language which needs no translation (not even violence)
*translation: an active relation between and within languages =/= to overcome language --> is exaclty where the name politics ought to be reserve (Ranciere) (--> that is why i am doing political work [my work on: discordant objects of reference, misunderstanding, active deconstruction, etc. my ‘personal responsibility’ to insist on space of difficult translation])
unilateralism of an imposition: universality of human rights
(Keenan:) human rights = standardization of the rhetorics of claims we make on each o[...]
(116)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%34.2[...]ed
exhumation
examination
...................................
Mona is actually concerned with the separation of the spheres of ethics and knowledge
strength <--> “Gewalt” <--> valere <--> Vale <--> value*
vergüenza, a collective sentiment, of one's own dignity and self-esteem, shame
vergüenza ajena --> fremdschämen --> (one of the essential features of aidos/aidôs [αἰδώς]) the Greek personification of modesty
“bashfulness,” “diffidence,”
“respectful,” “reserved,” “revered,” --> vereor (or vereri): in religion, “to fear,” “to revere,” حرمت “to have respect or scruple for.” Vereor belongs to a family of words that derive from the Indo-European root ᵒswer-, meaning “pay attention,” like the Greek horan [ὁϱᾶν] (to look, pay attention, see)
one must take the path in exactly the opposite direction
(let's not be) persons con vergüenza : persons of honor, persons of their word. It is not so much that they keep their promises, but that they are bound by the word that they have given --> they commit to cumplire: “to carry out,” “to accomplish a mission,” [=/= “leaving your post,” Kafka]
vergüenza =/= to attack the community }-->? khashm خشم indignation: rupture of an implicit contract based on norms and conventions
the sentiment (and performance of Tarof in a weird way, and) of verguenza construct relations of social solidarity, the tie --> to give structure to the relationship to the gods (as well as that between persons) --> *aidos* becomes constitutive of shame civilization (that continues to mutate)
shame, sham, to “cover up” shameful parts
aischune[=/= *aidos* (==> *kleos* “fame”) defines the Homeric hero, aidos precisely identifies the definitive requirement of the hero, his “regard” for his philoi (φίλοι royal friend/advisor of the king) and his genos (γένος, social group claiming common descent)]: to dishonor [=/= beauty, in Plato] }--> to disfigure; tied to the body, and in the case of the female body --> blush, as in the sensitive plant
aidos (~= moderation [provoked by the regard and expectations of the other]) =/= *excess* [--> in my lectures i usually don't respect/regard the expectations of the other]-->? that which separates me from the Homeric hero
(these are all about the regulation of the world)--> in a way also that which Mona demands
Mona need to analyse her question of (caused) violence and calamity:
•disposal the Promethean technai [τέχναι] (when she asks “who gave them the tool to kill?”)
•the logos [λόγος] of the arts and discursivity (when she demands conscience and justice [~ dike, another greek tool])
for Aristotle: aidos ==> clean ethics: pathos (an affection that involves the body)
*the form of fear p[...]
(118)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%34.6[...]vigating the catastrophic (=/= simply knowledge about an object)
*reality does not have that frontal character*, (it is rather) like atmosphere, deeply embedded within context
[*]context: the weaver's loom that is discerned within the cloth it weaves
Donatelli --destruction--> small, recurring, repetitive crises that define everyday life itself or are grown within the everyday
*event of traumatic loss functions as:
•an event
•a figure of thought
20th century as the century of genocides : the story of collective violence from the point of view of victims and survivors <-- we must contest this story
•(Kleinman & Kleinman, Mookherjee:) victim stories ==> voyeurism
•(Fassin & Rechtman:) ubiquity of a trauma narrative substitutes critical engagement with the structural forces of inequality (or discrimination by a psychologizing of experience and of subjectivity)
•
•
category of the victim is not transparent =/= bureaucratic legal forms through which the victim status is produced aligns with very different kinds of knowledge (shamanic, ritual, genealogical) to generate different kinds of affects
1947 Partition of India (marked by massive intercommunal killing, rape, and abduction of women) ==/==> victim
==> refugees, evacuee property, abducted persons
his fictionalized account of my responses to his questions inspired me to think
(your fictionalized account of my response to your question inspires me to think)
[to] rake the fallen leaves of language and literature to recreate experiences...
(usually) “treason” ==> massacres and violation of human rights by governmental forces
(one is forced to see events in other countiries in the light of issues pertaining to) transitional justice and the global form of truth
unknown dead imagined as hungry and thirstyhirsty ghosts
*the living cannot offer the dead solace because the unknown dead cannot be placed within the grid of genealogical knowledge necessary to make them into benign ancestors*
-the difference between kin and strangers, ancestors and ghosts
**hospitality being offered to the stranger could also become a way of reincorporating the estranged kin**(? -iranian hospitality?)
the intertwined nature of bureaucratic power and ritual action
the dead are haphazardly buried that have to be then contained or transformed through shamanic knowledge and ritual manipulations? -Veena
modern bureaucratic procedures ==> tear apart the continuity of generational connections <-~ the work of ritual to restore connections is engaged
the different ways we come to know something =/= the experience of ‘carrying’ a knowledge
...unknown dead in a milieu in which ancestors and ghosts are not simp[...]
(119)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%34.7[...]emocracy etc.), rather than simply speak on (your relationship to) it*
...................................
Hayward on the role of embodiment in visual cultures + meaning of animals in representation
*to envision animal* = to visualize, to experience, to figure, to image, kinds of species, discourses, representations, institutions, histories, epistemologies + to “imagine possible” a set of material and ethical relationships between species
envisioning:
•a mode of seeing and embodying, of immersing and inhabiting, and of storytelling and theorizing in a techno-scientific world of “eye machine”
•a range of practices for situating the “self” (that tender thing in postmodernity) in places and spaces grown thick with entanglements and consequences; a form both of “to face” and “to perceive”
aesthetic conceptions of beauty and/or ambiguity coupled with biological epistemology and phenomenology of the organisms --in--> in Jean Painleve, Genevieve Hamon, Leni Riefenstahl, David Powell ==construct==> a host of hybridized and enmeshed “encounters”
biosemiotics
zoosemiotics
-humanist fascist aesthetic --> desires to memorialize “beautiful and unpolluted” coral communities
-promise of immediate and luminous experience of “jellyfish otherness”
-systems (of power?) that constitutively produce animal and human actors
human-animal + nonhuman-animal + apparatuses --> co-constitutive in the process of trying to know something about whale ecology
(Hayward > Whitehead:) concrescence: “we” (con prefix) ere- (create) scence (sense, or the “scene,” that which is seen), the present is given by a consense of subjective forms. We are multiple individuals, but there are also multiple individual agents of consciousness operant in the construction of the given.
-literal materialization of a dynamic produced
photograph (only one part, a kind of lively limb, of the relay):
(ajayeb style -->) a bumptious and lively event of the processes of whale studies and whales themselves =/= a still record of a whale “that had been there”
the image: a kind of connective tissue, soliciting one's senses
solar light --> brushed up against, even touched, the whale --> translated through the camera --> into film --> into chemical bathes --> into photo-paper --> through my eye as a research assistant
}==> ‘photograph: material, immanent, interconnected’ ==> somatic intelligibility (embodiment) to my own somatic intelligence ~ enacted an encounter between the senses (subjective feelings) and their sense (objective knowledges)
a mutual embodiment <-- shared in the event of the photographic space
experience of these photographs [whale or telegram animal video]: an instance of *sensuous knowledge* --> way we are in[...]
(120)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%35[...]-->) a bumptious and lively event of the processes of whale studies and whales themselves =/= a still record of a whale “that had been there”
the image: a kind of connective tissue, soliciting one's senses
solar light --> brushed up against, even touched, the whale --> translated through the camera --> into film --> into chemical bathes --> into photo-paper --> through my eye as a research assistant
}==> ‘photograph: material, immanent, interconnected’ ==> somatic intelligibility (embodiment) to my own somatic intelligence ~ enacted an encounter between the senses (subjective feelings) and their sense (objective knowledges)
a mutual embodiment <-- shared in the event of the photographic space
experience of these photographs [whale or telegram animal video]: an instance of *sensuous knowledge* --> way we are in some carnal modality able to touch and be touched by the substance of images (to feel a visual atmosphere envelop us)
(Grosz's) [*]perception: flesh's reversibility ~ the flesh touching, seeing, perceiving itself, one fold (provisionally) catching the other in its own selfembrace
human/animal and technological sensorium
-Hayward asking how coral communities create representational ruptures in photographs
-Sina asking how telegram virtual communities create representational ruptures in the real of human-animal of Tehran, how the enfleshed animal mobile phone photograph touch us
}--> liveliness of humananimal encounters [the way in which my aesthetic and ethical senses merge with animals in the flesh]
-how people get along in concrete, metamorphic, phantasmatic ways
**sensible and sensual ensembles of materialized capacities and activities that literally and metaphorically make sense of, and to, ourselves and other animals**
(Ihde >) [*]phenomenology: a philosophical style that emphasizes a certain interpretation of human experience and that, in particular, concerns perception and bodily activity --Hayward--> a theoretical practice grounded on the carnal, fleshy, material foundations of subjectivity as it engages and is transformed by and in the world
we attend to: content + form + context
invertebrates, product of displacement and comparison, a ruinous verb turned noun turned classification --Hayward--> foregrounding and rethinking the syntax, optics, and heterogeneity of vertebrate and invertebrate relationality
accountability and responsibility in the enmeshment of knowing, doing, seeing, and being
(we need less philosophizing and more) *envisioning: an enactment of dynamic en-figurings that imperil boundaries that clearly differentiate self and other without the loss of historical, cultural, and species specificity*
...................................
☾
light has illuminated western stori[...]
(121)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%35[...]ideological obstacles
when the animals start paying attention to what humans are offering ir demanding, and then either accept, play for time, resist, refuse... stories in which they exhibit unusual skills or behaviours = acculturation: acceptance from the animal (not just humans imposing their will), dialogue between the two, influence of the animal upon the human
(thinking about animals that we raise in order to kill and eat them)
asking breeders: could one in any way way that their animals collaborate with them and work with them?
•the immediate general response is: no --✕--> yet you hear many stories about animals who did in fact participate in the work of those who were raising them : they acted in deliberate ways of their own volition
-do animals work?
the answer to this question will change something --> (Despret's pragmatism) *pragmatic position = involving a question whose answer turns out to have consequences*
(Porcher > Tapper:) relationships between human and nonhuman animals (judging that this relationship must have followed a historical progression similar to that undergone by the relations of production between different groups of men):
1. hunting societies --> communitarian, animals are part of the same world as humans
2. domestication --> slavery
3. pastoralism --> contractual forms of the feudal type
4. industrial societies --> relationships based on means of production and capitalist relationships
Tapper (and Castelluci) raise the possibility that animals may indeed work, they also close these relationships up in a *single schema* of ownership and exploitation
to inherit: (not merely receptive,) implies a task, a pragmatic act = appropriation
**one's heritage is something constructed, and it is constantly transforming itself retroactively** بازگشتی --> it makes us capable of responding and that we in fact respond to our heritage =/= simply carrying on a tradition
***things are inherited, but we become ourselves in carrying out the gesture of inheriting***
(Harawayian) re-member: enact the past, collect and compose ~/= (Despretian) to inherit: giving oneself an account of a certain task, which is more than just remembering
[storymaking] *to make a story = to reconstruct, to fabulate, to offer other presents and futures to the past* [~/= Sina: to fabulate = to give other pasts to the present and future]
how to ask the question of work properly?
you have to consider animals as other than victims, natural and cultural idiots that *need to be liberated* despite themselves --> ‘liberating the world of animals' = 'freeing the human world of the presence of animals’ [---> go to fabulation of animal human in the movie How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World]
=/= telegram's animals
[...]
(123)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%35.9[...]ext to two assistant dogs, and could feel strongly their efforts to sit motionless in the dark within the crowds] ~~--> but non of this is perceived...
only by observing the many ways that cows can resist the breeders, doing something other than what is expected of them ==> the researcher could see how they are actively invested in the work : when the cows show that they are unwilling to do what is wanted ==> their “good will” appeared (the effect of their willingness)
•this is an interested problem @apass, the notion of asking participants to participate in an “active” way =/= animal work }--> “working well for an artist = violating normative organization (recommendations, regulations, procedures, codes, specifications)" = تمرد tamarod recalcitrance: practical or collective intelligence appearing when intentional mistakes are made, or when feigned misunderstanding leads to active disobedience*****
Vicki Hearne + Despret
why dogs often drop the stick they fetch a couple of feet in front of you. it is a way for the dog to give to the human a sense of the limits to the authority that she is ready to concede, with an almost mathematical precision, reminding us that not everything goes without saying ♥
‘communication with animals = being together engaged in work’ :
•learning patience in regard to them
•respecting them as they are ==imply==> you know them & recognise them
•
@Leo
we are required to think about people and animals as **connected in a single experience** (in which they jointly constitute their identities) #chimera
==> (obligates us to consider) the manner in which they keep faith with each other --> they respond to each other through the consequences of their action & their responses are part of the consequences (=/= act based on shared assumptions)
{being a victim ==imply==> passivity + all its consequences}--> *animal is not a victim* [because:]
•saying “animal = victim” =/= (Despret's) mode of being engaged in question
•(don't forget that) ***تقصیرپذیری culpability is easier to tolerate than responsiblity مسئولیتپذیری*** (because responsibility prevents the question from being closed)
•***a victim does not invite curiosity*** <-- curiosity is essential in relations in which two beings learn to look and to look back (Despret + Haraway)
victim =/= (Despret’ animal, Sina's Cinderella) more alive, more present, they invite more question --> they get the chance to become interesting
•a Cinderella who does her job engages us in a totally different manner than a Cinderella who is the victim of the authority of her evil mother and wicked sisters
(from a clinical standpoint + in human terms) [*]work: gestures, know-how, the involvement of the body and the intelligence, the ability to analyze, interpre[...]
(124)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%36.1[...]elies upon the recognition of one's peers* --> this is something i realized in apass) ==> judgment about *bond* (that concerns) the means of the work's doing [and places where humans and animals share things, achieve things together, accomplish themselves] (=/= the work as accomplished): a **reciprocal judgment (of bond & beauty)** [bond: judgment about the conditions of a life lived together ***even in situations that are radically asymmetrical***] through which the breeder and his animal [also participants in apass] may recognize each other
(Haraway's) work: a process that crafts capabilites to answer for + answer to
Despret's notion of ‘judgment of the bond at the center of all relations’ =/= Wittgenestein (famous and meaningless observation: “if animals could speak we would get shouted at every day” : highly anthropocentric notion of animal as victim)
(Porcher's radical idea of) we work with animals in order to be able to live with them, not the other way round
[Tehran's need of] speculative fabulation: stories that whets our appetite for possibilites, that open imagination =/= idyllic story of a golden age
(Despret, Porcher, Haraway) work: locus of unexpected encounter, the possibility of our communication
...................................
eternal turtle
...................................
new zoonotic infectious diseases ==> new human-animal relationship
vast silent reservoir in aquatic birds
confinement, deprivation, stress
global biodiversity crisis --> there is no monopoly on animal cruelty
mass-production of animal suffering
unsanitary practices
(we make) mad cow disease: herbivores --into--> carnivores --into--> cannibals
...................................
*discussion across ideologies*
partisan mindset [--> social belonging]: ideology provides an ostensive set of tools (sometimes unconsciously) for analyzing a complex social world = orientation
•partisan operative mentality یک نوع ذهن عملی
•normal is ontologically privileged over abnormalities (or vice versa)
•left-wing identity politics: reductive us-versus-them mentality + moral panic
i am influenced by the demand of the other [= (Lacanian) socio-psychic projection of a Big Other that stands in for the presence of the ontologically non-existent group narrative] ==> moral grounds for living
(?) reverting back to your material status (as private individuals) =/= looking after ideological stability and economy
thins that don't work with when talking to partisan mentality:
•factual argumentation
•punching them
•Kantian argument for the intrinsic value of all human lives
(what generally don't work:) reminding one's political rivals of facts --✕--> (Levinasian) the trace of the other
(?why i need or not need) intellectua[...]
(125)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%36.3[...]ding one's political rivals of facts --✕--> (Levinasian) the trace of the other
(?why i need or not need) intellectual adversarie [=/= caricatures for shooting practice]
(the banal and continuous hyper-polarized political partisanship of) right-wing populism =/= Social justice activism
(our agreement on) moral and methodological priority of the individual
...................................
https://merionwest.com/2018/07/31/purity-politics-is-ruining-progressivism/
prison: mechanism available to remove people from society
[my problem with: political philosophy (of) authentic radical politics -->] (academic or artistic) critical scholarship [critical race theory, post-colonial theory, gender studies, etc. -->{busy with **systemic grievances** (white supremacy, colonialism, racism, etc,)} + left-wing identity politics --> *leftist purity politics*] universalizing a kind of moral complicity ==> a reductionist social ontology of guilt and victimization -->{
•bad idea of the whole (liberalism) is historically associated with, for example, colonialism ==> all of its parts (people, ideas, etc.) are equally associated with colonialism
•the idea of modernity + the rise of the individual ==> (a sense of) loss of community
==>
•participation
•horizontalism
•institutional distrust
•ad hoc organizations
forensic architecture: purifying itself of (and overcome) injustice =/= meaningful progressive change
(Occupy movement, protest mentality --> how left-wing purity politics missed the) consequences electoral capacity, electoral politics
(not knowing how to use) liberal institutions
•(thinking with Bruzzone -->) we need more *impure politics* : (reform & compromise mentality)
◦how to transform knowledge into *electoral mobilization* (=/= Pierre's interest in fiction, Leo's interest in a morally pure collective future)
◦how to form alliances with groups whom you have grave doubts
•we don't need *hoard of like-minded people sharing collective anger and disgust at injustice*
postmodern conservatism: empirical / ideological
neoliberal societies: hierarchies tolerated by citizens so long as the economy continues to prosper
something happens ==> together --> social group
entitative: the quality of groupiness, a perception that the people together are a group : *perception of similarity*
interaction based on interdependence ==> social group
[*]group: experience of social identity
...................................
[*]embody: empathetically experience situations ‘from outside’
(Despret raising the question) *what can we do or what are we allowed to do with our bodies when we are with our animals?*
[*]empathy: bodie[...]
(126)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%36.4[...]rm knowledge into *electoral mobilization* (=/= Pierre's interest in fiction, Leo's interest in a morally pure collective future)
◦how to form alliances with groups whom you have grave doubts
•we don't need *hoard of like-minded people sharing collective anger and disgust at injustice*
postmodern conservatism: empirical / ideological
neoliberal societies: hierarchies tolerated by citizens so long as the economy continues to prosper
something happens ==> together --> social group
entitative: the quality of groupiness, a perception that the people together are a group : *perception of similarity*
interaction based on interdependence ==> social group
[*]group: experience of social identity
...................................
[*]embody: empathetically experience situations ‘from outside’
(Despret raising the question) *what can we do or what are we allowed to do with our bodies when we are with our animals?*
[*]empathy: bodies that undo and redo each other (reciprocally though not symmetrically) [=/= experiencing with one's own body what the other experiences]
==> possibilites of an embodied communication
feeling & emotions are not alone in making up what life is all about
(Despret researching) ways in which scientists’ bodies are actively being involved while they are observing animals
--Sina--> becoming describable as a body [that moves, walks, bears, diffuses, smells, makes noise, follows, ...]
the old rule of “human bodies shouldn't interfere in a properly scientific research process =/= Lorenz:
...feed his jackdaw with worms
...attempted to teach him to fly
...swam with the geese
--Despret--> Lorenz aimed at elucidating ‘meaning’ in and through the relationships he sustained with the animals he was studying ==>
•he understood for a little goose what mother is/means by letting his own body be caught in that meaning of mother
•he achieved what ‘companionship’ is/means for a jackdaw through being fed and playing with, and flying lessons
•
--> ***what matters in the animal's world = what bears meaning from their point of view***
presence
*if the scientists body is evoked, it is never for itself nor is it named as such --> when seeking the body, we are offered a surprisingly abstract concept: “presence” (under the guise of “presence of the observer”) =/= body
-the presence has no skin, it does not sweat, nor does it eat, sleep, dream, fear --> [*]presence: the perceived body which never acknowledges itself as a body (there is no presence that could be unperceived in one way or in an other) = disembodied body <== *science: the cognitive activity par excellence*
•obliterates the actual presence of the observer --u[...]
(127)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%36.4[...]alized? what does it depend on? what are its alternatives? --> *ontology does not precede knowledge practices* (various practices are closely linked ==> ontologies are linked [for example a patient who talks to a doctor in a consulting room may receive a clinical diagnosis, while laboratory measurements ‘do’ her disease in a different way. or in artistic research environments such as apass.])
(Annemarie's) praxiography --> asking what are the techniques that make things (their empirical, epistemological found objects) visible, audible, tangible, knowable (for this artist in front of me #feedback @apass)**
‘empathy’ is a word that is often recruited when bodies are involved --> resonances with troublesome romantic meanings (magic, fold knowledge)
embodied empathy shifts its meaning from one situation to another --> different meanings ==> different outcomes
[*]empathy: the process by which one delegates to one's body a question, or a problem, that matters and that involves other beings’ bodies --> bodies are articulating and become articulated in the asking and in its responses
= making the body available for the response of another being (=/= feeling what the other feels)
==create==> possibility of an embodied communication (=/= experiencing with one's body what the other experiences)
---> go to Cinderella's empathy: make one think with & with the body
--Despret--> *empathy becomes a scientific tool* that need to be shaped, forged, refined, embodied, a tool that attunes bodies
[*]care: it matters for them that it matters for their animals (***what matters for the other person becomes your matters***)
how to act in a polite manner in a baboon's world? (or in an artist's world, when we give feedbacks)
{seeing like a baboon =/= acting like a baboon = corresponding with a baboon}--> *they transform themselves in order to create partial connections* (James’ “acting as if”) =/= performative
•to act with the baboons (learn how a tree gives you dirty looks, how it resists the proposition of your presence)
•Lorenz's “becoming with”
•Despret's “the miracle of the attunement”
embodied communication --> responsible relation --> constructing the possibility of engagement
[*]responsible: the one who constructs him/herself in order to be available to a respond
--Despret--> (to imagine that we can actually) correspond through the choreographic language of our bodies
“traying to get knowledge" = knowing for the sake of knowing }<-- 19th century adventure hunter archeologist imperialism
***(for James) [*]emotion: what makes us feel (=/= what is felt), an experience of making available ==> an occasion for others : ****emotions ==> dispose our bodies**** (+ our bodies dispose our emotions) @Chloe
-if we want to feel an emotion, we can dispose our bod[...]
(128)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%37[...]s to one's body a question, or a problem, that matters and that involves other beings’ bodies --> bodies are articulating and become articulated in the asking and in its responses
= making the body available for the response of another being (=/= feeling what the other feels)
==create==> possibility of an embodied communication (=/= experiencing with one's body what the other experiences)
---> go to Cinderella's empathy: make one think with & with the body
--Despret--> *empathy becomes a scientific tool* that need to be shaped, forged, refined, embodied, a tool that attunes bodies
[*]care: it matters for them that it matters for their animals (***what matters for the other person becomes your matters***)
how to act in a polite manner in a baboon's world? (or in an artist's world, when we give feedbacks)
{seeing like a baboon =/= acting like a baboon = corresponding with a baboon}--> *they transform themselves in order to create partial connections* (James’ “acting as if”) =/= performative
•to act with the baboons (learn how a tree gives you dirty looks, how it resists the proposition of your presence)
•Lorenz's “becoming with”
•Despret's “the miracle of the attunement”
embodied communication --> responsible relation --> constructing the possibility of engagement
[*]responsible: the one who constructs him/herself in order to be available to a respond
--Despret--> (to imagine that we can actually) correspond through the choreographic language of our bodies
“traying to get knowledge" = knowing for the sake of knowing }<-- 19th century adventure hunter archeologist imperialism
***(for James) [*]emotion: what makes us feel (=/= what is felt), an experience of making available ==> an occasion for others : ****emotions ==> dispose our bodies**** (+ our bodies dispose our emotions) @Chloe
-if we want to feel an emotion, we can dispose our body to produce it (<-- this was my method in my early performances in 2014)
Lorenz, Strum, Smuts, Despret
learn to become what it becames when it acts ‘as if’ --> *stakes of reliable knowledge : to thing with*
...................................
Baxstrom --> anthropology of the anthropologist
Despret --> ethology of the ethologist
اشعیا Isaiah provides a vivid imaginary of multispecies bonds and flourishing: the wold will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them
*nonhuman animals are as much subjects of history as humans are*
-why do we listen to prohpets?
quasi-theological and anthropocentric notions such as that of the great chain of being
(the importance of) changing ourselves as humans ==> change animals
•how changing h[...]
(129)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%37[...]as humans are*
-why do we listen to prohpets?
quasi-theological and anthropocentric notions such as that of the great chain of being
(the importance of) changing ourselves as humans ==> change animals
•how changing human habits also gives other animals a chance to change theirs?
[*]ethology: a practice of habits involving distance, knowing activity, politeness, milieu, alliance
(i am interested in women) not because of gender [= identity politics, political correctness], but because of *their practice and the question they pursue*
what parrots talk about
talking birds and primates as subjective interlocutors who can become persons in the exchanges allowed by language
*they never posed the question of knowing what a raven could, through this somewhat maniacal behavior, teach them about what interested it*
-(curious) being always teach you what that being is interested in
very bottom of the ladder of choices...
for Tehran:
1. memory studies
2. kalagh shenasi (raven studies) کلاغ شناسی
ravens, evidently, do not want to obey any of the rules that make research possible: the incivility that excommunicated them from the laboratoies of the behaviorists having already been stigmatized from the time of the Flood (in Noah's ark)
ravens are by all account unreliable <-- calling into question the intelligence of their researchers, the pertinence of their models, and the solidity of their dispositives
---> go to Kelile Demne
*the ravens literally recruit their researcher*
to [*]recruit: they will reveal to him the resolution of an enigma the difficulty and the interest of which would be in accord with what makes them impossible to study
(from) season --to--> season
(from) enigma --to--> findings
(from) hypothesis --to--> tests
suspense and sudden turns ==> transform all that we know about ravens
the ravens present a behavior that has no sense from the point of view of evolution
the “guilty” of the story are given from the beginning
---> go to [Daston's] historian of science (always knew how the story ended): imagine you are the kind of a person who cheats when reading mystery novels, and you read the last page first to know who did it, and then when you read the rest of mystery story, you know everything is building towards this climax, you read it in a very different way than the person who has to retrace all that have been implanted in your way by the author to throw you off the scent of the real villain {==> you lose the past in the image of the present}
+ scientist (who wish to have a) story about *why we believe what we believe now and why it is right* [knowing that everything we know now will be overturned if not now later]--> pathos and pr[...]
(130)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%37.1[...]>
sadomasochism stitches
*carnal improvisation* <-- paradigm of performance art in europe (---> go to karaoke in KHM, role of my body as medium in the circuit of transmissions, poetically imagine the shape of a new pattern)
pastpresent: an always present past in the present
*patterns longer than lived experience*
[*]history: libidinal tracings, erotogenic intensities, psychical cartographies
{ porosity = poiesis }--> collapse the boundary between the embodied self + its world + others ==> consitute a specific place
•puberty = the fantasy that this disfiguration will make me more myself
•teenager = you spend hours before the refracting reflection of your transmutating *body = your most intimate other* --> enact boundaries, sometimes lovingly, but also brutally
(senses are) reactive to the sensual abundance of the world but limited by affected perceptual milieus
[*]texture: residue of unmetabolized and metabolized sensations of animate forces --> emergence of bodiliness (<-- Hayward's rhetoric)
transitional body = textural body
architecture: the most binding part of the communal rhythm
appearance ~= metonymic
appearance allows her to emerge situationally as a woman, a gendered neighbor, a historical subject
(being under the influence of the moon:) enfleshing elements of your (celestial) environment within yourself and expressing parts of yourself back into the (terrestrial social) environment
identification: “i am like you = i know you” ==> resolve the divide of difference
(let's not make that kind of garden again -->) inclusion in Adam's nameable Eden of belonging (=/= Cinderella's transbestiary)
cross-species rejoiners
mended spiderwebs
error is (still a kind of) expression
human: composites of zoo-intensities, animated movements, bio-differentials
(i always felt like this) my perceptions are refracted through psychic forces
anxious
uncertain
paranoid
“is everyone staring at the morphing ‘it’ that is me”
(understanding of art in contemporary european performance -->) art = intensifying bodily substance, to resonate otherwise, to feel different corpo(realities) through zones of transition and intervention, provocation = responses to our *capacities to resonate*
...medicalization, recognition, subjectification, instrumentalization, and responsiveness being with animals
...................................
what does the maze mean for the rat?
what a maze can mean?
experimental psychology --> subjects conform most often to the expectations of their experi[...]
(131)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%38.2[...]television is both amnesiac & mnemonic*** --> tv's propensity to resonate in different temporalities at once
television: a vehicle for the transformation of and a source of information about the quotidian ~ primary generator of collective memory [<-- this is now social media, Instagram TikTok]
historical drama
pseudo documentary
period drama series
--> providing the viewers with a “useable past” that is always related to and relevant to the concerns of the present
in the postsocialist region, the past has especially sensitive nerve endings in the present
national regimes & individual citizens alike have tried to revive usable paradigms of identity from past periods (to clear away or at least cover up the historical debris left behind)
television as a massive archaeological site
polymorphic, undefinable identity with tentacles in several fields that makes television (and popular internet media) so confusing
(to understand who has stakes) in keeping history and memory practices separate and in minimizing the role of television and other popular media
(internet popular media) television's messy status as a medium
communist parties --> mould television to standardize citizens's everyday domestic life rhythms
•cheerleading docufictions
•educational quiz shows
•uplifting entertainment such as theatrical broadcasts of Russian and European classics
•doctored news
•limited advertising
•domestically produced dramatic series focused firmly on the romanticized historical past
{projective ideals =/= actual experiential realities of socialism}==> layer of ironic distance between [media (television) and its viewers]
(1990s following the Soviet empire's disintegration -->) ironic overidentification ==> nostalgia
--Imre--> evasion of television allows for nostalgia to be misframed and misappropriated as a sentiment that marks the end of socialism [temporally and clearly demarcates backward-looking postsocialist populations from forward-looking (Western) observers]
----> takes into account television's (and internet social media) relevance to collective memory
post-X nostalgia: a near-visceral yearning for the false sense of safety derived from the memory of X (fetishistically attached to public personas or consumer products of the past)
nostalgia: an interpretive framework }<-- **sense of intimate sociality disrupted by the collapse of a centralized system of governance and the influx of globalization**
nostalgia is a discourse (that is not specific to Eastern Europe) populations disappointed with and unequipped to deal with the advent of market democracy
there are more than one way of (content of) longing
television: a [...]
(132)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%39[...] />
nostalgia machine
•Putin --> TV programming to a literary Soviet heritage
•Hungarian FIDESZ --> children’s channel of socialist children’s programmes
•showcase oeuvre of popular performers from the past
•rerunning vintage highbrow content: old films, television series and documentaries
•popular music's capacity to call up depoliticized affective memories
•commercials (--trigger--> postsocialist nostalgia)
•
}--> depoliticized reminiscences ==> an image of (socialist) sociality as a natural connecting glue among citizens gathered around the warm glow of their favourite singers and cabaret actors
FIDESZ = alarming racism + anti-Semitism + drastic neoliberal economic restructuring --> television = interfaces of official state nationalism + commercial purposes of a nostalgia industry
(ghost of dictators in) humorous commercial context:
•Tito in post-Yugoslav republic commercials (as anti-capitalist and anti-commercialist hero)
•Ceausescu in commercials in Romania (old footage of him walking his dog in car tires ads)
•
}--Imre--> (blending) *top-down history lessons* + the work of *popular memory* ==> punctuate contemporary continuities with the communist regime that are taboo in official narratives but prevalent in popular perceptions of history
(==Georgescu==> counter-memory <-- does it assist coming to terms with the past, processing the paralyzing past and the humiliating present of globalization coupled with reactionary state control)
socialist advertising (--> promoted products and services that had not competition in the absence of a real market) ==now==> a sense of awkwardness (absurdity of an era) --> an oxymoron ==> (the ads’) appeal ==guarantee==> the authenticity of remembering + mutual recognition (among members of the nostalgic community) ----> *longing for a bond specific to an elusive era*
(for late socialism --Imre-->) [*]nostalgia: a popular and essential compensatory gesture to make up for the loss of a contradictory temporality
+
a mode of continuity with an era that was already nostalgic for the unrealized transformative potential (of real socialism)
(Yurchak's) *frozen present* = the time of nostalgia
}<== late socialist culture itself lived in a nostalgic mode, at a certain ironic, knowing distance from what it was supposed to be according to the memories of the heroic 40s-50s and the remnants of socialist propaganda --> *a familiar ironic mode of experiencing history vicariously* (in a way that is experienced in the imagination through the actions of another person)
(looking at televisual nostalgia -->) late socialism ==> an affect & epistemology that can only access the “authentic” through contradiction ambivalence self-reflective irony
<--Holdsworth-- expression of presen[...]
(133)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%39.2[...] their favourite singers and cabaret actors
FIDESZ = alarming racism + anti-Semitism + drastic neoliberal economic restructuring --> television = interfaces of official state nationalism + commercial purposes of a nostalgia industry
(ghost of dictators in) humorous commercial context:
•Tito in post-Yugoslav republic commercials (as anti-capitalist and anti-commercialist hero)
•Ceausescu in commercials in Romania (old footage of him walking his dog in car tires ads)
•
}--Imre--> (blending) *top-down history lessons* + the work of *popular memory* ==> punctuate contemporary continuities with the communist regime that are taboo in official narratives but prevalent in popular perceptions of history
(==Georgescu==> counter-memory <-- does it assist coming to terms with the past, processing the paralyzing past and the humiliating present of globalization coupled with reactionary state control)
socialist advertising (--> promoted products and services that had not competition in the absence of a real market) ==now==> a sense of awkwardness (absurdity of an era) --> an oxymoron ==> (the ads’) appeal ==guarantee==> the authenticity of remembering + mutual recognition (among members of the nostalgic community) ----> *longing for a bond specific to an elusive era*
(for late socialism --Imre-->) [*]nostalgia: a popular and essential compensatory gesture to make up for the loss of a contradictory temporality
+
a mode of continuity with an era that was already nostalgic for the unrealized transformative potential (of real socialism)
(Yurchak's) *frozen present* = the time of nostalgia
}<== late socialist culture itself lived in a nostalgic mode, at a certain ironic, knowing distance from what it was supposed to be according to the memories of the heroic 40s-50s and the remnants of socialist propaganda --> *a familiar ironic mode of experiencing history vicariously* (in a way that is experienced in the imagination through the actions of another person)
(looking at televisual nostalgia -->) late socialism ==> an affect & epistemology that can only access the “authentic” through contradiction ambivalence self-reflective irony
<--Holdsworth-- expression of present anxieties about history and memory in general
...................................
___[notes Tehran 2023]___
semiotics: study of the differnce between “what you say ~/= what they understand”
(my fundamentals:)
*sharing =/= communicating*
آشپز دیو سپید
it is said that the White Div had a cook --> exploring the cosmology of Div (in Shahnameh) with food, hunting for eating, bestiary, cooking technology, taste
(inspired by anime JYfdfDU9JUY)
#short story: narrartor describes the story after the defeat of the White Div (Di[...]
(134)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%39.2[...] elusive era*
(for late socialism --Imre-->) [*]nostalgia: a popular and essential compensatory gesture to make up for the loss of a contradictory temporality
+
a mode of continuity with an era that was already nostalgic for the unrealized transformative potential (of real socialism)
(Yurchak's) *frozen present* = the time of nostalgia
}<== late socialist culture itself lived in a nostalgic mode, at a certain ironic, knowing distance from what it was supposed to be according to the memories of the heroic 40s-50s and the remnants of socialist propaganda --> *a familiar ironic mode of experiencing history vicariously* (in a way that is experienced in the imagination through the actions of another person)
(looking at televisual nostalgia -->) late socialism ==> an affect & epistemology that can only access the “authentic” through contradiction ambivalence self-reflective irony
<--Holdsworth-- expression of present anxieties about history and memory in general
...................................
___[notes Tehran 2023]___
semiotics: study of the differnce between “what you say ~/= what they understand”
(my fundamentals:)
*sharing =/= communicating*
آشپز دیو سپید
it is said that the White Div had a cook --> exploring the cosmology of Div (in Shahnameh) with food, hunting for eating, bestiary, cooking technology, taste
(inspired by anime JYfdfDU9JUY)
#short story: narrartor describes the story after the defeat of the White Div (Div-e Sefid) by Rostam. “rather than worring about the kingsmen X, he was more interested in what is for dinner...”. there is another being. a baby hayula (non-formity)... what other beings Div hunts for meat? (list, bestiary) “he would think about the next hunt X and get excited about the kabab of X...” “immediately asked for more”
dungeons and dragons --> a non-cartographic space, there are no maps and one only learns by dying many times
dungeon has nothing to do with the medieval prison, it is a deterritorialized habitat, defined precisely by not having a map (or guide) --> are we in a dungeon?
...................................
journalism: professional discursive pursuit (of truth, of propaganda, etc.)
=/= journalism: proximity to the event + the risks that that entails
(Ghazzi's notion of) *affective proximity* : (a mode of consideration, a way) to make sense of local media practitioners’ reporting and witnessing of suffering in their country
--> a media practitioner =/= the event they are representing and participating in
affective proximity : what locals navigate to reconcile their emotional and embodied entanglement within events in their country =/= discursive
*emotional labour* of media practices of local reporters and witnesses [...]
(135)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%39.2[...]tional field in journalism -->) ***unequal power relations ==> emotioal labor***
proximity (--> what i heard so much when i went back to iran: to ke inja insti nemiduni تو که اینجا نیستی نمیدونی)
*aesthetic of authenticity* in news reports (<-- mobile phones)
political economy of foreign reporting
politics of hope (with an ambition to inspire all Syrians to rebel)
...emotional attachment to political goals
*revolution: the event that changes people's lives and in relation to which they locate themselves politically
•conflict in Syria began as an uprising, it ended up an international war, which in 2020 appears to have mostly concluded in the favour of the regime =/= revolution
•the word “revolution” means something else to activists in Syria (how the meanings projected on the term changed in accordance to circumstances)
◦(most of the time, artists and activists) ****use a word to galvanise their emotions and bodies**** and inspired them to take actions they would not have imagined to pursue [use of words --> what people hope =/= descriptive]
◦word (for example “revolution”): a marker of an *inward-looking description* of belonging to a broad political community defined by opposition
•“the revolution” --> affectively consumed the pursuit of truth
•an identity-marker (based on a political orientation) --> an inward-looking signifier to mark who one is + what political community they belong to [--> a politics of what one had wanted =/= describe what one observes]
•(revolution:) personified and humanised as a well-meaning political agent (that sometimes strays from its goals by committing errors)
•motivating people to get involved in activism
•
(Said's Orientalism -->) subaltern others (are typically considered) living within a constant state of violence <-- much older Western regime of representation perceived them as culturally close to violence
(Ghazzi > Badiou >) some events are felt as historic as they galvanise the energies of political actors who imagine themselves as ‘mounting the stage of history’ --Koselleck--> acts of information dissemination are engulfed by the event and are aimed at bridging the temporal distance between the desired and experienced ==> “journalism ~= activism”
...................................
collective memory --> historical victimhood --> consolidating power
(meta-history -->) a view of history as a series of junctures where good fought evil ==Ghazzi==> historical victimhood
global rise of populist politics ==> tropes of self-victimisation
•revolutionary
•resistance
•nationalism
•populism
•neo-fascism
}--> operationalize victimhood (by whom / against whom)
one is wronged, targeted, injured (by the elite, the media, external enemies)[...]
(136)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%39.4[...]*** (--permeate--> economies of visibility)
***memory narrative***
iran --> shohada شهدا martyrs of iran-iraq war --> after the war became the picture of collective victimhood (“heroes = us”)
Erdogan's speech
“we have been tested by fire” (--?--> Siavash's fire trial is populist?)
~= “we have been tested by enemy”
~= “evil forces”
(from) populism --to--> neofascism
(from) generic rhetoric of an unidentified enemy --to--> articulation of an identifiable foe (who is met with political violence)
authoritarian state apparatus [= political system + culture + institutions + ?] --allow--> smoother way of operationalisation of narratives (about the dangers of adversaries)
-exactly what kind of state apparatus we have in iran?
historical victimhood --> resurgent populist discourse
•people have been enduring victimhood for too long
•fateful junctures throughout history
•authentic great path
•urgency of message
•
animating rhetoric with self-victimhood ==produce==> divisions (men =/= women, us =/= enemy, etc.)
exclusionary politics <-- homogeneous community (=/= alien intrusion, outside forces, immigrants, minorities, etc.)
...................................
Kundera
is humor modern?
*humor is not ancient* (?!)
“whatever humor touches it ambiguites”
humor = ambiguitor
...................................
globalization =/= cold war
globalization =/= enlightenment (“universal humanism + rationalized tech ==> freedom for all”)
cold war = a meaningfull relation between ideology & power [==give==> orientation + identity --> normative approach to global phenomena]
geopolitc + ideologic borders
=/=
globalization --> completly different political behaivor (definitions of national goals, friend and enemy, etc.) --> pluralist democracy (differences + contrasts) =/= social democracy (erasing differences)
globalization = attitude حالت =/= meaning
[cold war: “world ~= (a sort of) problem” --> behaviors had] meaning ==> (base for) power
cold war: war ==> identities
globalization: conflits =/=> identities
...................................
two points
•artistic research: a form of art that uses knowledge as its main medium
•artistic research has no relation to the unknown (=/= an idea of research im in which one faces something unknown or new therefore needs to research)
•my work (in general) has been about the critique of engineering (the talent of engineering)
the fossil of fire goes back before the wild-life
the history of fire related to th[...]
(138)[...notes/Mona rat race.txt]%39.6[...] + identity --> normative approach to global phenomena]
geopolitc + ideologic borders
=/=
globalization --> completly different political behaivor (definitions of national goals, friend and enemy, etc.) --> pluralist democracy (differences + contrasts) =/= social democracy (erasing differences)
globalization = attitude حالت =/= meaning
[cold war: “world ~= (a sort of) problem” --> behaviors had] meaning ==> (base for) power
cold war: war ==> identities
globalization: conflits =/=> identities
...................................
two points
•artistic research: a form of art that uses knowledge as its main medium
•artistic research has no relation to the unknown (=/= an idea of research im in which one faces something unknown or new therefore needs to research)
•my work (in general) has been about the critique of engineering (the talent of engineering)
<brkr class="brkr">
the fossil of fire goes back before the wild-life
the history of fire related to the history of forest
In the 1950s, government officials in Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca--in southern Mexico--blamed forest destruction upon the local indigenous communities. Fire, as a symbol of disorder, became the target of state control and the subject of a state-sponsored discourse of environmental degradation. [...] Fire suppression frequently has been part of state policies of social control. [...] The vision of fire as destructive, part of the state narrative [...] How has the memory of the traditional use of fire by indigenous communities been suppressed? [...]State political myth has obscured community memories of fire as a force in the forest, and as a tool for human use. [...] Why the indigenous communities of the Sierra Juarez no longer talk about the long-term history of their forests. Clearly, the communities internalized parts of the state-sponsored degradation discourse. (However, discourse analysis is not enough; it is all too easy to treat discourse as a monolithic structure of ideas[...] ) [...] These discourses require a threat, a source of chaos and disorder to which the moral regeneration of the progressive discourse can provide a solution. In the case of the Sierra juarez, forest fires provide this opposition. [...] It is exactly this resistance of the natural world to discursive domination that is one of the themes of this article. [1]
[1]ANDREWSA LVADORMA THEWS - suppressing FIRE AND MEMORY: ENVIRONMENTALDE GRADATIONAN D POLITICALRE STORATION INT HES IERRAJ UAREZO F OAXACA, 1887-2001
...................................
Jinn older and Man
ecology of the Jinn
(Qur'an)
raging fire
scorched by burning fire
striking sparks of fire
and roasting at hell-fire
the fire of Allah, kindled
...
[...]
(139)[...notes/fire notes.txt]%39.7[...]
a distant call in known terrain says it is the there, not the here, where attention should be paid. [far, origins of our tropes, metaphysics? abstraction? =/=? motionless hunters invented motionless meditative worship]
-(kinfolk in) swamps, brush, and forest (in terms of discerning the *relationships between clues*)
-(indirect) dealing with the escapable (=?=> tracking strategies + symbolic thought)
a central theme: (a banquet/feast at which) the participants--eater and eaten--risk the improvements of mind against the certainty of occasional poor decisions, (faulty memory, carelessness, errors of judgment, and the decrepitude of age and disease.)
-Those who fled had to understand [the limits of distance, the intentions of the others, and] (the ability to control) the abyssal terror that itself would engulf them if they submitted to panic. ==> mind
-“self” emerged as the consequence of “participation,” a calculative and organizational relatoin of the individual within the group? (and perceiving the so-called “inanimate” entities) --- shaped by the game -- a participant amidst other participants oriented by the action
(David Abraham: Perception is Participation, in an animistic logic)
mind, memory, --> cognition and communication --> reference --> imitating the animal's calls ==> stylized performances ==> (a repertoire of) symbolized references (sign language?) ==> accumulation of synonims (--> we are already consuming symbolic ambition) --> early metaphores --> narratives get out of hand (--> “concrete” is invented) --> [...] (--> narration of past is invented which is always about the future) --> codification of world without tense or causality in language ----> tense & causality ----> pervasive truths
-this diagram is about the future for the subject whom is using the signs, telling the others where the game animal is and will be. in this text i am trying to pantomime a mimicked reference (of where the [game] animal is), sharing the idea of a thing that is syntaxically there, so we can run it. every utterance is about where i have last seen the “animal,” and how fat or far it is. [running had “magical ends” - Peter Nabokov, ‘Indian Running’ (Santa Barbara: Capra, 1981)]
symbolism --> man traveling within himself --> need to travel outside an infinitely larger reality ==> beyond --- different brand(s) of infinity
secular hunting --- the hunt becomes monstrous. i am calling for an old sacred hunt [sustained in myth and ceremony?] of concepts?
-hunt is gestalt(en)
(with our) hopes and tropes
boundary creatures and matters -- fire's function/act was peripheral, was in the threshold world of human passages(?) [then it made an entrance]
humans’ mimetic participation with fire
infinitely complex affinities
to be noted the nuanced differences between talking and[...]
(144)[...notes/fire notes.txt]%40.3[...]g --- the hunt becomes monstrous. i am calling for an old sacred hunt [sustained in myth and ceremony?] of concepts?
-hunt is gestalt(en)
(with our) hopes and tropes
boundary creatures and matters -- fire's function/act was peripheral, was in the threshold world of human passages(?) [then it made an entrance]
humans’ mimetic participation with fire
infinitely complex affinities
to be noted the nuanced differences between talking and telling (harf-zadan/goftan)
*talking* can not be accompanied by a direct object (the talked) and *telling* might not be accompanied by a direct subject (you are told without a direct teller.) so talking is about the talker and telling is about the told, the ear.
(you *ask fire questions, but you *listen to stone what it is telling. [what fire suggesting, offering to the sense? (i am thinking Ajayeb)] with fire you can debate but this debate is bulshit since you are under its spectacularity and authority, superior to the (inflammable) world, became the domminent contemplated object, administrating conditions of existence, you can never touch the fire, you can never become ‘bodies’ with fire, it is immune from human activity, endusing one-way communication (auto-governed gusture of comminution), garanteeing an abstract condition of hierarchical power. but stone ‘is’ for touching and bodying, sensuous touch is the matter of stone, intimacy*, sensuous intimacy with the stone, sensuous proximity)
---(rock in water : reef)
-transcontextual; transcontextuality = tanglement {figures running in opposit directions but held together}
nature is a context
*past is a context
*the landscape is full of ghosts (whether we want it or not)
mediated forms
Some examples of exothermic processes:
-spontaneous combustion (~= fire)
-Nuclear fusion (~= sun)
-(in this writing, i am going to take a defenition of fire recovering it from bible, that of the spectacle flame that of the material of specter in the Qur'anic Jinn, and not other forms of exothermic processes)
the issue is reversibility
(“evolution” inevitable? Irreversible?)
[title]
•A Materialist Inquiry into the Beyond
•A Mineral Inquiry into the Beyond
•Genealogy of a Worship: Talking-Fire and Telling-Stone
•Talking-Fire and Telling-Stone - Genealogy of a Worship
•Ajayeb-e Atash
•Fire and the Transcendental Subject
•Zolmat and the Appropriation of the Elsewhere
•Fire and Different Internals of Being
•Black-Box and other Human Extensions
genealogy of a worship (fire)
how can one pray ‘to’ animals? (~ prey upon them)
how can one pray ‘to’ elements?
amenity (of stone) (=/= enmity of fire)
[...]
(145)[...notes/fire notes.txt]%40.4[...]ent, interpret it, and absorb your movement: the movement is semiotic, because it generates/proposes/sustains/initiates causality--not in the sense that your movement has consequence, but it that it risks semiotically in the eyes of the beholder a causation ‘of’ movement prior to the mover.
tabiate atash shabihe jan ast (nature of fire is like essence of life)
(for ancient iranians) fire became thus Qibla
fire: atashe mahsus (sensable fire,) khalife anvare maghul (deputy of intellectual illuminations)
(not stewardship?)
(Empedocles) “only with fire fire can be seen.”
...................................
(what complicates?) the itinerary of claims we make about the world and its contractions
the expansive fields of immanence and trancendence we can read in fire fossil
our contract with Allah
with fire we are at a testing site, at least of the the God of the Old Testament who showed a will to perpetual pursuit, perpetual rupture, fire is a testing device for subsidiary admission policy. this function or figure is precisly that which permeats modern existance
...drafts that describe an outer domain of signification
contaminative and communicative
...................................
in talking about our agreements with fire, i like to read how our rapport to the beyond has mutated (--undergone considerable mutations--) by means of our adherence to the imperatives of... trial by fire(?), test of the beyond. ==> our relation to (explanatory and descriptive) language, truth, process, and identity. (---> go to Ferdosi's poetic site)
what kind of grid the fire produces?
beyond cannot be tested, it tests you***
testability? we want everyone and everything tested
after testing the fire...
monitor time according to the pulse of German/Iranian Idealism/Metaphorism,
[God] singular infinity (~= beyondness) --> [death of God] unlimited finiteness
the temporality we associate with informtion technology is originated with fire
what ciruits are installed by this?
how the mediality of talking fire designs an actual real materially enabled?
what reality has stood its ground since Siyavash trial?
what form of trial discovers, exposes, establishes, or perhaps even invents the ground (on which Sudabeh has no standing)?
how my threading between black-box, darkness, and beyond helps us to spot those figures that makes claims of absoluteness?
(energizing the creative imagination in Iranian Islamicate phiosophy?)
interpretation <--?--> experience
fire-tech conscience translated and sublimated into a scientific conscience?
-transvaluation
...................................
[[...]
(146)[...notes/fire notes.txt]%41[...]nce was invented* ==> no cult developed
they are gloomy, their shadow dark,
no light is in their bodies,
ever they slink along covertly,
walk not upright,
from their claws drips bitter gall,
their footprints are (full of) evil venom.
(from [more primitive?]) dread --to--> fascination
the shivers and chills (of death)
that fritter the sun of things,
spawn of the god of heavens,
spawned on an evil spirit,
the death warrants, beloved sons of the storm god,
born of the queen of the netherworld,
who were torn out of heaven and hurled from the earth as castoffs,
are creatures of hell, all
we are not determined, we are engendered
numinous as immanent --> external habituation: inviting (or magically enforcing) the presence of the power within
efforts of such habituation:
•cult dramatic
•fashioning or appropriate divine images
•religious literature
•temples
*cult drama: the form fills with its content*
literally re-present god, presenting his external form, (bring about the god's presence through ritual representation of him) --> beneficent results for the community [--> still works today]
•sacred marriage
•yearly lamentations
•battle drama (primeval contest for world order against the forces of chaos)
fashioning of images (of the god) --> to achive lasting presence
poetry: means of invoking the presence of powers [--> we are doing this still?! bad poetry]
creative power of the word underlines all mesopotamian (religious) literature
•works of praise
•works of lament (specialized lamentation-priest @Sana, Ali )
*lament: influencing and swaying the divine heart by reminding the god of past happiness, rather than by magically recreating that past*
(mesopotamian:) *temple = house*
(implication between) the divine owner and his house --> emotional closeness of a human owner and his home + the *closeness of essence* (of being) --amounting--> to embodiment =/= habituation
--> house = temple = representation of the power that is meant to fill it
(similar to human dwelling) ***house = temple = the place where the owner could be found (or felt)***
--> that god (the owner) was present and available
the god's retainers --> because the temple was god's home, was not only near and approachable, he was involved with the fortunes of the community and commited ti maintaining it --> *mesopotamian temple was profoundly awesome* (it carried awesome aura, awesome or angry nimbus هاله)
-the temple was covered with loveliness
-the god's private apartment shrouded in darkness : the dark room (no eye is to see)
--> specific closeness of essence + the power inhabiting it
[...]
(147)[...notes/fire notes.txt]%42[...]>
•sacred marriage
•yearly lamentations
•battle drama (primeval contest for world order against the forces of chaos)
fashioning of images (of the god) --> to achive lasting presence
poetry: means of invoking the presence of powers [--> we are doing this still?! bad poetry]
creative power of the word underlines all mesopotamian (religious) literature
•works of praise
•works of lament (specialized lamentation-priest @Sana, Ali )
*lament: influencing and swaying the divine heart by reminding the god of past happiness, rather than by magically recreating that past*
(mesopotamian:) *temple = house*
(implication between) the divine owner and his house --> emotional closeness of a human owner and his home + the *closeness of essence* (of being) --amounting--> to embodiment =/= habituation
--> house = temple = representation of the power that is meant to fill it
(similar to human dwelling) ***house = temple = the place where the owner could be found (or felt)***
--> that god (the owner) was present and available
the god's retainers --> because the temple was god's home, was not only near and approachable, he was involved with the fortunes of the community and commited ti maintaining it --> *mesopotamian temple was profoundly awesome* (it carried awesome aura, awesome or angry nimbus هاله)
-the temple was covered with loveliness
-the god's private apartment shrouded in darkness : the dark room (no eye is to see)
--> specific closeness of essence + the power inhabiting it
authoritative revelation
know what was “the proper thing”
house mountain
house rising sun
house causing light
he who issues forth from the thriving...
ancient =? ancient to us ~=? ancient to them
there is no living cultural tradition that connects us with mesopotamia
immediate unanalyzed total reactions (?)
false meanings jar, stop, and lead no further
older elements (seemingly unchanged) come to mean something quite different, have been interpreted to fit into a new system of meanings
religious metaphors:
•spiritual core in phenomena
•rulers
•parents
[and then later] dark age closed down on mesopotamia
many divine wills to the willful whim of a single despot
*major gods became natural gods* (identified with narrow national political aspirations)
--> barbarization of the idea of divinity
...................................
(how to take seriously) water's materiality --> how to think with water (or *how water means*):
•water can bring human conceptual life along with it from local to global concerns
•[can help us to] go beyond qualities that express some timel[...]
(148)[...notes/fire notes.txt]%42.1[...]ion =? appropriation of other's existential labor (~/= culture)
Alberti's pot: instantiations of a concept of a world that is chronically unstable
(cranial modification, tattooing, treatment of the dead --manage-->) the inherent instability of bodies
•one's perspective is intimately connected to the body one is
}<-- did Alberti say all these things from the pots? no.
in Ingold: the indigenous people are presented as having some kind of privileged access to the workings of the world due to their close relationship to the land
ethics of theory
accounts of non-western
in our reconstruction of the past
usage glossed as a heuristic: an interpretive tool
Alberti --> claims to universality in our theories of matter rely on falsification through assimilation other people's theories of matter
==renforce==> (archeology) academy as an alibi for neocolonialism
(we should stop) searching for the answer to our relationship with the physical world [ontology of everything <-- this is my problem with philosophy] =/= ***accept a role as the point of articulation among sources of theories of matter, tangible evidence of alternative ontologies, communities past and present***
problems:
•*the elision of ontological claims by epistemological claims* : necessity of a singular ontology (as a guarantor in theories) even while a diversity of epistemologies are recognized and accepted (and when we pluralize “ontologies”)
•to use ethnographic accounts at the level of analogy (<-- i do this all the time)
•privileging of others (of their accounts of the world) for example in Ingold =/= attempting to *gain purchase on other people's world* for example Viveiros de Castro's concern is ontological (dialogical) =/= epistemological (monological)
*epistemologies masquerading as ontologies*(?)
•pluralizing the terms [ontologies, knowledges, epistemologies, etc.] --> (sending out the message that) we are good relativists --✕-->? actually allowing alternative theories of reality
([i have talked about this problem elsewhere -->] ontologies are relegated into) hierarchical epistemologies:
•anthropology --> they look at cultures --access--> ontology (nature of things) [==> “culture = ontology"]
•native ontology --> they look at matter: indifferent unchanging universal substance --produce--> epistemology [disguised as ontology] (worldview, perspectives)
}==> **our incommensurability is understood only at the level of epistemological difference**
-when i was iran, we were interested in the western ontologies, their universal theories of matter. people didn't recognize western philosophy as a cultural perspective or different epistemology, but as ontology. this is relation unfortunately is not reciprocal ---> go to Star[...]
(149)[...notes/fire notes.txt]%42.7[...]ctory predicates
•*how uncertainty can enact an exchange of perspectives* (through which the identities of the group and the chief are produced)
(from a gift-theory perspective) chief: donator of goods and words, and a receiver of spouses <-- unilateral direction ==> “chieftaincy کدخدايى: a place of nonexchange” [~ signs are deprived of their circulation value + reciprocity is denied under the demand that society make visible the foundations of power, maintaining them under the control of the collective body] --> ‘creditor position of chief’ would imprison power and assume control of the place where it could emerge =/= society of the state
ritual polity
public rituals are the main motor of collective life / @apass
chieftaincy <--> ritual
ritual condensation: the simultaneous enactment of nominally contrary modes of relationship:
•affirmations of identity are at the same time testimonies of difference
•displays of authority are also demonstrations of subordination
•the presence of persons or other beings is at once corroborated and denied
•secrets are simultaneously dissimulated and revealed
•
==> combination of contradictions ==> distinctive context of communication
ritual efficacy of images and objects
ritual relation to mnemonic technologies
relations between images and words
--Severi--> concept of chimera helps (an indigenous mode?) in understanding power and dealing with it
(Severi and Lagrou + Guerreiro)
[*]chimera: every image that, by designating a plural being by means of a single representation, mobilizes its invisible parts, by purely optical means or by a set of inferences
-chimerical image associates, in a single visual form, indexes from different beings (a bird and a human being, a serpent and a jaguar, a wolf and a sea lion etc.), provoking a projection by the eye, which gives rise to an image implying at the same time the presence of these different beings
-evokes something that is implicit or absent to the observer
-chimerical images present a specific link between iconic representation (by imitation and convention) and indexical indication (visual, tactile or other) of a presence whose mode of existence, especially mental, is not realized materially
--> game between:
•perception & projection
•iconic representation & indexical indication
==> intensification (of the efficacy of chimeric images) : “capture the eye = capture the imagination” + demand that by projection [the observer] mentally “complete” the image
indexical signs have a causal contiguity (spatiotemporal contiguity) with what they signify
ritual action and artistic creation --Severi--> synesthetic
(my lecture-performances? ~ chimeric image of chiefs’ talk [khotbe خطبه fluent at combining diff[...]
(150)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44[...]t beings (a bird and a human being, a serpent and a jaguar, a wolf and a sea lion etc.), provoking a projection by the eye, which gives rise to an image implying at the same time the presence of these different beings
-evokes something that is implicit or absent to the observer
-chimerical images present a specific link between iconic representation (by imitation and convention) and indexical indication (visual, tactile or other) of a presence whose mode of existence, especially mental, is not realized materially
--> game between:
•perception & projection
•iconic representation & indexical indication
==> intensification (of the efficacy of chimeric images) : “capture the eye = capture the imagination” + demand that by projection [the observer] mentally “complete” the image
indexical signs have a causal contiguity (spatiotemporal contiguity) with what they signify
ritual action and artistic creation --Severi--> synesthetic
(my lecture-performances? ~ chimeric image of chiefs’ talk [khotbe خطبه fluent at combining different aesthetic resources] -->) linguistic + extralinguistic media in ritual performance (working/producing visual + mental images)
--> combining of indexical signs in communication acts ==> poetry of identities-in-motion (capable of projecting complex images of a nonvisual kind)
[*]image: an abstract portrait of identity fashioned out of cumulating patterns of congruence across all manner of indexical signs--including visual ones--that addressees and audiences can imaginatively experience, like a hologram
(Silverstein > Guerreiro)
~~--> ***relation between poetics and the production of identities***
chimerical representation: an art of ambiguity
(Strauss's Amazonian ethnology -->) dualism in perpetual disequilibrium: centripetal forces of centralization + centrifugal forces of dispersion
@apass ==> “societies against the state”
complex relations between hierarchy and counterhierarchy
(--> Renan's notion of monologue)
[Clastres's model rooted in Western language ideology looking at Amerindian language:]
metahistorical bond between *power & speech* cannot be conceived of separately
•state societies --> the word is a ‘right’ to power (that may be used to command)
•societies against the state --> the word is a ‘duty’ of the chief (an indigenous leader must be capable of offering society the words that it ‘demands’)
◾Amerindian chief: a voice preaching in the wilderness (literally says nothing, a repetition of “edifying discourse”) <-- his speech is not spoken in order to be listened to (~ ritualized act [=/= act of communication]) ==> chief's speech is transformed into pure value (~= poet's speech for whom words are values before they are signs) --> (for Clastres) language =/= violence: a facet of coercive [...]
(151)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44.1[...]gruence across all manner of indexical signs--including visual ones--that addressees and audiences can imaginatively experience, like a hologram
(Silverstein > Guerreiro)
~~--> ***relation between poetics and the production of identities***
chimerical representation: an art of ambiguity
(Strauss's Amazonian ethnology -->) dualism in perpetual disequilibrium: centripetal forces of centralization + centrifugal forces of dispersion
@apass ==> “societies against the state”
complex relations between hierarchy and counterhierarchy
(--> Renan's notion of monologue)
[Clastres's model rooted in Western language ideology looking at Amerindian language:]
metahistorical bond between *power & speech* cannot be conceived of separately
•state societies --> the word is a ‘right’ to power (that may be used to command)
•societies against the state --> the word is a ‘duty’ of the chief (an indigenous leader must be capable of offering society the words that it ‘demands’)
◾Amerindian chief: a voice preaching in the wilderness (literally says nothing, a repetition of “edifying discourse”) <-- his speech is not spoken in order to be listened to (~ ritualized act [=/= act of communication]) ==> chief's speech is transformed into pure value (~= poet's speech for whom words are values before they are signs) --> (for Clastres) language =/= violence: a facet of coercive power
denotative قوه تفکيک ()
predicative (Dickensian aspect)
referential (the efficacy of its context and meaning depends on something else)
enunciation (pragmatic) ==> effects on the enunciator + audience ~~Silverstein--> [*]politics: the dynamic arrangement and rearrangement of people as subjects within structures of actual and potential action of all sort --comprises--> poetics <== everything experienced as effective practice is formed semiotically (~ through sign)
*political oratory [=/= informing the content of a message] uses poetical resources that allow interlocutors to have their identities mutually constructed by means of indexical signs* (that connect the message's form to extralinguistic contextual facts) --> *message ascribes to me [=/= message describes my reality]*
Ali's use of political oratory in the context of ordinary interactions with me --> i forgot that the symbolic procedures that separate ritual speech from ordinary interactions are not necessarily intended to mean something
-what was the pragmatic conditions that define the kind of ‘language game’ Ali was playing?
[*]formalization: reduction of combinatory and creative possibilities of language by the use of formulas, archaic vocabulary, syntactic and stylistic patterns {--> distancing the
discourse from its semantic content ==> attention to its context and performance ==> effects}
ritual action --Sever[...]
(152)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44.1[...]nd rearrangement of people as subjects within structures of actual and potential action of all sort --comprises--> poetics <== everything experienced as effective practice is formed semiotically (~ through sign)
*political oratory [=/= informing the content of a message] uses poetical resources that allow interlocutors to have their identities mutually constructed by means of indexical signs* (that connect the message's form to extralinguistic contextual facts) --> *message ascribes to me [=/= message describes my reality]*
Ali's use of political oratory in the context of ordinary interactions with me --> i forgot that the symbolic procedures that separate ritual speech from ordinary interactions are not necessarily intended to mean something
-what was the pragmatic conditions that define the kind of ‘language game’ Ali was playing?
[*]formalization: reduction of combinatory and creative possibilities of language by the use of formulas, archaic vocabulary, syntactic and stylistic patterns {--> distancing the
discourse from its semantic content ==> attention to its context and performance ==> effects}
ritual action --Severi--> reflexivity: definition of its own meaning and effectiveness within the context of ritual communication
(@apass's) performative and poetic structure
[Guerreiro -->] chief = consanguine kin ابى & potentially dangerous enemy [---> go to transference]
(chief's fellows's both as children & prey)
ritual speech ==> ***complex enunciator*** [~= #feedback]
ambiguity of duality of gestural and verbal [==> exchange of perspectives (=/= exchange of words)] --?--> paradoxical construction of identities
+
chimerical representation --> presence of counterparts (of percepted fragmentary signs) to its audience
beautiful and strong body
serene and generous behavior
linguistic abilities (“made to discourse”)
(we are living with) mythical, aesthetic, and ritual elaboration
guiding them with “good speech”
pleasing them by sponsoring rituals
welcome messengers (“made in order to greet messengers”)
relational and possessive
(possessed form of) asymmetrical relationship between a denominated (individualized) person and an undifferentiated collective
agglutinate
enunciated in the same tone with no pauses to breath
+
expletive ah
+
set of particles
+
deictic ige (evidential [devaluating?] particle that indicates proximity, presence, or existence, fixed to the copula --> piece of advice?)
expletive and particles with no lexical element --> self-derogatory forms of speech (the “humbling effect”)
it's common for men to emit long high-pitched and melodic screams as soon as they wake up ==> to wake the whole village up with joy
<[...]
(153)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44.2[...]ormances of] words hold within them the positive moral and creative element of power; and contain meaningfulness, value, artistry and affective mass (--> carrying the weight of an order without appearing as such) =/= authoritarian discourse
@Inga
--> ***a brief moment, a world where the difference between chiefs (leader-like speaker, am i like that in my performance lectures?) and nonchiefs (listeners, his children) can be effective***
xxxxxx
...................................
theory (is either): *powerful* (accounting for a limited number of features valid for a great number of cases) {extensionally oriented, for example comparative or statistical analysis} =/= *expressive* (accounting for a great number of features belonging to a limited number of cases) {intentionally oriented, for example clinical case studies}
extensional --> generalizing
‘ethnography ==> reduction of complexity’ =/= complexity is precisely what characterizes ethnography
counterintuitive ==give==> representation its psychological salience
the experience of dreaming is full of counterintuitive representations (rapidly forgotten)
counterintuitive context of ritual communication --> successful propagation of a representation (memorable)
for example recitation of shamanistic chants --construct--> an acoustic mask =/= convey meaningful message
for religion (and marketing?) culturally successful representation : *a counterintuitive representation formulated within counterintuitive conditions of communication*
}--Severi--> we need a more expressive theory of cultural propagation (<-- my try in telegram bestiary text)
doctrinal (semantic memory) and imagistic (episodic memory) religious modes
(how to better be understand the contemporary art's drive to) *ritual communication* --> performed through both action & speech
•the context: establishment of a particular form of interaction (from a series of contradictory connotations, being two things at the same time --> symbolic transformation) ==construct==> a special identity of the participants
--> xxxx جمع گرایانه syncretistic movement @apass (used as an instrument of resistance?)
messianism = intense propagation + paradoxical identification
--> convert entire populations in a short amount of time
pragmatics of communication --> appearance of a paradoxical “I” personified by the prophet
(warrior shaman messiah's) contradictory self-definition ==able==> enunciate paradoxical statements
--Severi--> to be faithful to the local tradition
Appache --> opposition to Christianity take the firm of conceptualizing Christianity as a different religion
•absorbing but not understanding the elements (of Christian religion[...]
(154)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44.4[...]
counterintuitive context of ritual communication --> successful propagation of a representation (memorable)
for example recitation of shamanistic chants --construct--> an acoustic mask =/= convey meaningful message
for religion (and marketing?) culturally successful representation : *a counterintuitive representation formulated within counterintuitive conditions of communication*
}--Severi--> we need a more expressive theory of cultural propagation (<-- my try in telegram bestiary text)
doctrinal (semantic memory) and imagistic (episodic memory) religious modes
(how to better be understand the contemporary art's drive to) *ritual communication* --> performed through both action & speech
•the context: establishment of a particular form of interaction (from a series of contradictory connotations, being two things at the same time --> symbolic transformation) ==construct==> a special identity of the participants
--> xxxx جمع گرایانه syncretistic movement @apass (used as an instrument of resistance?)
messianism = intense propagation + paradoxical identification
--> convert entire populations in a short amount of time
pragmatics of communication --> appearance of a paradoxical “I” personified by the prophet
(warrior shaman messiah's) contradictory self-definition ==able==> enunciate paradoxical statements
--Severi--> to be faithful to the local tradition
Appache --> opposition to Christianity take the firm of conceptualizing Christianity as a different religion
•absorbing but not understanding the elements (of Christian religion) ~= being impressed by story {<-- i do this in my artistic work but i don't ask for devotion or trust}
--> using typical imagistic methods, ritual of dance
the old man Arnold
chant (ritual symbolism) -->
•treat illness
•accompany rite of passage
•impart magical powers
-
(amerindian) shamanism --> establishes a metaphorical link, a set of analogies ~= mystical relationships between ritual objects and living being [--> construct its own truthuniverse, supernatural dimension thought of a possible world]
bleeding pearl
parallelism : (a technique of) threading verbal images together
[Severi's early interpretation of] tradition (would need to) preserve the text + instructions to use --by--> verbalizing them (store them in the chant)
Kuna --> description of the position of the speaker (“shaman is now seated there and is saying...”) characterizes the special kind of communication (appropriate for ritual changing)
shaman: novel sort of enunciator (lending his voice to other invisible beings --> plural and contradictory identity)
acoustic mask: a reflexive means to define the[...]
(157)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44.4[...]ate paradoxical statements
--Severi--> to be faithful to the local tradition
Appache --> opposition to Christianity take the firm of conceptualizing Christianity as a different religion
•absorbing but not understanding the elements (of Christian religion) ~= being impressed by story {<-- i do this in my artistic work but i don't ask for devotion or trust}
--> using typical imagistic methods, ritual of dance
the old man Arnold
chant (ritual symbolism) -->
•treat illness
•accompany rite of passage
•impart magical powers
-
(amerindian) shamanism --> establishes a metaphorical link, a set of analogies ~= mystical relationships between ritual objects and living being [--> construct its own truthuniverse, supernatural dimension thought of a possible world]
bleeding pearl
parallelism : (a technique of) threading verbal images together
[Severi's early interpretation of] tradition (would need to) preserve the text + instructions to use --by--> verbalizing them (store them in the chant)
Kuna --> description of the position of the speaker (“shaman is now seated there and is saying...”) characterizes the special kind of communication (appropriate for ritual changing)
shaman: novel sort of enunciator (lending his voice to other invisible beings --> plural and contradictory identity)
acoustic mask: a reflexive means to define the ritual identity of the speaker
reflexive application of parallelism
(@Isabel, how to make community without becoming a cult?)
use snake --> capture the imagination of the followers ==> authority
imagistic (iconic mode, sequence of acid) + doctrinal (discursive mode, text, prayer) = pragmatics context of enunciation ==> messianistic religion
both paradoxical & parallelistic
new ways to be faithful...
...................................
exhibition-making and preventive conservation --> inspection and exposition <-- (different understandings and use of) *touch = curatorial*
professionalisation of curating
short-term education
cultural exchange
@apass feedback: (terrain of) peer engagement --> understanding each other’s practices
education, research, literacy, management, networking, custodianship, audience development
research (overdue) relationship with intelligence --✕--> **research: adventure of charismas**
...to be migratory (in thought, praxis, community)
...subjectivities without a heritage in criticality and art
constraint: a source of self-abundance --Renan--> suffering and risk = opportunities to hybridize with life
curating:
•nutrition and extension
•analysis an[...]
(158)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44.5[...]ther invisible beings --> plural and contradictory identity)
acoustic mask: a reflexive means to define the ritual identity of the speaker
reflexive application of parallelism
(@Isabel, how to make community without becoming a cult?)
use snake --> capture the imagination of the followers ==> authority
imagistic (iconic mode, sequence of acid) + doctrinal (discursive mode, text, prayer) = pragmatics context of enunciation ==> messianistic religion
both paradoxical & parallelistic
new ways to be faithful...
...................................
exhibition-making and preventive conservation --> inspection and exposition <-- (different understandings and use of) *touch = curatorial*
professionalisation of curating
short-term education
cultural exchange
@apass feedback: (terrain of) peer engagement --> understanding each other’s practices
education, research, literacy, management, networking, custodianship, audience development
research (overdue) relationship with intelligence --✕--> **research: adventure of charismas**
...to be migratory (in thought, praxis, community)
...subjectivities without a heritage in criticality and art
constraint: a source of self-abundance --Renan--> suffering and risk = opportunities to hybridize with life
curating:
•nutrition and extension
•analysis and transplantation
•=/= content historicization
•=/= data
extraterritoriality
being collocated in all the whispers of the world
wild pollination
artificial breeding
Renan: Institutional work carried by a freelancer, a private individual or a civil servant can improve the publicness of art. It gives confidence to the work of art in public service. This institutionality creates new tasks in art that can be sustained by other practitioners.
@apass
...................................
publication of the miracle
[the miraculous in exhibitions + self-exhibiting miracles]
Renan's *exhibitionary heritage* of miracles
seeing (risk of sight) --> passionate misunderstanding, confusion, rejection
cultural engineering of anthropology of heritage
exhibitionary heritage: a scaffolding that times, locates, and proliferates all that is exhibitionary (like a shower, or rainfall)
curatorial subjectivity
exhibitionary complex
•describe the problems of an exhibitionary heritage
•find solutions to artistic problems in the description of exhibitionary complexes
(the bad idea of interpreting exhibitionary heritage as an) exhibitionary solution to problems that are represented by the works of art --> corre[...]
(160)[...notes/hayula notes.txt]%44.5[...]n as a female virtue
thinking in yoga posing (thinking, thanking), the thanking pose and the always thinking pose in yoga.
intervention is not always attacking the other-as-stupid, but rather how do you perform your intervention in that sense that is that YOU are stupid before the other
the moment of madness in encountering art, understanding has to go through that madness
i am going to have a smooth transition from my amazon project to my diplom, via animal talk?
--> ‘face’ in performance. (read Haraway, Levinas, Derrida)
face is linked to sensibility and vision in an intimate way. something that resists categorization, containment or comprehension, infinitely foreign. it is not the biological face. it is the idea of infinity within oneself. this idea of infinity which the face encapsulates is for Levinas the key means by which thought is brought into relation with what goes beyond its capacity. and this is crucial in art and specifically in performance art for encountering something such as face, face of the performer or the face of the work. the face is perceived as something that resists possession or utilization. the face promotes a discourse when it invites me. (ranting against sober means of communication). the face to face situation founds language.
presence of the face coming from beyond the world , but committing me to human fraternity (Gemeinschaft) does not overwhelm me as a numinous essence arousing fear and trembling. to be in relationship while absolving oneself from this relation is ‘to speak’. the face always speaks directly and absolutely to me.
many late 20th century horror films feature a masked villain. the act of masking the face is not only metaphorical, but also has the terrifying effect of dehumanizing the villain. in herbert kelman's work on dehumanization, when the perception of a person “as an individual, independent and distinguishable from others, capable of making choices is denied, they no longer elicit compassion or other moral responses. the facelessness of the alien, swarms of ants, or other villains of pop culture.
for face look at facade too.
--> ‘provocation’ in performance. (read Haraway, Levinas)
--> ‘act’ in performance. (read grotowski)
what is to be: ‘completely natural and logical’. dealing with the discomfort of unreasonable presence on the stage. nonrepresentational aspects of performance
--> ‘teaching’ that is not rhetorics where the revelation of the other can take place (Avital, Levinas). teaching is synthesizing for someone else. what kind of communication is teaching involved?
the discourse inherent in the relation with the other is like or as a sermon.
--> ‘eyes’ threatening or seducing eyes of the performer (Rainer)
--> ‘ranting’ of the drunk in the face of the sober. disturbance of a conti[...]
(161)[...notes/notes Personen.txt]%44.7[...]rld , but committing me to human fraternity (Gemeinschaft) does not overwhelm me as a numinous essence arousing fear and trembling. to be in relationship while absolving oneself from this relation is ‘to speak’. the face always speaks directly and absolutely to me.
many late 20th century horror films feature a masked villain. the act of masking the face is not only metaphorical, but also has the terrifying effect of dehumanizing the villain. in herbert kelman's work on dehumanization, when the perception of a person “as an individual, independent and distinguishable from others, capable of making choices is denied, they no longer elicit compassion or other moral responses. the facelessness of the alien, swarms of ants, or other villains of pop culture.
for face look at facade too.
--> ‘provocation’ in performance. (read Haraway, Levinas)
--> ‘act’ in performance. (read grotowski)
what is to be: ‘completely natural and logical’. dealing with the discomfort of unreasonable presence on the stage. nonrepresentational aspects of performance
--> ‘teaching’ that is not rhetorics where the revelation of the other can take place (Avital, Levinas). teaching is synthesizing for someone else. what kind of communication is teaching involved?
the discourse inherent in the relation with the other is like or as a sermon.
--> ‘eyes’ threatening or seducing eyes of the performer (Rainer)
--> ‘ranting’ of the drunk in the face of the sober. disturbance of a continuity with attack with words.
--> ‘saying’, before it conjugates a verbal sign, is already an ethical gesture. saying is therefore already the proximity of one to the other, the commitment of an approach, the one for the other.
one saying enters into the service of the said, that is the thematization of being, purity of its intentions will be inevitably compromised. a saying that must be unsaid. a movement of thought that continues to resist collapsing into a settled expression, freedom from the cage of thematics. this mission (responsibility for the other) can be adequately expressed only through a certain impossible undoing of language. presenting a philosophical other is only possible when we generate a saying saying saying itself.
my performance talk: to situate my subjectivity linguistically (in a nonpresence and a nonplace). (?) (if the stakes are at situating myself, then the question is why?)
saying becomes totally exposed in its approach to the other. in limited social situations it creates risks of embarrassment or rebuttal and perhaps sounding psychotic. something that will strip away all protective layers, whether cultural or literal, from the body (of knowledge). it can also be masochistically painful for the subject. the absolute saying is a trauma, with vulnerability and passivity even is a bodily way, where the ethical being is: one penetr[...]
(162)[...notes/notes Personen.txt]%44.8[...] singing, ...)
on passivity, note for the reader: not to mistake it for endurance in this discourse. here we are talking about a philosophical term, in relation to the “being” and the “other”...
an architecture that tries to be modest, a performance that tries to be intimidating as much
as it can.
just in time shyness
what are the pitfalls and abysses of philosophical reflection on and with shyness?
what am i trying to shortcut?
was Socrates intruding in his punk philosopher, stopping people at back allies and perform philosophy. he doesn't hold back, he intrudes, tattooing the body of the other, questioning.
the problem of his project?
i am not shy in the work that i am trying to present publicly (?)
where am i shy?
posture of position or gesture
the moment you stand in front of the audience you stop being authentic.
when we listen to something very carefully and allow ourselves to be moved we can tune in ti=o the art work and absorb its methods. i have found myself moved when i allowed it, by the most childish and stupid works of arts.
open minded and eager to make connections
(jane jacob,) (1) community is spontaneous, the tissues of community are not something that can be planed, that they happen spontaneously. (2) and this only happens when you are at the local scale. so in this sense, design is suspect, because design is set to be post spontaneity.
find a way to think locally, and thinking about the city as a product of spontaneous interaction between people who are different. but the design can also make something that has a social character.
we perform an experiment to prove or disprove a hypothesis, we are working within a framework of a closed system, the original proposition governs our procedures and observations, at arriving at yes or no. but when performing the experiment we come across something unforeseen, or prompted by evidence to jump tracks and think about a different issue. then we are working within the framework of an open system. we move beyond yes or no to exploring something emergent, something whose elements was there but whose form was unknown to us. a fancy and careful way of saying “something new”, because it is new to our understanding.
William Empson
art results from overcrowding(?)
when one is responsive rather than assertive one can't imagine where one will end Up: thinking. this responsiveness is different than the state of being active or passive. a passivity that motivates and mobilizes the subject into places that are yet unknown to her/him.
Thinking, as Heidegger says, may be much the same as wandering. my lectures are like wandering.
someone who studies paradoxes, poetry and philosophy
(keeping what you know away from society, history and away from art[...]
(163)[...notes/notes Personen.txt]%45.3[...] is important for understanding how moral authority is introduced and sustained if we accept not just that we address others when we speak, but that in some way we come to exist, as it were, in the moment of being addressed, and something about our existence proves precarious when that address fails.
...the demand that comes from elsewhere, sometimes a nameless elsewhere,...
We think of presidents as wielding speech acts in willful ways, so when the director of a university press, or the president of a university speaks, we expect to know what they are saying, and to whom they are speaking, and with what intent.
...perhaps we should think more seriously about the relation between modes of address and moral authority. (also one of the issues in today's performance art)
narration is always judgment
affective intervention
why should i listen to you?
because i have a voice!
>
visual culture has different strand from lecture culture. people are able to express themselves with verbal signs long before they can draw anything, using visual sign (picture: a drawing by Hanno). verbal language because of its easy everyday usage has become mundane and instrumental to communication, visual sign due to its learning curve and skillfulness belonged to the art domain.
...................................
transitive verb constructions are the ones that require a direct object in order to complete the meaning and to be grammatical. Used in theater, between director and actor, by communicating with transitive verbs actors can perform the language of the director.
my work embodies and communicates a desire to read (and write) texts
[steiner]
in Greek mythology the poet and the seer are blind so that they may, by the antennae of speech, see further.
One thing is clear: every language-act has a temporal determinant. No semantic form is timeless. When using a word we wake into resonance, as it were, its entire previous history. A text is embedded in specific historical time; it has what linguists call a diachronic structure. To read fully is to restore all that one can of the immediacies of value and intent in which speech actually occurs.
The process of diachronic translation inside one’s own native tongue is so constant, we perform it so unawares, that we rarely pause either to note its formal intricacy or the decisive part it plays in the very existence of civilization. By far the greatest mass of the past as we experience it is a verbal construct. History is a speech-act, a selective use of the past tense. Even substantive remains such as buildings and historical sites must be ‘read,’ i.e. located in a context of verbal recognition and placement, before they assume real presence.
...................................
(notes - [...]
(165)[...notes/notes Personen.txt]%45.6[...]
caring: becoming subject to the unsettling obligation of curiosity, which requires knowing more at the end of the day than at the beginning
//////////////
Nietzsche also said, at the very beginning of the second treatise of The Genealogy of Morals, that man is a promising animal, by which he meant, underlining those words, an animal that is permitted to make promises (das versprechen darf). Nature is said to have given itself the task of raising, bringing up, domesticating and “disciplining” (heranziichten) this animal that promises.
Microlandscapes:
the talk, also works the notion of mirror stage and what does it mean for us and for the companien species that are entangled. what threads of meaning are taken apart by pulling on the thread of self reflection and self vision, what will gets account as nature for whom and when. the animal that is in charge of her own image is the representation of the universala man.
Appearance of eukaryotic cells around 2 billion years ago is probably the most significant event in the history of life on earth. It gave the creatures with DNA two important things: a nucleus that contained all the genetic materials and an interface to communicate with the world outside of the cell--a complex membrane--to talk with the materials alien to itself. Interface is a critical point of intersection between different life worlds, fields, or levels of organization. They are the areas in which social friction can be experienced and where diffusion of new technology is leading to structural discontinuities (which can be either positive or negative), the interface is where they will occur. The argent issue of interfaces in social interaction and flow between human animal, nonhumans, and computers is today becoming a zone of transition of ephemeral technologies, physical contact, socio-political boundaries, and metaphor-representation.
Since antiquity, representation has been the foundational concept of aesthetics and semiotics. In the modern era, it has also become a crucial concept in political theory. In a discussion of law and ethnography, Clifford Geertz calls into question the Western distinction between matters of fact and matters of value. “Facts and law we have perhaps everywhere; their polarization we perhaps have not.” Geertz's hermeneutic approach leads him to focus on the relation between the grounding of norms and the representation of fact. Therefore, he concludes, representation is a distinctive manner of imagining the real, and is a fundamental phenomenon upon which all culture rests.
The performance-talk is divided into three tangled narratives, one the social mode of traveling that includes the child--the opposite of the lonely masculine traveler--based on the real experience and a personal story in a trip to Amazon in Colombia with Karin Demuth and her three years old boy--Hanno--, second [...]
(168)[...otes on kinect performance.txt]%46[...] the Western distinction between matters of fact and matters of value. “Facts and law we have perhaps everywhere; their polarization we perhaps have not.” Geertz's hermeneutic approach leads him to focus on the relation between the grounding of norms and the representation of fact. Therefore, he concludes, representation is a distinctive manner of imagining the real, and is a fundamental phenomenon upon which all culture rests.
The performance-talk is divided into three tangled narratives, one the social mode of traveling that includes the child--the opposite of the lonely masculine traveler--based on the real experience and a personal story in a trip to Amazon in Colombia with Karin Demuth and her three years old boy--Hanno--, second a multi-headed reading of technologies of interfacing within computer culture and the worlds of other species, the meaning of inter-facing with the other, and third a visual representation of the highly technical images recorded by Kinect infrared 3D-scanner/motion-detector. The result of the visualization is a heavily glitchy image, which aims in the performance to link the spatial practice to the perceived and the representational spaces to the lived. Affirming the “unnaturalness” of the image makes it a transposition of universal means of communication--the language--that would like to provide a direct, unmediated, and accurate representation of the jungle.
The performance is an engagement with the notion of companion species elaborated by Donna Haraway, in an experience of walking in a tropical jungle with a computer in one hand and in the other hand the hand of the human child. The work deals with questions of the other-space that is mentally filled with projections and projects. The recording of the walking in the rain forest --as spatial and sensual experience-- is thus dematerialized and has acquired a digital character. The dense and hot environment of the Amazon is replaced by an abstract graphic structure, thus bringing a new understanding of the locality of the walk. The noise and the randomness of the technical coloring the surface of the jungle provoke an aesthetic fascination, and an appropriation of the imposible image of the forest.
Traveling to the Amazon to experience its radical Otherness is a European tradition. It unintentional affirms the ideology of a “state of nature” that is prior to culture.
Lacan: i am led to regard the function of the mirror stage as a particular case of the function of the imago, which is to establish a relation between the organism and its reality - or, as they say, between the Innenwelt and the Umwelt.
This developement is experienced as temporal dialectic that decisively projects the function of the individual into history. the mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation - and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of sp[...]
(169)[...otes on kinect performance.txt]%46.1[...]tion to rationality as the basis of judgement when we talk about speculation
--> we need to be more informed by (sciences) when we stretch relations to our rational outposts, without ignoring their appeals
...................................
posthumanism --> any discursive or bodily configuration that displaces the human, humanism, humanities --> (21st century) technology is the center of critical thought about culture and about nature
[*]posthumanism: a structure of feeling (sense of an era starts to be experienced in the social imagination --> social forms become more recognisable when we had some time to classify them, articulate them, theorize them)
(Williams > Campbell) structure of feeling
we can point to times in the past and say that as an X sensibility (they were romantics, enlightenment, postmodernism) =/= sensing here and now --> practical consciousness, a period at an embryonic stage, at the very edge of *semantic availability*
what structure of feeling is forming in the contemporary western world? --> posthumanism
(postbiological, postcorporal, cyborg existence, etc.)
to be human <--attack-- genomics, global finance, nature of social in virtual communities (telegram) ==> yet-to-be formalized paradigms of human experience
==> fracture the concept of legal self [legal theory (arbiter of human rights) --> concerned with what is to be human]
(taxonomies of the human species at its time -->) humanitas: legal term used in public in ancient Rome to distinguish Romans and Greeks from Barbarians
humans in persistent vegetative states
international trade of human organs
human genome project
xenotransplantation
technological unconscious
(tree of life replaced by) a model that:
•classifies species according to DNA
•disregards morphological type (how elements of body appear)
•reveals human to be a tiny subspecies in a mass of absolute diversity
classical philosophy --> scientized for a momden audience (by Descartes 17th century) --> special status of human <-- seen as a totally transparent, secular, scientific, liberal way of thinking about the world
humanism = a belief in progress (implicitly conceived as a technological instrumental profit-oriented) + technological masery over nature + ‘human =/= animal’ + therapeutic approach to scientific inquiry }<-- a 19th century anachronism --> deeply ingrained in contemporary self-consciousness and everyday common sense
human: hero of liberty <-- french in origin, political in purpose
August Comte --> the universe can only e understood when the scientific exploration of phenomena was separated from supernatural superstition =/= ajayeb
Campbell making the case --> humanism[...]
(170)[...otes on kinect performance.txt]%46.6[...] />
--paradox--> *it is “human nature” to use technology + technology changes “human nature”*
--Campbell--> ***while not everything is technical, everything is technological***
*posthuman stance (strategically oriented towards deep future, pays attention to the lives of nonhuman others) gets ontological with technology*
...................................
McQuire
defining the technological --activate--> the border between nature & culture = (the heart of) what it means to be human
...................................
[title]
system attic
...................................
(in my work with apass digital designs, i have been trying to negotiate with the notion of)
*technological gaze*
what new modes of subjectivity are filtered through technological gaze?
(?how) high-tech images are cultural artifacts
technological gaze's method to put its meaning together:
1. impossible subject-positioning
2. codification of flesh
3. visualization of scientific narrative
4. aestheticization of information
(Maturana + Varela) everything said is said by an observer =/= philosopher
marketing communication theory
[*]gaze: (a technical term for) the ways we visually consume images of people and places + the ways images are constructed to entertain & encourage certain ways of seeing
•(using psychoanalysis) Mulvey's gaze: the way in which the camera acts as the eyes and ears of the spectator, presenting ways of framing the world (power-laden + not neutral position) ==> certain understanding of the world is assumed
•Shroeder --> gaze signifies a psychological relationship of power --> the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze [---> go to zoo]
how “human” ways of experiencing the world are gradually being integrated with non-human, technological ways of perceiving and understanding reality:
•Baudrillard --> virtual gaze
•Virilio --> automation of perception (war weaponry --> the idea that in west we have technologies so advanced we achieve absolute vision)
•Balsamo --> cosmetic surgery (~= new visualization technologies) ==> new forms of dominance [---> go to Kardashians TV shows], *replacing the male gaze with a normative disembodied technical gaze
•Haraway --> technocratic gaze
•Strafford --> (starting in enlightenment) *automated spectralization* (in visual presentation of the world) --> the intention and purpose of the gaze became medicalized and technologized [---> go to cartography]
•
}--> (from technoscience to feminism) theorists have noticed a *splicing* of direct and tactile human perception of reality with another reality, one that is mediated and technical ==produce==> a new reality that negotiates the individual's knowledge of the universe [...]
(171)[...otes on kinect performance.txt]%47[...] with non-human, technological ways of perceiving and understanding reality:
•Baudrillard --> virtual gaze
•Virilio --> automation of perception (war weaponry --> the idea that in west we have technologies so advanced we achieve absolute vision)
•Balsamo --> cosmetic surgery (~= new visualization technologies) ==> new forms of dominance [---> go to Kardashians TV shows], *replacing the male gaze with a normative disembodied technical gaze
•Haraway --> technocratic gaze
•Strafford --> (starting in enlightenment) *automated spectralization* (in visual presentation of the world) --> the intention and purpose of the gaze became medicalized and technologized [---> go to cartography]
•
}--> (from technoscience to feminism) theorists have noticed a *splicing* of direct and tactile human perception of reality with another reality, one that is mediated and technical ==produce==> a new reality that negotiates the individual's knowledge of the universe in diverse and complex ways (<-- not catastrophic =/= Hörl)
(time of) intellectual and artist upheaval ==> new and surprising modes of imagining the human
1950s concept of cybernetics constituted a fundamental change in thinking about control, communication, information, life itself (+ new language of feedback, autopoiesis, cellular automata, neural net)
1990s
computers + information --> cybernetic theory: (stressed that) information patterns are more important in understanding organisms than materiality
*cybernetic view of the world --> information coded in pattern & randomness =/= material absence & presence*
•(both) human and technological = informational entities
•human = cyborg: (human conceived as) cybernetic organism
[?how] discourses (narratives + metaphors + symbols) of science and technology --Campbell--> use in advertisement to create meaning
**technological imagination --seize--> social imagination**
always reinforcing the *awesome power of technology to capture reality* (objectively + without any agenda)
•movie Fantastic Voyage 1966 <--Dijck-- fascination with envisioning the body from a different perspective
•status of foetus (float in black and white) <--Haraway-- meanings whose legitimacy comes from technological systems of perception
•[computer-generated images =/=?] camera-generated images <--Cartwright-- (paradox of) camera's role in capturing the real + camera's capacity to evoke emotion and present a sense of the unattainable ~= (to appear to be at once) both *magical* & *truthful* ==introduce==> new subjectivities into marketplace
mediation of visual phenomena through the eye of technology ~=> new sets of truths (about the body, environment, etc.) --often--> a **disembodied technological gaze looks at the body**
advertisement becomes more highly finished[...]
(172)[...otes on kinect performance.txt]%47.1[...] phrase “body image” for the internal image and memory of one's body in space and time. The body image is not only a picture of the body but also an anticipatory plan for the detailed movements of the body, and rather than a fixed structure, it is dynamic and plastic, capable of reorganizing itself radically with the contingencies of experience.
The body image can also incorporate external object, implements, and instruments. When they are being used, they can become intimate, vital, even libidinally cathected parts of the body image.
(Don Ihde:) “To embody one's praxis through technologies is ultimately an existential relation with the world.” (Technology and Lifeworld, p.72)
Embodied relations such as the experience of “seeing through” glasses (or the use of hearing aids, blind man's cane, or driving a car) take the technology into the perceptual-bodily self-experience. The mediating technology becomes part of the body image, and achieves “instrumental transparency”
...................................
(Giuliana Bruno)
This tangible, superficial contact, in fact, is what allows us to apprehend the objects and the spaces of art, turning contact into the communicative interface of a public intimacy. (but not in the Amazonian skin contact) (it is different than Lucretius reflecting upon the nature of things)
(materiality of) cultural surfaces
As a form of dwelling that engages mediation between subjects and with objects, the surface also can be viewed as a site for screening and projection.
The surfaces of the screens that surround us today express a new materiality as they convey the virtual transformation of our material relations. And these screens, which have become membranes of contact, exist in our environments in close relation to the surfaces of canvas and walls—also undergoing a process of substantial transformation. And so it is here—in this meeting place that is surface—that art forms are becoming reconnected and creating new, hybrid forms of admixture.
who shares (deep) engagements with superficial matters?
layered space of interaction between subject and object
surface can be read as an architecture
from mediated encounters with material space to mobilization of cultural space (the exhibition)
memory, imagination, and affect are linked to movement -- embodied in jungle walk?
modernity's desire and fancy for tactile experience, driving and impulse to expand one's universe and eventually to project it, to exhibit personal passionate voyage of imagination -- effects of a spectatorial movement that is evolving further in Selfie. that is the emergence of such sequential virtues motion capturing that comes to inhibit the train of thought = interconnection in the sequ[...]
(173)[...notes/notes.txt]%47.6[...]storically, ecologically, evolutionary, technologically,) more part and parcel of the visuality of the anthropocene
the neuro-aesthetic eye
to “read” environment in terms of info pick-up and accommodation
to simply perceive as we do
but to parlay (double up) our perceptual system into a modality of processing, response, and responsiveness
(the aesthetics of) the visual brain is the contact (not contract) between the individual and the ecosystem
modulation of ethos in landscape?
Kinect is not bringing a knowledge that is neurobiologically imperceptible to the naked eye nor is it technologically making a worldview accessible.
“it is low tech”, its images are born of partial recognition, attunement, and attention
low-tech works may be critical for developing a visuality that is not yet integral to or explicit within new media, visualising the specifically neurological dimension of ecologicity and mobilizing vision as a perceiving organ to cultivate this self-awareness.
...................................
(McKenzie Wark)
climate science, a key science of our time, rests on an apparatus of very powerful computers and communication vectors, which overcome the “friction”, as Paul Edwards calls it, between data and communication. it brings together global data according to global standards, mathematical models of physics of climate drawn from fluid dynamics, and massive computational power. the model and data coproduce each other in a way, as the data sets are all partial, and many data points have to be interpolated to make the models work. and then all of that has to be mediated back to human awareness via tables, graphs, computer simulations, and so forth.
...................................
(Irmgard Emmelhainz)
(anthropocene) change in the conditions of visuality
transformation of the world into images
phenomenological + epistemological consequences
images participate now in the forming of worlds, they have also become forms of thought
the optical mind
the radical change in the conditions of visuality has brought about a new subject position or point of view, announce by the trajectories of:
1. antihumanism (between impressionism and cubism)
2. posthumanism (between cubism and experimental film)
3. non-grounded form of vision (from experimental film to digital media)
this regime of visuality implies: automatization, tautological vision, and signs leading to other signs
resulted to => the proliferation of images also implying the cancellation of vision
“vision cancelled”
linearity of the Renaissance perspective plan created the illusion of a view to the outside world, analogous to a window.
cubism: [...]
(174)[...notes/notes.txt]%47.9[...] vision, which announces, first the incipient (initial) normalization of perception as augmented reality and data visualization
displacement of the subjective center of operations
epitomize
subvert
fragmentation brought by mechanization, has an alienating character
its impossibility to give back an image or serve a reflective mirror
it is indifferent to “me”
the exhaustive visualization and documentation of wildlife is effectively concealing its ongoing extinction (one of the reasons i am not using the zeiss-lens-camera recordings)
(for Susan Sontag) taking photographs [...] is a way of certifying experience, also a way of refusing it - by limiting experience to a search for the photographic, by converting experience to a souvenir. [...] the very activity of taking pictures [...] assuages (erleichtern) general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated (worsened) by travel.
cognitive activity
giving form to experience, also transforming things into signs, welding image and discourse
the contemporary experience is also made of sharing/tweeting/liking images
the contemporary political economy: communicative capitalism derives surplus value from the volume and velocity of sings and data circulating in the infosphere.
proliferation of cognitive signs is another feature of communicative capitalism, submitting the mind to an ever-increasing pace of perceptual stimuli
(for Berardi) seeing means accelerating perception in the fields of everyday experience, accelerated tautological vision derived from constant passive observation. this is another of communicative capitalism's form of governance, as this kind of vision generates techno-linguistic automatisms by carrying information without meaning
is Kinect image-compilation a creature of infosphere? (boring question?)
normalization of groundless seeing (exemplified in google earth)
“picture does not make an image” (Serge Daney, before and after image)
image against vision
life persists irrationality, not given form by imagination, ceasing to cohere into a higher truth. (Fox, cold world)
...................................
(Ada Smailbegovic)
nature of things (2013, Sina + Elisa)
related to temporalities and velocities (plant politics of movement)
the video registers different rhythms and textures of change in the event of weather
methodological impulse to draw on descriptive practices of natural history
attuning to particulate differences that compose change
the temporal dimension of human “umwelt” is tuned into a limited set of rhythms and durations. therefore many of the temporalities that are relevant for developing a politics of time[...]
(176)[...notes/notes.txt]%48[...]e eyes in the evil eye goes both ways to posses both the beholders. The target of the evil eye is always missed[ar] due to the internal conflict of perception and will. The intersection of visions is feared and programmed in the modalities of material talisman and culturally protective performances for the subject from meeting the other’s gaze. But the evil eye is precisely so powerful and real because of its ability to name the uncanny event of encounter. “Nothing is wholly obvious without becoming enigmatic.”[12]
[Serres]
does experimentation, in art science, excludes subjectivity? More the importance of experiment on self. Returning the aim back to knowledge, instead of the division of knowledge. Our subjectivity is not an illusion to be overcomed, but that is another part of reality.
Displacement on the space of myth. Myth informs science.
To know is to navigate between local fragments of space , to reject techniques of classification and separation, to implement a philosophy of transport to counter the dogmatism of united and systematic knowledge.
...the itinerary traces the transmission, transformation, and multiplication of messages through diverse spaces of communication.
The spatial language of the writing of the world, geography, language of paths, movements, marks the moment of passage towards a new epistemology.
World is the space of your inscription, scientists. To read and to journey are the one and same act.
Fantastic flow of myth. The sacred and the religious words are spoken at the same time and in the same breath as those of science and of journeys.
Two speakers, united against the phenomenon of interference and confusion. Who's stake is in interrupting communication? The above interlocutors are on the same side, far from the dialogical game.
Demin includes himself in the circuit, blurs the message, renders it unintelligible, and exactly by that assures transmission. Parasite produces by the way of disorder a more complex order.
..penetrative grasp of a text, discovery and recreative apprehension of it life-forms, is impossible to paraphrase or systematize.
..temporal and local settings of one's text. (to master it?)
to read X, is literally, to ‘prepare’ to read X
in certain civilizations there comes epochs in which syntax stiffens...
Changing landscape of fact
unexamined smiles
worn tropes
words, the guardians of meanings, are not immortal.
Metaphysical scandal
note on history: past is a language construct, that the past tense of the verb is the sole guarantor of history.
Dialectics as a method of intellectual chase.
Who first told a joke?
Certain languages are inhospitable to new metaphors.
Language-act
to read[...]
(179)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%49.3[...]
[Serres]
does experimentation, in art science, excludes subjectivity? More the importance of experiment on self. Returning the aim back to knowledge, instead of the division of knowledge. Our subjectivity is not an illusion to be overcomed, but that is another part of reality.
Displacement on the space of myth. Myth informs science.
To know is to navigate between local fragments of space , to reject techniques of classification and separation, to implement a philosophy of transport to counter the dogmatism of united and systematic knowledge.
...the itinerary traces the transmission, transformation, and multiplication of messages through diverse spaces of communication.
The spatial language of the writing of the world, geography, language of paths, movements, marks the moment of passage towards a new epistemology.
World is the space of your inscription, scientists. To read and to journey are the one and same act.
Fantastic flow of myth. The sacred and the religious words are spoken at the same time and in the same breath as those of science and of journeys.
Two speakers, united against the phenomenon of interference and confusion. Who's stake is in interrupting communication? The above interlocutors are on the same side, far from the dialogical game.
Demin includes himself in the circuit, blurs the message, renders it unintelligible, and exactly by that assures transmission. Parasite produces by the way of disorder a more complex order.
..penetrative grasp of a text, discovery and recreative apprehension of it life-forms, is impossible to paraphrase or systematize.
..temporal and local settings of one's text. (to master it?)
to read X, is literally, to ‘prepare’ to read X
in certain civilizations there comes epochs in which syntax stiffens...
Changing landscape of fact
unexamined smiles
worn tropes
words, the guardians of meanings, are not immortal.
Metaphysical scandal
note on history: past is a language construct, that the past tense of the verb is the sole guarantor of history.
Dialectics as a method of intellectual chase.
Who first told a joke?
Certain languages are inhospitable to new metaphors.
Language-act
to read: is to restore all that one can of the immediacies of value and intent in which speech actually occurs.
my original repetition
we re-enact in our educated consciousness
in what sense does unperformed music exist?
The same ground, when using the ‘speculative instruments’, the critic, editor, actor, and reader stand on.
When we read or hear any language statement from the past, we translate.
Encode and decode “message”, misleading operative models of translation between different langu[...]
(180)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%49.3[...]>
...the uniquely vulnerable and creative condition of the childhood
privileged inferiority (of both child and woman)
intercourse and discourse
feminine use of subjunctive, in European languages, give a characteristic vibrato to material facts and relations. ... They multiply the facets of reality, they strengthen the adjective to allow it an alternative nominal status.
...obtuse resistant fabric of the world
in every known culture, men have accused women of being garrulous, of wasting words with lunatic prodigality.
The chattering, ranting, gossiping female, the tattle, the scold, the toothless crone her mouth wind-full of speech, is older than fairy-tales.
...men's delight in women's voice when their register is sweet and low.
the change in men's voice, the crowding of cadence, the heightened fluency triggered by sexual excitement. And how men's speech flattens, how it's intonations dull after orgasm.
The motif of the woman or maiden who says very little, in whom silence is a counterpart to chasteness and sacrificial grace, lends a unique pathos to Antigone or Oerepidus..
fabric of obligation, different for men and women within the same community
linguistically programmed conceptualizations vs. biologically determined apprehensions of sense data
...lady Macbeth negates the fierce reality of Macbeth vision
...communication like breathing is subject to obstruction and homicidal breakdowns, under stress of hatred, of boredom, or of sudden panic, great gaps open ...that their previous understanding had been based on a trivial pidgin which had left the heart of meaning untouched.
What is the female speech in San'an?
By far the greater proportion of art and historical record has been left by men. The process of ‘sexual translation’ or of the breakdown of linguistic exchange (is seen, almost invariably, from a male focus.)
-the breakdowns and translations in San'an story.
-The sexual translation and breakdown of linguistic exchange in San'an story.
How, when, and who can see or render the genius of women's speech and see the crisis of imperfect or abandoned translations (from both sides)?
...having an ‘ear’ for contrasting pressures of sexual discourse or identity
in San'an, man and woman, each respective experience of eros and language had set them desperately apart.
In whose idiom, male or female, one can grasp (only) falsehood or menace?
...as declaimer of my own stifled, tongue
any model if communication is a model of translation, of transfer of significance. No two localities use words and syntax to signify exactly the same things, to send identical signals (of valuation and inference).
[the matrix space tries to create t[...]
(181)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%49.5[...]s the fierce reality of Macbeth vision
...communication like breathing is subject to obstruction and homicidal breakdowns, under stress of hatred, of boredom, or of sudden panic, great gaps open ...that their previous understanding had been based on a trivial pidgin which had left the heart of meaning untouched.
What is the female speech in San'an?
By far the greater proportion of art and historical record has been left by men. The process of ‘sexual translation’ or of the breakdown of linguistic exchange (is seen, almost invariably, from a male focus.)
-the breakdowns and translations in San'an story.
-The sexual translation and breakdown of linguistic exchange in San'an story.
How, when, and who can see or render the genius of women's speech and see the crisis of imperfect or abandoned translations (from both sides)?
...having an ‘ear’ for contrasting pressures of sexual discourse or identity
in San'an, man and woman, each respective experience of eros and language had set them desperately apart.
In whose idiom, male or female, one can grasp (only) falsehood or menace?
...as declaimer of my own stifled, tongue
any model if communication is a model of translation, of transfer of significance. No two localities use words and syntax to signify exactly the same things, to send identical signals (of valuation and inference).
[the matrix space tries to create that assurance of identical signals, the electronic, digital space, grid, systematic, node based-- but linguistic storytelling is not]
In performance, corresponding to my level of literacy, and a private thesaurus, part of my subconscious and personal memories, and using the singular and irreducibly specific ensemble of somatic and psychological identity.
Getting out of one's own dictionary of private remembrance, in old age.
A study of translation is a study of language
the ideal of a totally personal voice, of a unique ‘fit’ between an individual's expressive means and his world-image, perused by the poets.
Only when we reflect on it, when we lift the facts from the misleading context of the obvious, that the possible strangeness, the possible ‘unnaturalness’ of the human linguistic order strikes us.
I am interested in this pluralist framework we are living in since the inception of recorded history.
...
It is not a formal hard-edged linguistic relegation, rather a metaphysical speculation
(making a ‘language atlas’?)
constructs of universals / transformational grammars: that have nothing of substance to say about the prodigality of language atlas
my interest in the ajayeb is due to the traces it provides into verbal literacy, a living vulgar language, rather than a dead structure such as manteg[...]
(183)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%49.5[...]ith it a storehouse of consciousness.
An image of man as a language animal of implausible variety and waste.
Cultures (during Attar's?) seem to expend on their vocabulary and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives.
[very interesting point regarding the language of mysticism, Attar and others.]
language riches seem to act as compensatory mechanisms. (having 60 different words in Shahnameh for signifying ‘horse’, doesn't necessitates the material variety of horse in the ancient Iranian culture?)
--starving bands of Amazonian Indians may lavish on their condition more verb tenses than could Plato.
Is my language, or lack of speaking certain languages, a powerful obstacle to the material and social progress of me?
--withering inward by language barriers. Linguistically atomized
interaction of physical and spiritual agencies...
The nominalist mechanism of creation: each time man spoke he re-enacted, he mimed.
(...the early forms and feelings of consciousness in human ancestral pasts)
my reading or performance includes scrutinising configuration of letters and inverting words.
Bad translations communicate too much, limited to what is non-essential in the fabric of the original, missing the bond of meaning.
If translation is a form, then the condition of translatability must be ontologically necessary to certain works.
Metaphysics of translation
translation is profoundly philosophic, ethical, and magical. It imports source of life. Alchemy, must retain a vital strangeness and ‘otherness’.
My translation, an interlinear version of the script, a virtual archetype of translation
obsessive awareness of the opaqueness of language, Kafka's continuous parable on the impossibility of genuine human communication. The impossibility of not writing, the impossibility of writing in German, of writing differently.
Presence of interpreters in the building site, Kafka, literature house
in Kafka, great wall = mosaic law ?
Only if men could use language without perusing meaning to the forbidden edge of the absolute.
Alpha & Aleph
...is certain to encompass ‘some terrible meaning’ in one of its secret languages
‘a poetic vocabulary of concepts’
‘connections or affinities’
pursuit of an inter-lingua for philosophic discourse
not to contemplate a mechanical transcription of the original
history, the mother of truth.
To define history not as an inquiry into reality, but as it's origin.
Menard, William James
translator's ‘mysterious duty’
if needed, i am anyone
language mysticism studies
...primitive seek express[...]
(184)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%49.6[...] tenses than could Plato.
Is my language, or lack of speaking certain languages, a powerful obstacle to the material and social progress of me?
--withering inward by language barriers. Linguistically atomized
interaction of physical and spiritual agencies...
The nominalist mechanism of creation: each time man spoke he re-enacted, he mimed.
(...the early forms and feelings of consciousness in human ancestral pasts)
my reading or performance includes scrutinising configuration of letters and inverting words.
Bad translations communicate too much, limited to what is non-essential in the fabric of the original, missing the bond of meaning.
If translation is a form, then the condition of translatability must be ontologically necessary to certain works.
Metaphysics of translation
translation is profoundly philosophic, ethical, and magical. It imports source of life. Alchemy, must retain a vital strangeness and ‘otherness’.
My translation, an interlinear version of the script, a virtual archetype of translation
obsessive awareness of the opaqueness of language, Kafka's continuous parable on the impossibility of genuine human communication. The impossibility of not writing, the impossibility of writing in German, of writing differently.
Presence of interpreters in the building site, Kafka, literature house
in Kafka, great wall = mosaic law ?
Only if men could use language without perusing meaning to the forbidden edge of the absolute.
Alpha & Aleph
...is certain to encompass ‘some terrible meaning’ in one of its secret languages
‘a poetic vocabulary of concepts’
‘connections or affinities’
pursuit of an inter-lingua for philosophic discourse
not to contemplate a mechanical transcription of the original
history, the mother of truth.
To define history not as an inquiry into reality, but as it's origin.
Menard, William James
translator's ‘mysterious duty’
if needed, i am anyone
language mysticism studies
...primitive seek expression through ‘imaginative universals’, this rapidly acquired a ‘infinite particularity’
it is only by means of essentially poetic recreation or translation of a given language-world that the new science of myth and history can hope to retrace the growths of consciousness
in apass, inventing a science of myth and history, towards a general theory of significant sign.
Corruption of language and decline of body politics?
Can we correlate the Persian syntax with the metaphysical ambience, internal divisions, and lyric bias of Persian people?
A pivot point must inform and relate
...the shapi[...]
(185)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%49.7[...]icular connections between such spatial varieties --> “original intersection”
topology; culture connects and joints, art delinks and disconnects
(the law of incest prohibition connects the disconnected)
pure --> untainted --> separated, enclosed
the discourse of rationality replacing the mythical text --> art becomes science --- the realization of a project is left to reason
siyavosh/sohrab is one of the descendants of disseminated spaces, of catastrophic separation of the continuous
when Rostam recognises the mark of his son, Ferdosi giving a version of recognition scene, connects --> Oedipus
the son, the mother
-we can recognise a typological space: the same and the other: the separated
-the space of the world is described requiring connection
-family tree
-parts are to be joined
-rostam and sohrab, siyavosh and sudabeh, cannot be composed to form a single homogeneous space. (rostam and siyavosh do that)
the presuppose that before discourse there existed a mutual policy of unrelated spaces ~ chaos
-the object or the target of (cultural) discourse is to connect
-to transform a chaos of separate spatial varieties into a space of communication
-scatered members, re-membered
-incoherent chaos, reformulated in the common space of transport when it is reconstructed
Kelileh
...she is the signatory of the discourse
...she mimes the progress and delays of Demneh
ajayeb, a time when transport and itinerary were only myth
transport ~/=? transfer
-transport is a unitary space where transfer is *always possible (like money)
-transfer is only a possibility
so, we must find the word or construct a conditional logos that *already works to connect the crevices which run across the spatial chaos of disconnect varieties, the *proto-worker of space*, the weaver in the topology of nodes
separations by sudden stoppage
•is this a myth?
a worker of the single space
(we are not)
euclidian space of every possible displace
(what are the displaces and displacements in Ajayeb? Be specific)
(proliferating multiplicities of) unlinked morphologies
(fire text)
to practice dichotomy (and its connected paths) one must know that its clefts follow and overlap the ancient mythical narrative (in which worlds are torn ...)
when geometry is born myth falls silent
(the ancient journey) from islands to catastrophes, from passage to fault, from bridge to well, from relay to labyrinth
the original function
the “new space” is always universal
the space of reason is universal, within it there are no more encounters
one can walk on two or fo[...]
(186)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%50.1[...]etry of our relation to the world
tools are dominated by form
virtual velocities
objective world
geometric reasoning
industrial revolution, a revolution operating on matter
one takes force or produces it
matter transformed by fire
Turner saw the introduction of fiery matter into culture
an axis of (roaring) fire
matter is no longer left in the prison of diagram, fire desolves it, makes it vibrant, tremble, oscillate, makes it explode into clouds.
New matter ==> new world
fire delivers one from the ice***
steam engine triumphs over forced immobility, inertia
the cut of the reference
product of furnace, the cold product of fusion
old-style riddle
navigate between two pronouns
...................................
properly formed cluster (of letters) = standardization
standard compromises the non-essential, or inessential, those without meaning
what is a logician interested in?
Form --> pathology
misguided sciences
if static is accidental, background noise is essential to communication
pathology
spocken: stammering, mispronounciation, regiomil accents, dysphonia, cacophony
technical: background noise, jamming, static, cut-off, hyteresis, various interruptions
to communicate oraly (in performance work with Ali ) is to risk losing meaning in noise.
A successful communication is the exclusion of the third man, the demon, the interference.
Mathematics has triumphed so well over noise
the (un)logical beginning of logic
to render a form independent of its empirical realization --> universal
drawing a square on sand, i evoke an idea, i eliminate the empirical, dematerialise reasoning
(what is rematerialised reasoning? aesthetic form..?)
the inevitable fact of the historical existence of mathematics
(math's historicity)
(a different word for every yesterday)
...................................
... one had a discourse which often concluded either with the cosmos in general or with the organic life in particular.
19th century
negentropic islands in entropic sea, pockets of order in rising entropy, crystal depositions sunk in ashes, diamond in the rough
organism = meaning + direction
organism combines memory, invariance, plan, message, loss, redundancy, etc
it is old, mortal, and transmiter of new cycle
تو نیکی میکن و در دجله انداز
to niki mikono dar dejle andaz...
(organism?) is a quasi stable turbulence that a flow produces, the eddy closed upon itself for an [...]
(187)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%50.2[...]ht, light creates a shaded area; my knowledge is limited to these two shadows. And it is only a shadow of knowledge.
Conclusion of the story of confrontation with solid objects, compact volumes, objective indefinite unknowns.
recognizing the object by its shadow => geometry* (-- transparency and emptiness. the world they constitute is thoroughly knowable)
or
i allow a kernel of shadow within the object --> history of science: the solid always envelopes something that can be rendered explicit***
radical negation of interior shadows
pyramid is itself fire, sun passes through it
Plato kills the hen that laid the golden eggs
“the future of the square and the diagonal is decided as much on the sand where we describe them through the language that names them as it is decided in the sky of ideas.”
the realism of transparent idealities is still immersed in a philosophy of representation.
>
Iconography is replaced by scenography
the shadowless theatre
the inevitable realism is (still) an idealism
without shadow ~= without secret
kernel of an implicit science: what are the relationships of a technique, (with) of a myth, (with) of a communication.. ?
The idealities implicit in technology --> mobilized in representation
(--> dramatized by myth) : obscure articulation of rigorous knowledge (--> totality of human activity)
the birth of beauty never stops
.
.the eternal geometer
(mathematical science's) sudden fits
...................................
on defeat:
the original power: ‘victorious’ [--> mastery is (so far presented as) victorious]
=/= a song to the pleasures of life, a guilt-free knowledge
-choosing between springtime or plague
[--> “phenomenology of defeat"]
-(can we) be and think (, stay, come from, or arrive) on the side of the *retreat* (whether strategic or historically mandated) ? (@Leo)
retreat --> (re)trace ...{is about the traces of things that are left that need to be read, condition of research practice, but never coming with a full-on truth-telling logos, rather stay in the twilight(ment) and not the blinding sun of an enlightenment}--> learning from Derrida and Avital
-when things start getting internalized --> ‘depressive position’ --> you can manage your relations to the ‘good object’ --> integration [=/~-> the twin-other: melancholia] [=/= when everyone is out to get you --> schizophrenic paranoid position]
...dealing with what we are left with, the reminiscence, die Reste, and so on
(Rousseauian, Heidegger also,) there is too much action, let's back off, let's retreat, let's listen to what the retreat is...
-retreat not as a military tactic, which means you are doing it in order to win something
[...]
(190)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%50.5[...]
For me? for Sa'di in golestan...?
abundance is when it seems the artist hasn't put limitations on the flow of signs and meanings.
#my basic methods(?): abundancies, adjacencies,
~-/?--> simplest complex, simplex (concern of comparative topology) ~= the stable network of compositions
my ajayeb hypertext, what is there the specific ‘law of putting together letters’ ([and atoms?] to produce a text)? That means the question of Greekness and syntax technology, and my reworking articulated
•alphabetical proto cloud (Serres) --?--> without law, random
•what are the laws of ‘good combination’ that i am reworking or resisting or acquiring or answering to, in my ajayeb hypertext? (how composition is reproduced?)
--> (the law enunciates [تلفظ کردن ,مژده دادن] the federated,) * the law repeats the fact =/= the ‘things’ of ajayeb are (still) in the process of being formed (--> the morality of reading that i am working on)
(in the facts of the law there is no space between things and language is reduced to zero)
-language and things are born together with the very same process (Serres - Hermes.) --> stable gathering of elements
•ajayeb's version of the network of primordial elements in communication with each other
my interest in the devil is in the details of my makings (and others)
--> to touch details that establishes a direct contact
...................................
“Venus states the foedus, the contract, as an ego contiugo vos, Venus assembles the atoms, like the compounds. She is not transcendental like the other gods, but immanent in this world, the being of relation. Venus is identical to relation.”
Aphrodite governs
guarantee of repetition
parallel paths
pseudo returns
“Time itself would be nothing without objects situated in space [...] the clock that Lucretius placed right in the middle of nature cannot mark Newtonian time; as the clock is the totality of things, between their birth and death, it marks a Bergsonian, that is, thermodynamic, time--an irreversible and irrevocable time, marked like the endless flow of atoms, flowing, running, crumbling, (coulant, courant, croulant) toward their downfall and death. Things have weight: they fall, seeking their peaceful rest. Fluid, they flow; hot, they cool off. Downfall, death, dispersal; breaks, dichotomies, atoms. Atomic flow is residual : the background of being, white noise. This world set adrift never to return is bestrewn, here and there, at indefinet times and in indefinet places, with pockets, where vortices are born in pseudo returns. Clocks appear with these objects [=/= the universal absolute time standing outside contingency of everything else], spiraling, shifting clocks which from their moment of birth begin to mark the time of death. The Lucretian world is globally entropic, but negati[...]
(191)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%50.9[...]he forum and in the armed crowd. Reduce your relations to a minimum and bring your objects to the fore. Reduce the intersubjective to a minimum and the objective to the maximum. With your back turned on politics, study physics. [...] Forget the sacred, that means: forget the violence that founds it and forget the religious which links men to each other. Consider the object, objects, nature.”
Serres*
...nevertheless the plague returns and there is violence
sacred --> division of space --> temple --> inside & outside --> a dichotomized space --> a boolean geometry, a two-valued ontology --> inside : religious , outside : profane --> inside : matter , outside : void -->? Atom
...................................
Origin of geometry, construction of geometric idealities, establishment of the first proofs, a Greek (or Egyptian priest) miracle
--Serres--> this is the same as asking: how one passed from one language to another, from one type of writing to another?
**we are always dealing with many languages**
one of my contracts: agreement on what is noise.
I never truly made an agreement with my audience on what we might collectively agree about noise and interference.
•mode of communication, meaning-making, language, transference, transformation,
•what is the intersection of our repertoire? (in apass, particularly; each of our mimetic preoccupations, dynamics of our violences, our mathematical sites, drawings on sand, modifiers, etc.)
==> dialogue
mathematics: (presents itself as) a communication maximally purged of noise
HRN: human relation-noise
=/= geometry
die agonal
to which degrees my work on ajayeb aligns or depends on the “new language” of the inexhaustible discourse of mathematics as inherented from the Greek geometry into the modern culture?
What are the inaugural relation of the geometric (metrological) ideogram to the CG? And to the Egyptian priest?
What is compared, modeled, simulated:
•flood
•fires
•celestial fire
•catastrophes
•violence of the elements
•
ajayeb: doxographies (, legends and allegories) composed in natural language (?)
=/= (the problem of) how to duplicate the cube ---,{thematized object of the complete intersubjective relation}
~=? alogon =/= logos: proportion, measured relation, discourse;
alogon prohibits speaking
crisis and recast, questions of archive
Luisa, Foad
(the space of the relation between) experience & abstract --> between sense & purity
(an inquiry line for Luisa: try to figure out the status of pure [which is impure? when history changes])
my allegorical covers
meaning of:
•non-disproportion
•nonvio[...]
(192)[...notes/notes Hermes.txt]%51.2[...]>
([what is?] my problem with) message شعاری
**advertisement ==> confuse agency & ownership**
the fantastic is rescued by the human (face)
(in advertisement -->) **the ways in which knowledge & reality are marshalled into collective visual consensus**
visual deconstruction --> rigor towards the idiosyncrasy and singularity of any text
restricted economy of the text ==> particular meaning =/= Derrida: moveing from a restricted --to--> general economy of the text
...................................
metaphysics: enterprise of returning (strategically, ideally) to an origin (a priority) thought to be simple, intact, normal, pure, standard, self-identical [=/= to think in terms of derivation, complication, deterioration, accident]
<--Derrida-- (the most constant profound potent metaphysical gesture in Western philosophy:) conceiving simple before the complex, essential before the accidental
}--> logocentric thought: thought which does not adequately attend to the contradictions inherent in its own medium ==> [logocentrism:] (fable) faith in the status of language as a lucid carrier of meaning (=/= attentiveness to the materiality of communication and the implications of such a project)
pecific languages make communication material, and exploring the interplay of terms within a linguistic system (-->? baroque) =/= Enlightenment = Age of Reason (logos)
...................................
Beauty and the Beast
or, blast of the clean slate
(goddamn it)
The picture of a relatively undifferentiated and continuous topological space undergoing discontinuous transitions and progressively acquiring detail until it condenses into the measurable and divisible metric space which we inhabit, is a powerful metaphor for the cosmic genesis of spatial structure. (Intensive Science & Virtual Philosophy)
baroque Trauerspiel, classical synthesis, ...
synthesis: synthetic thinking (the combination of ideas into a complex whole)
this is not a reasoning exercise (deducing particularity, etc.)
imagine you find a head. how do you search for the body? (research project)
graduating from ... and approaching ...
(from fairy tale ---> approach myth)
--> http://www.sinaseifee.com/DifficultForests.html
becoming Amazon as the fear of the male.
(Amazon as male hunter symbol)
(symbol for) masculine gender principle
(to disavow sexual difference)
I am not bringing the text to you, or you to the text.
as you have already guessed we have to destroy both the notion of text and you, to some extent, in order to permit a reading to constitutes itself.
is San'an a p[...]
(194)[...notes/Derrida old notes.txt]%52.1[...]rmath of the 2th century) many visionaries of western thought (--postmoderns--) have emphasized a (desperate) need to inject ambiguity and doubt into our collective imagination
where is absolutism in San'an?
own descent (Abstieg) into paranoia
when in master-disciple relationship one is asked/taught not only read the works of past visionaries: rather to entertain the same mania, drunkenness, cruelty, or absorb temperament that engendered the very materialization of that text.
[Attar asking us to entertain the same mania when reading Tazkirat al-Awliya?]
...lending cryptic terminologies and cosmic ideas
to become an echo of a profound legacy
we ask again: which phantom-sphere is more interesting? more aesthetically and philosophically attractive in its contours, appearances, and orchestrations?
which archive remains in fire throughout?
-which (archival?) constructs promise to survive us?
-things that run on hollow spectacles of meanings and simulations of depth
-adapting old tales to new territories of experience
an apocalyptic significance in the master-disciple relationship
(topology of communication/education)
(mysticism) an excursion into the otherworldly (or the eternal)
lending cryptic terminologies and cosmic ideas a palpable and resurgent quality.
THE pursuit: to become the echo of a profound legacy
the question is not the legitimate/authentic knowledges versus superstitious/mythic doctrines, rather: which phantom-sphere is more arresting? which archive remains in fire throughout?
modern-individuality versus the magnetic power of the sectarian voice..
counter-veiling definitions of freedom: the freedom of infinite mediocritized choices versus the freedom to choose the all-engulfing one thing.
these preferences: on some remote place of calculation or in terms of immediate force?
(this talk might be) a critical rant
(eastern thirds:)
the voice of a strange immunity
sacred crimes
one is hard pressed to find a truth that does not have a dead body
never-ending allegory of loss and primal innocence
irrational desire of a no-man's land of an eternal immaturity
(an existential evacuation)
committing oneself to erratic wanderings in the desert => translation of a familiar topology into an ontological modality?
the extravagant paradox of proximity and distance
(interiority and exteriority, presence and absence)
civilizational taxonomies (--> versus animist taxonomies, in Attar's animal-birds)
the (sacred boundaries of mysticism) and mysti[...]
(196)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%52.7[...]s would go to monasteries and get drunk with the non-Muslims, getting high with the nonhuman. it is Seljuq (سلجوق) time, medieval Turko-Persian. The Seljuqs were educated in the service of Muslim courts as slaves or mercenaries. The dynasty brought with itself a sense of revival. Under the Seljuqs, New-Persian became the language for historical recording. Attar (عطار) means herbalist, druggist, perfumist or alchemist, and during his lifetime in Persia, much of medicine and drugs were based on herbs. Therefore, by profession he was similar to a modern-day town doctor and pharmacist. Rose oil means ‘attar’. Attar died a violent death in the massacre which the Mongols inflicted on Nishapur in April 1221.]
-in his Birds epic, he is bringing an instinct coalition that translates all movement into a devouring collectivity --> the logic of their fading (--of the birds) is the same explosively that that fuels their inception, (why the birds must gather in the first place?!)
once-mystical and now-postmodern tribalism (?)
(“I” threatens the nomadic workings of the pack event)
[there is a pack-event in the San'an's students]
self = migratory sensibility of a subjectivity adrift
the exile does not need to exist / the community is desperate to exist (which is why it degenerates into totalitarian declarations--do the San'an's students have that?)
is Attar, in his poetry, obsessed with constructing mythologies of presence (and being represented)? (when he repeatedly tries to synthesize an “authentic” discipleship, ﻣﺮﯾﺪى, Anhängerschaft?, for the San'an's “teachings”) --whereas the exile, the animal, the shadow, the monster, the machine, the thing, the contagion --> carries none of the anxiety of ontological authenticity
رسوایی - using treachery for the sake of vitality
(‘Verrat'--betraying the student, in order to produce truth-event)
going ining into vicious levels of self-consciousness
between all the lines of statement that Attar constructs, what is being suggested in his music or words?
San'an, taken by otherworldly crafts that signal him to become (gracefully) transfixed
‘naaareh’ - نعره
far cry from the mystic's encounter with divinity
disavowal of (an explicit) narrative (trajectory)
[sunken tranquility, relaxed self-annihilation, ascetic renunciation of material] *mystic* =/= or? =~ *postmodern* [obsession with speed, with narcissistic technologies, hyper-materialistic]
is there in postmodernism then an alternative version of mystical experience?
...
feeling like a foreign body, until you find a job?! (Attari as a job)
let's jam on this
this story is prior to psychoanalysis (?)
positionality, placements, displacements
[...]
(197)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%53[...]something.
(does San'an practice the will to obedience and to listening?)
what (the hell) does he want (from Tarsaa, from her Being)?!!!
to let the other go
I am talking about Attar so we can properly lose him (this is not about finding)
I have to exhaust, frustrate, and abuse my own mystic or non-mystic tendencies and preferences in this
this is kind of a *synonym-finder* machine
we are looking for mutations of San'an's work
after he dreams...
the event (‘vaghee’ واقعه) has (already) happened, he travels to ‘understand’ the “event” and not to ‘find out’ --- (we can also critique ‘event’ or ‘vaghee’ as a violent and omnipotent sublime or a happening-art, versus the fragmented phenomena---associated with femininity)
“tafaroj” (تفرّج) or wondering around in Rome, very different than Sohrevardi's order --> http://sinaseifee.com/sorkh.html
[San'an with a damaged GPS system--why he goes to Italy?]
he is walking the walk,
how does he get through the borders!?
was it a ‘Road to Canossa’?
(Humiliation of Canossa, refers to the trek by Emperor Henry IV from Speyer to Canossa Castle in Emilia-Romagna to obtain the revocation of the excommunication imposed on him by the Pope Gregory VII. He was forced to humiliate himself on his knees waiting for three days and three nights before the entrance gate of the castle, while a blizzard raged in January 1077.)
San'an's event could be that he must encounter the alterity (~= absence of the same) --> he needs the absence of his students and the absence of himself and the absence of his God.
*****Tarsaa takes away San'an's human ID, his masterhood, his members [his parts: his pupils, pencils, penises], (that's why he must remember? his ‘members’ returning to him? what is he composed of anyways?!) [memory is a way consistency maintain itself---are we having a disjunction?] [he makes contact, and contact is the medium of language --> and this is his performance]
in this story *the human ID = master*
(self-possession is supposed a primordial property)
-the question is how let yourself be invested with alterity, without becoming a seed of transcendence? (San'an let himself but then fails in the second part) by ‘seed of transcendence’ I mean making a symbol that is of a symbol (the basis of power---state?) ---> is this how San'an's symbolism can be recruited by Iranian war lords?
San'an in the story is shamanistically de-subjectified (by becoming the pig, etc.) instead of becoming hyper-subjectified (game-animal) [something that Abu-Saeed Abu-Al-Kheir almost achieve it?] **a game-animal is for example when dogs go after a dear in the forest, the dear is in this case a game-animal. the San'an's pigsty is not that, he doesn't become wolf or dear or Jinn for that matter!
if I where Tarsaa I would ask San'[...]
(198)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%53.3[...]ek literature and philosophy has oriented fundamental movements in Islamic feelings --Farabi, Mirdamad, etc.
My translation of classics is not out of a vital compulsion for immediacy or precise echo. I am not trying to build my own resonant past. Myth of the ‘true past’... different perspectives can co-exist and blur
the metaphysics of the insult, in San'an story
I am interested in the conventions in which texts can be read, in which a semantic statement can be carried over into someone's own idiom. I am teaching how to reread texts of Attar and so forth.
I think we have civilization because (we have learned) ‘to translate out of time’
übertragen,
handing down thought narrative,
something that also depends on transfer of meaning in *space*
San'an's sudden interest in the woman/child (Tarsaa could also be a young boy) reminds us the uniquely vulnerable and creative condition of the childhood
privileged inferiority (of both child and woman)
we are dealing with both intercourse and discourse
how his voice will change after San'an actually gets the girl?
...communication like breathing is subject to obstruction and homicidal breakdowns, under stress of hatred, of boredom, or of sudden panic, great gaps open ...that their previous understanding had been based on a trivial pidgin which had left the heart of meaning untouched.
What is the female speech in San'an?
-the breakdowns and translations in San'an story.
-The sexual translation and breakdown of linguistic exchange in San'an story.
...having an ‘ear’ for contrasting pressures of sexual discourse or identity
in San'an, man and woman, each respective experience of Eros and language had set them desperately apart.
In whose idiom, male or female, one can grasp (only) falsehood or menace?
...as declaimer of my own stifled, tongue
my performance, corresponding to my level of literacy, and a private thesaurus, part of my subconscious and personal memories, and using the singular and irreducibly specific ensemble of somatic and psychological identity.
the ideal of a totally personal voice, of a unique ‘fit’ between an individual's expressive means and his world-image, perused by the poets.
this is not a formal hard-edged linguistic relegation, rather a metaphysical speculation
*note to self: my interest in the ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt (جائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات) is due to the traces it provides into verbal literacy, a living vulgar language of mix, rather than a dead structure such as Manṭiq-uṭ-Ṭayr (منطق الطیر)[...]
(199)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%53.8[...]tance’) and Edouard Glissant (on ‘modest modes of resistance’) in order to perform a ‘slider’ between hostile and relaxed patterns of “contact” and “nothingness” that has been rotating throughout the past century in the Middle East. the performance of a knowledge-zoom in the hypnotic effects, nondialogue, nonnarrative, and radical exile spaces that have emerged in eastern postmodernism to reverse and supersede the question of modernity.
by traversing the domains of revolutionary ideology, avant-garde literature, new-wave cinema, extremist thought, and protests from the limitless imaginative reservoir of their political, poetic, spiritual, and aesthetic predecessors--this projects examines a Middle Eastern navigation of identity (via the concept of the ‘mask’) and its particular modest/hostile modes of resistance (via the concept of the ‘text’). visiting sites such as: subversive epitomes of charismatic authority undertaking a poetic articulation, when chaotic imagination makes contact with nothingness, the will to chaos, and inscription of fatality in literature-as-moral-transaction.
[pressure points:]
mobile within a speculative/suggestive milieu, this project is interested in examining literary sites such as Kelile-o Demne's communal forms of fragile human cohabitation (11th century political/bestial fable), Rumi's simulation of nonexistence (13th century production of schizo-darvish), Hafez's engineering metaphor-factory (14th century imaginal faculty of extreme presence), Hedayat's Buf Koor the Shelley's Frankenstein's monster favorate book (20th century forms of renunciation), Amir Naderi and Forough Farrokhzad films (20th century strategies of withdrawal), Jala Al Ahmad and Ali Shariati writings (20th century fatal concepts of the outside), [list to be modified]
[background:]
this form of half-digestive omnivorous work is situated in a larger trajectory of creative investigations, which i have been busy with under “storytelling,” are dealing with the questions of conditions in which non-antagonistic critical encounters between ordered conventions of knowing and chaotic textuality/imagination is possible. to take the mind where it does not belong. to the rogue arsenals of middle eastern reservoir of imagination and its locatable mimicries. to its repetitive scaffoldings, fugitive trajectories, its performances of fatal experience of the text. to unload its corrosive textualities and let them run their acids across one another. this project is interested in both the unleashing and the pleasure of watching the text die.
part of the disposition of this proposal is also the suggestion that the two collaborators of this project, Jassem and Foad, are invested in those notions in their practice. Foad Farahani's poem “farar” enacting contemporary artistic formations and past-compound-mask, and Jassem Hindi transnational poetic agency, are both[...]
(200)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%55.2[...]n that the two collaborators of this project, Jassem and Foad, are invested in those notions in their practice. Foad Farahani's poem “farar” enacting contemporary artistic formations and past-compound-mask, and Jassem Hindi transnational poetic agency, are both artists with acute appetite for chaotic imagination. Their instinct for the fusion of nothingness and excess, appearance and disappearance, creation and destruction, is at once carved and unpacked in the literary-poetic mosaics of their work: Foad's use of middle-persian mystic sensibilities and Jassem's combination of intensive encounter with the poetics of apocalypse and acid textuality.
My work has been about: learning/training in the crafts of noticing little traps of semiotic and material trans-species cohabiting, mutual coproduction of economics, ecology, affect-studies, metaphysical household studies, and understanding of the orders of the natural and human world, in the particular history/story of the East. in my projects i take history as the overlapping tracks and traces and many tranjectories of world-making, human and nonhuman. the textual performance of this project is in the effects of my research and practice with the questions of globalism and inheritance: difficult translational spaces, communicative nonunderstanding, relational aesthetics, and the differential sites of reading. and i use performative lectures: a material practice, hybrid in digital manual tactile operations of speaking.
...................................
“Four Masks of an Eastern Postmodernism”
insurgent, poet, mystic, sectarian
| | | |
chaos, violence, illusion, silence
•(sectarianism) apocalyptic writing
•(poetic) will to chaos
•(mystic) exile space
•(insurgent's) otherless subjectivity
یاغی
شاعر
نوچه
زاهد
[performative methodology]
for the collaborative part of sharjah project, i like to propose four “masks” (or “rotational avatars”) of subjective anarchy, that are few among many existential prototypes and subjectivity constellations of eastern postmodernism, as collaborative sites of encounter with four (or less and not necessarily individual) artists/participants.
•collaborators’ masks: chaos, violence, illusion, silence / (yaghi یاغی, sha'er شاعر, noche نوچه, zahed زاهد)--each endeavoring to discern the ontological possibilities and aesthetic imaginations of four theoretically-worked dispositions that Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh puts forward: insurgent, poetic, mystical, sectarian modes of consciousness, operating within multiple terrains of human and inhuman experiences of the middle east.
--> masks (the above mentioned four masks are accompanied by four “performative epitomes”): the exile, the animal, the shadow, the machine, (the monster, the thing, th[...]
(201)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%55.3[...]ew line of anthropomorphic gods, having fought against their false ascent, and thus still fiercely loyal to the old titanic codes, even in their captivity and forced collusion, forever scarred by the robbery perpetrated against the older deities, able to picture the drainage ditches into which the others are now outcast, such that each episode of mastication and uproar is hurled like a psychic bomb intended to free this discarded confederation]
isolationism + monumentality
(teratological formations in modernity)
inner contemplation / evacuation
attunement to the nothing
athleticism of stillness
[interiority (feels the need to?) stretch out into exteriority:] (to transfer) personal self-contained oblivion --onto--> universal plane
(Setareh's event:) one part shadow, one part mist, one part smoke and mirrors *.*.*.
...one part strategic essentialism, one part deconstructive smokescreen
part amateur, part pseudo-scholar, part civil servant, part serial killer
part vigilante, part crusader, part cult member, part thug
a site for hermeticism (recession from humans) ==> elevation
[inoperative community =/=] *excessive community*, where players must remain mesmerized, enchanted, and vigilant
sectarian <--> full charismatic authority -->? morshed (=/= “pseudo-autonomous passivity”)
مرشد --> with its own matrix of study: hypnotic exchange [it requires ecstatic projection, not scholarly detachment]
ISIS --> scaffoldings of invisible subjugations, highly performative site
***how does one make the memory [--> Hoda], the shadow [--> Ehsan], the ancestor [--> Sina] speak across generations?***
the riotous, the militant, the deranged --> they have suspicions ~=> ?
(sectarian mode of) *reading: to entertain the same mania, drunkenness, cruelty, or absurd temperament that engendered the very materialization of that text ==> apocalyptic significance (~ master-disciple relationship)--San'an--> an excursion into the otherworldly
-cryptic terminologies
-cosmic ideas
--> ‘knowing’ becomes a high-stake transaction, one's own identity, future, and self-consciousness hangs in the balance (--> i can recognize this extremism in myself)
(an issue with iranian artists:) the pursuit to become the echo of a profound legacy***(!!)
***echo becoming*** --> (Mohaghegh's tone:) in an epoch that runs entirely on hollow spectacles of meaning and simulations of depth <-- aesthetic
(since declared by Western theory itself, and i agree too?) it is obsolete to speak of “legitimate/authentic knowledges =/= mythic doctrines” }==> the question then becomes:
*which phantom-sphere is more arresting, more aesthetically philosophically attracti[...]
(202)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%55.6[...]rtists:) the pursuit to become the echo of a profound legacy***(!!)
***echo becoming*** --> (Mohaghegh's tone:) in an epoch that runs entirely on hollow spectacles of meaning and simulations of depth <-- aesthetic
(since declared by Western theory itself, and i agree too?) it is obsolete to speak of “legitimate/authentic knowledges =/= mythic doctrines” }==> the question then becomes:
*which phantom-sphere is more arresting, more aesthetically philosophically attractive?* (--> phantomology, Avital) ~/?= *which archive remains on fire throughout?* (--> the concern of many of my peers in apass. why archive has become a predominant topic and practice: lack of master signifier ==> archiving as one remaining meaningful thing to do, that there is nothing meaningful to be done [<-- that is my source of disagreement with archive-discourse, because it matters that there is something to be done now])
(taking) high doses of impulse and reason
**adapting old tales to new territories of experience** (<-- we need to permanently work this, read it, and so on)
exceedingly well-versed fever-dreams of Rumi
his intellectual-bodily gesture
its innovative proportions
his typology of communication/education (in Majales-e Sab'e مجالس سبعه)
remote plane of calculation
•magnetic power of the sectarian voice (=/= “the weak cult of modern inevitability” ==> a formula of alienation, insularity انزوا, indifference)
•freedom to choose the all-engulfing one thing (--> ISIS) =/= countervailing definitions of freedom: the freedom of infinite mediocritized choices (--> consumerism)
(Elen's struggle to gauge her place in the existential game)
my critical rant
*build the raft* <-- a poetic strategy (<-- i do this too, to go beyond the postcolonial aftermath)
tale of the “symptom of a plague” (--> tale of “where we stand”) ==> (a concealed need for) ***immunity*** (=/= toxication)
‘reality principle’ of Ali , apass
“the eastern postmodernism arrives at the doorstep of the western philosophical outlook as a foreigner” -Mohaghegh
==> a *privileged semantic heritage* --suggesting--> an occluded alternative --from--> a shrouded/shredded resource ریزریزشده [==?==> my reparative readings (of ajayeb). this is something i should be careful about: to give the iranian semantic heritage density and texture, and not privileging it, not to give it a “voice” or “awareness"]
(Mona's disposition:) the assassin = the spectator
(for Ali ) truth has a dead body, (deranged, tortured, raped)
(oriental)[*]exotic: commingling of ***excess & absence*** ~= the third world (middle eastern) becomes all that EU renounces: the indecent, unrefined savage whose raw delirium[...]
(204)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%55.7[...]ger wants to live =/= insurgent's reflex in middle eastern anticontext, *eastern revolutionary ethos*, “thinking of struggle = dialectical”, no revolutionary intersubjectivity [~= otherless subjectivity])
Apollonian hyper-rational retreat from the void
Ascetic immensified retreat from the world
self-willed experience of the edge allowed to guide forward
(Nietzsche's Zarathustra's chaotic temperament:) “one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”
“chaos" = what (western) modernity has left (in east)
(that is why terminologies of “nomadism” can hardly be appropriated in middle east--they are chaotic, not nomadic)
[idioms of resistance] ~~--> intoxicating sense of power
(anti-,) “being-against”:
•in modernity: a direct/dialectical opposition of forces
•in postmodernity: an oblique/diagonal stance
•today: “alternatives within" = an imperial device that works well ‘in itself’ but not ‘for itself’ --> trans-systemic reality
...to believe in an outsider subjectivity capable of ahistorical imagination
(inflated dispositions of) triumphalism and alarmist nightmare
communist (Marxist silhouette) and liberatory combatants of the 20th century, intellectuals persecuted and exiled in the course of anti-fascist struggles, freedom-fighters of the anti-colonial/anti-imperialist wars --> nostalgic portrait of the contemporary militant
(Nietzsche, Kafka, Bataille, Foucault, Artaud, Baudrillard, Serres, D+G, etc.) continental thinkers architects of masks:
•the overhuman (--> Nietzsche)
•the supplicant
•the deviant (or barbarian --> Foucault)
•the body-without-organs (--> D+G)
•the criminal
•the schizoid
•the headless monstrosity (--> Bataille)
[(an exilic) postcolonial intelligentsia]
---{Nietzsche and Artaud's familiar persuasive authority, similar exuberant phraseology, and motifs in extremis --> ‘cruelty,’ Artaud wanted to “reject form and incite chaos.” antipsychological violent physical determination (a cruel yet necessary act upon the spectator) to shatter the false reality (theatre/art as a place where the spectator/actor is *exposed* [=/= “protected"]) =/= (aesthetic) distance (---> go to ‘distance matters’); this is the paradigm in iran's theatre and performance scene, where the audience are to be engulfed and physically affected by the show, ‘to be trapped and powerless’ as a theatrical value is an Artaudian tradition.
-delirium: he wanted to deliberately become/stay mad [--> Jassem, Sana's methodology, the state of horrible energy] in order to heal/strengthened
-ecstatic loss of the self, hermetic elements in his works, and the idea of the “complete actor,” whirlpool of feelings and lunatic expressions, counter-force from the act of [...]
(205)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%55.9[...]at happens for the immediate circulation/navigation of the self at the center of that room, the imprint or reverberation that a lone concept holds on this hanging form, the way it inscribes and inflects an inescapable existential spasm (like a serum), is of the highest order for our project.
*on Levinas
Levinas's concept of otherness --> its theoretical production is articulated from the ditch of the historical self in modernity (part of the Western philosophical tradition) [...] entrenched within an enlightenment discourse that cannot conceive of a self without mediation through a formulated other =/= *otherless subjectivity*
-Levinas's principle goal is to repair the totalitarian self and not to explore the otherworldly powers of the other --proving--> ***something that might fix the master***
==> self is to be redeemed by otherness, made well by otherness, made sane by otherness ==Mohaghegh==> the other is never entitled to just walk away and seek its own external dominion
the other possesses (the talent of) infinity ==> ther other's responsibility is to dispense that infinity ==> ethics (not permitting the other leaving the situation)
***why is the other never allowed the right to isolation, solitude, hermeticism, anticommunalism, or misanthropy?***
it has become frustrating for me to chase these sublime phantoms (of the impossible, the unthinkable, the unknowable) drifting into incessant negative theologies... --?--> self always sees itself as that which it is not =/= (ontological differential of) the earthly dehumanized Eastern subject, the one with a staunch existential verifiability, the one whose trachea or fingertips might be severed by five bullets around the corner, the one who plays with mortal stakes and states of emergency on daily basis, the one of famine, war, or occupation
rapid evacuation
agility
velocity
dexterity
third world subjectivity must transmit itself through the affective matrix of radical coldness
Nietzsche and Sartre locating their own becoming-frigid within the realm of otherless individuation, neither hesitate to look at Eastern corridors
insurgent becomes the writer of (Manning's) impersonal event
touchstone of a rare immunity and a weapon
to evoke the anxiety of the audience (-Hoda?)
“kill him” --> shortening of language to mirror the contradiction of being : most horrifying manifestation of formalized coldness. not just the license to kill, but the mechanistic invocation of the license
the ‘what has always been’
eternal war
همیشه اینجوری بوده --> proposition of the insurgent stoicism یاغی رواقى [~ a self-without-other: has experienced firsthand the detriment of othering, @Foad]
(the rant, the taunt متلک, the in[...]
(206)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%56.2[...]ist colonizer) the Dandilians rush to make the Madame's house clean and tidy: “[...]the curtains had been drawn aside. Pots of geranium had been placed on the wall and beside the steps[...]” ~-> Baudrillard's theory of simulation : the Dandilian presenting to the colonizer a Disneyland, *a play of illusions and phantasms* [~->? Dubai: self-affirmation via the domination of the constructed other]
(the american officer leaves the next morning with a mocking laughter and he refuses to play and the Dandilians can't do anything)--> the civilizational dichotomy remains intact in spite of the horrifying events that have transpired, with the trafficked deflowered child serving as a metaphor for the cultural-political mistreatment of the third world under colonial rule
on Akhavan's “Adamak” (“Stick-Figure”) [--> historical treachery committed within Akhavan's nostalgic Stick-Figure]
demonization of the television's arrival
-television as a “magical box” an artificial phenomenon that “entrances” its audience
again the idea of authenticity is largely emphasized here, as the television is perceived as a “foreign” entity and therefore an enemy to the millennial history of the province
new medium =/= indigenous modes of communication/expression (of which the roving storyteller is the ultimate instantiation)
(poignancy of the) poet's anthropomorphic profile of the new technologically oriented media
-Akhavan's representation symbolizes the storyteller himself, lamenting his own erasure from the moment of the now (or it is his prophecy for the imminent destruction of the new media in the coming islamic regime?)
--> aesthetic testament to the possibility for a third world revolutionary imagination to emerge from the ruins of the colonial era [, *from the ruins of the empire*]
--> representing the third world as in a state of complete existential-cultural atrophy (tahlil تحليل رفتن) @Hoda
**anticolonial literature reaffirms the all-encompassing grasp of modernity over peripheral subjectivity [--> marginal leader (Mamitua Saber's Marginal Leadership in a Culture Contact Situation)]
(Mohaghegh > Huyssen on Baudrillard:)
Baudrillard's notion of the *silent mass* of the spectators disables any analysis of *heterogeneous subject position in the act of reception* @Laura
any economic or institutional analysis of apparatuses of image production is rendered obsolete by Baudrillard's notion of an almost self-generating and monolithic machinary of image production [...] (<-- Laura should be very aware of this)
Baudrillard's society of simulation does not allow for such distinctions ... simulation, after all, may simply be the latest version of the ideology of the end of ideology
}--> part of the theoretical apparatus of *anticolonial ideology*
one immediate danger of this approach is that it recklessly dismis[...]
(207)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%56.9[...]s forms:) they banish themselves and plan their hostile-ecstatic return to the surface:
•revolutionary
•criminal
•religious
•mystical
•magical
•military
•*avant-garde*
•
**(its conceptual coridors:) each fuses the minimal (elitism) and the excessive (universality):
•delirium
•murdur
•hallucination
•whispering
•doom
•
}<=~ ***the self-chosen against the world***
(“we” is the electric compartment of the sect. the sectarian channels the alarming vibration of the “we"--the one who becomes many)
*evil: a force of liberation, beauty, complexity
Ali's microhostilities (on me, the way he tells)
*guided by dislike*
(*terminal Intimacy*: definite concept of friendship:) “they will all die for one another" = "they will all kill one another”
“the sect occasionally allows the opening of the closed circle, reforming as a stright line that penetrates the world of others” --> (a phantom) *imperative to entirity*
sectarian language: the author cages the reader (in each verse)
sectarian animism ==> paranoiac dialogues:
•language of things (communication with the inanimate)
•concert with sacred beasts (oracle, snakes, animal spirits, etc. **the uncooperative figures of nature**)
•warnings of extraterrestriality (those of faraway sentience)
•murmurings of superstition (man, fate, chance, fifth column[= the group who undermine a larger group from within])
hiding as mission --> dissimulation & hollowing
sectarian lives by code, but cannot be deciphered or analyzed* --methodological--> leaves one undetected (--> assassins who are inflexible, precise, and systematic to the highest degree, and traceless for this very reason)
...they remind of the ungovered body, the accidental, and death
xxxxx 280
...................................
(Mohaghegh's work on the middle east in his book) it is ***a theory that does not speak for ‘the East’(= a construction) but rather *an East*(= a radical illusion)***
-it offers careful insight into singular, distinctive episodes of thought and writing in the Middle East (and to explore their relevance across the topology of world thought at large)
-the fractal nature of his four separate subject-positions point to the *exceptional diversity and heterogeneous makeup of Middle Eastern cultural imaginaries*
...the insurgent carries a hundred masks within one, the poet a hundred more, the mystic a hundred more, and the sectarian a thousand
(@Geert)
[*]modernity: a self-naming historical epoch that redefines/fuses the exercise of power and knowledge and for which the enlightenment, capitalism, colonialism[...]
(208)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%58.2[...]modernity: a self-naming historical epoch that redefines/fuses the exercise of power and knowledge and for which the enlightenment, capitalism, colonialism, technology, humanism, ideology, simulation, and the domination of instrumental reason become the main pillars of subjectivity
Mohaghegh offers a list of secondary literature that forms the relevant archive from which his manuscript borrows, and **marks its axis of engagement with preexisting interventions**
#bibliography
Nietzsche's conception of chaos
“nature and mask determine phenomenal being, the phenomenon in its being, as chaos”
(Deleuze interprets Nietzsche's chaos as:) a philosophical overture toward “the pure unformed”
--> the subject is this free, anonymous, and nomadic singularity which traverses men as well as plants and animals independently of the matter of their individuation and the forms of their personality [~~> #write a short story for hayula]
>
*Eastern insurgent's participation in the chaotic event* --> there is no natural or pure ==> (a more) apocalyptic response ==> to became available
[--> to deal with sense as a predicate مسند or a property دارايى =/=? to deal with sense as an event]
community
(on Eastern postmodern gathering)
(alternative categories that express the potential for “relationality”: assemblage, alignment, circle, swarm, etc. that are based on multiple vantages of intersection and divergence =/=) *community*:
•tends to evoke an essentialist claim
•there is typically some centralized discourse of unity, some absolute principle that binds everyone
•functions as self-enclosed and exclusionary phenomenon
•breeds insularity and protectionism
=/= vulnerable, permeable, susceptible to transformation
=/= riot crowd (open fever and pulsation always searching out new formulations, *new exteriorities* to traverse ==> remains restless, agitated, insatiate)
•community eventually ofers abstract representation of their lived experience (**becoming symbolic**) =/= riot crowd remains material, visceral, a carnavalesque sensation, and therefore formless [--> Elen's response to apass offered “community"]
(with the intention of it lasting, *nothing deserves to stay “as is”* [?!])
*stale archetypes of the collective knowing subject (“they”)*
problem with ‘periphery’
***deadly and deathly delusion that there is a “within”***
-the periphery in its own removed site it circumscribes a sacred boundary
--> exilic consciousness
-interior sense of belonging: remaining an outsider event --> using treachery for the sake of vitality [~~>? Elen's *playful betrayal* (in apass environment) to emerge (and inflect) herself at will]
what makes the exile (=/= the knowing subject) more fascinating is that *it does not need to exist* (--> th[...]
(209)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%58.2[...]--> the subject is this free, anonymous, and nomadic singularity which traverses men as well as plants and animals independently of the matter of their individuation and the forms of their personality [~~> #write a short story for hayula]
*Eastern insurgent's participation in the chaotic event* --> there is no natural or pure ==> (a more) apocalyptic response ==> to became available
[--> to deal with sense as a predicate مسند or a property دارايى =/=? to deal with sense as an event]
community
(on Eastern postmodern gathering)
(alternative categories that express the potential for “relationality”: assemblage, alignment, circle, swarm, etc. that are based on multiple vantages of intersection and divergence =/=) *community*:
•tends to evoke an essentialist claim
•there is typically some centralized discourse of unity, some absolute principle that binds everyone
•functions as self-enclosed and exclusionary phenomenon
•breeds insularity and protectionism
=/= vulnerable, permeable, susceptible to transformation
=/= riot crowd (open fever and pulsation always searching out new formulations, *new exteriorities* to traverse ==> remains restless, agitated, insatiate)
•community eventually ofers abstract representation of their lived experience (**becoming symbolic**) =/= riot crowd remains material, visceral, a carnavalesque sensation, and therefore formless [--> Elen's response to apass offered “community"]
(with the intention of it lasting, *nothing deserves to stay “as is”* [?!])
*stale archetypes of the collective knowing subject (“they”)*
problem with ‘periphery’
***deadly and deathly delusion that there is a “within”***
-the periphery in its own removed site it circumscribes a sacred boundary
--> exilic consciousness
-interior sense of belonging: remaining an outsider event --> using treachery for the sake of vitality [~~>? Elen's *playful betrayal* (in apass environment) to emerge (and inflect) herself at will]
what makes the exile (=/= the knowing subject) more fascinating is that *it does not need to exist* (--> the ‘need to exist’ lies at the root of the knowing subject's violence)
the community is desperate to exist ==degenerates==> into totalitarian declaration of its rights; obsessed with constructing mythologies of presence (and being represented)
=/= the exile (the animal, the child, the shadow, the monster, the machine, the thing, the contagion) carries none of the anxiety of ontological authenticity. they come and go, as impersonal, nameless, metamorphosing creatures, never too long in the same place, always with some *new game* or *secret to pursue*
communities --> distinctly humanist : importing a kind of micro-universality --> ladem with oppressive suggestions of an inborn ethical obligation (originally from the enlightenm[...]
(211)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%58.3[...]◾breeds insularity and protectionism
=/= vulnerable, permeable, susceptible to transformation
=/= riot crowd (open fever and pulsation always searching out new formulations, *new exteriorities* to traverse ==> remains restless, agitated, insatiate)
•community eventually ofers abstract representation of their lived experience (**becoming symbolic**) =/= riot crowd remains material, visceral, a carnavalesque sensation, and therefore formless [--> Elen's response to apass offered “community"]
(with the intention of it lasting, *nothing deserves to stay “as is”* [?!])
*stale archetypes of the collective knowing subject (“they”)*
problem with ‘periphery’
***deadly and deathly delusion that there is a “within”***
-the periphery in its own removed site it circumscribes a sacred boundary
--> exilic consciousness
-interior sense of belonging: remaining an outsider event --> using treachery for the sake of vitality [~~>? Elen's *playful betrayal* (in apass environment) to emerge (and inflect) herself at will]
what makes the exile (=/= the knowing subject) more fascinating is that *it does not need to exist* (--> the ‘need to exist’ lies at the root of the knowing subject's violence)
the community is desperate to exist ==degenerates==> into totalitarian declaration of its rights; obsessed with constructing mythologies of presence (and being represented)
=/= the exile (the animal, the child, the shadow, the monster, the machine, the thing, the contagion) carries none of the anxiety of ontological authenticity. they come and go, as impersonal, nameless, metamorphosing creatures, never too long in the same place, always with some *new game* or *secret to pursue*
communities --> distinctly humanist : importing a kind of micro-universality --> ladem with oppressive suggestions of an inborn ethical obligation (originally from the enlightenment) ==became==> source of judgment ==> taxonomies of power ==> disenchantment, alienation, genocidal playback
Mohaghegh suggests the always social logic of community formation is toxic, “the death sentence to its mutability and actual freedom” --> to avoid the “trappings of a social framework, with its false codifications of ethical responsibility, and seek more elusive pathways of dialogue and juncture” (--> i am not sure about it, this could be also problematic)
...................................
[title]
**chaotic topology of imagination**
Ali's constant antagonism (in his work and in his speech acts)
Mohaghegh's use of “third-world authors”
they write the unnamable --&--> execute a vast becoming (of devastating scale and proportion)
to place these authors in immediate exchange with “western” thought --> to allow for a toxic, فرسایشی abrasive confrontation that reveals the outstanding distanc[...]
(213)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%58.3[...]red “community"]
(with the intention of it lasting, *nothing deserves to stay “as is”* [?!])
*stale archetypes of the collective knowing subject (“they”)*
problem with ‘periphery’
***deadly and deathly delusion that there is a “within”***
-the periphery in its own removed site it circumscribes a sacred boundary
--> exilic consciousness
-interior sense of belonging: remaining an outsider event --> using treachery for the sake of vitality [~~>? Elen's *playful betrayal* (in apass environment) to emerge (and inflect) herself at will]
what makes the exile (=/= the knowing subject) more fascinating is that *it does not need to exist* (--> the ‘need to exist’ lies at the root of the knowing subject's violence)
the community is desperate to exist ==degenerates==> into totalitarian declaration of its rights; obsessed with constructing mythologies of presence (and being represented)
=/= the exile (the animal, the child, the shadow, the monster, the machine, the thing, the contagion) carries none of the anxiety of ontological authenticity. they come and go, as impersonal, nameless, metamorphosing creatures, never too long in the same place, always with some *new game* or *secret to pursue*
communities --> distinctly humanist : importing a kind of micro-universality --> ladem with oppressive suggestions of an inborn ethical obligation (originally from the enlightenment) ==became==> source of judgment ==> taxonomies of power ==> disenchantment, alienation, genocidal playback
Mohaghegh suggests the always social logic of community formation is toxic, “the death sentence to its mutability and actual freedom” --> to avoid the “trappings of a social framework, with its false codifications of ethical responsibility, and seek more elusive pathways of dialogue and juncture” (--> i am not sure about it, this could be also problematic)
...................................
[title]
**chaotic topology of imagination**
Ali's constant antagonism (in his work and in his speech acts)
Mohaghegh's use of “third-world authors”
they write the unnamable --&--> execute a vast becoming (of devastating scale and proportion)
to place these authors in immediate exchange with “western” thought --> to allow for a toxic, فرسایشی abrasive confrontation that reveals the outstanding distance from such conventions of knowing [--> my work is about this, to visist (visit + resist) these sites of critical encounter and embed them in my performative acts ==> to provide/produce a condition in which a non-antagonistic critical encounter between the “Western” order of knowing and the chaotic textualities of “Middle East” is possible]
epistemic warfare (~/= my ajayeb)
masks of an impersonal nightwalker consciousness
madness
[...]
(214)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%58.3[...]ostoevsky --> the body commended by *illness* bears a memory trace of the *sacred* (+ finitude of all bodies)
“God is dead = God no longer has a body” ==Nancy==> bodies (bereft of trickle-down symbolicity) will have to be:
•pumped up
•prosthetically amplified
•steroid-enhanced
•“built”
•buffed
•bionically ensured
•drugged
•“medicated”
•cloned
•remade
==> the technobody or replicant will be made to substitute for the lost body of the divine trait
last night he dreamed of (apocalypse technological dominion:) spread of the railroad and the distribution of connectors installed by new technologies as instigators of the unsacrificeable...
(in literature) apocalypse = vehicle (a technological momentum)
the unnamed God has vanished together with this unnameable thing...
Myshkin’s illness still binds him to the sacred --> this body retains and persists in making sense, the illness continues to produce sense
...poverty, hunger, deportation, torture, deprivation, ugliness, horror --> bodies sacrificed to nothing
[*]sacrifice: a body's passage to a limit where it becomes the body of a community
(after Christ -->) body is nothing but a wound =/= illness
(when it persists) pain ==> I'm not well, I'm in trouble, therefore I am.
jouissance: a pain that succeeds <-- a place where being, utterly exposed, is external to itself
[*]body: surplus of objectivity
our body acts as a traumatic place (that causes a series of failures)
(idiot's seizure) epilepsy
Then suddenly something seemed torn asunder before him; his soul was flooded with intense inner light. The moment lasted perhaps half a second, yet he clearly and consciously remembered the beginning, the first sound of the fearful scream which broke of itself from his breast and which he could not have checked by any effort. Then his consciousness was instantly extinguished and complete darkness followed.
(going to fetal position)
seizure: an enactment of a wish to return to the womb
epilepsy --Sutterman--> sadomasochistic phantasms that feature the self as murdered child
breaking a prized vase
delivering rants in place of conversation
Dostoevsky's idiot:
•repugnant
•uncanny
•a kind of Bataillean reversal (at bottom is unmistakably Christian)
•provokes love
according to Dostoevsky: *idiot ==provoke==> love*
Faust had reported that two souls inhabit his body [==> switching body types] {--> two sick bodies} (hallucinated + internalized)
1. the ailing body --> you can get rid off with drugs (dealt with Mephistopheles)
2. the abandoned body --> inglorious corpse
[...]
(216)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%61[...]ers were slaves]
gathering of men (were held regularly) as social occasions for business, entertainment, smoke opium, etc.
clandestine conversations were not unusual
shari'a was interpreted and administrated by shii clerics in Yazd, and there was always room for manipulation of the law
Ziba Khanum's situation illustrates the problem of applying western legal categories of “slave” and “free” to the lived experience of enslaved women in iran
(her legal status as a free woman had little consequence <-- she remained dependent of the family and lived in their household)
***limited value of “slave =/= free” --Lee--> when applied to the study of muslim world***
modern state ==> “slave =/= free” (presupposing a secular state that is able to guarantee the lives and properties of individuals who can claim its protection) }<-- societies that are constructed around the ideas of:
rights, citizenship, secular state =/=
| | |
kinship, belonging, religious authority, hierarchies of dependence (<-- middle east)
19th century iran --> there was no ideal within the society of freedom from relationships (of kinship, household, belonging, community solidarity, wealthy patron)--with--> implications of dependence, obedience, obligation
•any such freedom would have left an individual *isolated* and *vulnerable*
****
all enslaved persons (and akk other persons) in 19th century iran necessarily were *embedded in muslim households* and moved along a continuum of whatever situation of power, respect, wealth, independence they might be able to *negotiate*
#Cinderella
****
women --> at the margins of wealth and power --> slave women most especailly (they moved toward the center by:)
1. performed valuable domestic duties
2. became the master's regular sexual partner
3. bore the master child
the goal of most women (slave or not) om 19th century iran --> to negotiate the most respected position (within the family that they found themselves attached to) <-- **the defining factor was gender, rather than slavery**
for example Ziba Khanum's free life after the death of her master was determined by *gender* more than her previous *slave status* or by *perceptions of race*
babi movement in 1844 iran
baha'i teachings of detachment and resignation in the face of adversity
Ghulam Ali by the end of hi life was the largest landowner in the vity and extremely influential in politics and business affairs [he had three kaniz: Fezzeh (silver), Zaffaron (saffron), Shireen (sweet)]
...complete disappearance of the african diaspora in iran (!!??)
Lee: how Ziba Khanum's life be represented and understood?
Spivak forcefully and poignantly demonst[...]
(217)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%61.2[...]hildhood Elias chap1
[*]childhood: idealized romantic construct, with denied legal rights, reflection of adults about themselves:
•nostalgia for an individual and collective past
•
=/= children vacillate between innocence & awareness, morality & immorality, cruelty & kindness, foolishness & wisdom, , , **children act as sophisticated consumers**
--Elias--> ***children make emotional, political, consumerist choices***
how adults construct childhood --> ***aesthetic social imagination***
how adults imagine children (in idealized forms ==> evocation of emotions) ==> give meaning to (individual and) collective realities
childhood --> worry + obligation =/= adulthood --> ease + freedom
(my childhood is sometimes remembered by me so different than of my friends --> makes the universal media objects specifically precious: cartoons that were watched by us across border and time ---> go to Sina's Children's Media Watch List childrensmedia.net)
imagine children -->
•nature of emotions
•relationship to religion
•relationship to society
◦articulation of attitude towards society
•constructing concept of:
◦individual
◦community
◦nation
◦gender
◦age
Elias's notion of emotion --> a broad category to index concepts of morally, ethics, politics, aspirational acts,
(everything depends on the ways we remember our [emotional experience of] childhood)
(memory = salad of) fragments of memory + emotions from our experience + emotions experienced by others + what we have been told by others about our childhood
common theory --> age between two and eleven children are most sensitive to external factors ==> most vulnerable to advertising
*age seven*
children are increasingly controlled by symbolic relationships and images (+ make judgment about things)
*under five*
{human characters ~?/= animated characters}--> belief in imaginary characters and monsters, management of emotions
*age two*
(end of) two --> children begin pretending (until age of five)
*over four*
idiosyncratic system of thinking about causality (extraordinary plays larger role than adults)
create and identify emotions in visual images
fantasizing =/= fantastical thinking
(for children) wishing = mental + magical + it exists in relatio to skill [---> go to Cinderella, waiting]
Elias's study of children images (visual material featuring children) in Persianate cultures (turkey, pakistan, iran) --> (role of) ***childhood/children = location of enacted emotion***
childhood + religion + visual culture <-- implementation of ideology in society
turkey, pakistan, iran:
[...]
(218)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%61.4[...]al}
(the idea of power:) objects have agency in the complex web of interactions that joins them to other [--> object having itinerary] =/= objects have abilities or sentience that they use autonomously [--> object having life]
}--Elias--> critique of the idea of scopic regime
Elias furnishing the minimum information necessary to create an informed context (to frame of discussion) =/= give comprehensive history (about iran, pakistan, or turkey)
objects --> *affecting presence* (objects elicit affects)
[*]object: location of emotion, happiness pointer (---> go to index finger)
visual object: signifier of individual and collective emotion and aspiration
index
we do not have access to reliable system of deductible reasoning that assures us of an accurate interpretation of one value to the index --> lack of precise causative relationship between *observed phenomena* and their *affective consequences* (manifested on individuals and human societies)
}<-- this plagues visial material cultural studies
(Gell's notion of) abduction: a form of reasoning to abduce a possible (=/= actual) agent or effect
abductive reasoning (=/= deduction, communication, translation)
--> ***to analyze and experiment in the lack of data or causal relationships*** (which happens most of the time)
(i have been using the term speculation as synonym for abduction)
abduction = informed abduction : you need as much contextually relevant information as possible
(learning from Elias)
•specificity of emotions and affects <-- much more interesting
•specificity of objects or people
[*]emotion: object of (unintentional) human manufacture ==> location of human meaning & motivation
...................................
childhood Elias chap2
philosophical notions of selfhood in late antiquity (= islam + europe) ==> study of emotions & feelings
Platonic + Aristotelian : “emotion = ambivalent urges need to be disciplined and harnessed through some process of education” ==> islamic ideas of body & mind
favorite emotion (~ religious expression + motivator) in islam [+ sufism]: love & virtue [--✕--> my interest in hate & monster]
it was only one and half a century ago that William James argued that human mental states were incapable inseparable from our bodily forms (=/= “mind =/= body”)
modern theories of emotion:
•universalism <-- sentimental desire to believe in the essential community of all human beings + appeal of neuroscientific inquiries into the biological bases of emotions + certain linguistics theories [--> for example (the fable of universal emotion) *fear in the face of the enemy* transcends time and space]
•social constructivism <-- 80s sociology and cultural stu[...]
(219)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%61.6[...]al relationships*** (which happens most of the time)
(i have been using the term speculation as synonym for abduction)
abduction = informed abduction : you need as much contextually relevant information as possible
(learning from Elias)
•specificity of emotions and affects <-- much more interesting
•specificity of objects or people
[*]emotion: object of (unintentional) human manufacture ==> location of human meaning & motivation
...................................
childhood Elias chap2
philosophical notions of selfhood in late antiquity (= islam + europe) ==> study of emotions & feelings
Platonic + Aristotelian : “emotion = ambivalent urges need to be disciplined and harnessed through some process of education” ==> islamic ideas of body & mind
favorite emotion (~ religious expression + motivator) in islam [+ sufism]: love & virtue [--✕--> my interest in hate & monster]
>
it was only one and half a century ago that William James argued that human mental states were incapable inseparable from our bodily forms (=/= “mind =/= body”)
modern theories of emotion:
•universalism <-- sentimental desire to believe in the essential community of all human beings + appeal of neuroscientific inquiries into the biological bases of emotions + certain linguistics theories [--> for example (the fable of universal emotion) *fear in the face of the enemy* transcends time and space]
•social constructivism <-- 80s sociology and cultural studies
using clinical data for humanistic arguments <-- problematic and unpersuasive
*******generation of new knowledge --approached-->
humanistic method (also applies to art?) --> authoritative: establishing control over the previous scholarship in the field + incremental advancement to collective knowledge
(*written as eureka moments of the revelarevelation of knowledge* --> book: definitive work that closes discussion)
=/=
scientific method --> testing hypothesis, expecting one's own hypothesis to be proven wrong or incomplete in a very short time
(*written as progress reports on findings in ongoing research* --> article)
}--> this makes it dangerous for humanity scholars to take advantage of scientific research
[*]emotion
cognitive psychology --> humanistic + social-scientific theories of emotions --promoting--> (fables of)
•universal basic emotions: happiness, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise [--> regardless what these terms might be in other languages other than english, or even if there are equivalent concepts]
•emotions do not occur in language but are physically manifested in the face [--> micro-expression in business negotiations]
•(the fable of) artworks can convey emotions accurately and reliably across time and culture [--> go t[...]
(220)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%61.7[...]s from speech act theory (there is no evidence that thinking and saying out loud “i am happy” have the same effects, or forcing one self to smile)
•there is no reason to consider one action more or less descriptive than performative than the other [--Sina--> my whole work has been about arguing the performativity of descriptive acts, there are no descriptions that do not generate emotions]
•lack of methodological distinction between (anthropological) fieldwork [: subject is changed by the presence of researcher] =/= historical research
•problem of synchrony in “emotive” <-- ignoring memory, aspiration (on the list of the emotional actor)
emotional states can be evoked or avoided(?)
conditions can be manipulated with the goal of shaping emotions in the future
emotion and its affects
•emotion --> medicated and sustained
•affect (a very recent idea) --> ephemeral instantaneously rises and dissipates (leaving residual effects)
}<-- a heuristic device (difference) to highlight different kinds of experiences, their perception and impact
affect is under inquiry in understand:
•customer culture
•entertainment industry
•
•(individual located in larger communities)
[*]affect: embodied thought : culturally and corporealy informed cognition = thoughts + apprehension “i am involved”
[emotion = i am involved]
(Elias) arguments in favor of affect (affect-culture):
1. (help us to understand) relationship between *(human) bodies, nature, action*
2. explains cooperative living, sacrifice, generosity, attachment, affection (better than theories that focus on economics, politics, power)
3. critical apparatus for gaining knowledge from human interaction and social movements --understand--> future
(concept of) affect --> productive way of understanding human attitude and behavior
_____________
affect theory
•(Spinoza ==>) Deleuze's ethnology of bodily capacities ==> Massumi
•(Darwin --?-->) Tomkins's psychobiology and differential affect ==> Sedgwick
Tomkins
basic affect transcend culture
durable and socially meaningful
Deleuze
[*]affect = innateness + external stimuli, “entire, vital modulating field of myriad becomings across human and nonhuman”
Spinoza
“no one has yet determined what the body can do”
1. the body's capacity is not determined by the body alone but that it is amplified and assisted by its external context
2. even though we might not understand the videos nature, we can comprehend how a specific body functions in a particular social context
•affectus --> the force of an affecting body =/=
•affectio --> impact of an affecting body on the one affected (==generate==> bodily capacities)
[*]affect: a relational pheno[...]
(221)[...notes/sanaan full text.txt]%61.8[...]lled* by forces of society <-- bad idea for political engagement]
**politics --> a sphere that is deeply imbricated in the visual regimes of societies** (--> for me that is why visual arts are so important: politics is always visual)
**politics --> affect can explain the processes that are inexplicable through other functional explanations + affect exists as an object of power (political formations are reactive to and formed by affect)
(Naveeda Khan)
Jinns and children
a place for a child to build conviviality / continuity with a creature made of smokeless fire
(the girl) she charts through a modality of “hearing”
..that which defines the normative, the duties, and responsibilities that accompany observance of a religious tradition.
different intensities by which the normative is reiterated
Jinns are also known to eavesdrop (esteragh-e sam’) on the angels in the lower reaches of heaven to acquire limited knowledge of the future
the little mischievous spirits (nafs) that make up a self
**wonders of children
children are born free of sin and have the ability to communicate without reason (aghl) and therefore carry the threat of being easily led astray
8 year-old Maryam, channeling communication between the jinn and her family
a time that she would look into the palms of her hand (to see what the jinn would have her see)
she instructed the jinn that he could enter her father's body, with his permission, jinn wanted to taste human food
her father and brothers would listen carefully to her descriptions
(authoritative figure of the father becomes the pupil of his little daughter hearing her words of advice)--alterity
“in the middle east, the child is seen as the crucial generational link in the family unit, the key to its continuation, the living person that ties the present to the past and to the future” (Ferena 1005)
“in the indian case ...the child is seen as already being full person in domains to which the mother does not have access” (Veena Das 1989)
...healer or magician may utilize a child to bring into presence or communicate with the spiritual being
(***the presence of child in Ma'rekeh-Giri معرکه گیری?***)
...................................
ecstatic identifications with...
one could legitimately dream of the prophet, but one could never call him forth
both these paths escape jinn, having a dynamic if disruptive presence within human world, alongside the presence of angels and saints
there can be no other experience of the prophet other than through the record of his words and deeds??!!!
the daily str[...]
(222)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%62.3[...]br />
the little mischievous spirits (nafs) that make up a self
**wonders of children
children are born free of sin and have the ability to communicate without reason (aghl) and therefore carry the threat of being easily led astray
8 year-old Maryam, channeling communication between the jinn and her family
a time that she would look into the palms of her hand (to see what the jinn would have her see)
she instructed the jinn that he could enter her father's body, with his permission, jinn wanted to taste human food
her father and brothers would listen carefully to her descriptions
(authoritative figure of the father becomes the pupil of his little daughter hearing her words of advice)--alterity
“in the middle east, the child is seen as the crucial generational link in the family unit, the key to its continuation, the living person that ties the present to the past and to the future” (Ferena 1005)
“in the indian case ...the child is seen as already being full person in domains to which the mother does not have access” (Veena Das 1989)
...healer or magician may utilize a child to bring into presence or communicate with the spiritual being
(***the presence of child in Ma'rekeh-Giri معرکه گیری?***)
...................................
ecstatic identifications with...
one could legitimately dream of the prophet, but one could never call him forth
both these paths escape jinn, having a dynamic if disruptive presence within human world, alongside the presence of angels and saints
there can be no other experience of the prophet other than through the record of his words and deeds??!!!
the daily struggle to presence the prophet
علما olama =/= بچه bache
face-to-face =/= via-jinn
face-to-face learning from the olama (the authoritative transmitters) versus a faceless and voiceless jinn with his child serving as its ventriloquist (arusak gardan)
activating competing bodies of knowledge and sets of relations
(in the hope that one of them will pay off)
insistence on a modicum [minimum amount] of consistency
...................................
...enmeshed within a certain unintentional malevolence existing alongside generosity.
-malevolence is something that holds out the possibility of harm rather than actively intending it
-generosity is the willingness to concede to others rather than a nobility of character
(also the dilemma of introducing the jinn to your child)
“exposing” his children to their disruptive yet generative powers
‘exposure of children to evil’
the innate resource of children
(for Zezru) the ch[...]
(224)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%62.3[...]ous origins (Bown 1993)
mythopoetic (registers of Qur'an)
mythopoetic registers of everyday life
Jinn can trick the humans into looking at a copy of them (and then change form or into formlessness)
the copies of time-honored practice of embodying and transmitting the islamic tradition is now haunted by *modern anxieties*
Asb-e Imam-Hossein
it is in islamic tradition that being a muslim entails keeping up the illusory nature of everyday life while also participating in it. (not excessive withdrawal nor excessive attachment)
[why isis breaks this?]
...................................
[✕] technologies of the “here and now”
[✕] semiotic-tech of “elsewheres”
}-->
(separated in the past, *ontological difference*, a fiction) in West: (--> that is why Latour anthropologizes modernism)
*[philosophy]--signals--> here (in Europe and West), selves
*[anthropology]--signals--> elsewhere, others }--> a wannabe discourse on Others
}--> (ontological difference between anthropology & philosophy [in their mode of immersion in the metaphysical] is part of) colonial community, a form of ‘negation’ =/= my recent antagonism [the way i am studying is for *extension*{= extending but also standing in tension with, a lineage(=/= rupture)} rather than *negation*]: since i got into Olearius, 2017, I am developing recently a philosphpical-genealogical antagonism. (in Iran we are used to philosophy naturally inhabiting the otherness of Europe, among others, we never see them as anthropological objects, but they see us as such. *we don't think ethnographically about Others*)
}--> my aim is to mix this while i am “here” --> i say life (also power and ethics) comes to attention simultaneously anthropologically and philosophically from elsewhere and here [--> to reed something from the outside ~= reterritorialization (of concepts, interests, affects, percepts,)]--> when concepts are reterritorialized they illuminate the world differently
*we need better construction of past for building truly decolonial community* <-- is my antagonism needed for this?
anthropology: a mode of heightened attentiveness to life
(Singh)
Foucault, Benjamin, Derrida, Deleuze --> a loss of anthropologically generated theory
(more than once in a single day i find myself paused to wonder at) how thought moves
(long-standing philosophical between) dialectical and nondialectical genealogies of thought
-to be drawn to nondialectical is not the negation of dialectical, it is a way of thinking about the “meta"-physics (Singh)
philosophy reconciders this: ‘concepts come more explicitly to the surface as impressions grow into thoughts’ --> no! no!
[...]
(225)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%62.6[...]atour anthropologizes modernism)
*[philosophy]--signals--> here (in Europe and West), selves
*[anthropology]--signals--> elsewhere, others }--> a wannabe discourse on Others
}--> (ontological difference between anthropology & philosophy [in their mode of immersion in the metaphysical] is part of) colonial community, a form of ‘negation’ =/= my recent antagonism [the way i am studying is for *extension*{= extending but also standing in tension with, a lineage(=/= rupture)} rather than *negation*]: since i got into Olearius, 2017, I am developing recently a philosphpical-genealogical antagonism. (in Iran we are used to philosophy naturally inhabiting the otherness of Europe, among others, we never see them as anthropological objects, but they see us as such. *we don't think ethnographically about Others*)
}--> my aim is to mix this while i am “here” --> i say life (also power and ethics) comes to attention simultaneously anthropologically and philosophically from elsewhere and here [--> to reed something from the outside ~= reterritorialization (of concepts, interests, affects, percepts,)]--> when concepts are reterritorialized they illuminate the world differently
*we need better construction of past for building truly decolonial community* <-- is my antagonism needed for this?
anthropology: a mode of heightened attentiveness to life
(Singh)
Foucault, Benjamin, Derrida, Deleuze --> a loss of anthropologically generated theory
(more than once in a single day i find myself paused to wonder at) how thought moves
(long-standing philosophical between) dialectical and nondialectical genealogies of thought
-to be drawn to nondialectical is not the negation of dialectical, it is a way of thinking about the “meta"-physics (Singh)
philosophy reconciders this: ‘concepts come more explicitly to the surface as impressions grow into thoughts’ --> no! no!
how philosophy relates to and draws on nonphilosophy (is usually geographical*)
more differences:
•geographical: western/non-western
•naional: indian/french
•subdisciplinary: analytic/continental
(trajectories of Derrica, a tradition of) negative transcendence: différance, an absence that transcends “a” and “not a” [=/= (trajectories of Deleuze, a tradition of) affirmative immanence, the self-differentiating intensities of “a”, compresence of “a"]
some Deleuzian terms:
•assemblages
•deterritorization
•becoming
•multiplicities
•excess
•schizophrenia (~ nondialectical thought, a nondialectical expression of different polarities held together. use ‘split’ to create a philosophy, [the ‘split’ metaphore is] an argument for the dynamism and temporality of the structure =/= dialectical historism and the Freudian unconscious) -- schizophrenia marks [...]
(226)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%62.6[...]w of life
emphasis on the system is (always?) at the cost of the event
(eternal investment of the artists in foregrounding of the event rather than the structure --> rapture with structure as caste, tradition, state, norm, system, etc. at the cost of missing the practical kinship transcribed into the social contract, leadership, and laws of encounter)
***modernity is composed (neither by continuities nor rupture then, but) by transfigurations***
(Singh + Veena)
critical event
critical structure
[*]event: institute a new modality of historical action which is not inscribed in the inventory of that situation
(for Furet: French revolution is an event par excellence) --Veena--> event: moments when new modes of action come into being which which redefines traditional categories (such as: codes of purity and honor, the meaning of martyrdom, construction of a heroic life, etc.)
foregrounding the event as analytic category (without disappearing the question of structure):
-sati of Roop Kanvar
-Sikh militancy
-collective violence during the partition of India and Pakistan
not only the state (tries to institutionalize collective memory), but also minor communities (in the process of their emergence) try to control and fix memory in much the same manner [not total of course] (--> something i am learning in north of Norway with the sami)
there is always *ambiguity* in the way even the most passionate public presentations of militant nationalist discourse is framed (--> there is ***noise in reference to violence*** @Mona)
event ==> shift the configuration of analysis (and not annulling the structure's analytical possibilities)
event: (a new set of) circumstances for which rules are not set in place
in the case of Bhopal intoxication --> gradual creation of an expert discourse which sought to dissolve the concrete and existential reality of suffering victims
in the case of such-large suffering event coordinations gradually come to be defined around it --> question of structure
(**modernity is an event**)
pain and suffering are not simply individual experiences ... they may also be experiences which are created and distributed by the social order
Veena's *anthropology of pain*
how institutions (in the domain of religion, and modern: bureaucracy, law, medicine) maintain and signal their legitimacy in the face of massive human suffering?
-manufacture of pain
-theology of suffering
the discovery of the event, as a question for anthropology, is precisely that: *event exceeds structure*
(exess ==> reimagining the networks that compose our lives)
Veena --> Bhopal industrial disaster: neither social relations nor locally available knowledge were sufficient to app[...]
(227)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%63.5[...]ophetic, a heroic mode of action in terms of escaping the ordinary rather than descend into it [--> Marx]. such as: Antigone's spectacular defiant voice celebrated in philosophical and political thought, stable locus of redemption. usually a rebellion in some sort, craving a socially progressive agonistics --> French Revolution)
--or--> (=/= possibility of an ethnographic) integrity: *attempt to attain a proximity to the vagaries of life* ~~> ordinary works of repair in a life, such as Asha
--or--> *reparative impulse of politics* (=/= agonistic), Shahrzad's non-agonistic socially progressive politics of working under “terror” animated by the question of how we might continue to live together, how the social fabric holds together
--or-->
(it is our/my imperative today) ***to give each other a more open-ended picture of [our] bad objects (caste, capital, state, modernity, etc.)***
exchange, resettlement, fission, mythological replacement (~ friction and movement within the system) ==> repartitioning of categories ==> rearrangement of hierarchies ==> opposing and heretical sects and religions
-art's (ethnographic?) proximity to life
-political postures and stands
(nobody has, neither state nor communities) monopoly on ethical pronouncement [~ declaration of good and evil]
(political) postures are not unimportant, they allow us to take a stand --> perspective
--or--> evocatively ambiguous formulation on... =/= [*]politic: spirit of resentment on behalf of the victim (Setareh, Hoda, Ali ; also @Sina not to deny the possibility of victimhood) --> *how possibilities of life close down and where other possibilities open up under the weight of patriarchal norms*
question at Hoda:
-how dose she involve a relocation of her protagonists (the sorrowful women) within the domestic, even if the domestic shifts?
-how an understanding of power after Foucault (that power does not come from above, that power is not something that has to be identified) influences her mode of thinking about the condition of her women? [the boundaries of patriarchy are not clear]
sometimes recovery from violence does not come from national imaginary and public rituals of mourning and reparation, Veena shows how a certain kind of silence, the refusal to let toxicity circulate, involves everyday spiritual exercises in *digesting the poison in the acts of attending to the ordinary* --> survivors affirming the possibility of life by removing it from the circulation of words gone wild... (--Hoda's lullabies songs of private injuries?)
-silence is never simply a silence
-to be able to affirm certain kinds of silence (is key to a political anthropology)
different rhythms of conflict and cohabitation
questions
-life-giving and life-denying rhythms of ordinary life
-how (a revolutionary) ev[...]
(228)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%63.9[...]play or story --> a way to *establish setting* [=/= scene] --> sense of (not necessarily authentic) history, calling for the patina of history} ==> my recent scenic paintings --present--> *visual stream of consciousness* ~= diorama ~= to capture the essence of a practice interest optic episteme (--> establish a setting to get caught lured)
(in my work: assumption of)
symbolic use of visual elements --> collective consciousness + revitalized forms ==> vision of a larger culture : capturing a gestalt = everyone can understand
Shake, Rattle and Roll
romance, light sex, and comedy segments---laced in horror
(Tolentino)
horror genre
==> big young stars performing non-iconic roles
~= (analogue of [collective]) anxiety (of nation?) : making-do processes and mechanisms of ordinary people + imperative of profit and state formation
--> how (mis)governance get to be represented + how citizenry is enforced and embodied (at the ground level)
Philippines: from Marcos dictatorship --to--> neoliberalism: privatized, deregulated, commercialized, marketized public services
•Crane using psychoanalytical tropes --> horror = everyday terror
[*]horror: excessive communication
•Creed using trope of monstrous-feminine --> horror = gestalten deeds in adjection and castration
•Lim --> *horror = temporal critique* {fantastic local horror =/= historical time, supernaturalism, occult modes of thinking encoded in fantastic narratives}
[Bergson > Lim > Tolentino:] horror --> heterogeneous temporality, heteroglossia: multiple tongues, to disengage in certain (nation) formations
horrific real
translation of historical terror in filmic horror
historical real + filmic mobilization --render--> real as porous & artificial
horror --Tolentino--> transhistorical (transgressional) continuity of the project of desire & pleasure
--> masochistic viewing experience + trajectory of critique
(during Marcos order in Philippines -->) horror genre talks about the popular dialectics of the known & unknown, moral & immoral, inclusion & exclusion, defeat & triumph, struggle & redemption, normal & abnormal, reality & alternative realities, religious & secular
•horror provides a cultural trope for the imagination of the nation
anxious state in horror films --represent--> anxious state in ... (nation-formation, citizenship, etc.) --> irony: (the anxious state) it is not what it is
----> [*]viewing: a sadomasochistic act [you know it is frightful (or garbage) yet enjoy viewing (in KHM we called it hate-watching)] --> pervers pleasure ==> individual and social categories to remain constantly in a flux
intensification of anxiety ~=> carnavalesque moment of drawing pleasure
(in the film) history of a chosen local
[...]
(229)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%64.7[...]osen local
logic of absence --> prohibitive history of violence + excess
ritual of horrific foregrounding
scene + coherence of meaning
*horror is performative : it needs to be restaged in order to be evocative of meaning*
sexualization of women integral to the genre of horror [aimed at its male audience, similar to Charmed]:
•sexy female leading role (in love triangle)
•man --> representing evil and underworld
•man --> representing true love (engaged in a battle for love + choice of the young woman, sexualized in the male contest)
•female viacera sucker --> female creatures need to show hidden skin [popular sex-oriented star --to--> female monstrous figure --allow--> display of prohibited body parts + heteronormative desire]
(female star rendered both strong and weak)
1. exposing and defying the horror figure (first)
2. embodying the horrific abject subject (second)
>
in the narrative of horror
•the moral forthrightness that makes the female subject survive, endure, move on
•they are punished but never totally obliterated into the horror scene
internalization of fear ==>? domestication =? maintaining the status quo in community fronts --Foucault--> docile ==> productive for state formation
(the survivor never fully survives and triumphs over the adversaries of the) horror scene --> open-endedness of the closure = of knowing + of being abjected
(libidinal drive in) citizenship claims in nation-formations ~= (libidinal drive in) continuing performative of the horror subject
}--> one is constitutes through but never thoroughly in power relations
white sexy female star + horror + social melodrama (= Charmed)
orally told tales of female violence
miscegenation
desire for liminal female sexuality
necrophilia
female hauntinaunting
heterosexual desire
nostalgia for truth
==provide==> template for cultural idiomatic imagination
historical experience --> futile & enunciated through the orality of retelling (+ being capable of retelling)
historical justice has not been served in actual social reality ==> the horror scene bears the constant threat and possibility of repeating itself on the future
...................................
#idea
namaz gestures as alchemical ruse to open portals, kill enemies, transmute objects, and other specs
...................................
Naveeda chapter 1 mosque
mosque =/= shell for prayers
•monumental structures built by the state
old mosque: part of complex devoted to
•learning
•dispensing justice
•channeling charity
oft repeated statement: Pakistan is a mosque [~= one has to learn to inhabit this place, aquire[...]
(230)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%64.8[...]gh the orality of retelling (+ being capable of retelling)
historical justice has not been served in actual social reality ==> the horror scene bears the constant threat and possibility of repeating itself on the future
...................................
#idea
namaz gestures as alchemical ruse to open portals, kill enemies, transmute objects, and other specs
...................................
Naveeda chapter 1 mosque
mosque =/= shell for prayers
•monumental structures built by the state
old mosque: part of complex devoted to
•learning
•dispensing justice
•channeling charity
oft repeated statement: Pakistan is a mosque [~= one has to learn to inhabit this place, aquire the right etiquette in sharing it] (--> what it means to be Muslim in Pakistan)
•a place of assembly?
•a sacred place?
qabza, ghabze قبضه, violent seizure, forcible possession
(depending on who you ask -->) Pakistan under ghabze by:
•the state
•venal religious figures
•unscrupulous lay muslims
•sectarian groups
•
“narratives of loss --> investment on self-betterment* (+ bettering of one's community) ~= striving
emergence of new independent mosques --> new property arrangements (+ admin + funding) --> growth of civil institutions
city bureaucracy of Islamabad ==Hull==> *uncivil politics* (سیاست غیرمدنی =/= civil society)
(like Tehran) Lahore = urban fabric palimpsest of:
•different eras of history
•political leadership
•social composition
•aesthetic styles
•modalities of social engineering
=/= dissolving the past into hypermodern
*postcolonial ~=> sectarian politics*
local mosque-related politics
سیاست محلی مسجدی
r />
demographic change + population growth + strengthening of sectarian politics = ?
به طور قانونی غیرقانونی
legally illegal mosques
(illegal structures on land legally put aside for this purpose)
presence of bureaucrats within mosques in south Asia (since 19th century)
creating an ideal state by means of the mosque
loud zekr ذکر
mosque: (bearing) traces of the changing fortunes of its worshippers
qabza =/= voice: an individual's singular words and gestures arising from her embodiment *of hey maslak مسلک*
...civil servents
cultivating a modernist
cosmopolitan air
and their educated well-traveled
nuclear families
congregation (جماعت =/=? collective, community)
communal exchange
learning
contemplation
mosque employee hie[...]
(231)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%64.8[...]
(like Tehran) Lahore = urban fabric palimpsest of:
•different eras of history
•political leadership
•social composition
•aesthetic styles
•modalities of social engineering
=/= dissolving the past into hypermodern
*postcolonial ~=> sectarian politics*
local mosque-related politics
سیاست محلی مسجدی
demographic change + population growth + strengthening of sectarian politics = ?
به طور قانونی غیرقانونی
legally illegal mosques
(illegal structures on land legally put aside for this purpose)
presence of bureaucrats within mosques in south Asia (since 19th century)
creating an ideal state by means of the mosque
loud zekr ذکر
mosque: (bearing) traces of the changing fortunes of its worshippers
qabza =/= voice: an individual's singular words and gestures arising from her embodiment *of hey maslak مسلک*
...civil servents
cultivating a modernist
cosmopolitan air
and their educated well-traveled
nuclear families
congregation (جماعت =/=? collective, community)
communal exchange
learning
contemplation
mosque employee hierarchy:
1. khatib خطیب the person who gives sermons during Friday prayers
2. imam امام the person who leads the give obligatory prayers during the day expect Friday
3. ghari قاری the person who had received enough training to render a pepper recitation of the quran
4. moazen موذن there person who gives the call to prayers, also responsible for cleaning the mosque
ghabze of mosque = expression of ambition (to found religious space) to forge the model Muslim community (beyond daily needs of worship)
***legal exercices & bureaucratic forms = a mode of experimentation*** (in being good [Muslim, intrinsic to Pakistan])
--> to enable civil relation (learning from Naveeda and Femke)
Islam is only one element of a complex weave of politics (involving local leadership, emergent communities of dissent and activism against an indifferent state)
flagging a social problem =/= filling a complaint
jahalat جهالت (=/= common sense + education + good breading)
resentment of uneducated
not class-coded?
--> character (determined by)
•nobility of birth =/= lowly birth
•enlightenment of education =/= ignorant
--Naveeda--> ‘maslak differences ~= grist for the art of war’
rumored
engineered
unfolding
sectarian geography of the city
mobilized in the form of bored policemen
prophet's era intermingled with P[...]
(232)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%64.9[...]legally put aside for this purpose)
presence of bureaucrats within mosques in south Asia (since 19th century)
creating an ideal state by means of the mosque
loud zekr ذکر
mosque: (bearing) traces of the changing fortunes of its worshippers
qabza =/= voice: an individual's singular words and gestures arising from her embodiment *of hey maslak مسلک*
...civil servents
cultivating a modernist
cosmopolitan air
and their educated well-traveled
nuclear families
congregation (جماعت =/=? collective, community)
communal exchange
learning
contemplation
mosque employee hierarchy:
1. khatib خطیب the person who gives sermons during Friday prayers
2. imam امام the person who leads the give obligatory prayers during the day expect Friday
3. ghari قاری the person who had received enough training to render a pepper recitation of the quran
4. moazen موذن there person who gives the call to prayers, also responsible for cleaning the mosque
ghabze of mosque = expression of ambition (to found religious space) to forge the model Muslim community (beyond daily needs of worship)
***legal exercices & bureaucratic forms = a mode of experimentation*** (in being good [Muslim, intrinsic to Pakistan])
--> to enable civil relation (learning from Naveeda and Femke)
Islam is only one element of a complex weave of politics (involving local leadership, emergent communities of dissent and activism against an indifferent state)
flagging a social problem =/= filling a complaint
jahalat جهالت (=/= common sense + education + good breading)
resentment of uneducated
not class-coded?
--> character (determined by)
•nobility of birth =/= lowly birth
•enlightenment of education =/= ignorant
--Naveeda--> ‘maslak differences ~= grist for the art of war’
rumored
engineered
unfolding
sectarian geography of the city
mobilized in the form of bored policemen
prophet's era intermingled with Pakistan present
masjed zarar
gabze (mosque seizure قبضه مسجد) --explicit--> desire to stake a claim on a new nation-state (Pakistan) = expression of striving:
•tie religious/moral development to the nation-state development
•tie religious/moral development to the imagination of an earlier era of Islam
*expression of striving* in art: opening an art space, studio, school, or an institute (=/= create an institution as a conceptual gesture)
--> tie your development to the nation-state development and to an imagination (of change?)
•anything could b[...]
(234)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%64.9[...]men
prophet's era intermingled with Pakistan present
masjed zarar
gabze (mosque seizure قبضه مسجد) --explicit--> desire to stake a claim on a new nation-state (Pakistan) = expression of striving:
•tie religious/moral development to the nation-state development
•tie religious/moral development to the imagination of an earlier era of Islam
*expression of striving* in art: opening an art space, studio, school, or an institute (=/= create an institution as a conceptual gesture)
--> tie your development to the nation-state development and to an imagination (of change?)
•anything could be believed about a certain imam
•when someone (or group) attack you, they transform from human to animal
--> skeptical turn towards the world
neighborhood = ties + tensions
...................................
Naveeda chapter 2 Iqbal
Naveeda's ethnographic example of a scene of aspiration:
•librarians sit around a table (in a public library) engaged in a heated religious argument that threatens to spill into accusations of blasphemy
•Lahoris resolve to build mosques for their neighborhoods only to preside over the dissolution of their communities in their fights over the mosques
<-- sites of dissonance + aspiration
aspiration --> efforts at being Muslim (in the ways one knows or attached to) marked by a striving to an as-yet-unattained self without presuming that this next self is the final one
<-- tendency (=/= social program)
(=/= see these examples as the lack of consensus in Islam)
Iqbal --Naveeda--> theory of creative workings of time
Naveeda constructing a Pakistani Iqbal
Iqbal presence within:
•everyday acts of striving to be Muslim
•state exertion (official rhetoric)
•public culture of Lahore
**synthetic mode of thought**
--> how South Asian intellectuals created zones of thought by assimilating the work of thinkers from different times and parts of the world to their own ==> (develop and sustain a) *cosmopolitanism* [that exceed the limits places on imagination by colonialism, nationalism]
(--in--> both locatedness and translocal ambitions --understand-->) *the openness and connectivity that characterizes the socal*
Iqbal's mode of self-experimentation: he put himself in relation to dynamic individuals and emergent movements and institutions to see how they sat with him and he with them
--Naveeda--> *experimentation does not require the creation of the new* but rather new ways of inhabiting the fundamentals (of religion in Iqbal's case) --toward--> producing the readiness for change
-attitudes of toleration comes with belief in dogma
Mohammad
the prophet's return is creative : [...]
(236)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%65[...]y
#integration
=/= Cinderella's (aim and process of) individuation --Sina--> impersonal individuality
[Cinderella's shekayat شکایت]
Iqbal's nonintuitive pairings (=/= contradictions):
•experimentation / convection
•fidelity to one's past / seeking one's future
•prophetic guidance / human freedom
•reason / revelation
•teleology / open future
•duration / transcendence
•freedom / finitude
•individuality / impersonality
<-- elements are drawn to each other, mutual attraction (that does not detract from the plenitude of each)
(Sir Sayyid:) “religion = revelation + reason” --Iqbal--> affirmative picture of existence after revelation had ceased
Muslim thinking in need of biological renewal ==Iqbal==> revolutionary Muslim thinking
}--> a theory of human perception + intelligence + their place within the larger picture of natural evolution
-in order ot make islam political they have to reject the supernatural (miracles, keramat, etc.) ---> go to Corbin's critique
*striving to overcome the (so-called) sickness of modernity* --> (now in Europe artists want to become -->) *physician of moral community* (hakim al umat)
habits of Allah
•miracle
•
Iqbal --> the question is not of evidence (whether miracles did not did not happen), rather: whether belief in miracles is usefully to a community : miracles ==> intensify sense of supernatural ==> hold together --> society with *ideal nationality* (not territorial nationality)
}--Naveeda--> (Iqbal is saying that) just as Muslims needed to understand the capaciousness of nature (to be able to engage and value human striving), so too did they need to accord existence to the supernatural <-- quality of striving
Maududi's picture of aspiration
modern Muslim citizenry <--Maududi-- should be created by the state (the idea that state must mould every aspect of human life on consonance with its moral norms and program of social reform ==> *true Islam =/= muslim Islam*
~= Islam is perfect, muslims not
•Asad --> muslim self-transformation (self-directed changed) ==> perfect form of islam
•Maududi --> (Muslims who know themselves to be weak by constitution -->) one erect a state to install change in oneself ==> perfect form of islam
•Iqbal --> striving: individuation without individuality ~= potentiel without concrete ~= experimentation on self
producing the concrete environment within something to make it available to X : enabling =/= entailing
...................................
Naveeda chapter 3 law
Naveeda:
•mosque = site of striving
•law = state's efforts at striving (and inflecting muslim aspiration) [=/= law: site of colonial co[...]
(237)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%65.2[...]n better status in the next world
*state --> act upon Muslim bodies to secure their afterlife* (by means of prayers and good work)
}--> define a Muslim:
1. identify the material body upon which am Islamic state is compelled to act (to ensure its afterlife)
2. to protect non-Muslims from the state
3. to protect the state from non-Muslims (kofar)
(for me there is a big difference between:)
•islam: achievement of the Arabian nomads (that make the musulman of today live in the past)
•islam: a tradition of intellectual imagination of those who were conquered
Pakistan 1972 constitution --(for the purpose of the constitution of the law)--> non-muslim: a person who does not believe in the absolute and unqualified finality of prophethood of Muhammad, the last of the prophets or claims to be a prophet, in any sense of the word or of any description whatsoever, after Muhammad or recognizes such a claimant as a prophet or a religious reformer
something akin to copyright (trademark law) --> disable non-Muslims from encroaching upon Muslim rights over their tradition (undertaking muslim modes of worship: use of honorific titles and modes of address specific to the prophetic community, building mosques, calling azan, citing from Quran or hadis, etc.)
khatam anbia --> khatm: seal --> aspects of Islam as sealed off and exclusive to muslims
(Pakistan supprim court's affective legal feedback loop) copyrighting islam = affirmation of Muslim nature <--Naveeda-- *a horizon of striving*
}<-- an example of (Iqbalian) reason + revelation
institutionalizing blindness
Iqbal on ahmadies:
•Tipu sultan collapse by the British 1799 = mark of political and psychological subjugation of Muslims --Iqbal--> Ahmadiyya messianic movement = subjugated people explaining to themselves their state of decline (negative enlightenment)
•tolerance = indifference
striving =/= progress
...................................
Naveeda chapter 4 jinn
strident --> engaging speech with vivid imagery
differential --> differing knowledge to proper authority
lack of consensus on what X is (among its varient constituents) ==> (problem of) loss of tolerance
(for example Pakistan:)
contradictions between commitments to:
•existing hierarchies
•tribal ties
•universalistic religion (whose version of community transcends those ties)
(Naveeda) thinking of the potential lines of movement among entrenched differences, cited texts, and possible positions generated by selves encountering others in the world
intensities that burn within you + openness to conversation
attention to time --Naveeda--> draw a consistent picture of an Islam with [...]
(239)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%65.3[...]ilding mosques, calling azan, citing from Quran or hadis, etc.)
khatam anbia --> khatm: seal --> aspects of Islam as sealed off and exclusive to muslims
(Pakistan supprim court's affective legal feedback loop) copyrighting islam = affirmation of Muslim nature <--Naveeda-- *a horizon of striving*
}<-- an example of (Iqbalian) reason + revelation
institutionalizing blindness
Iqbal on ahmadies:
•Tipu sultan collapse by the British 1799 = mark of political and psychological subjugation of Muslims --Iqbal--> Ahmadiyya messianic movement = subjugated people explaining to themselves their state of decline (negative enlightenment)
•tolerance = indifference
striving =/= progress
...................................
Naveeda chapter 4 jinn
strident --> engaging speech with vivid imagery
differential --> differing knowledge to proper authority
lack of consensus on what X is (among its varient constituents) ==> (problem of) loss of tolerance
(for example Pakistan:)
contradictions between commitments to:
•existing hierarchies
•tribal ties
•universalistic religion (whose version of community transcends those ties)
(Naveeda) thinking of the potential lines of movement among entrenched differences, cited texts, and possible positions generated by selves encountering others in the world
intensities that burn within you + openness to conversation
attention to time --Naveeda--> draw a consistent picture of an Islam with open future
disputation = a form of experimentation: doing and undoing of known forms (in the spirit of striving) [=/= experimentation: innovation in self-making, or social arrangements]
@apass
disputation: a form of interaction (with risks and ill effects [risk of alienation, estrangement of others])
--> [*]becoming: coming to terms with the trajectories and crystalization of tendencies within the transcriptions of the state and in public culture --> **excavating the resources (that this way of being Muslim) give to itself to reflect upon and evaluate (--> renew its inheritance of Islam)
•approaching history from the perspective of plenitude
•approaching history from the perspective of lack
(upsurge of excitement accompanying the creation of Pakistan --Smith--> a tendency [=/= social movement for example reform or piety with identifiable advocacies and trajectories] called) [*]aspiration: sustaining the striving towards an ideal final form (a state, society, self, etc.) =/= achieving
the aspiration of making Pakistan --> to aspire an islamic state ~~Smith--> muslim way of saying that Pakistan should build for itself a good society
--Naveeda--> demand for a state = demand for a soc[...]
(240)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%65.3[...]re of influences jinn introduce into human lives?
•library of religious commentary
•prophetic tales
•magicians’ manuals
•folklore
•ethnography
•
--> characterization of jinn
human ~= jinm --> endowed with passion, rational faculties, responsibility for their actions, etc. they eat, grow, procreate, die
constantly evolving relationship between humans and jinns
from pre-islamic --to--> Islamic
both good & bad ascribed to jinn's constitution --to--> to be much more unequivocally associated with evil
the little mischievous nafs نفس that make up a self --> Muslim interiority (projects?)
...in the belief of jinns:
•complex arrangement of cultural memory
•political strategy
•mental illness
•individual subjectivity
•
--✕--> *Naveeda taking the existence of jinn for granted ==> (her effort) to learn more about the family that adopted them and their efforts at striving*
*taking the existence of X for granted ==to==> learn about the people who adopted X*
“Muslim children - how bring them up?” vol 3
(in Islam) child: bring without aghl عقل + ability to communicate with divine beings, without sin
--> always under the threat of being easily led astray
eight-year-old Maryam
-attuned to ways in which this world and the jinn world were mirrored and intertwined
-would look into the palm of her hand to see what the jinn would have her to see
-relayed the requests of human world to the jinn
-bringing forth advice, instruction, expression of desire (from the jinn)
relationship of ventriloquism (between Maryam and jinn)
there was an accepted contiguity of jinn and human selves & possibility of a plurality of voices in Maryam's mediation --> enjoin her family to attend closely to her words
coterminous
هم مرز، هم زمان
Ahmadi in Pakistan
each Muslim group claimed itself the truest of all <-- the idea that *to accept the X's claim to be Muslim = accept one's own annihilation as Muslim*
--Naveeda--> question the limits of contiguity of different forms of life (when copresence was tolerable? when copresence was made intolerable?)
imitato Muhammadi
emulating X (to experience X) --through--> passionate love and ecstatic identification with the X
(for example the prophet: seeing the prophet on one's mind's eye + imitating him)
•sufist approach: prophet is immanent in the world
•varied affective relations to the prophet:
◦ecstatic love
◦reverential love
◦respect
◦
jinns having a dynamic disruptive presence within the human world
Sunni Deobandi's belief that the prophet is alive in his grave in Me[...]
(241)[...notes/note jinn.txt]%65.6[...]How is the patient (or choreographic) body's specific geometry and its historicity created?
*body is produced through embodied, materially heterogeneous work
(Foucauldian) dispositif: a network within which the body acquires its specific ontology
(Latour < Bowker:) the record ‘mediates’ the relations that it organizes, the bodies that are configured through it
regarding record, we can be concerned with:
•practices of reading and writing which bring the record to life
•mapping the configurations the record helps bring into being
how the structuring of the record speaks to the structuring of the bodies (of the artists?) we investigate? (@Sofia, Olga)
record -->{
production of human bodies
organizational hierarchies
selective memories
_________
Ribes Bowker - Between Meaning and Machine.pdf
...in the wake of ontologies
/>
in participating in knowledge projects, first we learn about ontologies and then learned how to create them
(we rarely “produce” knowledge, we always participate)
ontology: an information technology for representing specialized knowledge in order to:
•facilitate communication across disciplines
•share data
•enable collaboration
(am i) representing the knowledge of my communities (?) -- what does that mean?
*routinization* (is that which is at stake in ontologies) --?--> *apprehension*: orientation to the informational organization of ones field
(to attend the routinizations and apprehensions in one's own practice --> ontology building)
•my routines of reading, highlighting, writing, idiosyncratic talks, feedbacks, questions, silences,
--> (attend to the) transformative consequences of learning and traversing routines --[+]--> the practice and material tools that accompany the reworking of them them {knowledge in informational terms, fables, etc.}--> problematic of inter-operability
--> (and asking) how a (broader) community's interests are at stake with this? {to engage and enrol that community through what activities?} #microworld
(my routines:) with confidence deliberately working with:
•interrupting stories with stories
•partial connection (and its performance)
•moving arguments through by infecting them with other arguments (=/= dialectical)
•mobilizing (multidisciplinary) fields (=/= the imperative of knowing A, B, and C first before you do D)
•mobilizing citation apparatus --> that which gives sense to what enables this work --> deliberately having a conversation with ajayeb al makhlughat
•mobilizing anachronic apparatus --> mobilizing different timescales ==> mixing up what counts as “us” (=/= chronology [?==> belonging])
•remembering what one knows (and organizing, performing, reworking it[...]
(242)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%66.9[...] />
selective memories
_________
Ribes Bowker - Between Meaning and Machine.pdf
...in the wake of ontologies
in participating in knowledge projects, first we learn about ontologies and then learned how to create them
(we rarely “produce” knowledge, we always participate)
ontology: an information technology for representing specialized knowledge in order to:
•facilitate communication across disciplines
•share data
•enable collaboration
(am i) representing the knowledge of my communities (?) -- what does that mean?
*routinization* (is that which is at stake in ontologies) --?--> *apprehension*: orientation to the informational organization of ones field
(to attend the routinizations and apprehensions in one's own practice --> ontology building)
•my routines of reading, highlighting, writing, idiosyncratic talks, feedbacks, questions, silences,
--> (attend to the) transformative consequences of learning and traversing routines --[+]--> the practice and material tools that accompany the reworking of them {knowledge in informational terms, fables, etc.}--> problematic of inter-operability
--> (and asking) how a (broader) community's interests are at stake with this? {to engage and enrol that community through what activities?} #microworld
(my routines:) with confidence deliberately working with:
•interrupting stories with stories
•partial connection (and its performance)
•moving arguments through by infecting them with other arguments (=/= dialectical)
•mobilizing (multidisciplinary) fields (=/= the imperative of knowing A, B, and C first before you do D)
•mobilizing citation apparatus --> that which gives sense to what enables this work --> deliberately having a conversation with ajayeb al makhlughat
•mobilizing anachronic apparatus --> mobilizing different timescales ==> mixing up what counts as “us” (=/= chronology [?==> belonging])
•remembering what one knows (and organizing, performing, reworking it)
•having stakes in rationality (i constantly criticize rationality, but as you can see, i am not at all throwing it out)
•omnivorous approach
•
wild facts amenable (تابع) to formal representation (formal modeling)
routine: practically enacted, having no existence outside its performance, embedded in the configuration of material resources that enable practical work
[#workshop fables] how, by traversing the routine, “knowledge” and “community” took on new meaning, as they were rearticulated in the different languages
uncertain activities of knowledge
(what i am learning in apass is that) modeling ontologies involves articulating knowledge in ways that sometimes appears alien to that domain community
[asking with Bowke[...]
(244)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%66.9[...]ty through what activities?} #microworld
(my routines:) with confidence deliberately working with:
•interrupting stories with stories
•partial connection (and its performance)
•moving arguments through by infecting them with other arguments (=/= dialectical)
•mobilizing (multidisciplinary) fields (=/= the imperative of knowing A, B, and C first before you do D)
•mobilizing citation apparatus --> that which gives sense to what enables this work --> deliberately having a conversation with ajayeb al makhlughat
•mobilizing anachronic apparatus --> mobilizing different timescales ==> mixing up what counts as “us” (=/= chronology [?==> belonging])
•remembering what one knows (and organizing, performing, reworking it)
•having stakes in rationality (i constantly criticize rationality, but as you can see, i am not at all throwing it out)
•omnivorous approach
•
wild facts amenable (تابع) to formal representation (formal modeling)
routine: practically enacted, having no existence outside its performance, embedded in the configuration of material resources that enable practical work
[#workshop fables] how, by traversing the routine, “knowledge” and “community” took on new meaning, as they were rearticulated in the different languages
uncertain activities of knowledge
(what i am learning in apass is that) modeling ontologies involves articulating knowledge in ways that sometimes appears alien to that domain community
[asking with Bowker:] for my ontology-building to appear representative, does my community itself have to learn the goals and language of my knowledge modeling? (the question i asked Sven, telling others ‘this or that is the language i am using.’) (i am using a language that is Harawayian, Ronellian, Sadrian)
______________
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~gbowker/actnet.htctnet.html
...it is easy to get lost in Baudrillard's cool memories of simulacra (1990)
at stake: day to day work of building classification system
things to learnd from actor-network approach: (Latour, Callon > Bowker)
•regimes of delegation
•centrality of mediation
•the position that nature and society are not causes but consequences of human scientific and tachnical work
--> “technoscientific societies are powerful precisely because they are so good at delegating and distributing; and that actor-network theory is well position to track and describe the work of delegation and distribution.”
fact is a consequence
(Dewey)
(in a way, my work and interest in ajayeb is about histories of standards in knowledge production, which, i argue, is key to all sorts of other productions) (& the politics of remembrance : the politics and philosophy of classifying certain textual/materia[...]
(246)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%67[...]egree of crystallization
[for my hypertext] (Zellig Harris:) the constraints or demands that words place on one another are transmitted as socially obligatory information [as physical information, the kind measured in bits, not the semantic information used in dictionary definitions.]
socially obligatory ‘information’-[as ‘physical information’ (kind measured in bits) =/= semantic information (used in dictionary definitions)] ==(transmits)==> constraints or demands that words place on one another
(my hypertext ajayeb is an) “informational niche”
[and what about the matter of ‘actual use’?]
ajayeb.net “rules”: a set of normative combinatorial constraints
recursive application of existing constraints ==> new patterns
*process of language: from optimal to obligatory*
(in respect of history: obligatory meanings of Attar, and so on)
--> in my work this flow is reversed: from obligatory (meanings of Attar or ajayeb) to optimal. that is perhaps why sometimes people say that they don't understand me or that I am wonge.
-memory is the matter of statistical fact: (core) meaning ~= “selection”
***the fate of my contribution depends on and is determined by my position in the communicative network
pidgin دست وپا شکسته ومخلوط : creative adaptations
ajayeb.net is a pidgin?
*pidginization: any process of reduction or simplification of linguistic resources {"=/=”, “=”, “==>”, “-->"}
my ajayeb writing:
step 1: redundent simplification of linguistic resources [--> creoles نژاد مخلوط: that segment of a continuum of variation which exhibits the maximum divergence from the standard but which is still connected to other portions of the meshwork (Farsi+English)]
step 2: reenriching itself with features eliminated during step 1 ~ recomplexification of creoles }==(how?!)==>
step 3: diversifying the number and type of uses it can be put to
double articulation: a sorting operation that yields a homogeneous distribution of elements and a consolidation operation that defines more or less permanent structural linkages between sorted materials.
if and when the materials on which a sorting device operates acquire the ability to replicate with variation, a new abstract machine emerges, in the form of a blind probe head capable of exploring a space of possible forms
ajayeb's (specialist) jargon <-- what intensified them? --> ? tech, colonialism, schooling,
what i am trying to do with ajayeb, in making this hypertext, is to connect its syntactical constructions to fresh reservoirs of linguistic resources ***
with ajayeb.net i am learning to resist the hierarchical weight of “received pronunciations” and official criteria of correctness of “ajayeb”
my Rigs, equipped with “knobs"[...]
(249)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%67.7[...] a) citizen science
vigor and growing utility
“distance matters”
(Olson)
commodification of data : the presentation of datasets as complete, interchangeable products in readily exchanged formats
data-driven science
problem of evaluation
--> ***Do we know things if we cannot explain why they are true?*** (Anderson)
hierachically organized forms of credentialing
in Julia's seminar we were trying to examine: commodified data analysis tools and widely available software skills ==> (larger number of participants to) analyze data and run models
(*a problem with university students:) [students who do appear] more motivated by the university as a *rite of passage* (گذار از بلوغ) and a *lifestyle*
=/= learning
*professors are no longer seen as infallible experts, but as resources whose facts can be checked in real time
>
(question of) standard / ontology --> (desire for) universality / (need for) change
knowledge of past climates
@apass
(through my love and study for ajayeb --> infrastructure -->) questions for apass:
-what new forms of organization and community are emerging? what power relations do they rely on, create, or destroy? who wins and who loses as knowledge infrastructure change? (questions proposed by a knowledge infrastructure workshop 2012)
-(ways to) encode and reinforce existing interests and relations of power
-(we need) a design community versed in these literatures:
•different social worlds
•conflicting conceptual frameworks
•sociology of science and technology
•sociology of standards (--> standardizing data has proven to be a crucial activity in *scaling up* the sciences) #lens
•boundary objects
•trading zones
•actor networks
•how sharing works in practice
•agreements on shared norms, practices, and technical systems (problematized by Femke, she focuses my attention on how software developers are too quick to construct “ontologies”)
•
==> to scale up the generally lower-level focus of design thinking [--> how my ajayeb.net addresses this?]
--> to co-design new infrastructures
--> to look beyond the scale of a field and timeframe of a career
(we need) meaningful access to digital media (not an exciting add-on investment)
--> new forms of knowledge infrastructure may disadvantage and devalue older forms of knowledge production:
•new sensor network replacing ecological fieldwork -->? my #amazon
•“instrumenting ocean” supplanting traditions of the oceanographic cruise [in the last 20 years new sensor grids have come to cover the oceans, land, sky and space] -->? my #ajayeb's is concerned with thinking “beyond the *instrumental languages of utility and [...]
(250)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%67.9[...]vel focus of design thinking [--> how my ajayeb.net addresses this?]
--> to co-design new infrastructures
--> to look beyond the scale of a field and timeframe of a career
(we need) meaningful access to digital media (not an exciting add-on investment)
--> new forms of knowledge infrastructure may disadvantage and devalue older forms of knowledge production:
•new sensor network replacing ecological fieldwork -->? my #amazon
•“instrumenting ocean” supplanting traditions of the oceanographic cruise [in the last 20 years new sensor grids have come to cover the oceans, land, sky and space] -->? my #ajayeb's is concerned with thinking “beyond the *instrumental languages of utility and function*, which tend to cast knowledge infrastructures as *neutral instruments* whose positive and negative effects lie solely in the way they are operationalized and used”
*consequences of change are rarely socially, culturally, or economically neutral*
collectives
assemblages
configurations
try to tell yourself a “technology only” or “social only” story of knowledge infrastructure (and you will find it impossible)
(Brunton's) spam --> co-evolution of technical systems, communities, and social norms
knowledge infrastructures ==carry==> significant distributional consequences --> advancing the interests of some and actively damaging the prospects of others
(ways of producing “raw” date) davulated by “data sharing”:
•*labor-intensive* collecting practices
•site-specific expertise required
}--> long-standing craft traditions
once-vast secretarial ranks (of large organizations) [a British nostalgia for bureaucratic hierarchy fantasized and franchized by Harry Potter]
ajayeb's 13th century's “technologies” for “virtual” witnessing
--imbalance in the structure and distribution of our knowledge--
overrepresentation of research on “charismatic megafauna” (cuddly pandas, expenssive human-like chimps, tigers, hallucinogenic plants, etc.)
*dark continent fallacy*: ignorance (~ non-knowledge) = absence of knowledge : a site, phenomenon, or set of questions that we haven't yet been able or thought to investigate, as: ‘darkness = absence of light’ (--> Star Trek idea of frontier) --@!%--> the relationship between knowledge and non-knowledge may not be as simple or innocent as that
new (forms of) knowledge infrastructures (--> new ways of knowing) ==>
•new questions thinkable --> whole classes of questions, phenomena and forms of knowledge may be lost or rendered unthinkable
•new maps to known territories --> reshape the geography itself
•rework existing (stocks of) knowledge
•reorder our sense of value and structure in the world
•*write new ontologies over old o[...]
(252)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%68[...]al time
mechanical uniformity became the “natural” state of affairs
Facebook within the spirit of industry --> “under the [spirit of industry's] influence, people will begin by grouping themselves more naturally [...] people will come closer together, mass according to their real analogies and according to their real interests [...] the same ideas will circulate in all countries [...] uniformity of costumes [...] the same needs, a similar civilization, will develope everywhere [...] without confusion or violence, relations both as complex and as easy, as peaceful and as profitable as may be” -Charles Dunoyer
ufs (unidentified flying subject)
ufo
arguments about rates of change = about facts of change
eternal, unchanging present
train traveler looking out the window
a Newtonian world of abstract qualities size, shape, quanity, motion
==> space out of the window of a moving train: a new kind of geographical representation, abstract and regular
(a problem in management:) “time had conspired with capital to annihilate space
@Sana
[a ‘second nature’ being created] railway (+ telegraph) ==> commodification + communication
in our trip to Rivage with Marialena we were in terested in signs in the built landscape, the “second nature” in the nature of Rivage, which were “concrete embodiments of the environmental partitioning that made farming possible”
a heterogeneous collection of lived spaces and histories
a heterogeneous collection of lives and spaces
why translation must be a monopoly (according to railway):
you need centralized bureaucracy and effective monopoly in order to operate with efficiency [...] you could not have every train running on its own (loca) time ==> (Bahn railway map =) a representation that permit efficient operation --> *an absolute time and annihilated space*
(industrialization -->) railway/railroads --> basic accounting techniques used by American business enterprise (into the 20th century)
==> infrastructural technology: organizational form (accounting techniques, reports, etc.) synchronized with its own impact on the world (regularizing it) providing both a ***material and metaphorical implusion*** (to order its forms of inquiry/activity)
@apass monday reading
means of new infrastructural technobody ==> technoscientific representations ==> (dual process of) commodification (railway) + representation (abstract space-time)
--> “you need to be able to represent the world in a *coherent and standard* form [~ databases] in order to run railways [or program language operation] and deal in commodities
increasingly less well-defined boundaries --Serres--> we need analytic categories that allow us to account for the unified representat[...]
(253)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%68.5[...]to bring social and natural time into a unified form <--through-- production and storage of records)
@Marialena
the metronomic story
the mnemonic story
***spatializing time***
(for humanity) going out in space, to India, to the Orient, or within France to Brittany or the Pyrennees, was going backward in time (~ mapping technique ==> position of “humanity” out there nowhere --> anomalous, moral, short term [--> “impact” of Star Trek crew(~ a cult of people who have unlocked the secret of life and the universe) on the worlds they visit])
==> faceless scientist working in a vast and effective machine (--> Haraway talks about the same)
new memory practices
•***lie at the heart of our ways of knowing (both ourselves and the world)***
•they skew our available ontological space
it seems our contemporary memory practice is highly prosaic [~ german?] (=/= baroque)
>
[***mythological dimensions of new memory practices:] (*there is a compelling connection between the information revolution as an economic fact and as a statement about the nature of universe:)
19th century rationalization + bureaucracy (==> dramatic new information-processing and communication technologies) ==> today's institutions = **to oppose entropy** @apass
DNA ~= global economy --> nature of existence & new technology synchronized
(--> a history of science as successive decentralization of human) ==> ***eschatological (base of) information revolution*** : every material structure or energy flow (@Ali's pot carrier) could be used/seen to carry information
--> (mediated in 19th century:)
nature of the universe --to--> nature of humanity --to--> organization of economy
information mythology [~ “information” can travel anywhere and be made up of anything ~ “everything is information"] = interface between the social and natural worlds
}==> ‘a general statement about the nature of information' = 'a general statement about the nature of the universe’
(Bowker:) the new memory modality was at root an economic process of ordering social and natural space and time so that “objective” information can circulate freely [==> democracy, science]
==> package the world + make it deterministic
--✕--> (we must) make information historical (again)*
...................................
Avital's work has concerned itself [...] with the fact that technology is irremissible. Mary Shelley projected this view of technology with her massive, monumental, commemorative work on the technobody, which was the nameless monster. The problem with (or opening for) technology is that no one is or can stay behind the wheel, finally, and no one is in charge. And the way she has tried to route and circuit the thinking of technology--indeed, in a posthumanist frame--exposes the extent [...]
(254)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%69[...]new memory modality was at root an economic process of ordering social and natural space and time so that “objective” information can circulate freely [==> democracy, science]
==> package the world + make it deterministic
--✕--> (we must) make information historical (again)*
...................................
Avital's work has concerned itself [...] with the fact that technology is irremissible. Mary Shelley projected this view of technology with her massive, monumental, commemorative work on the technobody, which was the nameless monster. The problem with (or opening for) technology is that no one is or can stay behind the wheel, finally, and no one is in charge. And the way she has tried to route and circuit the thinking of technology--indeed, in a posthumanist frame--exposes the extent to which it belongs to the domain of testing.
the contiguous neighborhoods of broken experience and rerouted memory
the myths of liveness
[my] problem with television[/news] is that it exists in trauma
-trauma undermines experience and yet acts as its tremendous retainer
*trauma: a memory that one cannot integrate into one's own experience, and as a catastrophic knowledge that one cannot communicate to others
the black-box of talking survival
Robocop: highly complex cyborg (who came equipped with memory traces, superego, id, and--ever displacing the ego--a crypt)
court's frame-by-frame analysis of video --> recording and human memory @Ali
...................................
which ‘well-defined terms,’ *qualities of persistence*, object repository, and identifier resolvers am i using in ajayeb.net?
the performance of digital objects (and identifiers) (not treated as a simple binary property)
*(to retrieve) human- and machine-readable information*
persistence of cited objects (in ajayeb.net)
[*]persistence: a prediction about an archive's commitment and capacity to provide some specific kind of long-term functionality
which objects in ajayeb.net are:
•strictly unchanging
•subject to correction
•subject to significant update
[Calvert naming strategy]--> an approach: to invent a term (a portmanteau word واژه مرکب از دو واژه) or choose an existing word that is unusual enough (rare, archaic) to make the reader hesitate to jump to a conclusion about its meaning *** [i used a farsi word in english: zolmat, pir, tarof,]
nothing is permanent --> we call some things/objects/identifiers naively nuanced “persistent” or “not persistant”
(important -->) ** of course, it is not a thing that resists change, it is the provider of a thing that resists or, more precisely, controls change **
“reproducible science needs citations” <-- what is my ajayeb [...]
(255)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%69.1[...]xploited as a reserve labor force, seen less as workers than as servers; subjected to time arrangements on and off the paid job that make a mockery of a limited work day; leading to an existence that always borders on being obscene, out of place, and reducible to sex. deskilling is an old strategy newly applicable to formerly privileged workers.”
education has been difficult to comodify, and remains labor intensive =/= innovations in online education ==> creating inroads in the deskilling and commodification of teaching labor:
•course curriculum --> course content
•teaching --> delivery
*video technologies + internet ==> face-to-face interpersonal relating to be captured and reused --> new depths of commodification
*internet technologies can be used to provide rigorous, asynchronous learning and mentorship, or they can be used to decrease labor costs, but they cannot do much of both simultaneously(? --> question @apass)
Calvert: [...however,] for competition--[or any good/bad object we are working on] to be a useful strategy, it has to happen in a larger context of cooperation and collaboration
(for example the notion of “future” has to happen in a larger context in which different futurities for diverse communities is thinkable)
method <=={
+ sensitivity to the historical moment (multiculturalism, extreme changes in the meaning of ‘global,’ etc.)
+ an assemblage of tools that are ready to hand (theoretically driven, are pleasant and effective to use, etc.)
+ embody an ethical commitment to -->
◦emic: the values and meanings of those who are being studied
◦etic: within a way to explore the conventions, standards and infrastructures that both constrain and enable their experiences
Leigh Star
•qualitative methods
•lateral thinking
•poetics of infrastructure
•[*]boundary objects: examines assemblages of humans and things, and how things that exist in more than one community of practice are used in performing cooperative work
the role of practical knowledge in organizational life
sensitivity of an ethnomethodological orientation
(apass's) intellectual capital (is not centered in their official document repositories and databases, rather is in the largely undocumented ideas, insights, and know-how of its members: Lilia, Pierre, Nicolas, Joke, Steven, Michele,)
exigencies of work
****much of knowledge often remains embodied in the practice
commonly shared through conversations and stories among small circles of colleagues and work groups --> local vernacular --convert--> other forms ==> other members of the organization can understand & *act upon* together
Sina --> richer comprehension of socially organised work practice into the process of engineering technological[...]
(256)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%69.5[...]ogies can be used to provide rigorous, asynchronous learning and mentorship, or they can be used to decrease labor costs, but they cannot do much of both simultaneously(? --> question @apass)
Calvert: [...however,] for competition--[or any good/bad object we are working on] to be a useful strategy, it has to happen in a larger context of cooperation and collaboration
(for example the notion of “future” has to happen in a larger context in which different futurities for diverse communities is thinkable)
method <=={
+ sensitivity to the historical moment (multiculturalism, extreme changes in the meaning of ‘global,’ etc.)
+ an assemblage of tools that are ready to hand (theoretically driven, are pleasant and effective to use, etc.)
+ embody an ethical commitment to -->
◦emic: the values and meanings of those who are being studied
◦etic: within a way to explore the conventions, standards and infrastructures that both constrain and enable their experiences
Leigh Star
•qualitative methods
•lateral thinking
•poetics of infrastructure
•[*]boundary objects: examines assemblages of humans and things, and how things that exist in more than one community of practice are used in performing cooperative work
the role of practical knowledge in organizational life
sensitivity of an ethnomethodological orientation
(apass's) intellectual capital (is not centered in their official document repositories and databases, rather is in the largely undocumented ideas, insights, and know-how of its members: Lilia, Pierre, Nicolas, Joke, Steven, Michele,)
exigencies of work
****much of knowledge often remains embodied in the practice
commonly shared through conversations and stories among small circles of colleagues and work groups --> local vernacular --convert--> other forms ==> other members of the organization can understand & *act upon* together
Sina --> richer comprehension of socially organised work practice into the process of engineering technological systems
Calvert --> her work is about the enduring qualities of the book and how its resistance to commodification enables this thing we call a public library.
she is interested in developing library-appropriate research methods for thinking critically about old and new technologies
-we naturalize the way technological infrastructures make ethical decisions for us =/= producing methods/ethic that allows librarians to mandate characteristics in developing technologies which both preserve librarians’ prerogatives to make (necessary visible) ethical judgment calls <-- Calvert
جعبه--"containers” continue to dictate the name of the game (for the immensely diverse patronage of the public library)
...................................
[...]
(257)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%69.5[...]lieu-makers
ramp --> arc of necessity
nest --> mosaic divisions
skew --> chromatic/luminous effect (of mixture)
and also:
•to address (in a longer term) how apass performs analysis and prioritization of its own service definition?
•to address (in a longer term) historical/cultural specificities of apass
•to address aspects of apass's exceptionalism (its characters, colors, doings, values)
REPORT:
Geert
zoom / biger picture
perform a zoom
Geert and Michael knowledge zoom-level
Geert's strech-work
which cheats
vulgar: direct, =/= suffisticated, =/= nice(in a classical sense), =/= institutional code [--> a cheat], everyday, good taste, context?!!
suggested topology: skew --changed--> nest (tow branches answering yes and no to: “is he cheating?”)
Leo
stickiness ~ residual (left overs of impression), we couldn't find little objects, litte stickies
zoom is tooooo wide, megacategories, “fermentation” is a different zoom level
cheat --> perception/intention, value of non-doing ?, ‘order is cheat’, ritual ==> heal/cope
vulgar: ritual of popular knowledge, =/= social acceptence, communicating emotional needs, guilt on behalf of the vulgars,
suggested topology: skew (with 4 axioms: negativity, positivity, passivity, ritual)
Caterina
sticky: difiicult to remove categories, dirty, quality of trape, almost negative, like honey as an intermediary sticky for other objects to become sticky
zoom: Latina candition macro, ass rincles micro, herself, change of lens is what matters not the zoom level, the macro of the term culture itself
cheat: against the rule of community/aggreement, always cheating the system, against the game, bad relation to the game, lazy relation, faking?
vulgar: ordinary, insultive, perjurative, of the “people”, (Geert:) a marking always coming from above, what television does: non-actual + spectacle, (Elen:) immoral, not original, not elegant, thinking in terms of the ‘same’, group forming, non-individual, twards mass formation,
suggested topology: nest
Eszter
polarized lense
confusion / being confused is ‘cheating’
stickiness absent
suggested topology: nest (with two branches: naive & political leader)
Goda
nothing sticks anymore therefor we go to swamp to stick to relevant objects
swamp as archive (refuge from the capitalist) =/=? cheat
constructing ‘bad example’ (?) --> role model
zooming in losers of capitalism
X-ray kind of lens into the opacity of swamp
(her) treasures in the swamp [--> epistemological buried objects]
criticizing how capitalism zooms for her irrelevant objects
buffoon --> vulgar
suggested topology: skew (the skew is a plain around the edges,[...]
(258)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%70.1[...]t
zoom / biger picture
perform a zoom
Geert and Michael knowledge zoom-level
Geert's strech-work
which cheats
vulgar: direct, =/= suffisticated, =/= nice(in a classical sense), =/= institutional code [--> a cheat], everyday, good taste, context?!!
suggested topology: skew --changed--> nest (tow branches answering yes and no to: “is he cheating?”)
Leo
stickiness ~ residual (left overs of impression), we couldn't find little objects, litte stickies
zoom is tooooo wide, megacategories, “fermentation” is a different zoom level
cheat --> perception/intention, value of non-doing ?, ‘order is cheat’, ritual ==> heal/cope
vulgar: ritual of popular knowledge, =/= social acceptence, communicating emotional needs, guilt on behalf of the vulgars,
suggested topology: skew (with 4 axioms: negativity, positivity, passivity, ritual)
Caterina
sticky: difiicult to remove categories, dirty, quality of trape, almost negative, like honey as an intermediary sticky for other objects to become sticky
zoom: Latina candition macro, ass rincles micro, herself, change of lens is what matters not the zoom level, the macro of the term culture itself
cheat: against the rule of community/aggreement, always cheating the system, against the game, bad relation to the game, lazy relation, faking?
vulgar: ordinary, insultive, perjurative, of the “people”, (Geert:) a marking always coming from above, what television does: non-actual + spectacle, (Elen:) immoral, not original, not elegant, thinking in terms of the ‘same’, group forming, non-individual, twards mass formation,
suggested topology: nest
Eszter
polarized lense
confusion / being confused is ‘cheating’
stickiness absent
suggested topology: nest (with two branches: naive & political leader)
Goda
nothing sticks anymore therefor we go to swamp to stick to relevant objects
swamp as archive (refuge from the capitalist) =/=? cheat
constructing ‘bad example’ (?) --> role model
zooming in losers of capitalism
X-ray kind of lens into the opacity of swamp
(her) treasures in the swamp [--> epistemological buried objects]
criticizing how capitalism zooms for her irrelevant objects
buffoon --> vulgar
suggested topology: skew (the skew is a plain around the edges, gets deeper in the middle, and a narrow way up in the center: the exit)
Elen
presence of the working of subconscious ==provokes==> etymology
very sticki “hell yea!"s
affirmative, sometimes technical knowledge
something sold (“self”) with something morphic on it (“apparition” or ‘surat’ in farsi)
suggested topology: ramp
Hoda
cheat: sharp radical formation, playing ambiguity
totalizing vision lense (“if then all...”)
“because i asked i [...]
(259)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%70.2[...], estated, established, and propagated? we can study every syllable of the judge's speech-act. the judge goes from one fable to another: fables of significance, fables of influence, fables of impression, etc.
boundary-making practices in our shared struggling world
the idea that art “starts” and “stops” somewhere
zeroing the artworks ecosystem
when is the moment (or how the moment can be marked) that the judge becomes able to say “OK, I don't know.” or “I am opinionated about this art. Let's bring an expert.”
and beyond that, I am wondering, like that judge, when myself standing in front of an artwork (or any work) how i am able to say “I have an opinion, or, I don't know”, “i need expertise in order to look at this”?
questions of: essence (in art), subjectivity production, protection,
with Vincent
(?what was the) notion of “everything is kept here” in his work
(?why and how) his storytelling was all about design --> his stories of responsibility and factuality
how and why in our artistic practices, production of responsibility and factuality is hold in the terms and services of design and designer that is busy with building enhanced and efficient communication networks historically rooted in the geometries of modernist project?
(?what is the artist's) busy-ness with design --> related to the fathers of correction (?) and proper address
who (and why) wants to look at which past with lenses and geometries of the violent grids of the forefathers of modernist design?
--> ontology of document: an artifact with a specific layout and design
design has to do with the proper address (?) which is (always) about the proper witness (?)
(in the case of Vincent) do you agree with the amerindian know-how that “a good designer is a dead designer”?
(?what was the) proper affect of history (that his work was creating)
through the aesthetic of old and antique video projectors his colonialism belonged properly to the past --> (question of) the production of the proper witness
the architecture and flag of BOZAR plus his notion of design, are they interesting and necessary ways of forming kinship and properly distanced history?
Vincent “knew” his distance to the past (--> do you smell a problem?)
in which clock he is looking at time? which time machine he is handed to or placed in? who/what is making his time model?
also, which segment of your practice is temporalized? this means also which part of your practice stands out of time?
with Olga
regards of the question “what are an artwork's boundaries?” and it's intersections with documents, lists, and reports
for Olga:
document = evidence
research = mourning
(mourning as the passionate an[...]
(260)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%70.4[...]
Manoto TV station program “sher yadet nare” شعر یادت نره respond to the questions of translation (from the UK produced program “Don't Forget the Lyrics” into an Iranian contemporary popular media culture) and memory practices (archival memory act performance pop quiz show mixed with consumer culture TV broadcasting)
...................................
*cognitive companions* (--> coordinating multiple agencies characteristically)
-tiny clay token sheep were enclosed in clay envelopes with markings indicating what was inside (*molding and inscribing clay* was the favored sensory technology for making in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago)
•maybe your makings involves “true writing” that companions preferentially with language
•maybe your makings involves spinning plant and animal fiber and feeling, tying, and untying knots
•processual affirmative re-writings
•systeming meditations
•context-sensitive pushback
•operational closure (of a system)
•fluctuation, entrainment, blocked synchrony
•
[Katie King use of a term, how she shifts it from mechanism to affect:] [*]stigmergy: feeling of being in among and as the self-organizing bits that are system-ing (=/= a method of communication in emergent systems, mechanically defined as “indirect coordination” self-organizing termites and ants or flash mobs or political action)
@apass: how do you provide different *undisciplined ways of envisioning* new kinds of environments, artifacts and practices? (entangle design, science, fact and fiction, boundary objects, system-ing, [*]design: ***making things that tell stories*** [=/= telling stories])
(my encounters with) ajayeb's vibrating particularism
[*]website, talksite: play, trial and error, permutation and mistakes (none of it innocent or exemplary @ERG's website) ==> *cognitive reassembly*
-->{relations between developers and users to create and work out a technical interface ==> communicative tangle}
transmedia story (with its origins commercial and suspect, often entangled with social critique and social panic ~= conditions of making knowledge today; we knowingly or without reflection, gather and pin together such stories across media...)
-you can't take *citation pools* for granted
-how we will take what each other says
companion gatherings (do not exactly cohere or consort well) ==sometimes==> violation of standardization (that some believe is more equal)
(companions need to) [*]learn: emergently sensitize and attune among new cognitive and political circumstances (in and as their very moments of unknowing, when ethical and moral sortings are properly in flux)
(with) Bateson's negative sensitivities to systems, and with Katies King, I keep discovering just how literal is our many being-ness in multiply embedded sorts of biomic sympoiesis
{[*]lecture: feeling-in-t[...]
(261)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%70.7[...]at companions preferentially with language
•maybe your makings involves spinning plant and animal fiber and feeling, tying, and untying knots
•processual affirmative re-writings
•systeming meditations
•context-sensitive pushback
•operational closure (of a system)
•fluctuation, entrainment, blocked synchrony
•
[Katie King use of a term, how she shifts it from mechanism to affect:] [*]stigmergy: feeling of being in among and as the self-organizing bits that are system-ing (=/= a method of communication in emergent systems, mechanically defined as “indirect coordination” self-organizing termites and ants or flash mobs or political action)
@apass: how do you provide different *undisciplined ways of envisioning* new kinds of environments, artifacts and practices? (entangle design, science, fact and fiction, boundary objects, system-ing, [*]design: ***making things that tell stories*** [=/= telling stories])
(my encounters with) ajayeb's vibrating particularism
[*]website, talksite: play, trial and error, permutation and mistakes (none of it innocent or exemplary @ERG's website) ==> *cognitive reassembly*
-->{relations between developers and users to create and work out a technical interface ==> communicative tangle}
transmedia story (with its origins commercial and suspect, often entangled with social critique and social panic ~= conditions of making knowledge today; we knowingly or without reflection, gather and pin together such stories across media...)
-you can't take *citation pools* for granted
-how we will take what each other says
companion gatherings (do not exactly cohere or consort well) ==sometimes==> violation of standardization (that some believe is more equal)
(companions need to) [*]learn: emergently sensitize and attune among new cognitive and political circumstances (in and as their very moments of unknowing, when ethical and moral sortings are properly in flux)
(with) Bateson's negative sensitivities to systems, and with Katies King, I keep discovering just how literal is our many being-ness in multiply embedded sorts of biomic sympoiesis
{[*]lecture: feeling-in-the-mouth system, (the word-as-world inhabited by) alternate and overlapping peoples, memories, attunements, citation pools, histories, communities of practice, knowledges, ocean and freshwater “edges"}
{?can i propose (Katie King and Sandoval's) “oppositional consciousness” instead of (Mouffe's) “agonistic pluralism"}
responses, abilities, infrastructures, distributed embodiments,
[*]traumas: intensities crowded with affiliations, loyalties, essential truths
(Bateson > Leigh Star > Katie King) *transcontextual* (transcontextual circumstances: moving from one context to another, one world to another, one set of knowledges to another) ==> [*]boundary objects: workaround things, concept[...]
(262)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%70.7[...]r, permutation and mistakes (none of it innocent or exemplary @ERG's website) ==> *cognitive reassembly*
-->{relations between developers and users to create and work out a technical interface ==> communicative tangle}
transmedia story (with its origins commercial and suspect, often entangled with social critique and social panic ~= conditions of making knowledge today; we knowingly or without reflection, gather and pin together such stories across media...)
-you can't take *citation pools* for granted
-how we will take what each other says
companion gatherings (do not exactly cohere or consort well) ==sometimes==> violation of standardization (that some believe is more equal)
(companions need to) [*]learn: emergently sensitize and attune among new cognitive and political circumstances (in and as their very moments of unknowing, when ethical and moral sortings are properly in flux)
(with) Bateson's negative sensitivities to systems, and with Katies King, I keep discovering just how literal is our many being-ness in multiply embedded sorts of biomic sympoiesis
{[*]lecture: feeling-in-the-mouth system, (the word-as-world inhabited by) alternate and overlapping peoples, memories, attunements, citation pools, histories, communities of practice, knowledges, ocean and freshwater “edges"}
{?can i propose (Katie King and Sandoval's) “oppositional consciousness” instead of (Mouffe's) “agonistic pluralism"}
responses, abilities, infrastructures, distributed embodiments,
[*]traumas: intensities crowded with affiliations, loyalties, essential truths
(Bateson > Leigh Star > Katie King) *transcontextual* (transcontextual circumstances: moving from one context to another, one world to another, one set of knowledges to another) ==> [*]boundary objects: workaround things, concepts, processes, even routines that permit coordination, sometimes collaboration, without consensus (non-conscious and conscious)--local, supralocaling, and global in material topologies in which spacetimenatureculture may be mixed, developmental yet transtemporal, (they don't create boundaries) *they work to keep boundaries from getting in the way of collaboration* [~=? sleep-walking: ignore or even miss that there are boundaries about, or honor boundaries = differences that should be honored without being stuck there]
---[can i suggest ‘enfolding’ instead of ‘sympoiesis’ for artists?]
****ajayeb: my transcontextual habitat**** [--(Katie King)--> sites where people, objects, animals, ecological processes, academic restructurings, and scales of injustice unfold, enfold]
‘to feel family and parent memories as our own’ --> a skill that intertwines historical and personal biography (sometimes trauma) as a feature of *memory encoding*
[*]autopoiesis: a notion, a theory of cellular organization, that makes a fold in history --> reformul[...]
(263)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%70.7[...]up), sometimes as agencies, sometimes as (in Sandoval's terms) oppositional and differential consciousness, (boundary objects) storing and performing our details and affects and memories
punitive parsimonies of explanation:
•over-simplications of complex systems
•pressures for social critique
•to travel as social panic
•retreat to political loyalties (<== confusion overwhelm cognitive schema)
•retreat to political belonging in search of trust
•
(more boundary objects:) many sorting apparatus reframings at varying grains of detail each savoring textures of disciplinary and other precisions amid noncoherent and materializing logics
(constitutive, agential) **cuts are connections**
-to minimize damage and maximize flourishing
differential details --in--> “us” --in--> Bateson's living patterns --in--> starfish's invertebrate radial symmetry --in--> redwood cloning timelines --in--> recursive epigenesis --in--> mechanism and structure in a segmenting egg --in--> human affiliations of power and state and love...
[*]differential consciousness: systems justice sensitive to multiple contexts, *politics of attachment*
@apass's environment (mix of communities of justice and of practice):
belief and disbelief, memberships and belongings, triggered and assembled
****to commit to a well-defined structure of identity for one hour, day, week, month, year**** (=/= Manning)
+ transform that identity according to the requisites of another oppositional ideological tactic (if reading of power's formation require it --> that's how i became more iranian in Europe)
•differential: instantaneous change of one quantity relative to another, a quality that differentiates between similar things (==> derivatives) =/= different
اخرت eschatology
study of end-times [--now--> climate change, global restructuring, ]
-humans are often precariously enduring on the planet
(Cuban Missile Crisis...)
-when urgencies (become too predictive) ==> less sensitivity to the unanticipated --> (Seba's “save the world” =) all too human desires for control or for moral prescriptions
with Katie King --> *systems justice* requires something much more complicated
•we have to work with our extended being
•find out new things about it
-how can we go beyond human intention and systems of control?
-we need, and there are, many ways to minimize damage and maximize flourishing
(*systems humans participate in and do not control*)
(? am i part of this) “we” and “us” gathers sympoietically these boundary objects storing details and affects
the fable of “if it's about everything it is about nothing” --> no!
sharpening focus =/= narrowing focus
workshop for thinking
•with objects
[...]
(264)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%70.9[...]l*)
(? am i part of this) “we” and “us” gathers sympoietically these boundary objects storing details and affects
the fable of “if it's about everything it is about nothing” --> no!
sharpening focus =/= narrowing focus
workshop for thinking
•with objects
◦moved around
◾in visual play
to take your imaginations along other things
•so their worlds layer and enfold and map out and crochet together
◦so that can be sensed and worked on
(?what are) our helpers in apass:
•companion imaginations = our collective animalities
◦such imaginations have worlds that layer and enfold and map out and crochet together (--> systems humans participate in and do not control)
•our complex personhood
•our distributed being
•objects we take as cognitive companions
•our significant otherness honored in on-going attentions
•new learnings
•new materialities
•
(?what are our) methodology of companioning with things
...................................
what is happening to me: attention to knowledge making practices (in the context of a literary pleasure)
*sharing = making*
*communicating = making*
clues --for--> contexts --shapes--> how we will take what each other says
(Katie King > Anzaldua:) who and what facilitates such movement among worlds?
home = domination + domestication + love
Katie King:
•why science fiction matters?
•how cultural studies helps us make SF meaningful?
interactive possibilities of media art, commercial production, mass culture
SF = effect of defamiliarization
(problem with Star Trek is that it is over familiar)
Janet, from a lesbian utopian future (death by disease of all the men)
Jeannine, from an alternate present (US never entered WWII)
Jael, where “War Between the Sexes” has become deadly literal
Joanna, the author of the book, Joanna Russ (in a shimmering joking literalization has enfolded into her own story)
my ajayeb studies --> *cultural studies: how cultural products are part of cultural processes* (=/= what makes an art work good) --> getting around the term “art”
-mysteries, romance novels, movies, (bestiaries,) all of them deeply commercial forms of entertainment and often produced in complicated technical collaborations [--> and that's what makes them interesting (=/= simple single authorships)]
-genre, formula, (style, fashion,) are intrinsic to the ways these products are produced and the ways they are enjoyed
genre --> subtle shifts possible across many repetitions (=/= something that happens only one time)
premodern literary forms (bestiary) --> structural variations + their pleasurable effects
fandom [...]
(265)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71[...]concert, Sina's popup book)
}==rethink==> *media technologies = technologies of measure*
sensual mathematics
rethink the digital in terms of the “numerical dimension of the virtual”
the potential for mutation immanent to the numerical code itself
(indeterminacies understood in terms of) new processes of quantification that recognize the “full densely packed zones of information that are the intensive surrounds of zero and ones
Clough - Goodman - Parisi
*question of knowing = a politics of capacities* (that crosses every scale of matter/energy)
=/= interpellation and determination of the subject
=/= identity politics (politics of difference)
control society = collection of dynamic quasi-subjects (constituted by a grear number of variables) =/= collection of subjects of right (constituted by the partial alienation of their natural rights to the sovereign)
[*]population only reveals probabilistic regularities once considered at the mass level (=/= collection of controlable subjects)
(in both terms of capital and governance) *modulation and mutation are operative in relations of power* (---> go to Campbell)
[*]publics: addresses of communicated affective states (=/= subjects of discourse about and argumentation over narrative knowledge with truth claims)****
--> matters of vitalizing information
*digital technologies have been fundamental to the deterritorialization of the relationship between individual and collectivity* --Terranova--> (digital technologies through provisional capture and dissemination of affect ==>) constitution of publics
[*]biopolitics: a matter of distributing affective capacities unevenly across population (--> is volatile)
***distribution of affect reshapes society*** --requires--> to restore discursive argumentation (over narrative and its truth claims --> *narrative = a form of truth claim*)
(#telegram with Rai, we need more analysis of... in terms) *ecologies of sensation*: media assemblages with emergent properties that impel new tendencies, new forms of attention, new forms of intention, new forms of distraction, new forms of habit, new forms of practice
*politics of intervention: a matter of entering in the middle in order to *modulate* ~= (Rai's) counter-actualization (~= criticism): moving down from the extended, back to the intensive or potentiality (not merely a deconstructive practice, but) an ontologically oriented practice, a performative intervention brining a change of speed, rhythm, vibration --> politics of vibration (Pia's method)
media technological developement ==deploy==> (which?) ontological and epistemological implications
to give criticism more specificity and width
measure and media technologies
...................................
[...]
(266)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71.6[...]better diagram through connecting relations and functions of force, value, and sense in (pirated & corporate) contemporary digital media infrastructures
(how to understand effectively the knots of) ***technoperceptual*** (becoming, relations, assemblages, habituation)
negotiating the digital (irreducible to capitalist strategies of value capture ~ resistance form)
the ecology of sense and sensation that jugaad events [technical animation CG] operate through (and happen in) *requires specific pirate infrastructures*
Rai's jugaad --affirm--> becoming through a counteractualization of the infrastructures of postdigital cultures
strategic narratives of acts of consumption --> sources of new productivity
(Ris's notion of) ecological: process-oriented historical materialism
interpretation by thinking --through--> assemblages of action --through--> assemblages of thought
collective practices of habituation
([Rai's] methodology of) *affect-as-capacity* --shift--> the focus of attention away from language (discourse and representation) toward habituated and emergent sensations in historically specific media assemblages
transformation of telecommunications in colonial and postcolonial South Asia
(Guattari's) assemblage: a prepersonal practice, a kind of style, a creative mutation that binds an individual or a group consciously or unconsciously
...................................
*traveling the bibliographic among knowledge worlds*
(Katie making a) multimedia bibliographic essay *with an argument* --> working out a practice of *transdisciplinary inspection*
(@apass, a few index of evaluation for such practice:)
•*how well it learns and models how to be affected or moved*
•*how well it opens up unexpected elements of one's own embodiments in lively and re-sensitizing world*
•(what are) *its possibilities for immersive play among sensations and platforms amid media technologies*
•(what are) *its ways of participating in multispecies learning or self-organization across ecologies
•(what are its capacities for) *mattering without owning the action* [--> play]
transdisciplinary connections have been made on the basis of *play*--between: psychiatry, mathematical, logic, linguistic, histories and evolution of communication, ethology, biophysics, cybernetics, natural history + game industry, fine arts design, education, semiotics, animation, new media, children television, system collaborations
--play--> restructure and intermesh, are recruited in nationalisms, economies, political life
}--Katie--> ***what sorts of politics might allow us to scope and scale among these, to “play” with our own consciousness?***
culture industries
questions
-what does it take[...]
(267)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71.7[...]ted and emergent sensations in historically specific media assemblages
transformation of telecommunications in colonial and postcolonial South Asia
(Guattari's) assemblage: a prepersonal practice, a kind of style, a creative mutation that binds an individual or a group consciously or unconsciously
...................................
*traveling the bibliographic among knowledge worlds*
(Katie making a) multimedia bibliographic essay *with an argument* --> working out a practice of *transdisciplinary inspection*
(@apass, a few index of evaluation for such practice:)
•*how well it learns and models how to be affected or moved*
•*how well it opens up unexpected elements of one's own embodiments in lively and re-sensitizing world*
•(what are) *its possibilities for immersive play among sensations and platforms amid media technologies*
•(what are) *its ways of participating in multispecies learning or self-organization across ecologies
•(what are its capacities for) *mattering without owning the action* [--> play]
transdisciplinary connections have been made on the basis of *play*--between: psychiatry, mathematical, logic, linguistic, histories and evolution of communication, ethology, biophysics, cybernetics, natural history + game industry, fine arts design, education, semiotics, animation, new media, children television, system collaborations
--play--> restructure and intermesh, are recruited in nationalisms, economies, political life
}--Katie--> ***what sorts of politics might allow us to scope and scale among these, to “play” with our own consciousness?***
culture industries
questions
-what does it take to be an intellectual actor across knowledge worlds & a trustworthy member of only some? @Jassem
-[what is] to practice knowledge beyond your control? @Lili
-[what is] to sift among forms of evidence requiring tools you do not have? @Lilia
-[what is] to be required to rank, evaluate, assess results of rules you have not played out (yet)? @Sana
Katie > Bateson's *double bind*
--clue--> meanings and causes of schizophrenia (--> may speak to various conditions of biosocial systems today)
(questions at using the word schizophrenia:)
-what of the sexism of those laying blame on the “schizophrenogenic mother”?
-what of the possiblity of gathering evidence for the effects of expressed emotion in family systems of those with possibly linked to bipolar disorder? (--> that is my problem with Eleanor's stuttering as aesthetics)
double bind: (super confusining) transactions, entire system of layered contradictions mobilized over a range of communication channels
•somthing is prohibited, punished (at one level of meaning or abstraction *within a particular communicating channel*)
•som[...]
(268)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71.8[...]d in nationalisms, economies, political life
}--Katie--> ***what sorts of politics might allow us to scope and scale among these, to “play” with our own consciousness?***
culture industries
questions
-what does it take to be an intellectual actor across knowledge worlds & a trustworthy member of only some? @Jassem
-[what is] to practice knowledge beyond your control? @Lili
-[what is] to sift among forms of evidence requiring tools you do not have? @Lilia
-[what is] to be required to rank, evaluate, assess results of rules you have not played out (yet)? @Sana
Katie > Bateson's *double bind*
--clue--> meanings and causes of schizophrenia (--> may speak to various conditions of biosocial systems today)
(questions at using the word schizophrenia:)
-what of the sexism of those laying blame on the “schizophrenogenic mother”?
-what of the possiblity of gathering evidence for the effects of expressed emotion in family systems of those with possibly linked to bipolar disorder? (--> that is my problem with Eleanor's stuttering as aesthetics)
double bind: (super confusining) transactions, entire system of layered contradictions mobilized over a range of communication channels
•somthing is prohibited, punished (at one level of meaning or abstraction *within a particular communicating channel*)
•something else is required (at another level) that is impossible to effect if the prohibition is honored
}--> [this] happens over and over again ==until==> such *double bind patterning = (becomes experienced as) “reality”*
***they all deal with (some edges of) double bind:
•religious practices
•entertainment
•game design
•learning
•
intolerable conditions ==> creativities
(when crucial context markers distinguishing [one from another] become unrecognizable, contradictory, or fraudulant ==>) “abusive practices ~= challenging practices”
--> (terror & possibility are on the edge in double bind experience =) ***transcontextual confusion*** (<-- requres transcontextual gifts one may or may not have...) @apass #feedback: urgent appropriate response
--Bateson--> double bind patterning = intense:
•contradictory (two order of messages each of which denies the other)
•unvoiced (making explicit checks of context impossible, inappropriate, meaningless)
“(there is nothing to determine) whether a give individual shall become a clown, a poet, a schizophrenic, or a combination of these” --> we deal with a genus of syndromes (most of which are not conventionally regarded as pathological) [~= art work]#feedback
•those life is enriched by transcontextual gifts (--> Elen)
•those who are impoverished by transcontextual confusions (--> Ali)
}--> for both there is a “double take”
[...]
(269)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71.8[...]extual confusion*** (<-- requres transcontextual gifts one may or may not have...) @apass #feedback: urgent appropriate response
--Bateson--> double bind patterning = intense:
•contradictory (two order of messages each of which denies the other)
•unvoiced (making explicit checks of context impossible, inappropriate, meaningless)
“(there is nothing to determine) whether a give individual shall become a clown, a poet, a schizophrenic, or a combination of these” --> we deal with a genus of syndromes (most of which are not conventionally regarded as pathological) [~= art work]#feedback
•those life is enriched by transcontextual gifts (--> Elen)
•those who are impoverished by transcontextual confusions (--> Ali)
}--> for both there is a “double take”
a falling leaf or the greeting of a friend is not “just that and nothing more”
(taking from Bateson, Katie -->) play with this range of terror and possibility --(with + through)--> (individual & biosocial) *consciousness: reflection + recursion* (at the edge of apprehension) = environments of being : context, pattern, layers of abstraction, storytelling all have material effects and provide *materials for agency*
[*]play: metacommunicative media*, a double consciousness (in which the player is well aware of the artificiality of the play situation) [=/= immersive fallacy: the idea that games get better and better as they become whatever that thing “more real” is ==> implications for the meaning of: rigor, representation, evidence, method, assessment]
(animal and children learn to play --learn-->) there are some ways *play self =/= everyday self* & [they learn] to perform this separation in interactive cognitive and social communication *forms of not* : they amuse themselves by performing the communication “this is not it”:
•the puppy nips, but not hard enough to injure --> violence? not. --> the nip actually hurts a bit
•the teen kisses in spin the bottle, but not the person they like the most --> sex? not. --> the kissing blush and stammer
•my body is reacting as if i am in danger, but really i am in front of a computer --> reality? not.
•
}--> double consciousness
(Katie > Bateson) *play creates its own commentary in itself about itself as an intense and pleasurable interactive dynamism* = metacommunication: communicative + neurological + hormonal
***good signaling skills make nonabusive play on the edge of double bind possible***
(skills of) transcontextual movement without falling apart
finding out:
•which bits are active
•which bits are context
•which bits can be made explicit
•which rules are perceptible
•which distributed embodiments, cognitions, and infrastructures are in play
(these are the skills needed for the kind of game we play in apass)
[...]
(271)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71.9[...]l with a genus of syndromes (most of which are not conventionally regarded as pathological) [~= art work]#feedback
•those life is enriched by transcontextual gifts (--> Elen)
•those who are impoverished by transcontextual confusions (--> Ali)
}--> for both there is a “double take”
a falling leaf or the greeting of a friend is not “just that and nothing more”
(taking from Bateson, Katie -->) play with this range of terror and possibility --(with + through)--> (individual & biosocial) *consciousness: reflection + recursion* (at the edge of apprehension) = environments of being : context, pattern, layers of abstraction, storytelling all have material effects and provide *materials for agency*
[*]play: metacommunicative media*, a double consciousness (in which the player is well aware of the artificiality of the play situation) [=/= immersive fallacy: the idea that games get better and better as they become whatever that thing “more real” is ==> implications for the meaning of: rigor, representation, evidence, method, assessment]
(animal and children learn to play --learn-->) there are some ways *play self =/= everyday self* & [they learn] to perform this separation in interactive cognitive and social communication *forms of not* : they amuse themselves by performing the communication “this is not it”:
•the puppy nips, but not hard enough to injure --> violence? not. --> the nip actually hurts a bit
•the teen kisses in spin the bottle, but not the person they like the most --> sex? not. --> the kissing blush and stammer
•my body is reacting as if i am in danger, but really i am in front of a computer --> reality? not.
•
}--> double consciousness
(Katie > Bateson) *play creates its own commentary in itself about itself as an intense and pleasurable interactive dynamism* = metacommunication: communicative + neurological + hormonal
***good signaling skills make nonabusive play on the edge of double bind possible***
(skills of) transcontextual movement without falling apart
finding out:
•which bits are active
•which bits are context
•which bits can be made explicit
•which rules are perceptible
•which distributed embodiments, cognitions, and infrastructures are in play
(these are the skills needed for the kind of game we play in apass)
playing/gaming (now covers): gambling, economic game theory, game art, design, learning, role playing, system theory --> *playing with our distributed being* [Katie's accounting for digital]
-what the hell are my hormonal plays? (not always including another person)
(for Haraway [*]wording:) game of cat's cradle (across a range of transmedia) pictured, described, metacommunicated, performed, extended, *relayed*
(my image assemblages: writing:) techno-organic pol[...]
(272)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71.9[...]ing : context, pattern, layers of abstraction, storytelling all have material effects and provide *materials for agency*
[*]play: metacommunicative media*, a double consciousness (in which the player is well aware of the artificiality of the play situation) [=/= immersive fallacy: the idea that games get better and better as they become whatever that thing “more real” is ==> implications for the meaning of: rigor, representation, evidence, method, assessment]
(animal and children learn to play --learn-->) there are some ways *play self =/= everyday self* & [they learn] to perform this separation in interactive cognitive and social communication *forms of not* : they amuse themselves by performing the communication “this is not it”:
•the puppy nips, but not hard enough to injure --> violence? not. --> the nip actually hurts a bit
•the teen kisses in spin the bottle, but not the person they like the most --> sex? not. --> the kissing blush and stammer
•my body is reacting as if i am in danger, but really i am in front of a computer --> reality? not.
•
}--> double consciousness
(Katie > Bateson) *play creates its own commentary in itself about itself as an intense and pleasurable interactive dynamism* = metacommunication: communicative + neurological + hormonal
***good signaling skills make nonabusive play on the edge of double bind possible***
(skills of) transcontextual movement without falling apart
finding out:
•which bits are active
•which bits are context
•which bits can be made explicit
•which rules are perceptible
•which distributed embodiments, cognitions, and infrastructures are in play
(these are the skills needed for the kind of game we play in apass)
playing/gaming (now covers): gambling, economic game theory, game art, design, learning, role playing, system theory --> *playing with our distributed being* [Katie's accounting for digital]
-what the hell are my hormonal plays? (not always including another person)
(for Haraway [*]wording:) game of cat's cradle (across a range of transmedia) pictured, described, metacommunicated, performed, extended, *relayed*
(my image assemblages: writing:) techno-organic polyglot polymorphic wiring diagrams
to pattern
to relay (passing something along, relaying =/= sharing)
to perceive multiform
rewarded by dopamine
triggered by pleasure, anticipation, yawning fields for memory [--> my ajayeb study], learning and unlearning, tenacious addictive repetitions
tools: drawing, role playing, gaming, writing, critiquing, reviewing, costuming, songwriting, singing, webby community building, techy arts, fans advocating their interests in films
--> shaping environments and contexts for imagination and cognition
*wording: a practice [...]
(274)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%71.9[...]ot. --> the kissing blush and stammer
•my body is reacting as if i am in danger, but really i am in front of a computer --> reality? not.
•
}--> double consciousness
(Katie > Bateson) *play creates its own commentary in itself about itself as an intense and pleasurable interactive dynamism* = metacommunication: communicative + neurological + hormonal
***good signaling skills make nonabusive play on the edge of double bind possible***
(skills of) transcontextual movement without falling apart
finding out:
•which bits are active
•which bits are context
•which bits can be made explicit
•which rules are perceptible
•which distributed embodiments, cognitions, and infrastructures are in play
(these are the skills needed for the kind of game we play in apass)
playing/gaming (now covers): gambling, economic game theory, game art, design, learning, role playing, system theory --> *playing with our distributed being* [Katie's accounting for digital]
-what the hell are my hormonal plays? (not always including another person)
(for Haraway [*]wording:) game of cat's cradle (across a range of transmedia) pictured, described, metacommunicated, performed, extended, *relayed*
(my image assemblages: writing:) techno-organic polyglot polymorphic wiring diagrams
to pattern
to relay (passing something along, relaying =/= sharing)
to perceive multiform
rewarded by dopamine
triggered by pleasure, anticipation, yawning fields for memory [--> my ajayeb study], learning and unlearning, tenacious addictive repetitions
tools: drawing, role playing, gaming, writing, critiquing, reviewing, costuming, songwriting, singing, webby community building, techy arts, fans advocating their interests in films
--> shaping environments and contexts for imagination and cognition
<br />
*wording: a practice of displaying + crafting worlds, of sharing + enjoying expertise, of noticing tiny details of connection and similarity amid the tweaks and frissons of alternative shadings across many intertextualities of association, history, genre, care*
in interface
what was obvious to one was mystery to another
what was trivial to one was a barrier to another
how do you reply in terms that are alien to you?
@apass
*actual materialities of distributed thinking* <--among-- infrastructures of:
•publication
•media
•conferences
•scholarly communication
•research results and processes
•
elegant parsimonies of explanation
clever bodies at the edge of apprehension (Despret's Clever Hans Effect)
an interative agency (Katie calls) *learning to be affected* =/= “mearly the effect of...” ...ولی اون فقط داره
odor k[...]
(276)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72[...] apart
finding out:
•which bits are active
•which bits are context
•which bits can be made explicit
•which rules are perceptible
•which distributed embodiments, cognitions, and infrastructures are in play
(these are the skills needed for the kind of game we play in apass)
playing/gaming (now covers): gambling, economic game theory, game art, design, learning, role playing, system theory --> *playing with our distributed being* [Katie's accounting for digital]
-what the hell are my hormonal plays? (not always including another person)
(for Haraway [*]wording:) game of cat's cradle (across a range of transmedia) pictured, described, metacommunicated, performed, extended, *relayed*
(my image assemblages: writing:) techno-organic polyglot polymorphic wiring diagrams
to pattern
to relay (passing something along, relaying =/= sharing)
to perceive multiform
rewarded by dopamine
triggered by pleasure, anticipation, yawning fields for memory [--> my ajayeb study], learning and unlearning, tenacious addictive repetitions
tools: drawing, role playing, gaming, writing, critiquing, reviewing, costuming, songwriting, singing, webby community building, techy arts, fans advocating their interests in films
--> shaping environments and contexts for imagination and cognition
*wording: a practice of displaying + crafting worlds, of sharing + enjoying expertise, of noticing tiny details of connection and similarity amid the tweaks and frissons of alternative shadings across many intertextualities of association, history, genre, care*
in interface
what was obvious to one was mystery to another
what was trivial to one was a barrier to another
how do you reply in terms that are alien to you?
@apass
*actual materialities of distributed thinking* <--among-- infrasinfrastructures of:
•publication
•media
•conferences
•scholarly communication
•research results and processes
•
elegant parsimonies of explanation
clever bodies at the edge of apprehension (Despret's Clever Hans Effect)
an interative agency (Katie calls) *learning to be affected* =/= “mearly the effect of...” ...ولی اون فقط داره
odor kit
a device organized in a careful pallete of small differences
learning to be affected --entails--> a dynamic trajectory by which we learn to register and become sensitive to what the world is made of
body parts are progressively acquired --> world counter-parts are being registered in a new way (= my ajayeb studies)
*acquiring a body: a progressive enterprise that produces at once a sensory medium and a sensitive world [---> go to Captain Marvel 2019 film]
what sort of project of multi[...]
(277)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72[...](my image assemblages: writing:) techno-organic polyglot polymorphic wiring diagrams
to pattern
to relay (passing something along, relaying =/= sharing)
to perceive multiform
rewarded by dopamine
triggered by pleasure, anticipation, yawning fields for memory [--> my ajayeb study], learning and unlearning, tenacious addictive repetitions
tools: drawing, role playing, gaming, writing, critiquing, reviewing, costuming, songwriting, singing, webby community building, techy arts, fans advocating their interests in films
--> shaping environments and contexts for imagination and cognition
*wording: a practice of displaying + crafting worlds, of sharing + enjoying expertise, of noticing tiny details of connection and similarity amid the tweaks and frissons of alternative shadings across many intertextualities of association, history, genre, care*
in interface
what was obvious to one was mystery to another
what was trivial to one was a barrier to another
how do you reply in terms that are alien to you?
@apass
*actual materialities of distributed thinking* <--among-- infrastructures of:
•publication
•media
•conferences
•scholarly communication
•research results and processes
•
elegant parsimonies of explanation
clever bodies at the edge of apprehension (Despret's Clever Hans Effect)
an interative agency (Katie calls) *learning to be affected* =/= “mearly the effect of...” ...ولی اون فقط داره
odor kit
a device organized in a careful pallete of small differences
learning to be affected --entails--> a dynamic trajectory by which we learn to register and become sensitive to what the world is made of
body parts are progressively acquired --> world counter-parts are being registered in a new way (= my ajayeb studies)
*acquiring a body: a progressive enterprise that produces at once a sensory medium and a sensitive world [---> go to Captain Marvel 2019 film]
what sort of project of multiplicity is transdisciplinarity?
what sort of double consciousness might it array in which political economies?
(Bateson's) distributed being = we don't end at our skin
***what does it mean to say to any particular group of people that we do not end at our skin?!***
what sort of boundary object is this “skin”?
(Keeling > Katie) a book is a wormhole --into--> transdisciplinary universe
*lyricism of surplus*
“the end of the world... work with me”
agencies of valorization (of pricing, of valuing, of mobilizing labor) : political economy of acquiring body parts from the skin's edge
*agencies of capital: worldly processes of economic systems articulating and distributed among, but not reprod[...]
(278)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72[...]ng to be affected --entails--> a dynamic trajectory by which we learn to register and become sensitive to what the world is made of
body parts are progressively acquired --> world counter-parts are being registered in a new way (= my ajayeb studies)
*acquiring a body: a progressive enterprise that produces at once a sensory medium and a sensitive world [---> go to Captain Marvel 2019 film]
what sort of project of multiplicity is transdisciplinarity?
what sort of double consciousness might it array in which political economies?
(Bateson's) distributed being = we don't end at our skin
***what does it mean to say to any particular group of people that we do not end at our skin?!***
what sort of boundary object is this “skin”?
(Keeling > Katie) a book is a wormhole --into--> transdisciplinary universe
*lyricism of surplus*
“the end of the world... work with me”
agencies of valorization (of pricing, of valuing, of mobilizing labor) : political economy of acquiring body parts from the skin's edge
*agencies of capital: worldly processes of economic systems articulating and distributed among, but not reproducing the powers of the state, or of community, family, or nation*
+ other agencies:
•sensory-motor apparatus and affectivities
•thinkings and memory-images distributed across people and media
(sometimes) layered double-bind systems ==> numbing out
queerly valorized --Keeling-->
if Pam Grier is a locus of desire for both heterosexual males and for lesbians such as Lesbian Avengers’ lesbian prtygoers, then her presence on The L Word [TV series] is another way the series seeks to bring these populations together in a shared project of value production
phenomena: topological reconfigurings/entanglements/relationalities/(re)articulations
ongoing reconfis of world ==> = agency =/= attribute
national agendas for innovation and economic positioning
which surplus populations will be enrolled into which kinds of institutions for knowledge work becomes an element of global academic restructuring
restructuring: politicizing funding + ...
intellectual double bind of having:
1. to address many diverging audiences simultaneously under the threat of survival
2. to author knowledges as merely one of multiple agencies with very limited control
==> *posthumanities*
(partial and highly distributed) authorial and receptive agencies --require--> affective labors -->
•sifting among authoritative and alternative knowledges
•clarifying affiliations
•inspiring trust
(Ahmed's material feminism) @apass
whose material was this?
which generations of feminisms were implicated?
which details were necess[...]
(279)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.1[...]imited control
==> *posthumanities*
(partial and highly distributed) authorial and receptive agencies --require--> affective labors -->
•sifting among authoritative and alternative knowledges
•clarifying affiliations
•inspiring trust
(Ahmed's material feminism) @apass
whose material was this?
which generations of feminisms were implicated?
which details were necessary to name others carefully?
what contexts were backdrops for which founding gestures?
affective labor (in apass): frustration, forgetting, unfairness, intensity, ethics, hope, carring attention to detail
[let's not] be quite so willing to deposit our hope in the category of “the new”
objects become sticky
objects become full of affective value
critique
(in apass i have been experimenting with the) effects of reducing complexity
(i am aware of both) the hard work of elegance in explanation & of essentialism in critique
-strategic openings and closings of “black-boxes” (full of memory)
wir
(Katie --> one must wonder) who is being evoked by this ‘we’
to what extent this ‘we’ functions to interpellate the reader into a community that shares a common horizon? (@Sven and Chloe bookshop)
which side, which knowledge world, in what spacetime are ‘we’ on, inside and outside of, bonding and othering?
*tacit forgetting* =/= resolution
**what sorts of boundary objects value irritation?** @Leo
(my irritation in apass with tacit knowledge, spiritualism, Vivero, Manning, process philosophy,,,)
Katie accounts for Ahmed worries that Barad's mattering and some othe black-boxing speech acts are only caricatures of whole arguments, of whole (disciplinizing?) archives, and that they are not conducted at the proper grain of detail, “not attributed to somebody”
attention (in time) -->
•narrow the range of possibility of -ism(s)
•alter the grain of detail ==> *differential focus*
ajayeb.net: an intellectual infrastructure assemblaged and stacked (extensively scaled, intensely scoped) =/= disciplinized archives of references (a knowing that linkages exist and can be assumed and must be consciously made explicit as “new”)
•my “=/=” set the focus of lens unsed in examining --> alter the grain of detail (deliberately and dismissingly) --> a “we” is needed --to--> pull back --to--> include alternate knowledge worlds
ajayeb.net/bibli: bird's-eye view of the bibliographic growth
mobility and detachability of “nots” provoking frission
@ERG's new website: what if the worlding here needs to scope and scale along ranges of detail, indications of shifts from one knowledge world to another assemblaged through boundary objects?
-who gets to say in which knowle[...]
(280)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.2[...]cience
1820s (Babbage’s) difference engine
right at the industrial revolution: division of labor (for Babbage was the highest human achievement)
==> welfare state
the state protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of the citizens
we are living by the rationality of insurance industry (==> operating our lives by technologies of information and computing)
[we can live with it differently]
logic of progress is not the issue, logic of acceleration is the problem
(idea of) frictionless economy ==> must go faster and faster
discourse of stasis =/= how to explore change?
not preserving endangered species, but preserving the possibility of change
desks are information technologies
Bowker > Sina: every critical work (today) must include the centrality of data (and calculation) in our lives
(from premodern) *describe the world* [bestiaries] --to--> (modern necessity to) *calculate the world* [recognizing a calculated world --> my interest in Olearius]
...................................
(Cameron's image of) Terminator: relentless unidirectional progress [that you can't negotiate with] (~= modernity) ==> destruction of cultures and communities --> destroy ourselves
how to live with Terminator = how to live with modernity --> postmodernity
(in the film the Terminator is finally terminated by a determined woman using rather old-fashioned technology)
absolutely will not stop
inside: hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor controlled, fully armoured, very tough
outside: living human tissue, flesh, skin, hair, blood --> controlled by a clinical logic: *it cannot be reasoned with*, it cannot be bargained with
its metal skeleton rises from the ashes and carries on with its mission. the skeleton too is chopped to bits, the individual bits come to life and continue with their goal
(for Sardar) modernity is the conceptual equivalent of the Terminator (incepted in European Enlightenment: modernize traditional cultures and relentlessly lead mankind, screaming and protesting, by the nose towards a progressive utopia)
modernity ~=> (witnessed, if not caused:)
•death and elimination of numerous cultures
•destruction of countless communities and histories
•disappearance of hundreds of valuable animal and plant species
•transformed arable land into wastelands and deserts
modernity: the official culture of the world
(Nietzsche, Heidegger -->) it is not possible to think our way out of modernity with the philosophical system of thought and language supplied by modernity
--> Vattimo's (bad) philosophy of crisis:
•history
what was traditionally referred to as “history” is now perceived as having broken down into an infinity of “histories” that can[...]
(281)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.4[...] />
(Cameron's image of) Terminator: relentless unidirectional progress [that you can't negotiate with] (~= modernity) ==> destruction of cultures and communities --> destroy ourselves
how to live with Terminator = how to live with modernity --> postmodernity
(in the film the Terminator is finally terminated by a determined woman using rather old-fashioned technology)
absolutely will not stop
inside: hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor controlled, fully armoured, very tough
outside: living human tissue, flesh, skin, hair, blood --> controlled by a clinical logic: *it cannot be reasoned with*, it cannot be bargained with
its metal skeleton rises from the ashes and carries on with its mission. the skeleton too is chopped to bits, the individual bits come to life and continue with their goal
(for Sardar) modernity is the conceptual equivalent of the Terminator (incepted in European Enlightenment: modernize traditional cultures and relentlessly lead mankind, screaming and protesting, by the nose towards a progressive utopia)
modernity ~=> (witnessed, if not caused:)
•death and elimination of numerous cultures
•destruction of countless communities and histories
•disappearance of hundreds of valuable animal and plant species
•transformed arable land into wastelands and deserts
modernity: the official culture of the world
(Nietzsche, Heidegger -->) it is not possible to think our way out of modernity with the philosophical system of thought and language supplied by modernity
--> Vattimo's (bad) philosophy of crisis:
•history
what was traditionally referred to as “history” is now perceived as having broken down into an infinity of “histories” that can no longer be (re)combined into a single narrative governed by a central theme
(today:) history = a kind of writing
•progress: *something qualitatively different from what precedes it* (a forward movement in history) --✕--> [now:] welf established technique (of such masters as Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Lyotard and Baudrillard:) to deconstruct rational metaphysics in order to open it, to rewrite it and thus to lay the foundation, in terms of a Marxian-inspired historicism, of new truths for a postmodernist thought
•(Vattimo's use of) nihilism as weapon to attack notions of ‘truth’ and ‘reason’ (in western metaphysics) ==>
◦‘logic = (just another kind of) rhetoric’
◦‘truth = will to power (by those who claim to be seeking truth over those who are being addressed by them)’
◦‘science and technology = dominating metaphysical systems’
--✕--> (eliminated any) possibility of a dialogue with cultures that are truly other as the rational metaphysics of science and technology
(the idea of) plurality of cultures and discourses mu[...]
(282)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.4[...], value and fact, ethics and practical necessity
(Falk's) Disneyland postmodernism:
•abstract affirmation of a holistic harmonious future
•homogenized uniformity (based on a colonizing logic and westernization of the globe)
•reinterpret science and natural reality as confirmatory of a spiritual grounding for human
•holistic possibilities of encompassing conflict
•***postmodernism as an expression of the privileged status of the West***
*greek gnosis is the Terminator in its guise of mystic* (which provided the Enlightenment with its springboard and modernity with its mission to subjugate non-western cultures)
arrogance and authoritarianism are intrinsic in both Greek rationalist and mystical thoughts:
•Socrates --> worshipped reason and was an arrogant and obnoxious man who enjoyed ridiculing ordinary folks
•Buddah --> worshipped nature and produced a totally authoritarian system of thought (as have most philosophers in western history who have appealed to nature for ethics)
new postmodernism's value:
•ecological wisdom
•grassroots democracy
•personal and social responsibility
•non-violence
•decentralization
•community-based economics
•postpatriarchal values
•respect for diversity
•global responsibility
•future focus
*modernity is based on a fundamental value-idea --> secularism (a value whose opposite cannot be chosen as value)*
...................................
importance of scale
archive --> scale of the infinite
...................................
*history of knowledge [in my work on ajayeb] = dream of knowledge (present in the mind) of the people who are not anglophone =/= history of science*
inside and outide the mental map of the historian (of science)
SDzVaBj492s
Daston on *disciplinary neurosis* of the history of science
all timelines are maps (are chronologies, are provincial)
most drawings are maps (are charming)
[Sina:] ****can we have (imagine) science without modernity (not coming right after it)??**** <-- my research question (to separate the bond between science and modernity? to flow the curiosity in that direction)
{ the idea of “science created the modern world + western global dominance” (=/= everyone else) }==> “understanding of modernity = understanding history of science”
(one of rare moments that) european middle ages is conflated with the whole of middle east civilization, as pre-Newtonian (in the eyes of W. Rostow)
--> cold war (maneuvering for the alliances of the newly decolonized nations)
--> all the ways of knowing that were not included in the current Anglophone and Francophone definition of “science = the natural sciences in English on[...]
(283)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.6[...] on *disciplinary neurosis* of the history of science
all timelines are maps (are chronologies, are provincial)
most drawings are maps (are charming)
[Sina:] ****can we have (imagine) science without modernity (not coming right after it)??**** <-- my research question (to separate the bond between science and modernity? to flow the curiosity in that direction)
{ the idea of “science created the modern world + western global dominance” (=/= everyone else) }==> “understanding of modernity = understanding history of science”
(one of rare moments that) european middle ages is conflated with the whole of middle east civilization, as pre-Newtonian (in the eyes of W. Rostow)
--> cold war (maneuvering for the alliances of the newly decolonized nations)
--> all the ways of knowing that were not included in the current Anglophone and Francophone definition of “science = the natural sciences in English only in mid 19th century” =/= elm علم, Wissenschaft
**there is no culture without (its own implicit systematics of) knowledge**
•epistemological hierarchy (even without the display or existence of *epistemic culture* [dedicated to the persue of knoweldge] --> yet put pressure on communities of learning ==> ideas & practices, for example alchemy was court science par excellence)
•social hierarchy
•rational who can practice them why
(Daston:) the stuck of hands-on knowledge shoots up and then metaphysics plump it --> persue of knowledge becomes collective (with different pressure points)
for many cultures [including Persian]:
•the philology (grammer) is the queen of the sciences
•the stricing prevalence of *dispute: intellectual discourse staged as agonistic duel --> (most of our) ***intellectual life is conducted as polemic***
...................................
the more you study an environment the less your inheritiability of that environment will be (?)
...................................
history: study of past as it it commemorate in traces (textual, physical, etc.) =/= [ajayeb studies =] memory studies: subjective commemoration of the past, collective forms of commemorations (for example the name of streets, or monuments, or unconscious way of navigating in Tajrish square, etc.) --> present in oral interviews
•how the past has been enlisted emotionally, politically, communally,,, (in various causes: construction of autobiography to the construction of national myth) [==> objectivity does not make sense in memory studies]
•it includes (not only that which cab be documented, it rather) includes an element of the subjective : how people feel about what happened in the past, how they reconstruct events of the past but also narratives =/= what happened in the past --Daston--> objectivity (among histories:)
◦cross-checking [...]
(284)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.6[...]ulture* [dedicated to the persue of knoweldge] --> yet put pressure on communities of learning ==> ideas & practices, for example alchemy was court science par excellence)
•social hierarchy
•rational who can practice them why
(Daston:) the stuck of hands-on knowledge shoots up and then metaphysics plump it --> persue of knowledge becomes collective (with different pressure points)
for many cultures [including Persian]:
•the philology (grammer) is the queen of the sciences
•the stricing prevalence of *dispute: intellectual discourse staged as agonistic duel --> (most of our) ***intellectual life is conducted as polemic***
...................................
the more you study an environment the less your inheritiability of that environment will be (?)
...................................
history: study of past as it it commemorate in traces (textual, physical, etc.) =/= [ajayeb studies =] memory studies: subjective commemoration of the past, collective forms of commemorations (for example the name of streets, or monuments, or unconscious way of navigating in Tajrish square, etc.) --> present in oral interviews
•how the past has been enlisted emotionally, politically, communally,,, (in various causes: construction of autobiography to the construction of national myth) [==> objectivity does not make sense in memory studies]
•it includes (not only that which cab be documented, it rather) includes an element of the subjective : how people feel about what happened in the past, how they reconstruct events of the past but also narratives =/= what happened in the past --Daston--> objectivity (among histories:)
◦cross-checking of sources
◦(19th century technique of) “reading against the grain”: try to discover, from the surviving sources, from what perspective they were written (what historical context they were embedded in) = “critical reading” from the stand point of all of one might say “the illusions of memory” which might cloud an objective impartial records of events (not accepting the narrative that place value in the source) [=/= my work on ajayeb]
◦securing evidence (---> go to archive) : intersection of objectivity with study of history
(since 17th century) memory has been essential to our conceptualization of what does it mean to have a self --> why we are so concerned with memory damage ceases (alzheimer, etc.)
husod3oqLds
many time when we define (say “what X is”), what we are doing is to how to make a term more precise, to make something *artificially operational*
...................................
*sciences of the archive*
depend on longed lived collections
(since 16th century, as we know it) modern science's epistemic goal: *predictive accuracy* =/= *to elevate certainty* (the[...]
(285)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.7[...]ses itself as mere monetization
-how money's (total and totalizing) mediations have come to be experienced in the contrary idioms of immediacy (and eternal present-being)
-rhetorics of transparency and visibility (conceived in aesthetic domains)
(narcissistic act of) teletechnic encompassment
*spirit mediumship*
[auratic threshold of representation]
(the nationally renowned spirit medium) Chuchad, flamboyant media savvy
daguerreotypy: a demonic receiving device that had the capacity to retain and thereby diminish the photographed subject's substance
(in Thai) kaan thaay [taking, wasting] ruup [picture]
•Thai word for photography
•concomitant transformation and discharge
--✕--> spirit practices were brought into conversation with the mass media
•conceptualized largely in terms of atavism and/or residue (repressed orgiastic impulse buried)
•(located on the periphery of) the *nation's geo-body* [=/= state's formed public]
(from the perspective of rationalist Buddhist orthodoxy [and in the case of iranian superstitions, Holakouee خرافه khorafe] -->) mediumship: (imagined as) a temporal interruption of the nation's modernity
communist occult practices
emasculating magic
phantasmatic triad of nation, religion, monarch
mediums = state's other
[today]
•identification between the local and the global (facilitated by transnational communication systems) compete with those of the nationalism
•*market-based discourses of civic politics in the anticipation of being seen from afar by a multinational media audience*
•
mediumship reborn as...
•circulating along with its own images
•part of an endlessly proliferating series (=/= double of a lost original) in which it merely seeks to be legible as an image of its displaced self
[a figure many artists today want to be: spirit] *medium* (profession of epiphanic discovery) --transmitting--> paranoiac messages --prophesying--> boundary penetration (originated with the state)
(revolution reduced to) the status of mise-en-scene
bourgeois democracy
market-based discourses of civic politics
simulacral space of the new mediascape
(Chuchad's promise of authenticity -->) violent authenticity of an exposure in which mediumship's representations would be renounced --> *techniques of the performance themselves become the object of performative inscription*
history of religious legitimacies
populist conservative monk --> religious sermon in the format of emphatically dialogic, using vernacular forms and local dialects to disseminate [--> content remaines deeply orthodox in its valorization of the foundational texts + its ritualist inscription]
+
[...]
(286)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%72.8[...]diation into the person of the distributor + مستتر کردن occulting of technique in the very moment of display
•[*]pyramid scheme: a structure in which retailers recruit more retailers --> (mainly serves the interests of) multinational entities parading as local entrepeneurialism
grotesquely functionalized room
abandoning the ontology of mediumship (for...)
putatively unmediated truth (of...)
magic's metamorphosis entailes a repetition
([Morris analysis of Chuchad:] a medium becoming) a middleman disavowing the mediations that he performed in order to produce the illusion of value, or meaning, or truth
•working only in the repression of its own operations --> truth-effect of marketing
--> *the market can substitute for magic*, the media can be itself, the very nature of money (its abstractions and its generality) can compensate for the differences it effaces
*rhetoric of asian family*
occult network: networks that are not publicly disclosed
(in environments that are believed not to operate as an open economy --> economies are dominated not only by particular families but by the logic of family [exclusive and unassailable ties between small communities])
=/= rationalization of local economies, market liberalization,,
•anachronistic imaginary of transnational capitalism and the racialized family (of asian nations) --> idealized
•metaphorical ruse of kinship's discourse
•*neocolonial fantasy concealed in the dream of immediacy* --> Amway: theologically informed market liberalism--pursuing a noiseless world where feedback is impossible
confessional disclosures of new capital
rhetoric of transparency
mediumship's (enthralling) dramaturgy of disclosure
(Morris asking) what else is transparency in the massified world? a mediation so total that it has become invisible (?)
...................................
•to challange them
•to break with their own gesture
•to inherit from them
*Socrates --> alleged epistemo-sociological enquiry ([the tradition of] asking people what they know and how they think) --Savransky--> (hallmark of social sciences today:) *ethics of estrangement*: ‘becoming estranged’ from the realm of appearances made available by direct experience in order to ‘gain access’ to a realm of facts and causes**** ==Whitehead==> *bifurcation of nature*: a mode of understanding whereby experience only discloses that which is apparent, whereas the ‘relevant’ factors in the process of knowing the world must always lie, and be sought, somewhere else
*=/= Alice in Wonderland
*=/= Cinderella [--> harem girl, hallucinating with animals, not becoming a psycho (angry), arrested]
*=/= William James: inquiry is about **the way some people cultivate an exper[...]
(288)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%73.1[...]ate
*finite*
service-dominant logic {
•operant --> infinite --> human's skill
•operand --> finite --> world's material
service-dominant logic ==> a cut (“=/=”) --> operant resources will take these sluggish raw inherently secondary materials and act on them to whisk them into something valuable
--Barad--> every act of observation makes a “cut” in what is otherwise an indissolubly unauflösbare entangled natural-cultural universe : *every new way of observation cuts open new logics ==> undermines what is known + what can be known*
[*]operand resources: resources which require action to create benefit
--✕--> crucial scenarios where operand resources (forests, sea beds, topsoil) require the opposite of action (unused or underused) in order to create or maintain (their intrinsic) value
*value-in-use: somthing is assessed according to the use a consumer has for it
*value-in-underuse --> (tourism's) deserted beaches, unspoiled countryside, uninhabited ruins
for example brand management implicitly leverages the concept of *value-in-underuse*
brands are often valuable for the very fact that they are underused : when their use is confined to small communities, enabling them to maintain their cultural capital (exclusivity or authenticity)
*vlaue-in-context: value is conceived as something that is collectively co-created by multiple actors
for example in service-dominant logic an operant resource like *brand vlaue* is one which is externally-based and dynamically determined in the context (cannot be own by a single actor) --> *consumers might co-derive affective cognitive social value in creating the brand but economic value that accrues as a result belongs entirely to the brand's shareholders* [--> issue with fandom]
for example *affective value*: when vlaue lies in the general sentiment of a networked group of actors
(in marketing's theory of value creation) the *role of the consumer* in the value creation process is now explicitly recognized and articulated (incorporated) through compelling concepts such as cocreation, coproduction, *prosumerism* [an individual who both consumes & produces]
@apass collaborative environments
[consumer research]
recognizing the ways in which consumers and consumption are both productive and value-adding
Holbrook's topology of consumer value
value is active = when it entails physical or mental manipulation of an object
value is reactive = when things are done by a product to the consumer (objects act on consumers to create value)
xxxxxx
...................................
Hayles
(to take) a problem-based approach --> taking a problem and looking for solutions =/= investigating problematics (<-- human[...]
(289)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%74.2[...]ters and upheavals --sign--> denouncement of sacred history
medieval = fear + passion (+ expectation) ==> eschatological imagination
escapology: significance of immanent (catastrophic) future history
calculations of the end
demand for reform
monastic analysis
discourse against an identifiable moment of apocalypse
•antichrist
•whore of Babylon
•angelic pope
unfolding end of history [humbling of the mighty] + justice for the inarticulate (oppressed) [exhalation of the meek]
apocalyptic speculation about the enclosed unclean people of Gog and Magog
mystical response
spasmodic irrationality
the fate of the individual at the moment of “personal death” --> guilt culture (fear of damnation ==> life = ritual preparations for dying)
deathbed demons
hell in art
religious anxiety
mechanism of social control
(from) collective --to--> individual
(from) temporal --to--> atemporal or beyond time
(from) stress on spirit --to--> sense of embodied or reembodied self
(shift from) tamed death: a death expected and prepared for, experienced in community --to--> personal death: the moment of death as decisive accounting for an individual self
purgatory: in-between time and space
afterlife --> the concept of the (embodied) human person
somatomorphic: separated soul imagined as bodily
ordinary piety -->
•significance of physical death
•spiritual value of somatic phenomena (namely suffering)
the sense of an ending hovers over all spiritual writing in the middle ages
eschatology of:
1. resurrection: a sense of last things that focuses significance in the moment at the end of time when the physical body is reconstituted and judged
[<-- arise from traditions with a much less immanent sense of “last things"]
--emphasis-->
◦time end
◦person embodied
◦humanity collective
2. immortality: the experience of personal death is the moment of judgement
3. apocalypse --> (coerces) **what matters is the here and now** <-- implying a political payoff
==> inflect and deepen the literature (description of plague, visions of heaven and hell)
}--> three eschatology differ:
•what is the person fundamentally
•fate collective or individual
•how and whether time marches
•where the end is located
•
medical eschatology
eschatology (in the west) is perhaps the most paradoxical (and inconsistent) aspect of religiosity
(traditions in which) earthly experience is a moment in an eternal dreaming
Islam, Judaism, Christianity are brooded over by the sense [*]last things: a s[...]
(290)[...notes/khmarchive.txt]%74.4[...]y when one cannot be distinguished from the other, and he also describes it as ‘the hour of metamorphoses when people ‘half hope, half fear’ that a dog will become a wolf’ (our emphasis). This quotation exemplifies the ambiguously ‘unheimlich,’ [...]
security is never secure enough
Jesus knocks at your heart's door
(history's or pig's) happy ending
absence of ambivalence (in animals)
conditions of admission ---> artistic, sexual, natural *selections*
tickets to power-holding cliques that control the resources
phantoms of non-destruction
or
phantoms of ‘constructed adequately’
pausing dogs
mixed messages
who is wanted for dinner?
the moment when the message is finally received --> tech, magic, ethic, morph
poetic historiography
pivotal reading of ancient Greece --- out of day-dream fantasy
[Rickels]
*beauty is interested in action
(pure) beauty re-lingering on primary narcissism, that's why beauty must be administrated, in proper doses.
(my) animal-findings and fairy-tale associations
if dogs communicate through their trainability cats redirect lines of communication through play. the dog waits and watches, the cat looks and looks, which when is your turn to be looked at, can be therapeutic or unnerving.
meeting the cat half-way
[Ingraham]
the house, passed over in history, brings with it a great many dangers
architecture (never touches the object) is enchanted with object discourse
...all of us have been asked to “instrumentalize” architectural [or art] theory according to a particular building
material given a structure
...................................
Q & A ?, interactivity, swarovski party, servants and robots interacting with foreign bodies --> feeling at home? excited... --> disco without bouncers and borders without border check, spaces you can seamlessly in and out, labyrinthine
i am generating some vocabularies
parsite and parasitical, not all of them are predatory like the wolf
(Karen Barad)
With all mirroring practices, biomimcry has built-in optics on the geometry of distance from what which is other.
(Irigaray)
surprise (to be new): not yet assimilated or disassimilated as known
our attention to that which is not yet (en)coded
...................................
(something to consider, regarding the pigs and wolf story, also an interest for performances that happen in closed space;) there is a standard account that says ‘interiors’ and ‘interiority’ are linked, that the articulation of interior physical space enabled the development of certai[...]
(291)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%74.6[...]e room separate functions, segregation of domestic activities
O-- Rousseau: in the shelter of private domestic space subjectivity is set free (--> a different kind of subjectivity (one which guards the self, something to be protected from the outside) is enabled by the development of the division of labor in interior space) [this is not merely architectural, it is also something about the clothing people wore: wearing different clothes in family or in the realm of strangers. houses became warmer]
(Simmel's) “urban subjectivity”: street physical over-stimulation ==> wearing a mask, you show nothing to people, you are not there. and behind this mask there is the feelings you are having, and these sensations behind the mask are your subjectivity.
it is a reaction to being exposed to difference and complexity
the subject is divided: neutral on the outside / stimulated in the inside
(i don't want to become a camera)
observe (without interacting)
observational cruising
[the standard account:] interiority ~= reflexive detachment, reflexive withdraw
social media and exteriority
...................................
Sennett, “3rd world” SPeCo62Mz2Q : condition in which centralized space or distributed communication networks are missing
-a public space that is officially organized
*parks: open space that are reserved for the public: “where informal economy wants to be but is banned”
*public space: (@Selma on st.open project)
(21st century) modern thought <-- *two traditions of thinking about public realm:
1- as a dialogical condition (of exchange, of political engagement) --> Arendt & Habermas; --->{a communicative immaterial space} : “more talk ==> more agreement, common understanding” ---[dialogic & immaterial]
2- as a space of spectacle --> (goes back to 19th century) Baudelaire's ‘individual passers-by’ watching something on the fold (--> [old Greek idea of spectacle:] “unfolding of narrative.” a bad idea of ‘how people should be physically in space’ for example, a landscape architect that creates a scenography in a park ==> a witness in a scene, watching as spectator from out of a situated identity in the world), (not so new) urban sensibility and urban subject matter; criticized by Guy Debord; --->{a theater with performers and spectators, a very physical understanding of public space, ---[dramatic & material]}
3- inclusive =/= integrative
many of the differences (culture, class, religion, etc) that cities contain can't be reconciled ---> how can I talk to you and not pressing a point of integration, rather inclusion? (where people feel provoked to integrate, integrieren, an inherently passive condition)
-always more parallel activities that don't form a spectacle only but are also productive
---[inclusive & synchronous]
***(in the public realm:) integration <~-> spectac[...]
(293)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%74.7[...]/>
compatible with technical conditions, insignificant “interior” faculty, a set of effects that could be measured externally
(technological transformation of physiology and psychology in the 19th century, development of electrophysiology --> cultural history of electricity)
behaviour with a historical structure: a behaviour articulated in terms of socially determined norms and is part of the formation of a modern technological milieu
1879, Wundt's psychology laboratory in Leipzig, one of the practical and discursive spaces within modernity in which human beings “problematized what they are.” Foucault/
(Wundt's account defined attention [= will] as one of the highest integrative functions [---> go to #integrative in Sennett], its essential role in producing an effective unity of consciousness)
part of the cultural logic of capitalism demands that we accept as natural switching our attention rapidly from one thing to another --> (capitalism as a) regime of reciprocal attentiveness and distraction
conceptualizer of a new economic and social space based on the quantification and distribution of energy:
•Wener von Siemens
•Lord Kelvin: globalization of telegraphic communication and subsequently in the commodification and marketing of electric power (in England) [telegraph: a world of anonymous, decontextualized information; moved history into the background and amplified the instant and simultaneous present/person]
•Edison: transition to centralised corporate capitalism (in late 19th century): his role in the emergence of a new system of quantification and distribution, a system for transmission and reception as abstract processes, ways in which a space of consumption and circulation could be dynamized/activated --> social field of individual subjects could be arranged into increasingly separate and specialized units (of consumption)
“Edison was a holistic conceptualizer and determined solver of the problems associated with the growth of systems” (Crary > Hughes)
Edison is paradigmatic: *the indistinction between information and visual images, and the making of quantifiable and abstract flow into the object of attentive consumption. his grasp of some of the systemic features of capitalism (in 1880s and 1890s) underscores the abstract nature of the products he “invented”. his work is inseparable from the continual manufacturer of new needs and the consequent restructuring of the network of relations in which such products would be consumed* --> other participants in the same historical project of perpetual rationalization and modernization: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Andrew Grove, etc.
(kinetoscope and phonograph logic:) the structuring of perceptual experience in terms of a solitary rather than a collective subject --> today's computer screen as the primary vehicle for the distribution and consumption ([...]
(295)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%75.1[...]and conduct does not actually require comprehensive awareness.
Darwin: a certain kind of reactive attention was believed to be an essential part of human biology, systematic response to novel stimuli (visual, olfactory, or auditory)
-an attentive observer might appear motionless
-an ideo-motor network of forces --> that which immobilizes
(the structural psychology of) associationism (theories of knowledge)
institutional discourse
techniques of the subject
attention (~= will) ~/= consciousness
(noncoincidence of attention with consciousness)
<-- modern shift to semantic and semiotic frameworks of analysis
(from epistemology --to--> hermeneutics : Mallarme, Nietzsche, Peirce, Wittgenstein, Heidegger --> the question of how a subject is provisionally constructed through language and other systems of social meaning and value --> termination of various analysis of consciousness --> epistemological crisis
observer (once understood in terms of the essential subjectivity of vision) ==> attention became constitutive (and destabilizing) component of perception
unmediated givenness of sense data --✕--> cognition
community of interpretation : a shifting and intervening space of socially articulated psychological functions, institutional imperative, and a wide range of techniques, practices, and discourses relating to the perceptual experience of a subject in time --> forms of exteriority in modernity's account of perception
eschatological dream of 19th century : “to make this knowledge of man exist so that man could be liberated by it from his alienation, liberated from all the determinations of which he was not the master” --> one made of man an object of knowledge so that man could become subject of his own liberty and of his own existence
-Foucault
exercise of a sovereign and attentive will [we see this in Olearius] --> claiming subject's self-possession --> conscious organizer of that perceptible world --> master
(Nietzsche:) “i am free” ==> “he must obey” }--> the inward certainty that obedience will be rendered -->{ *exclusively: (the unconditional evaluation that) ‘this and nothing else is necessary now’
co-presence of the world (can never be guaranteed [by scientific psychology])
<== attentiveness is continuous with distraction, reverie, dissociation, trance,
@apass, work on attention is so interesting because it is part of the history of modality of contemplation about processes and activities of the body
the neo-Kantian legacy of a disinterested aesthetic perception --desire--> to escape bodily time (and its vagaries)
•(Hume's) artist: someone in whom “nature has forgotten to attach their faculty for perception to their faculty for action” (<-- sounds [...]
(296)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%75.3[...]ing for too long the attention (containing within itself the conditions for its own disintegration) inevitably reaches a threshold at which it breaks down[<-- a game i used to play as a child, playing with attention and distraction, mutating myself into a state of trance or autohypnosis, absorbed, diverted, nebulous =/= socially adaptive subject] --> *perceptual identity* (of its object) begins to deteriorate (& paralysis of will?) [_that is why in spectacle visual regimes the duration of perception must be regulated in short intervals]
attention is thermodynamic : a given force could assume more than ine form
partial sleep <--> abnormal fixation
(i am cautious at every turn to capture my own) *experience of distraction* is part of ajayeb studies. because it has to do with modes of attention and its persian history
perception is a dream
(an account of) [*]modernity: a process of fragmentation and destruction in which premodern forms of wholeness and integrity were irretrievably broken up or degraded through technological, urban, and economic reorganization
==> a “decay” in the capacity for perception [<-- to be careful in working for ajayeb not to romanticize (elitist and regressive fantasy of communal relations in) premodern modalities of looking/listening as richer, deeper, or more valuable :
modern urban life as “swift and continuous shift of external and internal stimuli” =/= premodern's “slower, more habitual, more smoothly flowing rhythm of the sensory-mental phase"]
(sensory mental schema)
understanding of distraction within a larger deterioration of experience
-distraction (not as a product of decay or anthropy, rather) as a mean to overcome bankruptcy of bourgeois aesthetic (late 19th century):
•Benjamin: absorbed contemplation purified of the excess stimuli of modernity
•Adorno: distraction as regression: perception that is “arrested in the infantile stage” =/= “deep concentration”
•Rilke: authentic attention as precious and rare survival of the lost ideal of artistic absorption in work now exiled to the margins of mechanized and routinized world
•Rodin: gazing of the handworker
-
}--> “reception in a state of distraction”, (<== absorption is psychologically grounded perception) =/= Crary arguing that attention and distraction ceaselessly flowing into one another on the same continuum (of social field)
[tales of understanding]-*
•what are the cognites of ‘contemplation’ (in german or farsi)?
the theological resonances of this latinate word --> contemplation: viewing/considering with continued attention; going into the temple, into the sphere of the holy, into the deep roots of things, into their creative ground
(to oppose) contemporary modes of distraction
modern forms [...]
(297)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%75.4[...]:
•Benjamin: absorbed contemplation purified of the excess stimuli of modernity
•Adorno: distraction as regression: perception that is “arrested in the infantile stage” =/= “deep concentration”
•Rilke: authentic attention as precious and rare survival of the lost ideal of artistic absorption in work now exiled to the margins of mechanized and routinized world
•Rodin: gazing of the handworker
-
}--> “reception in a state of distraction”, (<== absorption is psychologically grounded perception) =/= Crary arguing that attention and distraction ceaselessly flowing into one another on the same continuum (of social field)
[tales of understanding]-*
•what are the cognites of ‘contemplation’ (in german or farsi)?
the theological resonances of this latinate word --> contemplation: viewing/considering with continued attention; going into the temple, into the sphere of the holy, into the deep roots of things, into their creative ground
(to oppose) contemporary modes of distraction
modern forms of interiority, absorption, psychic isolation
Riegl's dream of a world in which art would be inseparable from an imaginary democratic harmony of individual and community (=/= harem)
collective attention (central attentive mass audience, 1900) : cinema
rational attention: attention linked to thought, one's telescope on object
(for Nietzsche:) attention: possibility of an absorption ==> forgetting --> life-affirmative }--> “focusing on the present moment”
final virtue of modern man: *presence of mind* --Nietzsche--> necessary part of the (cosmopolitan) individual's functioning within a modern world of economic facts and qualities --> ready at response to the machine, affinity with the technical, athletic political (#integration tale)
--> the (serious) modern soul is directed towards the news, focusing on the present, to employ the moment (#presentism #past-studies)
•fable of “to be at the present moment”
•fable of “to adapt yourself”
perceptual acceleration of modernized social field (work + leisure) ==> new *cosmopolitan individual* (who receives signals from many fars and nears, equipped to ‘attend’ to messages and participate in their circulation ☆ #facebook? --> diffuse anxiety of the other-directed person : gyroscope --> radar)
Arendt:
modernity: fabricating rendered meaningless =/= contemplation: beholding the truth
‘life = being’ ==> ‘contemplation = truth’
Heidegger --> characterization of Greek's primordial self-disclosing look ==> makes presence possible + glaring predatory look --of--> modern subjects = objects of conquest
dystopian story: a promising outburst (always of human) activity [such as science or exploration or artificial int[...]
(298)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%75.4[...]rary in his book, Suspension of Perception, shows how high science and peripheral pseudoscience never had clear-cut distinctions in the 19th century. that there were a complex and shifting relation of mutual exchange between the “luminous” physics with a huge range of other “darker” ideas about ‘action in a distance’ enacted in spiritism
@Zoumana
hypnosis & suggestion --> automatic processes (inferior, more instinctual, continuous with animality), “mental decapitation” =/= ration elicit patient with conscious participating will power [--> Star Wars will of the weaker and less independent, powerful natures exercise over weaker ones, jedi --> strance states (of the weaker ones): being instrument of undisguised power --Stengers--> deviant types of behavioural control]
(hypnosis still being researched on but) ideologically could not be acknowledged as a constitutive part of human sciences
==> (stigmata of critical position [@Ali; follow it in Marxism]:)
volitional human action modified by external forces
Ali's tacit appeal to state secret, military secret --> importance of low-level effects of suggestion and influence in contemporary global culture (Ali's interest)
the role ‘suggestion’ plays in a society of communication --> the effects of:
•fashion
•mimesis
•mass psychology
•media-related contagions
+ influences of all kind ==> “oblige” us
}--> the assumption that attention can be controlled for specific ends
(over a hundred years) underpinning institutional strategies has been the position that *human subjects have determinate psychological capacities and functions that might be susceptible to technological management*
attention has been both: strategy of control & locus of resistance and drift
(by the end of 20th century) the attentive subject is part of an ‘internalization’ of disciplinary imperative --> individuals are made more directly responsible for their own efficient or profitable utilization
Foucault's society of discipline
Guy Debord's society of spectacle
(Guy Debord's) *spectacle: a development of a technology of separation*, [multiple strategies of isolation] --> (capitalism's restructuring of) society without community
+
(Foucault's) [production of] docile bodies ~{ body = political force }
+
(<== Weber's) inner isolation of individual [<==> capitalist modernity]
management of attention is masscultural forms has to do (less with the visual contents and much more) with a larger **strategy of the individual** }-->
spectacle:
[--✕--> looking at images]
----> (construction of conditions that) individuate, immobilize, separate subjects
}==>
attention --> operation of noncoercive forms of power
(Crary:) optical/technological obj[...]
(299)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%75.7[...]'s tacit appeal to state secret, military secret --> importance of low-level effects of suggestion and influence in contemporary global culture (Ali's interest)
the role ‘suggestion’ plays in a society of communication --> the effects of:
•fashion
•mimesis
•mass psychology
•media-related contagions
+ influences of all kind ==> “oblige” us
}--> the assumption that attention can be controlled for specific ends
(over a hundred years) underpinning institutional strategies has been the position that *human subjects have determinate psychological capacities and functions that might be susceptible to technological management*
attention has been both: strategy of control & locus of resistance and drift
(by the end of 20th century) the attentive subject is part of an ‘internalization’ of disciplinary imperative --> individuals are made more directly responsible for their own efficient or profitable utilization
Foucault's society of discipline
Guy Debord's society of spectacle
(Guy Debord's) *spectacle: a development of a technology of separation*, [multiple strategies of isolation] --> (capitalism's restructuring of) society without community
+
(Foucault's) [production of] docile bodies ~{ body = political force }
+
(<== Weber's) inner isolation of individual [<==> capitalist modernity]
management of attention is masscultural forms has to do (less with the visual contents and much more) with a larger **strategy of the individual** }-->
spectacle:
[--✕--> looking at images]
----> (construction of conditions that) individuate, immobilize, separate subjects
}==>
attention --> operation of noncoercive forms of power
(Crary:) optical/technological objects --> arrangement of bodies in space (--modernism--> techniques of separation)
television + personal computer --> anti-nomadic procedures (that fix and striate) ==> rendering bodies controllable and useful + simulation of choices and interactivity
--> (Williams: a technological and logic of) *mobile privatization*
(through the assessment of the works of Deleuze and Guattari, and now popular narratives) the relation between human and machine is based on internal, mutual communication, and no longer on usage or action (~ human operator linked to a machine as an exterior object) [~/=? companion species]
irresistible imperative of communication ~~--> continuous effects of control
panoptic techniques & attentive imperatives (function reciprocally)
classical power:
•repression
•ideology
•
modern power:
•normalization
•modulation
•modelling
•*information that bear on:
◦language
◦perception
◦de[...]
(300)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%75.8[...]r />
(Guy Debord's) *spectacle: a development of a technology of separation*, [multiple strategies of isolation] --> (capitalism's restructuring of) society without community
+
(Foucault's) [production of] docile bodies ~{ body = political force }
+
(<== Weber's) inner isolation of individual [<==> capitalist modernity]
management of attention is masscultural forms has to do (less with the visual contents and much more) with a larger **strategy of the individual** }-->
spectacle:
[--✕--> looking at images]
----> (construction of conditions that) individuate, immobilize, separate subjects
}==>
attention --> operation of noncoercive forms of power
(Crary:) optical/technological objects --> arrangement of bodies in space (--modernism--> techniques of separation)
television + personal computer --> anti-nomadic procedures (that fix and striate) ==> rendering bodies controllable and useful + simulation of choices and interactivity
--> (Williams: a technological and logic of) *mobile privatization*
(through the assessment of the works of Deleuze and Guattari, and now popular narratives) the relation between human and machine is based on internal, mutual communication, and no longer on usage or action (~ human operator linked to a machine as an exterior object) [~/=? companion species]
irresistible imperative of communication ~~--> continuous effects of control
panoptic techniques & attentive imperatives (function reciprocally)
classical power:
•repression
•ideology
•
modern power:
•normalization
•modulation
•modelling
•*information that bear on:
◦language
◦perception
◦desire
◦movement
--> by way of microassemblages
(= *subjectification*)
-the shape of absentmindedness in my performances is skewed by the attentive imperative of modern subjectification? something unfocused, **something folds back against itself** =/= “processing” a stream of heterogeneous stimuli (in film, radio, television, cyberspace)
-my audience felt an uncomfortable sense of their own inattentiveness (in my performances of the experience of dissociation, of temporality incompatible with capitalist patterns of flow). what is they are asking me is to give a stream of heterogeneous stimuli --> ****how temporality is inhabited****
to diffuse (societies of spectacle) into (a single) integrated society of spectacle (==> separate, isolated, but not introspective individuals)
(film and television in competition with) *daydream* --> a domain of resistance internal to any system of coercion [?]-->
(?is capitalism's contemporary arrangement allowing/playing an) oscillation between spectacular attentiveness and the free pla[...]
(301)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%75.8[...]880s
•cinematic devices in 1890s
--> (fragmentation of perception inherent to the apparatus presented in terms of) **a mechanically produced continuum that “naturalizes” the disjunctions**
(Crary asks:) by what logic of temporal sequence or spatial continuity does one move from the interior of papal apartments in Rome to the Great Wall of China to the Italian Alps in 120-seconds intervals?
[--?--> visual equivalence of political imperialism? slogans such as “Reisen durch die ganze Welt.” German colonialism of the 1880s --Sternberger--> “the views from European windows had lost their depth, becoming part and parcel of the same panorama world surrounding them and constituting a painted surface every where.” #Olearius; tourism + forms of visual consumption]
Muybridge's 1879 work on sequential photography ==> atomized field + not “truthful” syntax --> segmentation--opening--> onto an abstract order of continuities and uninterrupted circuits
>
...we are in a specific historical phase in the reduction of the time and cost of movement <==> circulating capital
}--Marx--> “capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier” ==>
•creation of the physical condition of exchange
•creation of the means of communication and transport
•*eradication of space by time*
instantaneity of vision from which space is deleted
vision compatible with the smooth space of the global marketplace
uprooting of perception from any stable space-time coordination
the history of capitalism is the history of (effective operation of) overcoming obstacles of:
•anything with a permanent stable location (incapable of being inserted into circulation)
•anything that is part of a code (traditional or established pattern of behaviour, resisting deployment in networks of abstract relations)
(images productive of labor usually end up intermingling the representation of that land as a *tranquil earthly paradise*)
an image: self-evident presence of native workers on the coffee plantation; they remain invisible except as abstract components within flow of capital or as “naturalized” elements within an imaginary landscape
an image: workers gathering and packing beans under midday clouds; a fraudulently homogenous and static image of elements (bodies and land) which have become quantified and exchangeable, part of an unstable system *incapable of immobilization*. it discloses the antinomic coexistence of living labor power (with its irreducible existential temporalities) and the tendency of capital to “circulation without circulation time.” the violence and social devastation underlying this all over distribution of human being within the lush vegetation of an apparently premodern landscape...
(my period of abstract digital image glitch: play of ma[...]
(303)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%76.6[...]edominate beneath the spurious appearance of social concord [in my world: Iran]
}-->? holistic mode of association (=/= my performances) -->? desire for (modern forms of) cohesion (in the absence of inflexible forms [~ disintegration of the mechanical solidarity of tradition, religion, myth, consanguinity]) -->? wanting an *original solidarity* (---> go to the image of the ‘harmonious vision of industrial society’ in my early paintings, self-regulating landscapes of feedback loops --> *state of equilibrium* that i wanted to achieve in the painting not symbolically)
(i prefer *pseudo solidarity*)
emergence of aggregates
manifestations of complexities
(this is happening in)
late 19th century is also the age of attempting to validate a relatively stable and domesticated image of the dynamism and destructiveness of capital
modernity --> state of harmonious equilibrium --> interaction in relation of agreement and mutuality --> new set of moral imperative --> *solidarity*: the duty to become a “social being” (~ to become socialized in relation to a wide range of institutions)
anomie: breakdown of an organized set of connections and adjacencies, deranges a normally regulated flow of communication and feedback (=/= solidarity) }--> thermodynamic framework
anomie (used to be) a celebrated passage is when the individual worker is no longer the living cell moved by continual contact with neighboring cells (=/= now in late liberal capitalism anomie is the mode of labor)
anomie (in thermodynamic framework) describes a statistical distribution of elements in which insufficient contact or adjacency prevents the flow of messages our information within the system as a whole. systemwide increase of local zones of dissociation and disintegration <-- Durkheim
(Durkheim was writing at the time of) crisis of social cohesion within a transitional period ==> a systematic response was being shaped (foreshadowed in several of Seurat's major works) -*-*-*--> the making of a society whose effective unity was founded on the ubiquity of *spectacular consumption through mass media and technologies of illusion*
if *religion* was the key “collective representation” (in Durkheim premodern mechanical solidarity) --> *spectacle* was to become the primary simulation of cohesion and unification within 20th century modernity****
--> (Debord:) capitalism's solidarity: unity of subjects in their very separatedness
(Crary >) Seurat's entire visual output: [systematic movement between:]
•large engineered representation of social collectivities (~ crowds)
•images of isolation and separation
“[...]the unity of his optical aggregates was always an ephemeral subjective construction that never objectively modified the abstract and segmented status of his dots, so his a[...]
(304)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%77.1[...]ween spectator and image
(Martin Jay:) two scopic regimes:
•metric and homogenous tableau loosely synonymous with classical space
•decentered and destabilized perceptual regime with its mobile and embodied observer
the evocation of a scenographic setup in Seurat (Parade de cirque) is a veil over the desiccated, nonhomogenous, and additive construction of the work
frontality and unity of framing (of “primitive” cinema...)
[?do we need to] (in an illusionist mode) satisfy the principle of unitary organization of the scenic space
(how should you be concerned with [public record] of your intellectual and aesthetic formations?)
Seurat's Parade de cirque =/= Leonardo's Last Supper
(Seurat broke free from Leonardo, and i should from Seurat)
both of these paintings are concerned with the revelation of a mystery:
•Leonardo: the mystery of Christian sacrifice as it coincides with a lucid apprehension of infinite extension
•Seurat: the “mystery” of the disenchanted and quantitative order of capitalist exchange (and its overturning of homogeneity and legibility of space)
witness to:
-holy communion -Leonardo
-rituals intrinsic to modernity -Seurat
in terms of orthogonal illustrated in Leonardo is precisely what Seurat dismantles in Parade de Cirque
the question of value
movement of abstract quantities
(transactional dimensions of Seurat's work)
lost transparency:
how the use of money within modernity transformed the social character of exchange ***from something interpersonal to an anonymous transaction*** at the distance (--> Reza's hold-up of values, the dream of interpersonal transaction and resistance of anonymity and distance)
[the problem that all artists have with money --Simmel-->] *a priori equivalence of price (for all commodities) ==> eliminate:
•deliberations and examinations of the buyer
•effects and elucidations of the seller
==> quick and indifferent economic transaction
“selling tickets”: accumulated social experience of separation = *depersonalized exchange* (--> that which many artists are dealing with as a problem)
--Gouz--> [*]capitalism: *disaffection of value* (the libidinal, the intersubjective, the semantic are completely divorced from the economic relation ==> economic sector =/= semantic affective investment)
Seurat's meditation on the emptiness of a modern relation of display and consumption
cost of admission at two different rates:
-Leonardo: head of Jesus at the vanishing point of the window opening onto infinite celestial space (--> regime of signs that possess intrinsic value =/=)
-Seurat: price tag, grid space (--> regime of signs that are symbols of value)
[...]
(305)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%77.3[...]remodern mystic values
*some of the great disenchanters at the origin of modern western science are deeply Pythagorean:
***number is the essence of reality ==today==> “nature must be studied quantitatively” (=/= ajayeb's quality of descriptive nature of the world)
...and appeal to mathematics in artmaking still comes from the hope of establishing clear and distinct ideas, which as such are necessarily true
Pythagorean primal cosmogenic principle: breath --> repression's binary rhythm of inhaling and exhaling, the mutual interaction of contraries (like sex) : the original generative force
(the union of the limited and the unlimited) --> still operating today in the year 2018
theories of dynamogeny on iranian traditional music radif, that certain musical proportions poses cheerful or bitter qualities, influence the person's emotional state
to transcend from quantitative number of dastgah --to--> a mysterious qualitative dimension of pardeh
(Crary's) Seurat's anarchism: (painting of the) world of mere empirical relations, cut off from the infinite (loss of the vanishing point) and from the light of either sun or moon (gaslight illuminates the scene)
Leo's primitive communism
pictorial generation of meaning
the keystone of Foad's technique:
purity of the spectral element
(Burgin >) fantasy: an arrest that domesticates the unruly movements of desire --> it takes on hieratic and tableau-like forms : phantasmatic figuration
*reconciliation*
(a formal idea, of) abstract functionings of binary oppositions {typographical distribution of energy}
=/= elevation in terms of “opposites” or “contraries” (colors, lines, forces, sexes, numbers)
technocratic dream of a quantifiable harmony that a machinic world installs or restores --> *ataraxie*: emphatically reduction of tensions into zero --Seurat--> homeostasis --> preindividuated unity : theater of equilibrium ==> erasure of both individual and historical temporality
(Nattiez:) the illusion that humanity could reach a stable point [...] at which time can be arrested. it is for this reason that androgyny and death so often appear together: social utopias end in massacres and that the structuralist utopias of an allembracing explanation of mankind reducible to torrents of binary oppositions result in “nothingness”
Freud's nirvana principle: to remove interval tension due to stimuli (--> death instinct)
Sina:
(painted and visible philosophy)
in my image assemblages what are and how they work:
•mimes of meaning
•full of graphic gestation
•figural groupings
•architecture
•compositional thinking
what sorts of structural rightness do my image assemblages make inevitable? (inn[...]
(306)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%77.6[...]t occupies spatially remote locations,)
•“observation”: a cognitive model predicated on workable notion of objective reality (a classical epistemological model) that begins to corrode within a field saturated by illusion, hallucination, and whole industries of simulation
-individual subsumed in crowd is incapable of observation --> modern spectacular culture (to be articulated 7 decades later by Guy Debord
the crowd (in Le Bon) is a generalized site on which the accumulated dread and hope associated in the 19th century with social insurrection collapse into am abstract countless mass onto which dream imaginary of any sort can be projected
-Crary
19th century ‘crowd psychology’ assumption that attention has no necessary connection to objective optical observation of the world --> *crowd: drift toward a more primitive order of consciousness*
-withdrawal from surroundings and refocusing on some real or symbolic figure
--> theatrical configuration: means for controlling crowds --> (La Bon's) image of theater exceeding its older place within models of mimetic relation --to--> new effects of subjectification
Wagner's volkish homogeneity --> uniform modes of perception and response --> (problem of) community formation
Wagner's optical metaphor (community could see itself reflected in the mirror of tragedy) of theatrical existence --> *sense of vision serves to reinforce one's place within the social whole*
[--> when i look at Brussels from the 14th floor...]
Wagner's cultural program for social reintegration and his belief in the transformative effects of the collective experience of music drama preformed and produced as a ritual communal event
(typical 19th century --> debates about the effects of mass culture --articulated--> “distraction =/= self-conscious contemplative perception” -->) Wagner's deploying the pervasiveness of *distracted modes of cultural consumption* ==> “higher (deeply attentive --advocated--> purified and ethically superior perceptual engagement) =/= lower (distracted)” forms of listening
-his dissatisfaction with traditional theatre that had allowed or encouraged audiences to look at each other at the diverse social texture of the theatre
an attentive, absorbed public (unthinkable in the 18th century ---> go to Sennett)
(still we are suffering -->) [to have] *control over the attentiveness of an audience* to subordinate it to the will of the artist ==> generate a *collective state of reception* (worthy of an art with such social aspiration @Hoda, Ali , Sina, --to which extent my mysticism in art was about my ideas about spectators incapacity for attention in contemporary Tehran?)
19th century theatre --(transform into)--> ***construction of visibility*** (structure the spectators perceptual experience)
“collective act of seeing ==> [...]
(307)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%78.3[...]ience of music drama preformed and produced as a ritual communal event
(typical 19th century --> debates about the effects of mass culture --articulated--> “distraction =/= self-conscious contemplative perception” -->) Wagner's deploying the pervasiveness of *distracted modes of cultural consumption* ==> “higher (deeply attentive --advocated--> purified and ethically superior perceptual engagement) =/= lower (distracted)” forms of listening
-his dissatisfaction with traditional theatre that had allowed or encouraged audiences to look at each other at the diverse social texture of the theatre
an attentive, absorbed public (unthinkable in the 18th century ---> go to Sennett)
(still we are suffering -->) [to have] *control over the attentiveness of an audience* to subordinate it to the will of the artist ==> generate a *collective state of reception* (worthy of an art with such social aspiration @Hoda, Ali , Sina, --to which extent my mysticism in art was about my ideas about spectators incapacity for attention in contemporary Tehran?)
19th century theatre --(transform into)--> ***construction of visibility*** (structure the spectators perceptual experience)
“collective act of seeing ==> semblance of a community”
(phantasmagoric character of his work) Wagner:
•eliminating lateral views ==> frontal engagement
•near-complete darkness ==> preventing peripheral distraction
•lowering the orchestra out of sight
--> systematic concealing and mystification of the process of production
--> (Wagner stands for) will to mastery over all aspects of the spectacle ==allow==> calculated production of states of regression, fascination, dream (synchronized sound --> cinema's attentiveness half a century later)
-control over emotional response
-remaking of spectator experience
-production of dreamlike clairvoyant
(-can theater stage be a place of distraction? again)
intelligible relation of distance between viewer and illusory scene
--> the way diorama commanded visual attention
in my stage design drawings from 2009:
•standardized perspectival expectations
•metric relations
•position of spectator
•luminous detached rectangle
-
Wagner's Ring cycle: the last expression of a 19th century fantasy of the recuperation of tragedy and myth ~ the dream that culture could make whole what capitalism has broken --Crary+Lacoue-Labarthe--> [disturbing conviction/dream:] in an age where transcendence is undone, (the vacations of) art can recover an ancient destination and establish the type of mythological figure (in which humanity or a people could recognize itself)
-verisimilitude: the quality of seeming to be true, gloss, semblance
composite imaginary of the 19th century
[...]
(310)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%78.3[...]ehavior
“integrative function” of nervous system ==> binding
(integrative: incorporation of the exterior world)
“human perception = possibility of motor activity”
...................................
Cezanne sitting in nature and studying motif, tilting his head ~-> intensity unfolding chromatically before him (a mode of physical being) --> *time of the body* [<-- this is typical of today art in european] = indefinite scalar time + intensity is experienced outside representation
•river stands for his engagement with a more primal flux
•sustained condition of vibrating instability
•apprehension of multiplicity
•world = turn of a kaleidoscope (prismatic)
•(when you look at a) landscape has its own weird anima, it changes like a living animal under our gaze (---> go to machine dreaming image learning 2020)
•to make yourself into a responsible productive organ
--> **incarnation of a contradictory enterprise of self-transformation, self-renewal** <-- (Cezanne's retrospective fulfilment of a tradition from which he could not fully acknowledge his own decisive departure)
...your intuition on the edge of the river
Cezanne = reformulation of natural world + broken hope of community (~= intimacy --> Rousseau's mode of attention contemplation: “thought =/= reverie” : the more sensitive the soul of the observer, the greater the ecstasy aroused in him. deep and delightful reverie : a state of blissful self-abandonment)
--> novelty of a smooth unorganized perceptual space
--Crary--> example of the nonsynchronous character of modernism (~ coexistence of realities from radically different moments of history) [<-- is my bestiary research on the same plural historical positioning?]
•termination of a romantic visionary tradition
(in the West) [*]image: decentered chrono-iconography, automatic self-movement
rise of cinema: body-machine assemblage --Deleuze--> new paradigm of *psycho-mechanics* ~ cinema is capable of touching the cerebral system directly ==>
•experimental forms of life = freedom (affirmative model of automatic behavior --> thought functions at a higher level with an arsenal of syntactic perceptual conceptual tools)
•management of attention (model of passive automatism)
(from) dreamer --to--> somnambulist --to--> hypnosis --to--> suggestion --to--> hallucination --to--> obsession
Deleuze + Benjamin + Virilio
the idea of *art of automatic movement coincide with fascism*
@Pierre, pass, Foad
scopophilia: a forced ecstatic abjection before the image
=/= mastery
[*]spectacle: (spectacular culture) attention would be made attentive to everything but itself
...................................
“my experience is what i aggree to attend to” (James) ~= affirmation of an autonomous self-choosing wo[...]
(311)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%79.7[...]
(i am basically interested in the law of falling bodies)
(my lectures: an art of) following =/= flowing
-one never follows in order to reproduce
-in following, one is in search of singularities of a matter
(my whole work has been about the art of being carried away by the vortical flow of texts)--> [*]ajayeb ~= a vertical field across which singularities are scattered like so many accidents (i see them as ‘problems,’ and my job is to follow them)
global theory of waves
(Deleuze and Guattari romanticizing the royal science:) “reproducing implies the performance of a fixed point of view that is external to what is reproduced” (--no--> it is about saying what you say attached to a temporary fixed point [for example an identity], in order to be able to be proven wrong)
categorical apodictic apparatus
[category = intrinsic concepts]
content is (not?) always conformist (<-- Julia was never)
Alex: imperium of true thinking --> capture, seizure, binding, constituting the efficacy of a foundation (= myth) ==> [*]logos: sanction of a ground
modern state: *realized reason*, the rational and reasonable organization of a community
-what are the exchanges that take place between the State and reason
modern state reason --> “the more you obey, the more you will be master” (for you will be only obeying pure reason) --> philosophy assigned itself the role of ground
common sense: the unity of all faculties at center
(in the archaic model imperial State:) poet = image trainer =/= (toady's) artist: (Deleuzian) *private thinker* (making counterthought, destroy images) =/= public professor
-problem with private thinker is that it exaggerates interiority when it is a question of outside thought --> the question of how **to place the thought in an immediate relation with the outside, with the forces of the outside** (to make thought a war machine?)
(Alex in search of) maxim =/= aphorism (always awaits its meaning from a new external force, a final force that utilizes it) <-- my interest
(?which) image inspired by State apparatus
[*]method: the striated space of the cogitatio universalis ==> path (=/= bridge)
thought ~= vampire (has no image)
(in the smooth space of Zen) the arrow does not go from one point to another but is taken up at any point, to be sent to any other point, and tends to permute with the archer and the target (#my bow and arrow --> it takes no aim but hopes the arrow will stick somewhere)
-whenever a “thinker” shoots an arrow, there is a man of the State, a shadow or an image of a man of the State, that counsels and admonishes him, and wants to assign him a target or aim (#my bow and arrow joke @apass)
pathetic texts: thought becomes pathos [...]
(312)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%80.2[...]becoming thought of the woman
--> (Chloe =) the Gemüt [feeling, heart, soul, mind] that refuses to be controlled ==forms==> a war machine : a thought grappling with exterior forces instead of being gathered up in an interior form
--> operating by relay =/= forming an image @Rob--> a thought that appeals to government ministry
--> event-thought =/= subject-thought
--> problem-thought =/= essence-thought, theorem
striating of mental space =/= Sina's textures and lectures
@Pierre: is horizon a striation?
Deleuze and Guattari: a horizonless milieu --> smooth space
the true name of race: bastard, mixed-blood
-a race is defined not by its purity but rather by the impurity conferred upon it by a system of domination
[(aspects of) war machine or] machine:
•spatiogeographic
•arithmatic
•affective
principle =/= consequence
-in nomads life what is a principle and what is only a consequence?
{migrant --> goes principally}=/={nomad --> goes as a consequence}
{(sedentary) road --> parcel out a closed space to people}=/={(nomadic) trajectory --> distributes people or animals in an open space, indifinite and noncommunicating}
(space) in the manner of a vortex
migrant leaves behind a milieu that has become amorphous or hostile
forest and house --> both striated?
pigs --> pragmatism or expertise
-the pigs story might not predict the coming of the nomad wolf, but it constitutes the principles of architecture for which an incoming is striated. striated space is the result of the pigs story
عرفان همیشه بیابانی است؟
does mysticism always requires deprivation of life? mysticism ~=? symbolism
[*]godzilla: dramatization of where the mountain recedes, of the earth deterritorializing [...]
(313)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%80.4[...]formation of the State
revolution --eastern--> abolition of the State
the empires of the orient, africa, america run against wide-open smooth spaces that penetrate them and maintain gaps between their component (*the nomos does not become countryside*, the countryside does not communicate with the town, large-scale animal raising is the affair of the nomads, etc.) =/= Black Panther's fantasy of the african State
psychoanalysis of the dream of the State ? and its relation to its reality
(to establish) a zone of rights over an entire exterior --> rage & innocence
Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series --> war machine striated final merged in a cyber-flux with its human counterpart --> nature dominated (battle to occupy the smooth space)
[what now people want in Iran: not the smooth space a deterritorializing State, rather:]
capture of flows
(need for) fixed paths
well-defined directions --> restrict speed, regulate circulation, relativized movement
--> polics = management of the public ways =/= fluidity of messages and masses
silk road...
Iran State = smooth + striated
State translates: “moving bodies” --to--> “moved bodies”
” ” --> ” “
Star Trek transportation system
sedentary kind of tey-ol-arz طی الارض
what homeless/drunk people do in cities --> reconstitution of a smooth space = a manner of being in space as though it were smooth
***rebellious space is always smooth space***
virtual space is neither striated nor smooth space
multiplication of relative movements ==> smooth space --> the sea becomes the place of the ‘fleet in being’ --> nomadism accompanying a worldwide war machine
@Jassem's rebellious nature =/= Pierre's staying with the striated space (with the trouble, with the institution, )
decimal gr[...]
(314)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%80.5[...]=/= nothingness)
form-matter =/= motif-support
(the support is as mobile as the motif)
goldsmith's and silversmith's is the barbarian art par excellence
picto-ideographic
short war
live messages
[text that is] ornamental (a way of encoding) =/= scriptural (according to a sacred writing)
tools
weapons
signs
jewellery
jewellery/sign --> expression
model --> free action / work
direction --> projection / introception (#bow and arrow)
(for Deleuze and Guattari:) ***architecture and cooking have an affinity with the State =/= music and drugs have differential traits --> on the side of the nomadic war machine
schizophrenic taste for the tool that moves it away from work and towards free action --> a schizophrenic taste for the weapon that turns it into a means for peace (<-- i prefer not to do this)
everything is ambiguous
rebel: a transitional figure of worker-solder (drawing the worker, on the one hand, and the soldier, on the other), a shared line of flight: “i seek a weapon & i am looking for a tool”
‘line of flight’: communication with smooth space
my work on ajayeb: to figure a transhistorical assemblage (that is untimely =/= eternal =/= historical) ==> encounter the myth anew =/= demystification: re-conquer the myth
the empire
•communicates with
•conquer
•integrates with
communication (of secret) --?--> adaptation, propagation
saber =/= sword
the flow of matter-movement
conveying singularities and traints of expression
assemblage --differentiates--> phyla (major taxonomic class) ~= flow ==> division into many different phylas + introducing selective discontinuities<br />
technological vitalism
*refract differentiates*, retains, selects, draws together, causes to converge, invents
region of vague and material essences --> essences that are vagabond yet rigorous ==> situate fuzzy aggregates =/= fixed distinct and formed essences
corporeality = formed and perceived thinghood
•inseparable from processes of transformation
•inseparable from expressive qualities
vague = intermediary --> autonomous, stretching itself between things and thoughts --establish--> new relations (--> this is what Manning has adopted from Deleuze and Guattari)
variable intense affects
topological =/= geometrical
hylomorphic model =/= active and affective... (matter-flow can only be followed)
hylomorphic: imposing a form upon matter =/= materiality possessing a nomos : material traits of expression constituting affects (for example sur[...]
(315)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%80.8[...]s (Sina, OSP?)
their space is neither the striated space of the sedentary nor the smooth space of the nomad (--> my room and computer desktop) --> #tent, in the manner of a cave or a hole
--> *they are cave dwellers not by nature by by artistry and need*
internal itinerancy, their vague essences ==> their relation to others
--> *smith* [follows the flow of matter ==> (surplus value:) ‘resist the State’, Tamar Yaen Pierre Sina Goda]
=/= *migrant* [existence depends upon and constrained by the logic of the State (with its boundaries and borders) ==> (surplus value:) ‘residual gold in the ruins’, Hoda Sana Rui Flavio Quinsy Elen]
=/= *nomad* [occupies and inhabits smooth space beyond or bellow the State ==> (surplus value:) ‘alternative’, Deborah Xiri Leo Isabel Aela Agnes]
=/= *pastoral transhuman* [rotates through a circuit ==> (surplus value:) ‘erotic inclusivity']
vital forms of nonorganic life
[title]
your strength and your nothingness
transpierce =/= scaling
excavate =/= striating
...vagabond sign of itinerancy سيارى
from hole to hole
a line of variation
***the hybrid metallurgist, a weapon- and toolmaker, communicates with the sedentaries and with the nomads at the same time***
phylum:
--connected-to--> nomad space
--conjugates-with--> sedentary space
(we have both:)
*war machine*:
•opening
•rhizome
•gaps
•detours
•holes
•stems
=/=
*state apparatus*:
•capture phylum
•play the lines of flight
•into code
•into form
war machine collides with States and cities (forces of striation) ==> war
Deleuze and Guattari ask:
-how will the State appropriate the war machine?
(appropriate: subordinates it to its political aims)
from encasement قفسه --to--> (forms of) appropriation تصاحب
Genghis Khan and his followers were able to hold out for a long time by partially integrating themselves into the conquered empires, while at the same time maintaining a smooth space on the steppes to which the imperial centers were subordinated
Timur who constructed a fantastic war machine turned back against the nomads, but who, by that very fact, was obliged to erect a State apparatus all the heavier and more unproductive since it existed only as the empty form of appropriation of that machine
the peace of terror or survival
-the postfascist figure that takes peace as its object directly
-we have seen war machine assign its objective a peace still more terrifying than fascist death
*the unspecified enemy* we have seen it put its counterguerrilla elements into place
two poles of war machine:
[...]
(318)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%80.9[...] is something about human that has always been in odds with reason
Nozick (~ Terminator) --> the rules of procedures that constitute rationality would be valid, would be efficacious, but algorithmic. executed by machine, but opaque to human understanding
~ Wittgenstein --> to follow a rule: a practice taught by example =/= precept
}--> *to understand rules in an algorithmic sense* =/= model, maxim, tacit knowledge
Daston --> there is no simple way, in which historical context determines the form and content of the thinkable. but (as in the case of algorithmic rules and cold war rationality) historical circumstances do light up some parts of the intellectual landscape and darken others
our current understanding of what it means to be rational owes a great deal to the power of place and time
•for Kant: judgement = highest faculties =/= for modern (us) judgement is problematic
[the horror of the contemporary German art:] to deliberate: کنکاش سنجیده و عمدی =/= Janina
(art of [ironic] deliberation =/= chaotic venture, Sina's lecture-performances)
deliberation: thinking then doing it =/= doing then thinking about what you have done (~= communication, intimacy)
...................................
metaphysics of natural law
Daston's rigor: trying to understand why is it so persistant (almost irresistible) that we **extract social and moral norms from nature** (rather than jumping up saying that it is a doomed idea)
[--> got to fable; ikhvano safa court of animals; panchatantra Kelile Demne]
•to merge natural and social orders together
•to make nature meaningful
•to invoke nature to buttress human values of: true, good, beautiful
•
devil = collective human imagination of chaos
formless and lawless
land of no promises
past is no guide to the future
at the mercy of chance
the axiom of modern thought: society =/= nature [of which trespassings are rife]
[#fable]
to extract some sort of politics from:
•beehive
•physics of liver
•evolutionary theory
•organic specialization [--Aristotle--> slavery]
•
1. how conceptions of natural order sustains specific norms & the model of any kind of norm <-- historical + empirical
2. appeal to nature capture something profound about values in general regardless of their specific context <-- philosophical
(the human) impulse to *make nature meaningful* --> psychological + epistemological + ethical necessity
(1)
(specific) [*]nature: the ontological identity card : that which makes a particular thing what it is (what makes skwerl a skwerl)
the idea of ***fixed natural kind ==inspire==> the ideal of justice***
[...]
(319)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%81.1[...]the achievement of the Dark TV series: selling the German nation to their international audience as a commodity]
Dark TV series = national narratives + global postmodern visual practices
space: gray
force: violence
interrelation: neglect
(Dark's stylistic) labyrinthine time-memory mosaic (protagonists meeting with their elder/younger selves, memory images, time travel etc.) --> locate the spectator ==> viewer is encouraged to find a way out of the labyrinth [~=> care for the German characters with their double burden (Nazi + GDR) of traumatic recollections ~=> a positive affirmative identity for contemporary Germany (~~> nationalism =/= sense of existential homelessness)]
}--> *TV series becomes a form of memory* (protagonist = German nation)
(serial poetic of) cliff-hanger structure
maintaining an (absolute) aesthetic continuity
{time: liquid realm =/= history: fixed realm}<--Dark-- protagonists must face when looking for their own identity
new German Cinema (Berlin School) --> ghostliness, constant travel, national division, alienation, rootlessness, inbetween-identity of the protagonists, stuckness in time =/= Heimat: the idea of stable secured community
...................................
labyrinth is architecture at it's best?
space as a limit and space as an environment
the relation of ornament to void space (background)
entering the space (pointing, direction) versus filling the space
in purely perceptual terms, all that is seen is the surface, but as an idea the building involves the whole of its inner, hidden structure; hence not only what is seen, but what alse is known appears.
concept of transparency: is a charachteristic feature of intellectual realism. in a drawing, transparency means the demonstration of knowledge about -or disclosure of- that which is inside, behind and under visible surfaces. (stimulant to the imagination of grave robbers)
is labyrinth or architecture a visual system (window etc.) or a spatial construction (direction, distinction etc.)? when we look at it in this text with the object of cloud...
labyrinth ~=? architecture's ornamental activity
[*]ornament: epression of an excessive force of form, the blossoming of a force that has nothing more to achieve --> fecundity
-ornament shifts among different planes at different speeds ==illusion==> movement and depth
labyrinth --(Deleuze and Guattari)--> “smooth space” [can be explored only by legwork]
labyrinth --> immersion & navigation [--> descriptions of technology]
labyrinth --> texture field (a form of emerging visuality)
Jassem + Sina's labyrinthine polychromic activities (==> underlying artistic creation) --> interpret form symbolically through the visual re[...]
(320)[...notes/pigs notes new.txt]%82.8[...]n does not give complete access to the world (this is Foucauldian)
=> perception seems to have a more protective role (from unnecessary stimuli--in order to safe guard our survival) --Bergson: “it is grass in general that interests the herbivore” --> ‘sensory-motor schema’ is an agent of abstraction (Deleuze)
[@Varinia's “could/should/would”; ‘line of flight’ --> becoming; disturbing the virtual, in her work how is actual/virtual (made impossible to?) distinguished?]
sensory-motor schema:
Within constructivist theories, the sensorimotor schema is held to be the principal unit of knowledge in use during infancy. A sensorimotor schema is a psychological construct which gathers together the perceptions and associated actions involved in the performance of one of the habitual behaviors in the infant's repertoire. The schema represents knowledge generalized from all the experiences of that behavior. It includes knowledge about the context in which the behavior was performed as well as expectations about the effects. Sensorimotor schemas are central to Jean Piaget's explanation of infant development.
[http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-1428-6_463]
(motions, gestures:)
purposeful =/=? communicative
(Marks on) Invisibility, Legibility (khanayi خوانایی), and Aniconism (that the artist should or must avoid depictions of human beings or icons; an art that refuses to unfold its code, asserting that relationships need not be interpreted--a view developed in the conservative Sunni thought of the later Abbasid caliphate)
(عقل سرخ aghl-e sorkh --> Ulf Langheinrich's works)
the ways ambiguity stimulates imagination
“rubied mind-body”
(...ruined main body)
sense-perceptibles: images, etc. --> matter that is processed by information --> in new media (as Gilbert Simondon put it,) ‘form’ arises almost symptomatically from a ground modulated by information processes
a new level of invisibility--though not immateriality: information
cognitive attention as information to be processed =/=? sensuous material to be experienced --> is this a shift (predicted by Deleuze) from visual to information culture? (--> Trevor Paglen's works characterizes arts of the information age in general---image is the trace, effect, or document.)
the perceptible =/= the legible
aniconic: what we do not see is more significant than what we do --> that the temporal and social are more important than the visible***
“Islamic aniconism emphasizes the word--as written, read, and recited--and the social spaces of worship.”
enfold & unfold
(Deleuze's) Leibniz's monad: smallest unit of matter is the ‘fold’ (and not the point.) Each fold, being connected to the entire plane, has a point of view o[...]
(321)[...notes/sohrevardi notes.txt]%83.2[...]nate, to name [#Beyzai seeking to produce natural iranian knowledge] (Sohrevardi who learned to write and speak, also must decipher a text, the book of nature, authored legitimately by islamicated inheritances...)
-Haraway discussing women's travail to construct a voice, to have authority, to author a text, to tell a story
-modes of telling (that we adopt in our attempt to produce authority)
(اسم اعظم esme a'zam -->) knowers--on top --> (usual tricks) to recede while substituting a fetish (of self) --✕--> subject and object can cohabit without the master-slave domination
sexist science
?am i laying: a foundation for an epistemological [...]
?do iranians need this:
•theories which are the heritage of Greek science (and of the scientific revolution of the 17th century)
•an epistemology (informing our inquiries) be a family member to existing theories (of representation and philosophical-realism [that which Holakouee promotes for “modern” iranian]) (--> to avoid the problem of epistemological anarchism: an epistemology that justifies not taking a stand on the nature of things is of little use to women trying **to build a shared politics** [Mehdi is angry at the sculpture community because they embody that failure])
•(to adopt) a radical form of epistemology that denies the possibility of access to a real world and an objective standpoint
•noninvasive knowing (such as Sa'di) and prediction and control (#Olearius)
•(authority and power, as Beyzai is after,) to name/give the world a new identity, a new story
•accurate rendering of an idiosyncratic process of sensory overlap and association
•
•
[*]biology: modern origin story
biology tell tales about origins, about genesis, and about nature
biologizing
[what is the word made of, what is the flesh made of]
***(Haraway highlights) an inherited knowledge through the paternal line: the *word* was Aristotle's Galileo's Bacon's Newton's Linnaeus's Darwin's; the *flesh* was woman's --> and the word was made flesh, naturally
(in Europe, from 15th to 18th century, transformations of [both] metaphors [and social systems]:) female nature --from--> nurturing mother --to--> patient-resournce
--> capitalist forms of patriarchy: *merchant تاجر seeing dialectic of apocalypse* (TV series such as West World, etc.)
[the book of nature]
nature is authored (by somebody)
(power +) autorship ==(fabricates)==> reality
Milton's justification of the ways of God, [to tell stories]
*(how many times we[?] are) forced to read a book in a language that signifies our lack, our difference*
two rhetorical strategies for contesting (جنگیدن برای) a voice (-to set the terms of speec[...]
(322)[...notes/sohrevardi notes.txt]%84.1[...]arer and guarantor of dignity, equality, and freedom
Levinas's ‘an atheism that is not humanist’: the exaltation of an obedience and a faithfulness that are not obedience or faithfulness to anyone
opening up an apocalyptic imagination
destroying the cultural optimism that had marked the turn of the twentieth century
ground for ethics, knowledge, and hope
(Kojeve, Bataille, reconceiving) atheism: a way out of any and all ideological systems
theological questions + mistrust of political hopes
to replace god with a political messianism, nation or state,
“disenchantment of the world = death knell for man” (?)
nonhumanist atheism: determined opposition to foundational concepts of man, knowledge, and truth (=/= critically rethinking problems of anthropotheism, of transcendence, of finitude)
critique of idealism = critique of transcendence
1920s: atheist humanism = idealist arguments about the capacity of the human mind (to transcend and objectively pattern the things that compose the world around it)
might and violence of ideologies relied on definitions of humanity (that made this violence not only plausible and rational, but almost necessary --> communism and colonialism)
Sartre's postwar minimal humanist commitment --> “existentialism = humanism”
-call or claim to failure of foundations and of man's status in the universe ultimately called up a new ethical command --> call for man to decide and to commit politically (--> atheism + political humanisms + old metaphysical commitment)
atheist political theology
Kojeve, Bataille, Sartre, Koyre, Heidegger, Adorno
mysticism of progress, self-perfection, and history
their anti-utopian and antiprogressivist claims and that found expression in: Blanchot (The Most High), Bataille (Summa Atheologica), Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus), Beckett (Endgame)
figuration of finitude
critique of dreams of transparency
replace transcendence with excess or escape (<-- mystical background...)
=/= un-self-conscious humanist mysticism
secular interwar Europe's raising the human subject to all-powerful status ==> techno-scientific apocalypse --> waste of hope in the self and in the rhetoric of equality and humanism
(2)
philosophical antihumanism
human in suspension and deny that it owns or controls his own specificity and particularity
--> negative theology
denial to man of positive knowledge of divine nature
withdrawal from the possibility of first defining what is specifically human
=/= world deemed anthropocentric and subjectivist
•*reformulates the question of man, locating him in conceptual systems led by notions, such as Being, reality, society, or language* (--> to define him “negatively”)
•problematizati[...]
(323)[...notes/sohrevardi notes.txt]%84.6[...]ian hopes of the Enlightenment
•liberal-bourgeois thinking grounded in human rights and individual autonomy
•Marxist humanism with its critique of liberalism and its expectations of a superior
humanity
•(human perfection & social harmony)
(Geroulanos's account of primary constellations of) humanism:
•christian humanism
•Renaissance educational humanism (founded on a return to ancient Greek models)
•Humboldt's reconceptualization of Renaissance humanism (in 19th century Germany)
•Enlightenment humanism (from Montesquieu through Rousseau and Condorcet)
•19th century liberal humanism (frequently based on natural law, autonomy over one's own body and mind, and human rights)
•socialist humanisms (with its commitment to contractarian social theory)
Encyclopedie's attack on theological knowledge
19th century construction of modern humanism (sociopolitical goals of a “human nature”) --> left-leaning, often democratic, (but certainly) utopian sociopolitical mentality
[*]ideology: a thinking that does not critique, nor even think its provenance from and proper relation to reality --Nancy--> humanism = the machine par excellence through which a community produces meaning for itself, “the system that produces meaning” ==> “we” (community's raison d'etre)
--> [humanism is] arbitrary, auto-productive, and all but tautological
{every political/philosophical movement:
1. rejected bourgeois humanism as insufficient, egotistical, and corrupt
2. claimed for itself a privileged access to the dignity of man
}--Geroulanos--> structure of a *rejection of mainstream thought and policy* for not taking into account (and hence devaluing) the goals of one's anthropo-theologico-political commitment
wreckage of WWII ==> man could not find meaning either in faith or in his own knowledge and construction of the world
_...dive into the depths of human solitude and suffering
(like existentialism and the Western Marxist tradition,) human rights came to operate as a “humanism from below” =/= generic and top-down humanisms (~ monopoly of violence that states held over their individual subjects)
(Geroulanos not arguing that antihumanism was the driving force or the secret heart of intellectual movements and philosophies, nor claiming that it was a single movement, concept, idea, or trend; rather) antihumanism is what emerged from, shaped, and configured a major matrix of concerns
problem with secular humanist utopias --> forging of a ‘new man’ through the mobilization of a specific a priori definition of man required (both):
•man's divinization خداسازى
•man's purge پاکسازى
essentialist definitions of man ==> biologistic, scientistic, political, religious, moral[...]
(324)[...notes/sohrevardi notes.txt]%84.8[...]lexes and internally differentiated entities that can be identified and studied “before” the action)
*perception (is an act:) “animating” the data of sensation (?)
the extended body signifies itself through [=/= acts through] the technical mediation
the impersonal and atomizing (commonplace) associations with the notion of disembodiment --> the idea that in online involvement relations are abridged and trivialized, that there is a lack of commitment and risk, and moral engagement is impossible, and so on.
*what would be a situated account of the (lived-)body in CG?
“the ringing of the cell phone that embarrasses us in the middle of a lecture” --> extended body
plasticity and polymorphism of our bodies (online) [Ihde]
programmers working in other programmers’ works (--not imaginative engagement with the other, rather) --through--> interfaces and folds in interpretation {tutorial voices, screen videos, scripts, help files, layers of codes and tools on each other, nested folders on one's own computer, named categories by oneself, horde of text files and renders, etc}--> these are (en-/de-)crypting extended bodies constructed of language
subjectively constructed phenomenon of the communed fold interpreted : the 3D computer programm
(=/= romantic refusal of all mediation)
-what is the nature of the technology involved in CG?
•what is the source of the somatic sense of place, if not the body (since Greeks) and animality (since Deleuze + Guattari), in the case of CG? --?-->{the way a good farmer will pick up soil and feel the dirt in his hands}
(Greek word) ‘soma’ refers to a corpse (in Homer,) not a living body (--> #lived-body)
Neither the living body as an entity nor the Mind as an entity had a name.
for Aristotle, ‘thinking’ part of the soul, had an existence from any connection to the body.
“to experience the world is the very nature of body inside out.” (Christian Hubert > John Schumacher)
a community whose members are aware of each others’ passive presence is different forms
(active =/= present)
these are issues of social subject in a technically mediated world
to look at CG embodiment relations:
•fold (Ihde)
•skill (Merleau-Ponty)
•theory of affordance (Gibson)
•intra-action (Barad)
•detour (Latour)
(Merleau-Ponty's) ‘body schema’ : space of the body = 'space of situation,’ orientation towards possible (not only existing) tasks ==> aspects of the external/virtual world
body understood in terms of their ability to enter into one's projects =/= spatial location
[what is the body schema of the hacker in CG? (an external world where there is no near or far.) what is experienced as their Gestalt? which grasp is automatically localized? what are their phantom lim[...]
(326)[...notes/notes on evangelist.txt]%85.3[...]r />
programmers working in other programmers’ works (--not imaginative engagement with the other, rather) --through--> interfaces and folds in interpretation {tutorial voices, screen videos, scripts, help files, layers of codes and tools on each other, nested folders on one's own computer, named categories by oneself, horde of text files and renders, etc}--> these are (en-/de-)crypting extended bodies constructed of language
subjectively constructed phenomenon of the communed fold interpreted : the 3D computer programm
(=/= romantic refusal of all mediation)
-what is the nature of the technology involved in CG?
•what is the source of the somatic sense of place, if not the body (since Greeks) and animality (since Deleuze + Guattari), in the case of CG? --?-->{the way a good farmer will pick up soil and feel the dirt in his hands}
(Greek word) ‘soma’ refers to a corpse (in Homer,) not a living body (--> #lived-body)
Neither the living body as an entity nor the Mind as an entity had a name.
for Aristotle, ‘thinking’ part of the soul, had an existence from any connection to the body.
“to experience the world is the very nature of body inside out.” (Christian Hubert > John Schumacher)
a community whose members are aware of each others’ passive presence is different forms
(active =/= present)
these are issues of social subject in a technically mediated world
to look at CG embodiment relations:
•fold (Ihde)
•skill (Merleau-Ponty)
•theory of affordance (Gibson)
•intra-action (Barad)
•detour (Latour)
(Merleau-Ponty's) ‘body schema’ : space of the body = 'space of situation,’ orientation towards possible (not only existing) tasks ==> aspects of the external/virtual world
body understood in terms of their ability to enter into one's projects =/= spatial location
[what is the body schema of the hacker in CG? (an external world where there is no near or far.) what is experienced as their Gestalt? which grasp is automatically localized? what are their phantom limbs? ==> body immediately known to self]
(body as the) system of possible actions, a virtual body with its phenomenal “place” defined by its task and situation. “My body is wherever there is something to be done.”
kinaestheses, proprioception,
...................................
what ‘play’ does to ‘ego’?
...................................
([is for Lilia (? like Wittgenstein) all ‘certainties'] grounded in the) certainty of the body
{pain <--> certainty}--> trauma + memory
...................................
(Christian Hubert > ) Rudofsky “unfashionable human body” (#veil)
Thomas Friedman “The Golden Straitjacket”
•political-economic garment of globalization era --> Straitjacket
(Cold War era:)
[...]
(327)[...notes/notes on evangelist.txt]%85.4[...]-for them the “body” is a discontinuous and non-totalized series of processes, organs, flows, energies, corporeal substances and incorporeal events, intensities and durations, a surface of intensities: *pure simulacra without originals*
erotogenic zones, sexuality, Freud, auto-erotic internalization, clinamen
(the formally female cyborg / techno-monster of the Ghost in the Shell:) the (masculinist) fantasy of leaving the body behind and reconstituting it as a a technical object under human control as both a desire for perfect knowledge and total power and at the same time as a way of escape... [Christian Hubert] #Haraway
•the question of the “soul” is read as the question of (certain technology of) power over bodiess
(traits of) cyborg:
1. boundary transgression
2. the recognition and re-scripting of myth
3. simulations of identity
4. coalitions of affinity
reembodiment of intelligence
Hubert > Serres: “My body (I cannot help it) is not plunged into a single, specified space. It works in Euclidean space, but it only works there. It sees in a projective space; it touches, caresses, and feels in a topological space; it suffers in another; hears and communicates in a third; and so forth, as far as one wishes to go. Euclidean space was chosen in our work-oriented cultures because it is the space of work--of the mason, the surveyor, or the architect. [...] My body lives in as many spaces as the society, the group, or the collectivity have formed: the Euclidean house, the street and its network, the open and closed garden, the church or the enclosed spaces of the sacred, the school and its spatial varieties containing fixed points, and the complex ensemble of flow-charts, those of language, of the factory, of the family, of the political party, and so forth. Consequently my body is not plunged into one space but into the intersection or the junctions of this multiplicity.” (Hermes, pp 44-45) (@Aela)
...................................
(feminist open-source --✕-->?) I am actually coming from a masculinist closed-source culture-thing, that is to say, my background is in masculinist black-boxed concepts of being and beyond, that means i have a different relationship with interference and parasitism
•how and when a concept becomes black-boxed? by which processes?
@Sven: what matters is the input/output, stimulus/response [--> “black-box of the beyond” (#zolmat writing)] --> transfer characteristics, data-flow, the ontology of the “internal working” : “open” exchanges inforamtion about its interactions }--> open-source is part of the tradition of anthropocene system thinking: network synthesis, system engineering, theory of the organism, evolutionary theory, thermodynamics, and world system perspective
...................................
what are the nodes of energy in interdigitalities[...]
(328)[...notes/notes on evangelist.txt]%85.6[...]abiter might craft a different spatial synthesis in terms of a different linguistic ontology?
[b + a = ba] =/= [آ + ب ~=> با] {a different effect}
•interface question
•phenomenological question
•in Farsi the joint attachments undergo transfiguration, different viscous relational property, adhesion refigured
what would be an interesting interface question posed to each of the 3D softwares?
one language ---{Bauhaus? De Stijl? nasta'ligh نستعلیق?}--to--> another language
...................................
painfully queer
*questions for my ajayeb's Rigs and pop-up book:
my rigs and pop-up book are descriptive concepts, that means: they obtain their meaning by reference to a particular physical apparatus ==>? a constructed cut between the object and the agencies of observation
•pop-up book: an instrument with fixed parts ==> concept of “position”
•Rigs on the other hand tries not to exclude other concepts such as “momentum” from having meaning
--> ajayeb's variables require an instrument with moveable parts for their definition (?)
*exclusions (= physical & conceptual constraints) are co-constitutive*
*objectivity (= possibility of unambiguous communication, boundry articulations) --> reference must be made to bodies in order for concepts to have meaning (?)*
•my Rigs and books are about how discursive practices are related to material phenomena
(*)reading: “text” is the interface between the matrialization of “reality” and subjectivation of “reader” --> inseparability of language and reality in ajayeb
(“We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down, The word ‘reality’ is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.” Petersen < Barad)
ajayeb's iterative processes of materialization
عجایب نامه =/= imagined and idealized human-independent reality
ajayeb's stories of historically nunhuman people
in ajayeb's descriptive intra-actions with reality, humans and language are part of the configuaration or ongoing reconfiguring of the world, that is phenomena
we cannot so easily answer where the apparatus “ends”
•(but again, how can I answer) which ontological practices are embodied (or embeded) in (the productive and constraining dimension of regulatory) apparatuses of my ajayeb? (rigs, hypertext, pop-up, etc.)
•(resisting the anti-metaphysics legacy) how can I keep insisting on accountability for the particular exclusions that are enacted in (my) ajayeb and taking up the responsibility to perpetually contest and rework the boundries (of my objectivities)?
(*)effect: marks left on the agencies of observation
enacted =/= having
(agency is the matter of enactment not something that o[...]
(329)[...notes/notes on evangelist.txt]%86.2[...]ns
change of animacy ==> violates a cross-linguistic preference among speakers
(for example “the hikers that rocks crush” --> rock: the source of causality)
animacy
filled with life, disposed, inclined, animare to breathe, to quicken
anima, air, breath, life, soul, mind (mental impulse)
--connected--> animals
animosity --> animating spirit or temper of a hostile character
animating principle [--> rigging]
...................................
Ihde: playing a musical instrument (= a technological mediation) =/= the process of genetic manipulation
=/= Heidegger's technology: a metaphysically totalizing context (<-- every technology ended up with exactly the same output or analysis)
Ihde =/= utopian & dystopian views of technology
...to understand yourself to be thinking and acting ‘in the midst of’ the pervasive technoscientific character of life (@CG hacker)
Ihde --> ***technologies and humans constitute themselves interactively***
*technological mediation: heterogeneous relationships between individual human beings and the world + artifacts used for mediations =/= ideals of efficiency and clear communication
“breakdown ==> new gestalt” : something that had usually taken for granted, which then under breakdown conditions, now gets revealed in a new way (revelatory function)
=/= Ihde's *variational practice* : variations ==forefront==> new gestalts
(our) world = powerful effective & failing technology
we =/= tragic hero (+ broken hammer) or Enlightenment scientist (+ laboratory)
matrix --> female
those that move in the matrix --> formative male principle
(Foucault's) episteme: social-moral-religious stability
Latour
modernity <== settlement: (a clear and sharp distinction) society =/= nature --obscure--> the proliferation of hybrids: entities that are both cultural & natural (for example material technologies are both “real” & “constructed”)
Ihde --> technologies are in *mediating positions*
interrelational relativistic ontologies : there is interaction and mutual “non-neutral” and “noninnocent” productive and emergent shaping between humans + technologies + animals --> knowledge is “situated” and particular, not “transcendentally” true ==> putative symmetry between the human & nonhuman
bestiality (interrelational, sin?) is embedded in what has to appear to us today as an antiquated or surpassed stability
•(Merleau-Ponty + Ihde) embodiment is the location of all intelligent behavior [situated + embodied]
•(Pickering) cybernetic (self-organizing set) is the location of all intelligent behavior [situated]
---> go to Galison's [...]
(330)[...notes/notes on evangelist.txt]%88.6[...]ies, and technologies reordering in infrastructural assemblages are also sensuous refrains
•some becomings and assemblages might refuse these refrains and *demand ontological primacy*
Leigh Star
for some kinds of tasks we (humans) are highly distributed --> remembering: ***much of our memories are in other people*** (libraries and homes)
part of our selves extend beyond the skin in every imaginable way <--phantom limb
--Katie--> embodiments (and beings) are distributed among memories, capacities, corporealities
demon dematerialization --> body dissolve (vanquish) --> relinquish --> networking materializing forces --> this text
the state of cut in manga series Attack on Titan
•affective wounds
•affective formations that break the skin
•restructuring
•chaotic and unpredictable nature
•your avatar (your monster): sensuously augmented elements of self
◾territory registers
•materially real scales of involvement
•
play = double consciousness --> being in both states (is & is not, assertion & rejection) --creates--> its own commentary in itself about itself <-- intense and pleasurable interactive dynamism <-- meta communications performed by embodied selves at multiple levels (of organic and social systems)
commercial entertainment drawing on understandings of mammalian-affective structure : transmedia + mammalian animalities + AI agents (~= rigging)
Disney = interactive dramas of mammalian behavior of psychological bonding
3D application: interactive microworld of augmented assemblage of objects and beings and tools and zoons, visualization of mulistable cognition
= a form of globally restructuring knowledge work + embodied learning + economies
exosome explosive demons, as significant other?
we love to create worlds (that is why we make and watch soap operas)
careful negotiation of meaning and tools (in apass, not careful always)
...................................
(Katie -->) [*]web: a material example of a then counter-intuitive convergence and recombination, one across forms of inscription and meaning making devices[...]in that fictional everywhere of “everyone's” lives
emerging posthumanities: humans are only some of the agencies self-organizing in altering systems of things + people + worldly processes --Katie--> being inside and moved around literally by the very material and conceptual structures you are analyzing and writing about -->
•transdisciplinary consciousness: telescoping out to engage infrastructures in their layered accretions رشد
•witing (saying what counts) [has to] diverge perpendicularly across the normative --> performative = demonstration + simulation
•knowledge workings --embed--> within cultu[...]
(331)[...notes/notes on evangelist.txt]%89.4[...]avel writing interacted with enlightenment natural history to produce a Eurocentered form of global or “planetary” consciousness.
[Pratt considers] the classificatory schemes of natural history in relation to the vernacular peasant knowledges they sought to displace.
tourist propaganda
testimonio
oral history
If one studies only what the Europeans saw and said, one reproduces the monopoly on knowledge and interpretation that the imperial enterprise sought.
the passport: contact zone, like the flirting gaze of an Iranian woman with German ambassadors in Olearius images
Transculturation is a phenomenon of the contact zone.
metropolitan modes of representation
creating (your own) autonomous decolonized cultures
dynamics of creole self-fashioning
Pratt's “contact zone”: the space of imperial encounters, the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict.
“contact language”: an improvised language that develops among speakers of different tongues who need to communicate with each other consistently, usually in the context of trade.
“colonial frontier” --> “contact zone” shifts the center of gravity and the point of view
...the space and time where subjects previously separated by geography and history are co-present, the point at which their trajectories now intersect
a “contact” perspective emphasizes how subjects get constituted in and by their relations to each other
* travelers and travelees *
in terms of co-presence, interaction, interlocking understandings and practices, and often within radically asymmetrical relations of power
***strategies of innocence*** (constructed in relation to older imperial rhetorics of conquest)
--> main protagonist of the anti-conquest is a figure (Pratt sometimes calls) the “seeing-man”: (an admittedly unfriendly label for) the white male subject of European landscape discourse--he whose imperial eyes passively look out and possess
the idioms of travel and exploration
two processes in Northern Europe (“planetary consciousness”):
•the emergence of natural history as a structure of knowledge
•the turn toward interior exploration
+
•Bourgeois forms of subjectivity consolidated themselves
•new territorial phase of capitalism propelled by searches for raw materials began
•coastal trade extended inland
•
ways of reading and focusing rhetorical analysis
...................................
[Brancaforte]
word + image
art + science[...]
(332)[...notes/note Sana.txt]%90.8[...] and operationalized; delightful colonial legacy called the “Family Laws” (part of the penal codes of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh);
•zina (zena, illicit sex, adultery, premarital sex) --> far from being an expression of religious piety at the familial or state level, the zina law is wielded as a potent weapon of control and extortion by families of ‘disobedient’ women + the rights that the moral authority of Islam grants the women against their families }=/= the manner in which the mainstream media in the West constructs the role of Islam in the lives of Muslim women (~ everything to do with Muslims is explained by ‘Islam’) =/= Khan's research on incarcerated women leads her to conclude that poverty is an important causal factor in the imprisonment of women under the charge of zina in Pakistan (structural adjustment policies imposed on Pakistan by the World Bank and IMF from the 1980s on) --> larger global political and economic processes
•a transgender couple charged with perjury under the Pakistan Penal Code, and not under ‘Islamic law.’ Supreme Court would rule in their favor, the judgment drew on the presence of the figure of Hermaphrodite in Ancient Greece to Islam + discussed with sympathy by mainstream media + well-organized and politically savvy hijra community in Pakista
}--> @Hoda, since she is interested in women's status under purportedly Islamic regimes
}==> Islam is not the overarching motor within purportedly Muslim societies that mainstream discourse would have us believe
(Rastegar > Toor:) “it is typical of much human rights discourse in the Third World to focus on [...] practices of regulating women's bodies, especially those identified with Islamic law, while ignoring socioeconomic concern.” @Hoda
Toor's two distinctions [=/= collapsing all forms of ‘Islamization’ resulting in a serious misunderstanding of the social processes at work]:
•‘Islamization from below’ : rise of (voluntary) public piety among Muslims, adoption of particular styles of facial hair by men and of various forms of hijab by women
•‘Islamization from above’ : the ways in which structures of power—from families to states—deploy ‘Islam’ in order to control women (and men)
(Toor:) Shah's cogent critique of the fetishization of the ‘community’ in ethnographic literature
a society defined by ‘a history of’
•dictatorial regimes (with support of the U.S.)
•(under siege from joint pressures of) a corrupt ruling class
•a heavy debt burden
•predatory and conspicuous consumption
•ongoing (neo)colonial intervention
==> cultural identity becomes a contentious issue & women's bodies become sites (for these cultural politics and the class struggles they embody)
~=> regulation of women sexuality : the key hegemonic move through which consent across social classes can be secured**
the increas[...]
(333)[...notes/note Sana.txt]%92.9[...]der ‘Islamic law.’ Supreme Court would rule in their favor, the judgment drew on the presence of the figure of Hermaphrodite in Ancient Greece to Islam + discussed with sympathy by mainstream media + well-organized and politically savvy hijra community in Pakista
}--> @Hoda, since she is interested in women's status under purportedly Islamic regimes
}==> Islam is not the overarching motor within purportedly Muslim societies that mainstream discourse would have us believe
(Rastegar > Toor:) “it is typical of much human rights discourse in the Third World to focus on [...] practices of regulating women's bodies, especially those identified with Islamic law, while ignoring socioeconomic concern.” @Hoda
Toor's two distinctions [=/= collapsing all forms of ‘Islamization’ resulting in a serious misunderstanding of the social processes at work]:
•‘Islamization from below’ : rise of (voluntary) public piety among Muslims, adoption of particular styles of facial hair by men and of various forms of hijab by women
•‘Islamization from above’ : the ways in which structures of power—from families to states—deploy ‘Islam’ in order to control women (and men)
(Toor:) Shah's cogent critique of the fetishization of the ‘community’ in ethnographic literature
a society defined by ‘a history of’
•dictatorial regimes (with support of the U.S.)
•(under siege from joint pressures of) a corrupt ruling class
•a heavy debt burden
•predatory and conspicuous consumption
•ongoing (neo)colonial intervention
==> cultural identity becomes a contentious issue & women's bodies become sites (for these cultural politics and the class struggles they embody)
~=> regulation of women sexuality : the key hegemonic move through which consent across social classes can be secured**
the increasing interconnectedness of different parts of the world at economic, political, and cultural levels (= globalization) ==> intensification in the dynamics of social change ==> anxiety ==> (greater) regulation of women (in kin-networks as a response to political, social and cultural anxieties under globalization)
[This was just as true of Europe during the period of capitalist modernization in the 18th and 19th centuries, and of colonized and decolonizing societies in the mid-20th century =/= Islamic exceptionalism = a form of Orientalism operative today : an exclusive focus on ‘Islam']
haq bakhshwana (in rural Punjab): the daughter of a propertied family is ‘married’ to the Qur'an, or, in some cases, to a tree—so as to prevent her share of the family property transferring to her husband's family --> women are both the property of their kin (symbolically and sometimes literally) while having rights to property themselves
Toor suggesting in her analysis a healthy dose of skepticism towards [...]
(334)[...notes/note Sana.txt]%92.9[...]ic?])
romantic scientist's moderate version of Kant's Copernican Revolution:
•Rousseau
•Humboldt --> ***to arrange the facts, not successively on the order in which they have presented themselves, but according to the relations which they have between themselves*** [~~> a sort of paranoia]
◦the idea that to see that Humboldt was able to see takes a “sensitive observer”
•Whitehead --> physical systems with endurance as the measure of their stability
•Tansley --> ecosystem ~= superorganism
•
=/= baroque (--Kwa--> neobaroque):
•Leibniz --> every bit of matter can be conceived as a garden full of plants : each drop of its bodily fluid is also such a garden ==> ***it is the direction of looking that matters *** (mode of attention)
•Deleuze
•Whitehead
•Darwin
•Benjamin
•
bestiary = baroque + romantic
*romantic complexity (looks up) =/= baroque complexity (looks down)*
•looking up: integrate individuals (who appear to be a heterogeneous lot) at the phenomenological level to a single entity at a higher level of organization --> (plants and animals, individuals) are*functionality integrated* [<-- my problem with the notion of community]
◦looking up to the world of platonic forms <-- a process of abstraction
•looking down: a table of companions --> (plants and animals, individuals) are *cooperating*
(romantic conceptions of) society as organism =/= (baroque conception of) organism as society
(historic) baroque
-grand style of 17th century
-(insist on) strong phenomenological realness --> sensuous materiality
-materiality flows out in many directions (=/= confined within) ==> blurring “individual =/= environment”
-inventiveness:
--music--> the ability to produce lots of novel combinations out of a rather limited set of elements
--theater--> (logical development of plot =/=) sequence of monologues and allegories ==> action
Leibniz baroque philosophy --> monad: individuals not linked to form greater systems (they don't even communicate), but they affect each other
--Deleuze--> each monad had its context represented inside itself (as fold) [more important the monad --> richer its world]
metaphors of romanticism:
•organicism
•system --> (in graphical representation) depicted by connecting lives between constituent elements (=/= monad)
•
Whitehead --Deleuze--> a neobaroque philosopher --> possibility of a chaotic side-by-side existence of mutually exclusive realities
(baroque era) harmony: art of counterpoints (bringing together independent voices)
German baroque (Gryphius, Lohenstein) --> nature = [*]ruin: heap of highly significant fragments =/= seamless web (@ERG website)
•[...]
(335)[...notes/note Sana.txt]%93.5[...]roque + romantic
*romantic complexity (looks up) =/= baroque complexity (looks down)*
•looking up: integrate individuals (who appear to be a heterogeneous lot) at the phenomenological level to a single entity at a higher level of organization --> (plants and animals, individuals) are*functionality integrated* [<-- my problem with the notion of community]
◦looking up to the world of platonic forms <-- a process of abstraction
•looking down: a table of companions --> (plants and animals, individuals) are *cooperating*
(romantic conceptions of) society as organism =/= (baroque conception of) organism as society
(historic) baroque
-grand style of 17th century
-(insist on) strong phenomenological realness --> sensuous materiality
-materiality flows out in many directions (=/= confined within) ==> blurring “individual =/= environment”
-inventiveness:
--music--> the ability to produce lots of novel combinations out of a rather limited set of elements
--theater--> (logical development of plot =/=) sequence of monologues and allegories ==> action
Leibniz baroque philosophy --> monad: individuals not linked to form greater systems (they don't even communicate), but they affect each other
--Deleuze--> each monad had its context represented inside itself (as fold) [more important the monad --> richer its world]
metaphors of romanticism:
•organicism
•system --> (in graphical representation) depicted by connecting lives between constituent elements (=/= monad)
•
Whitehead --Deleuze--> a neobaroque philosopher --> possibility of a chaotic side-by-side existence of mutually exclusive realities
(baroque era) harmony: art of counterpoints (bringing together independent voices)
German baroque (Gryphius, Lohenstein) --> nature = [*]ruin: heap of highly significant fragments =/= seamless web (@ERG website)
•fragment: independent individual things with a monadological structure (~/= postmodern understanding of fragment)
•link (between them) = reciprocal reference =/= connection
◦(references remain in their) *allegorical immanence*
•
World War II ~=> systems theories (attempt to explain the structure and behavior of complex objects
Charney + von Neumann
deterministic description of the atmosphere
“long-range forecasting”
computer-based metrology
==> *field* became the essence of atmospheric state (field =/= structure, phenomena such as cyclones, fronts, cyclogenesis, frontogenesis)
<--Lorenz-- a given that the atmosphere is a single whole
romantic & nonromantic Darwin
evolutionary theory
phylogenetic tree
-“war of nature ==> higher animals directly follow”
-individual organisms e[...]
(336)[...notes/note Sana.txt]%93.6[...]hilosophical poem on the nature of things)
(his basic metaphor of) nature: hydrodynamic flow of particles in free fall, in swirls, in vortexes
‘small cause ==> disproportional nonlinearity’ : ‘random collision of some falling atoms ==> constitution of world’
--Serres--> (Lucretius) heterodox tradition (=/= orthodoxe)
romantic & baroque are ***discourse =/= paradigm***
•discourse (available to draw from)
•paradigm (to succeed another paradigm) [<-- to be careful as an artist, the fantasy of genesis]
•since the 19th century romantic complexity had been the more orthodox discourse
•since 1975 baroque complexity became the focus of interest
}=/= new conception of reality
•romantic complexity --favor--> stable structural metaphors (self-correcting cybernetic machine, Gaya, etc.)
◦criteria can be established (more easily) --> delineate emergent wholes (*abstract criteria*)
>
•baroque complexity --favor--> swarming individuals metaphor (population of individuals in turbulent motion) --> delineate emergent wholes (*situational criteria*)
◦conceptual problem of baroque: there may be higher level order, but what is it?
◾(it is not) stable patterns of communication (<== if patterns exists they are short-lived, individuals take part in several wholes rather than in one)
body = turbulent phenomena par excellence
*****
--Deleuze--> the very idea of “concept” is different in baroque thinking : [*]concept = an allegory, a narrative =/= a symbol of the cosmos <-- romantic idea of concept: a cosmological order that is grasped by the thinking subject
the uncertainty (of the world) in the baroque case is ontological [=/= epistemological --> uncertainty is an effect of not knowing enough]
...................................
(i say in iran, instead of public jurnalism we need more) *public anthropology*
...................................
(Stenger > Stewart > vivid pragmatics ~=)
(McCormack > Stewart > radical) [*]empiricism: if you walk in the woods --encounter--> the unthinkable profusion of forms --> material-aesthetic registers of (mobile & immobile flickering of) is and was (=/= sensory details described)
•[*]description: accidental glimpse of what matters + what shifts its matter in a moment of recognizable though unnamed and partial significance
tonal differences
a spark of color
a modulation in tempo
half-patterned expressivity
--of--> a scene teemingly differentiated and marked by thresholds of matter
when a tree is “charged and transfigured” by a violent sunset
Stewart + Dillard
a thing becomes a call to word
(Harman:) objects themselves, like voices or forms of writing, have style
Stewart > Dillard's causa[...]
(337)[...notes/note Sana.txt]%93.7[...]titutional thinking, criminology, xenophobia, morality, and many other things. it is a key term for me.
•difference and indifference regarding the foreign body and urbanism
•clean's stakes in architecture, toilet, the primordial element of architecture
•the clean body in Marx and its geneology in the left
•origins of morality in Freud
•xenophobia in crosscultural histories, Islam on hygiene and kofr's dirt
•Nazism and racial cleansing --> aesthetics & politics
•Victorian sanitation, sanitas
•pollution
•anality
•animality --> domestic life (Tehran, Brussels, Cologne,)
•metaphorology of ‘fesad’
•loose analogies of clean/dirt
•pure bodies (being threatened by violation of impurities)
•
readings:
-Koolhaas, toilet
-Sennett, Flesh and Stone
-Ashenburg, Dirt on Clean
-Serres, Malfeasance
-Ahmed, pure bodies
-Vom kleinen Maulwurf
-
in terrestrial ecosystems:
detritus
dead particulate organic material (as opposed to dissolved organic material). It typically includes the bodies or fragments of dead organisms as well as fecal material
typically colonized by communities of microorganisms which act to decompose (or remineralize) the material
...................................
(in clinic)
each method enacts an object of its own =/= approaching a single object in different ways
in 19th century Western philosophy, ontology was coined as a powerful word for the given and fixed collection of what there is
(Annemarie Mol)
ontologies ==> there is no longer a singular “it” to look at from different sides
ontologies are not exclusive, they allow for interferences, partial connections, sharing practices =/= mono-realist singularities
[*]politics: (is not one of otherness,) it is about fights; not between people (a politics of who) but between versions of reality (a politics of what)
the value of “what is,” what western philosophy calls “normativity” and its counterfactuals suggesting “what could be” (--> are different ontologies?)
yet ‘ontologies’ is ill-suited for talking about many things:
•ways in which goods and bads are performed in practices --> Xiri
•conjunction with pleasures, pains, ecstasies, fears, ideals, dreams, passions --> apass
•various shapes that processes may take:
◦causal chains
◦back-and-forth conversations
◦tinkering and caring
•theorizing how fingers taste
•what drugs afford to bodies and bodies do with drugs
•migrant ambitions and guarded borders
•garment factories on fire
•soy for Dutch pigs being grown in the Amazon
•(or when we give feedback to eachothe[...]
(338)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%94[...] that are never the same twice, but somehow hold together and maintain coherent pathways through time
(Price and Epp)
-(for people who move often) ‘home’: something that needs to be continually recreated by combining all sorts of elements in imaginative ways--home is a hybrid (=/= simply there waiting for them)
an “I love you” --enter--> assemblages in manners that catalyse (or inhibit) ongoing hybrid relations
levels of analysis is always unexpected [=/= purification]
modern separation between ‘believing in unicorns’ and ‘managing environmental disasters’ [~/=? ajayeb] ~ modern separations/boundaries: science/mythology/politics/religion/leisure (<--Latour/Haraway-- this is a problem) ==> ***purify components of our cultures***
‘program of intervention’: a purposeful attempt to construct realities by enlisting various allies : intermediaries establishing alliances between products, institutions, celebrities and consumers in ways that improve sales and mobilize stable relationships --> institutions attempt to strategically shape assemblages
(Law, Moor, Araujo, Ruiz)
marketers may try to establish stable brand images by mobilising networks of celebrities, scientists, consumption communities and various media outlets --but--> are contested, there is no ‘lead actor’ in assemblages
[*]marketing: iterative attempts to weave together networks of products, services or brands with heterogeneous allies in order to extend the usefulness of a particular market offering across wider consumption assemblages in time and space
-marketers think in terms of catalyzing interactions and consistencies amongst stubborn, messy and dynamic assemblages of spaces, representations, things and consumers
knowing: an intervention in the world
(Bettany)
[*]ethnography: stories that have in them a capacity to represent the world in ways that are generative for the people and practices that the stories are about @constantvzw
(Winthereik and Verran)
in the case of data streaming: what are the people, objects, texts and practices that constitute processes of assembling?
-in our research let's not prioritize either people or things in advance ==> unexpected sources of influence in markets and consumer cultures @Foad
-to map together material/technological as well as linguistic aspects of consumer culture: narratives, phenomenological techniques, etc.
-consumers ‘become’ during consumption
*[?why become interested in] consumption/markets: hybrid networks of narratives, objects, devices and practices (that [it seems] are necessary to create conditions for any ‘human’ action)*
(still use other more old-fashioned research techniques: depth interviews [Xiri], phenomenological methods [], hermeneutic analysis [Sina], etc.)
-(how to account for) tech-mediated flows of inf[...]
(339)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%94.3[...] of being-on-drugs] }--> drugs have something to do with technology? @constantvzw
drugs in warfare: taking pills (or tranced by nohe مداحی جنگ) into superior performance, technologizing himself into the war machine (hero on heroin) --> technically calibrated culture
‘chemical prosthesis’ (a technology of the human) has been part of man-machinic hybridizations
-hallucinated exteriority
-stimulant, opening another hallucinogenre in life, at the edge of being
-our culture is bascially the history of ‘high culture’
(Avital suggests) drugs [master object of considerable libidinal investment] have been about exploring ‘fractal interiorities’ (and not exterior dimensions)
ecstasy of intoxication, forgetfulness, mimetic poisoning (of literature [= singular staging of the imaginary]): as sedative, as cure, as escape [= forced decision upon the subject]
-for Baudelaire opium became the transparency upon which one could review the internal conflict of freedom, the cleave of subjectivity where it encounters the abyss of destructive jouissance.
-(Emma Bovary had busted) a logic of reappropriation, collapsing the dreams of restoring a self
@constantvzw's investment in the critique of hallucinated plenitude and pure communication (enabled by digital media) --> transcendental telepathy (being online/connected over distances in a Facebook sense)
-pleasure and liberty values freely exercised upon a coded body
*hallucinator: a creature of simulacrum*
-what is wrong with the social media stream addict? a transport going nowhere; addictive, artificial, and beside oneself; [genuinely clean or drug free ~=? being exposed to existence, placing one's body in the grips of a temporality that pains]; phantasm of lack in abstinence; (like drugs they are) linked to *a mode of departing*, to desocialization, (like the activity of writing) nonproductive and somehow irresponsible, being-in-drugs (being-in-Facebook) supposedly resists the production of real value (incapable of stabilizing the truth of a real world); figure of drifter/dissident: obsessed and entranced, narcissistic, private, unable to achieve transference; movement of the simulacrum without address;
speed: going nowhere fast
...................................
[Campbell] on marketing theory
bacteria: entities that threaten our secluded sovereign cleanliness
our ideas of bacteria are shaped through the filter of advertisements for antibacterial products
[*]climate change: “[t]he moment I turn the engine of a car and ignite the 165 million-year-old microscopic fossil faunae, connecting me to the 35 billion ancient barrels that are drilled, fracked, refined, and transported every single year. Climate change is in the 100 trillion objects that are in, that are the Earth, traversing the stomach lining of the Burmese python and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Ci[...]
(340)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%94.5[...]ncing: degraded quality of the garment allows a decrease in the price [==> powerful psychological effect compounded by the retailscape: shoes in are sold on rails like packets of sweets, T-shirts offered in basins at the check-out, etc.]
***advertising (images) = secular magic***
==inducing==> a powerful desire to indulge in the fantasy of being:
•a solitary and steely-gazed athlete
•a sophisticated and urbane Parisian girl
•
Campbell: “The moment that I say that fashion brands do not affect me is the very moment that they have”
pleasurable daydreaming innate to us all
marketing is often a practice of *breaking taboos* ==guarantees==> brand success
detergent, apparel, car or cosmetics brands ==produce==> the monolithic, repetitive idea of ‘clean flawlessness’ that infiltrates our value systems
clothes = portals to different realities
*enclothed cognition*: the influential way clothes change psychological mood, the way clothes allow us to take up certain social roles more authentically
Alessi: fashion is social (its Latin root ‘factio’: a group of people acting together) =/= Campbell: i use clothes (fashion) as a social grammar to communicate with these others
universal clothing in sci-fi is such a lie, because that would remove one of the primary ways in our culture that we have for expressing ourselves
we need to change the manifestation rather than deny the yearning }--> Campbell proposes: slow fashion, re-categorization of clothing back to investment in long-term, high-quality items
...................................
[title]
nonhuman rationality
(Meillassoux's) speculative realism ==> climate change = a new world (for which we do not have categories)
Meillassoux's concepts { nonhuman + rational --Campbell--> ontologically think about climate change =/= (despondency & passivity) equivocal status of climate change }==> bleak optimism: climate change has already happened + human civilization must learn how to die in a way that is a *creative and just foreclosure of the earth's organizational forms*
organization: an environment-making process
--> drawing of ‘general lines’ in the fabric of the whole ==constitute==> most basic mode of existence
--> making of some sort of cut in the universe to simultaneously create & order an inside from an outside [~ *bracket ‘a’ reality out from an undifferentiated plasmic whole* ~= framing]
==produce==> elements of a reality that can be controlled by human intervention
*how we frame climate change will determine the future of life on earth*
[--Sina--> that is why we need more curatorial skills: variational + organizational]
frame: strategic device, a mode of coping with the hugene[...]
(341)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%94.9[...]ogy, anthropology and cultural studies, to literary criticism, history and political economy...
myth has been understood in consumer research from five perspective:
•symbolic
•functionalist
•semiotic
•structuralist
•critical theory
•monomythic
Weber{ modern bureaucratization and intellectualization ==> disenchantment of the world }--> modern experience = rationalization and mythological mysticism ==> marketplace, *no institution has been more willing and able to respond to this (Weberian) desire for enchantment than the modern marketplace* ~=> ***normative preference for enchantment = consumption***
--problem--> *the market remains firmly in charge of myth of consumption, its rewards and its consequences* : marketplace mythology has increasingly become an all-encompassing construct of assorted descriptions and theoretical advancements including the sacred, extraordinary, symbolic and transcendental
myth: a way of organizing perceptions of realities
consumer culture theory
{[Mead & Blumer's] symbolic perspective of myth: how symbols are adorned with meaning and that affect social interaction --> symbolic myth research: verbal/nonverbal forms of communication, with an emphasis on how people behave in day-to-day circumstances in the context of socio-historical structure and ideological of their environment ==> “mythology = narrative” }=/= Joseph Campbell: “interaction with the symbolic ==> mythology”
•Freud's use of mythic stories as metaphors in psychoanalysis ==> (early) symbolic perspective
•Jung's archetype: embodiment beliefs/images ==collectively==> myth and religion }==> “mythology = extension of the collective unconscious into society”
•Blumer's social life: construction built up by the actor (=/= relationship of structures directing human life); ability to act toward oneself, ability to internally define efine themselves as objects [self with goal] as the symbols of their own actions
--McAdams--> personal myth: narrative storyline as a means to organize meaning in their lives --in--> context <==forms== historical, religious and state-influenced belief systems, culturally specific themes and ideology
}--> identity and society --responsible-for--> life story --negotiated--> personal myth as interpretive strategy
}==> concepts of ‘consumption’ and ‘identity’ in consumer culture theory
identity work =/= personal myth
[Velliquette + Murray + Creyer:] example of tattoo culture: private and public burrs physically with the attachment of personal meaning to physical marking of the skin and symbolically through the personal stories attached to public brands --> *individuals attach meaning to consumption* <== negotiating the cultural tensions <==throu== perception of self contrasted with the influence of institutional structures (race, class, gender, ag[...]
(342)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%95.7[...]d symbolically through the personal stories attached to public brands --> *individuals attach meaning to consumption* <== negotiating the cultural tensions <==throu== perception of self contrasted with the influence of institutional structures (race, class, gender, age) and ideological pressure }==> “meaning = dialectic of object and consumer”
•(Jung's archetype ==>) Joseph Campbell's monomyth: universally applicable narrative of mythology (like in Hollywood films about the hero's rites of passage --> experience of life in accordance with the phenomena of time)
myths/dreams find expression in symbolic form --> “participating in ritual == engaging myth”
}--> **consumer research as hero's journey** : Consumer Behavior Odyssey's travelling across America in a motorhome to learn about self, the world, and other people [@Jassme and Mia] --> transcendental knowledge of the American consumer ==> academic literature
(consumer Odyssey found that) ‘the journey’ holds a sacred status that transforms knowledge generation into new mythological epistemologies and opens up new doors to understanding (of consumption)
&
‘extraordinary experiences as rites of passage’ [--example: white water river rafting --> (emergent themes of) personal growth, communitas harmony with nature translated to other consumer experiences]
‘rites of passage’ [~= ‘monomyth']:
•separation [~= departure]
•transition [~= initiation]
•reintegration [~= return]
(river rafting ~=) ritual ~= enactment of myth
}--(Arnould & Price)--> narrative of service embodies the initiation of the journey
‘extraordinary experience' = event & *enchanted temporal period*
liminality: the threshold of a ritual where ambiguity and disorientation occurs before the ritual has been completed [Van Gennep, Turner]
[Dobscha and Foxman:] how a joyous activity is actually stressful and invokes *transcendent experiences of a mythic journey* --> ‘call to adventure’ in a chaotic retail setting rife with conflict [~= buying (the quintessential perfect) wedding dress at Filene]
consumers engage and overcome conflicts (by enacting power, achievement, and mastery ~ mythic agency) and cross the mythic threshold ==> transform consumption process into extraordinary event
Saussure's “words considered as signifiers to signs where meaning is held” & meaning is dependent on difference (and not on concepts outside language) --structuralism--> “myth = a form of speech that exists before ideas”
==> Strauss: [speech and remembrance ==>] pre-literary societies produce images and narratives that resembled nature and the meaning of the mind --> mythic narrative = embodied resolution of contradiction [=/= archives of achievements]
--Doja--> mythic structures: generalizable forms (common in all types of societies and universal categories of th[...]
(343)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%95.8[...]encies of cultures” --> distorts history, depoliticizes speech ==> “language of the bourgeoisie becomes the myth of universal truths, obscuring the power relations and blocking the perspective of power between class, race, gender and other marginalized people” --> perpetuate existing social conditions
=/= Peirce: systems of signification create discourses (~ practices create the meaning behind an individual's interaction with a sign)
}--> ‘advertisers and marketers use signs and symbols to create meaning surrounding their brands. consumers interpret these signs and symbols in different ways’
‘perspective theory’
naturalization of ideological assumptions and how consumers problematize those assumptions in creating individual identity (shared identity and symbolic significance through consumer narratives)
[Thompson and Haytko]
problematization --highlight--> ideological subtexts --formulate--> binary opposition --naturalization--> constructed consumption meaning
four major imaginaries within stock shows:
1. ‘symbolic freedom and independence of rancher life =/= commercial ranching’ ==> mythically relieve anxiety
2. ‘ove and respect for nature =/= need for food and control over nature’
3. ‘community =/= competitive realities of ranching life’
4. mythologising ‘family unification =/= male domination and female subordination’
[symbolic perspective of mythology ==>] “narrative performance = ideology --> allowing people to act without logic, facts or values through illusion or myth” --> mythology: a storyline crafted by the process of individuals’ incorporation of symbolic resources provided through the marketplace, which then must be negotiated between the cultural contradictions and sphere of the dominant and public viewpoints
functionalism: each part of society is dependent on other parts of society ==> social cohesion
~ “whatever is happening in society is what is supposed to happen” --> “myth: a collective representation that empowers and supports social solidarity”
•Durkheim: “knowledge is socially constructed and the world exists through collected representations”
“personal desire =/= community obligation ==> mythology”
•Eliade: “myth = an account of a creation,” of that which ‘really’ happened --> religion
}--(Belk, Wallendorf, Sherry)--> sacred and profane consumption
•sacred consumption inherent in material objects that embody myth helps to develop social cohesion.
sonsumers resist commodification of cultural resources that in Eliade's view are the embodiment of myth
*consumers’ sacred creation*
[example: temporary consumption community Burning Man: synthesis of community and markets through the exchange of goods and creative acts of art and performance --> community narratives embodying mythological creativity as art and performanc[...]
(344)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%95.9[...]naturalization--> constructed consumption meaning
four major imaginaries within stock shows:
1. ‘symbolic freedom and independence of rancher life =/= commercial ranching’ ==> mythically relieve anxiety
2. ‘ove and respect for nature =/= need for food and control over nature’
3. ‘community =/= competitive realities of ranching life’
4. mythologising ‘family unification =/= male domination and female subordination’
[symbolic perspective of mythology ==>] “narrative performance = ideology --> allowing people to act without logic, facts or values through illusion or myth” --> mythology: a storyline crafted by the process of individuals’ incorporation of symbolic resources provided through the marketplace, which then must be negotiated between the cultural contradictions and sphere of the dominant and public viewpoints
functionalism: each part of society is dependent on other parts of society ==> social cohesion
~ “whatever is happening in society is what is supposed to happen” --> “myth: a collective representation that empowers and supports social solidarity”
•Durkheim: “knowledge is socially constructed and the world exists through collected representations”
“personal desire =/= community obligation ==> mythology”
•Eliade: “myth = an account of a creation,” of that which ‘really’ happened --> religion
}--(Belk, Wallendorf, Sherry)--> sacred and profane consumption
•sacred consumption inherent in material objects that embody myth helps to develop social cohesion.
sonsumers resist commodification of cultural resources that in Eliade's view are the embodiment of myth
*consumers’ sacred creation*
[example: temporary consumption community Burning Man: synthesis of community and markets through the exchange of goods and creative acts of art and performance --> community narratives embodying mythological creativity as art and performance ‘construct a temporary cohesiveness']
functionalist perspective of social cohesion: “consumption = means of consumer conformity to culture” --> (cohesion perspective:) ***a positive feeling through the appropriation of creative agency and resistance to challenge the unreflexive consumption at the heart of the marketplace myth***
Barthes ==>
•critical theory: “myth = naturalising socially constructed and historical discourse” ~ dominant societal actors oppress subordinates by normalising markers of segregation and subordination --> the concern is to take the side of the oppressed's language and *emancipation*[= demythologising (dominant ideology)] <== Marx's ‘false consciousness’ (for example capitalist ideology conceals and naturalizes managerial power and implicit subordination of workers) --> either side of a power duality can become valorised
•Hegel: “mythology = ideology aesthetically expressed for easy adoption by society” [...]
(345)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%95.9[...]] “narrative performance = ideology --> allowing people to act without logic, facts or values through illusion or myth” --> mythology: a storyline crafted by the process of individuals’ incorporation of symbolic resources provided through the marketplace, which then must be negotiated between the cultural contradictions and sphere of the dominant and public viewpoints
functionalism: each part of society is dependent on other parts of society ==> social cohesion
~ “whatever is happening in society is what is supposed to happen” --> “myth: a collective representation that empowers and supports social solidarity”
•Durkheim: “knowledge is socially constructed and the world exists through collected representations”
“personal desire =/= community obligation ==> mythology”
•Eliade: “myth = an account of a creation,” of that which ‘really’ happened --> religion
}--(Belk, Wallendorf, Sherry)--> sacred and profane consumption
•sacred consumption inherent in material objects that embody myth helps to develop social cohesion.
sonsumers resist commodification of cultural resources that in Eliade's view are the embodiment of myth
*consumers’ sacred creation*
[example: temporary consumption community Burning Man: synthesis of community and markets through the exchange of goods and creative acts of art and performance --> community narratives embodying mythological creativity as art and performance ‘construct a temporary cohesiveness']
functionalist perspective of social cohesion: “consumption = means of consumer conformity to culture” --> (cohesion perspective:) ***a positive feeling through the appropriation of creative agency and resistance to challenge the unreflexive consumption at the heart of the marketplace myth***
Barthes ==>
•critical theory: “myth = naturalising socially constructed and historical discourse” ~ dominant societal actors oppress subordinates by normalising markers of segregation and subordination --> the concern is to take the side of the oppressed's language and *emancipation*[= demythologising (dominant ideology)] <== Marx's ‘false consciousness’ (for example capitalist ideology conceals and naturalizes managerial power and implicit subordination of workers) --> either side of a power duality can become valorised
•Hegel: “mythology = ideology aesthetically expressed for easy adoption by society” --> “ideology = an imaginary map”; political breakdowns ==> ideologies become apparent (independent of mythology)
-(Murray and Ozanne:) meanings people attribute to social structures change more slowly than the structures themselves --> reality[= the meanings given to social structure and the objective structures] is contradictory <== *inconsistency between subject and object* (~ societies both create reality and are shaped by it)
}--> consumers as the oppressed class in postindustrial society[...]
(346)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%96[...] structures] is contradictory <== *inconsistency between subject and object* (~ societies both create reality and are shaped by it)
}--> consumers as the oppressed class in postindustrial society
Thompson: natural health myth (based on ‘cultural creatives’: dominant consumer segment of natural medicine):
•*romantic ideology derived from technologies’ ill effects on humanity and nature --> nature is mythologized as a state of harmony, science and technology as forbidden knowledge
•*gnostic myth emerged from a desire of consumers to bridge technology and spirituality --> “the immune system is metaphorically rendered as a mysterious immaterial force, constituted by intricate mind-body connections and ephemeral energistic forces, which can be brought to practical ends through quasi-magical practices of holistic healing” [Thompson 2004]
}--> advertisers exploit these tensions as conflicting ideologies converge with reality
brand ==> a point of difference + oppositional meanings --> [for example the attraction of the coffee shops that don't personify the Starbucks hegemony ~] anti-hegemonic consumers hold strong preferences for decor that symbolises the counter-culture
(Thompson + Barthes ==> Kristensen, Boye, Askegaard:) how communities develop conceptualizations of right and wrong
*moral systems are inherently ideological* in order to emancipate consumers from these forces critical reflection must occur***
@constant and apass: ***consumers don't escape the market per se but instead reshape collective identity through counter-mythology***
(for example) hipster consumer's attempt to demythologize a consumption ideology in order to protect themselves from mainstream consumers or ‘followers’ (when followers encroach on inside values:) consumers demythologize their consumption practices ==allowing==> new avenues of consumption to occur in an emancipated state
(critical theorists:) **market = arena of domination and power struggle**
==> consumerism can be enslaving and manipulative mythology crafted by the ruling class, can be overcome through resistance and demythologizing ==> ***emancipation = (a form of) new consumption arenas (that hold a favourable power dynamic for consumers)***
mythology --> consumer resistance, emancipation and identity projects
neoliberalism:
•community-based meaning of goods
•individuals (able of) attaching meaning to objects in their own self-expressive way
mythology research: shifted from ‘myth as organizational cohesion’ to ‘understanding agency and emancipatory consumption practices in oppressive situations’
...................................
with Ereshefsky
how to do scientific metaphysics?
•conduct piecewise and local metaphysics (not universalist metaphysics, not science fiction)
•balance naturalism and normativity
-[...]
(349)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%96.1[...]onic consumers hold strong preferences for decor that symbolises the counter-culture
(Thompson + Barthes ==> Kristensen, Boye, Askegaard:) how communities develop conceptualizations of right and wrong
*moral systems are inherently ideological* in order to emancipate consumers from these forces critical reflection must occur***
@constant and apass: ***consumers don't escape the market per se but instead reshape collective identity through counter-mythology***
(for example) hipster consumer's attempt to demythologize a consumption ideology in order to protect themselves from mainstream consumers or ‘followers’ (when followers encroach on inside values:) consumers demythologize their consumption practices ==allowing==> new avenues of consumption to occur in an emancipated state
(critical theorists:) **market = arena of domination and power struggle**
==> consumerism can be enslaving and manipulative mythology crafted by the ruling class, can be overcome through resistance and demythologizing ==> ***emancipation = (a form of) new consumption arenas (that hold a favourable power dynamic for consumers)***
mythology --> consumer resistance, emancipation and identity projects
neoliberalism:
•community-based meaning of goods
•individuals (able of) attaching meaning to objects in their own self-expressive way
mythology research: shifted from ‘myth as organizational cohesion’ to ‘understanding agency and emancipatory consumption practices in oppressive situations’
...................................
with Ereshefsky
how to do scientific metaphysics?
•conduct piecewise and local metaphysics (not universalist metaphysics, not science fiction)
•balance naturalism and normativity
◦naturalism --> learn about different scientific practices that have different aims
◦normativity --> evaluate how well those practices achieve those (epistemic and pragmatic) aims
•
...................................
filial piety --> family formation + consumption behaviours (in Asian context)
(public policymakers and) social marketers addressing family dissatisfaction
understanding family identity has important implications for consumption --western-->
•how meal consumption helps to maintain family bonds
•how home-made meals are useful in constructing and communicating family identity (@apass, Leo, Sarah, food-ing, ‘formulations of family identity ~=!? collective’)
•how families preserve identity through the transfer of inalienable possessions
•how families navigate complex consumption choices such as involving parenthood
•
...................................
(Campbell + Saren -->) [*]posthumanism: an aesthetic (not just an epistemology) that blends:
1. the primitive
[...]
(350)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%96.1[...]stance, emancipation and identity projects
neoliberalism:
•community-based meaning of goods
•individuals (able of) attaching meaning to objects in their own self-expressive way
mythology research: shifted from ‘myth as organizational cohesion’ to ‘understanding agency and emancipatory consumption practices in oppressive situations’
...................................
with Ereshefsky
how to do scientific metaphysics?
•conduct piecewise and local metaphysics (not universalist metaphysics, not science fiction)
•balance naturalism and normativity
◦naturalism --> learn about different scientific practices that have different aims
◦normativity --> evaluate how well those practices achieve those (epistemic and pragmatic) aims
•
...................................
filial piety --> family formation + consumption behaviours (in Asian context)
(public policymakers and) social marketers addressing family dissatisfaction
understanding family identity has important implications for consumption --western-->
•how meal consumption helps to maintain family bonds
•how home-made meals are useful in constructing and communicating family identity (@apass, Leo, Sarah, food-ing, ‘formulations of family identity ~=!? collective’)
•how families preserve identity through the transfer of inalienable possessions
•how families navigate complex consumption choices such as involving parenthood
•
...................................
(Campbell + Saren -->) [*]posthumanism: an aesthetic (not just an epistemology) that blends:
1. the primitive
2. technology
3. horror
[*]metamorphosis: (an engine that encourages the viewer) to recognize life not as being, but as perpetual becoming =/= (liberatory promises of) ‘flow’
(each articulating opposing fantasies of posthumanism:)
morphing =/= mutating
primal technology
proto-atavism نياکان گرايى --> ***multiple paradigms of life exist on the peripheries of humanist life***
Campbell --> a posthuman biology (an ethical imperative that in a technological age, that life is not just life)
Golem --> perennial horror in western imagination
Jewish psalms of the 6th century
formation of life (golmi: unformed limb) <==emanate== mother's womb & nonhuman earth itself
--exemplifies--> how *western humanist versions of technology tend to create a master-servant dialectic* (master-slave) and anything that threatens this divide invokes horror
(roots embedded in the Romantic tradition:)
•“frankenfood” (mash up original and unexpected food combinations, genetically modified crops)
•genetic engineering technologies
•“revenge of nature"
[...]
(351)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%96.1[...]hies icons of: shamanism, esotericism, hermeticism, the occult, mythology
=/= my ajayeb.net
horror in commercial images (Campbell's investigation =/= fear appeals that act to discourage or warn)
horror (like primitive) is a historically specific form =/= an eternal constant (~ whay is horrific today might be completely unhorrific tomorrow --> for example ajayeb's horror)
horror = science fiction + primitivism
liberatory/avant-garde horror
female-as-victim
female-as-horror
--> apparatus of phallogocentrism
--Campbell--> *horror works to produce figures that contain within them an overflow of contradictory signs*
20th century high-tech machines induce horror : depiction of *technology out of control* inducing horror in the humanist consciousness (for example Black Mirror TV series)
(both primitive & technical) borderline figures of contemporary culture: replicants, androgynes, zombies, androids, posthumans, avatars, clones, undead
}--> *almost-not-quite ontologies* <-- displacing the unitary subject of classical humanism <== {new processes and quasi objects} <==create== ***{globalization, questions of history, social change, political movements, collapse of communism, fundamentalism, feminism, post-communist nationalism, global immigration flows, transnational projects such as human genome, digital human}***
•mothers
•machine: the scientific, political and discursive field of technology
•monster: emblematizes the history and philosophy of the biological sciences + their relation to difference and different bodies
enlightenment ==> a comprehensive philosophical and scientific discourse of positioning “people of color, native australians, females, slaves (+ scaipods, cynocephali, tailed men, giants) = nearly-human =/=liberal human subject (white male)
-in the interstices between humans and apes, there was plenty of space to locate speculative or imaginary creatures: *similititudines huminis* (beast-men, monsters with human resemblances, degeneracy)
posthuman
•celebratory declaration of the end of humanity as we know it
•heralding an era of:
◦human being will be superseded by technical being (+ ironically promissing to vouchsafe human being for eternity)
◦(liberatory seeks to) displace the arrogance of the human (as the ultimate and sole authorities of meaning)
•replete with ideological positions (ranging from horrific to hopeful)
•concerned with deconstruting the human as an ancient concept [~?~> dissatisfied and alienated by nature]
ectogenetic foetus (growth of an organism in an artificial environment)
surrogate mother جایگزین
pregnant man {in the fear-fantasy of miscegenation
(crossing:)
animal
human
inanimate
technologi[...]
(352)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%96.4[...]ogy
background of posthuman theory:
•metamorphing --> premised on the liberatory potential of flow : processes objects and living systems are thought to be in a constant state of becoming =/= Campbell: flow is not always a liberatory metaphor -->{ (a politics or logic of) *inertia* =/= contemporary politics of flow }
•primal technology --> technology is not always s progressive civilizing inanimate force, rather it is a destructive-constructive rich-poor lively-inanimate force in the world
•proto-atavism --> modes of living at the edges of humanist life
•posthuman biology ==> *monolith of humanist life is myopic*
in a way, in my research i have been seeking ways to acknowledge the place of posthuman ways of being in the world --through-->
•observing the high-tech (cellular automata, database, bibliographic technologies)
•observing the ancient (medieval bestiaries ajayeb al makhlughat ajayeb technologies)
>
•
...................................
roots of ‘emancipate ourselves’ --in--> “being critical" = ability to be self-reflexive and to translate criticality into action and expressions of art (Renan)
transform knowledge sites --to--> knowledge scenes --> *communities of concepts* (=/= communities of people)
-(to form an artistic site not into a theme, a subject or a project --> discursive architecture)
how we could actually initiate solidarity through translation? (-->? internationalism) =/= equivalence of contexts
-how strategies of governance can be very sophisticated and can be embedded into what we see as good for instance in health (cleaning, or in providing food)
[*]naming: a way in which we could enter into each other's experiences, a process of conjunction and disjunction (with the problems of the previous naming process)
*investment: i'm investing into your thoughts and interests, to possible connections between us
-to look away from it momentarily, so that they can look into it again
(criticality is something that we can inherit)
faith into criticality ==> epistemological violence (~ criticality used as a counter capital to any problem or any situation that we seem unable to engage with)
(in relation of criticality --> the notion of) care: to ask is this the right place and the right time to “overperform” your criticality? when to be naive?
[yes, i am so tired of the Marxist lineage of criticality]
sometimes you don't have a voice in dialogue --> you need a space where you can do a monologue
*monological circuits* (Renan) --> monologue: you take the conversation out of value making (from a neoliberal logic)
(problem of) discourse = a sophisticated capital in arts (that is easily distributed and circulated)
-appoint [yourself] as institution =/= alternative art organization --> don't contribute to marginalizing yourself as [...]
(354)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%96.9[...]upation of every singularity
drugs explore fractal interiorities (=/= seeking an exterior transcendental dimension)
renunciation چشم پوشی، ترک، کناره گیری، قطع علاقه
(addict = nonrenouncer)
virtual reality
cyberprojections
(Dasein's) dependency: a state in which anxiety is still bound
*mimetic poisoning* (of pharmacodependency associated with literature, as sedative, as cure, as escape, etc.) --?--> relationship to law
(our French heritage --> Flaubert: “a thinker should have neither religion nor fatherland nor even any social conviction”) *thinking = radically rupturing*
drugs forced decision upon the subject --> de Quincey
opium: the transparency upon which one could review the internal conflict of freedom (+ encounters the abyss of destructive jouissance)
war against pain
higher forms of drug
*(like any good parasite) drugs travel both inside and out of the boundaries of a narcissistically defended politics* ==producing==> a lexicon of body control and a private property of self
drug's virtual and fugitive patterns
they have a secret communications network with the internalized order
Madame Bovary = clinic of phantasms
everything said about technology can be applied to drugs: acceleration, speed, inertia, the third interval
drug/medicine ==>
•deaden the pain
•separate from a poisonous maternal flux
...
•hallucinated plenitude
•pure communication ~= transcendental telepathy
(have in mind that) any substance can function as a drug
“It wasn't clear then whether the body was private property or not, whether the authorities could legislate zoning ordinances, or whether pleasure and liberty were values freely exercised upon a coded body.”
-Avital
my work over the etymology of the signifier --> moon index
(i shoot up trash fiction)
(Freud) *pain is imperious* متکبر
(failing) to meet the requirements of an authentic alterity
(we are) into forgetting and the simulacrum (=/= truth)
•hallucinator: the creature of the simulacrum (par excellence)
(trafficking in) abstract forms of forgetting
the poor
the body-broken
the racially hallucinated other
chemical prosthesis (mushroom or plant) responds to a fundamental structure
drug addict --> a mystical transport going nowhere
drug addict offers her body to the production of hallucination, vision, or trance
--> going nowhere fast
being exposed to existence = placing one's body in the grips of a temporality that pains --> addictive = arti[...]
(356)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%97.4[...]y
*humanism = epistemology: a way of investigating the world that is consonant with our human intuition--understand--> life as comprising essentially animate or inanimate, self or other, human or nonhuman** [=/= set of diverse beliefs]
horror of surgically implanted biomedical enhancement --> (persistence of the) inviolability of the body as the seat of identity <-- a classic humanist assumption
posthumanism
•speculative philosophy + material reality
•abstract philosophy + empirical science
•ancient + futuristic
•exotic + specialized (telesurgery, amorphous computing) + banal + ubiquitous (automobility, eyeglasses)
•
--> apocalyptic era (intelligent machine takeover)
--> ecological ethics (human not the most important form of life on earth)
***attempt to overcome humanness is an age-old human tendency***
what constitutes life
•women --> Schiebinger
◦slaves --> Douzinas
•computer viruses --> Parikka
•cellular automata --> Delanda
•bacteria --> Haraway
•swarms -->Thacker
•
*brand = living system* (--> distinguish themselves from environment, exclude from it what is not, feedback communication with environment, self replicate, evolve, ) =/= cultural product
@Femke
(Campbell arguing that) the human and the posthuman are (ways to describe the forces that are) already present in the human condition:
1.
computation of life
mid 19th century weaving technologies ==> logic of computation ==ontology==> “universe = giant computer” : attempting to uncover what life itself is through a better understanding and appreciation of the power and seeming omnipresence of computational logic
•a discourse [~ a way of talking about the world] (and not only a claim that people make)
--> an example of how dominant technologies are not just instruments but models (through which the world is understood)
‘clockwork universe’ was the model for the last four millennia: clockwork-like essence of cosmos + state + body (=/= romanticism, galvanism, mesmerism, quantum mechanics)
}==>
•consumer as computer/computational (consumer as information processor, consumer as automatic subject =/= psychological agent) <== science of cybernetics, automaticity, feedback
•information (a new powerful substance in mid 20th century), “raw data ==> decisions, models, theories”, a specialized value-free term (=/= fact, learning, wisdom, understanding, enlightenment) --> second half of 20th century: information began to assume a deep and proved privileges place (in politics, cultural imaginary), to informationalize consumer objects:
◦jeans as “intelligent denim” --> “vector graphics and pixelation as there expression of your individuality” (Jack & Jones)
◦cream as “pro-retinal A nan[...]
(358)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%97.6[...]/>
•information (a new powerful substance in mid 20th century), “raw data ==> decisions, models, theories”, a specialized value-free term (=/= fact, learning, wisdom, understanding, enlightenment) --> second half of 20th century: information began to assume a deep and proved privileges place (in politics, cultural imaginary), to informationalize consumer objects:
◦jeans as “intelligent denim” --> “vector graphics and pixelation as there expression of your individuality” (Jack & Jones)
◦cream as “pro-retinal A nanosomes and Par-Elasty” (L'Oreal)
•
2.
laborization of life
growing sophistication of the previously simple and straightforward categories of aliveness and deadness (<== technologies since the 1970s: stem cell engineering, in vitro fertilization, genomics, virtual surgery, biomaterial engineering)
}==>
•make the range of what constitutes ‘alive’ larger and more complex
•stage the interpenetration of the machinic and the organic
(in the future it will be the) marketers as the most influential groups in re-drawing categories of existence and deciding what is animate or inanimate, natural or technical (not scientists or philosophers)
[***classical marketing strategies: positioning, communication]
==> paradoxes in consumption (for example stem cell engineered meat appears as both identical and radically different from its predecessors) --> postethical consumption models (categorized as vegetarian? how marketing re-enchant food without appeal to a myth of pastoral origin?)
--> commentary consumption acts: organic food market, natural healthcare market
3.
miniaturization of life
“fast, cheap, and out of control”
autonomous (=/= central, god-like)
}==>
•technology is no more locatable within a machine (a consciousness that envelopes the world) --> dispersed: (a logic of) technology as environment [diffused] =/= tool [discrete]
internet of things : digitally enabled objects share and respond to information
1980s --> processing (of information, microprocessor)
1990s --> networking (world wide web)
2000s --> sensing and controlling
“my consumption patterns worth so much that they underwrite my acts of consumption” -Hayles
•*cognition = a product* that emerges between the self and its environment (and does not take place exclusively on the brain) --stages--> cognition as a process
4.
complexification of life
complex (feedback loops, emergence, bifurcation) =/= complicated: accurately analysable system having a large number of component and perform sophisticated tasks
•most of the most valuable products today have virtual components (software, money, etc.) that would be unrecognizable 25 years ago
5.
automation of life
(fundamental legal principle of) ius gentium: all humans are the same in[...]
(359)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%97.7[...]rinciple of) ius gentium: all humans are the same in so far as they are rational human beings in possession of free will =/= 21st century neuroscientific research
}--Libet--> “free won't” : the mind exists in a climate which says yes, but it can say no
agency is outsourced to systems that increasingly invisiblize from everyday life (software deciding mortgage, Facebook suggest friend, turning car into a moving computer)
dystopian imaginary of Black Mirror TV series --> these developments are a tyrannical force that undermine an a priori and fundamental humanness
--Campbell--> consumer researcher's results will be powerful counter-balances to the often too blindly utopian and dystopian accounts of the future
...................................
[*]advertising: (ubiquitous and contentious) symptom of organization[= corporate entity and/or common practice]
aesthetic ambassador of the organization
--(a way through which)--> **anyone outside the organization mythologizes an imaginary inside**
(its) media:
•***indirect messages of public relations that are embedded deep in the heart of non-advertising genres***
•bombastic and direct appeal of made-for-cinema advertisement and corporate communication
•
how advertising used to be scorned as a practice and profession --> gained responsibility in American culture:
-1 advertising became instrumental in enlisting soldiers during world war I ==> lending it a moral force which served more noble purposes besides commerce
-2 it was elevated through its incorporation into education (first in Harvard University 1924)
-3 it becames adept at referencing styles and commissioning work from the realm of high culture
}--now--> advertising does not just produce culture, but ***culture produces advertising***
(one of the central questions of advertising in contemporary times has been the extent to which) *advertising enframes everything within its discourse and logic*
--Campbell--> ****if advertising is everything, what is it not?**** [@apass] <-- this is a crucial question about advertising and it is part of a larger global crucial devate about the commodification of life and previously inalienable aspects thereof
scientific advertising ---> go to Haraway
advertising:
1. fascinates us
2. it works
an average person in the western world is exposed to 3000 advertisements per day
everyday, it transforms me from this world to an imaginary one for a moment
(advertising) offers through a *constant stream of visual cameos* برجسته کارى, *implicit standards* of cleanliness, sociality, family life, health, happiness, and a great many other values ==> affect me
****modern advertising works by appearing not to care if it works**** --> when someone ut[...]
(360)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%97.8[...]chniques to uncovers the subconscious needs, desires, insecurities, fears of consumers)
*product = unconscious fulfilments, solutions, comforts and fantasies to them*
[Packard's Betty Crocker cake mix and Esso's Tiger in your Tank campaign --> alleged power of small groups of people to organize meaning on a massive and uncontrolled level]
•freezer = a nostalgic site of security in a threatening environment =/= a device for cooling foodstuffs (*giving of food <--~~> love* + insecurity ==> more food than you can eat)
-more sophisticated motivational research and appeals
****advertising: a form of literacy**** (a new and bewildering code)
sign system of advertising is not static
the generations to come will regard contemporary sign systems as rudimentary and easy to decode
ultra-sophisticated images will appear antiquited and perhaps even humorous (@Goda hating contemporary sign system)
-the way in which advertising today visualizes software, the environment, nanotechnology as seemingly *undeconstructible & transparent* will be staple examples in classroom curricula
(the most obvious and immediate way of conceptualizing) advertising: a system that creates signs with the purpose of communicating meaning =/= Campbell
discipline of marketing --support--> investigation of image consumption
early models of advertising (--> **how we understand the philosophy of what information and communication are**)
•1949 Bell Laboratories --> information: universalized component of any system that communicated =/= “information” as rather poetic and sipritual term (at home in philosophy =/= engineering) --advertising--> hierarchy of effects: cognitive --to--> affective --to--> behavioral [--> informationalize and measure aspects of advertising]
(to understand) *information theory of communication as a reflection of larger scientific and philosophical aims of the time*
***information theory of communication ==>
•providing codified models that predict response
•enframe communication within a logic of relative effectiveness or ineffectiveness
}=/= my lectures
brand memories
brand equity
boundary between advertising and everyday life
[Campbell =/=]
the idea that qualitative advertising research has a managerialist axiology
a priori assumption of “advertising = information communication” (=/= people incorporate advertising so that it functions as a *social glue* within groups)
(vernacular specter of advertising)
spectacular vernacular of social fabric
site of investigation:
1. site of consumption = reception (the field of meaning from a consumer's perspective)
2. site of production = processes involved in making ads (favoured in media studies and ethnographic approac[...]
(361)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%97.9[...]u!” --> 1: act of defining the subject: one who is special, unique, an individual among the masses. 2: collective pronoun: “we” serves to close the subject and the organization within a circuit of common purpose. 3: what is missing: a concrete visualization of working life in the organization, an absence which allows the reader to project his/her own fantasy onto space : ‘infantilize the organization ==> empower the subject’ --represent--> an imaginary relationship =/= real conditions of our existence}
}--✕--> (Campbell) ****images are ontologically cryptic**** : we conceive images to be both agentic & passive, residing in and affecting many spheres simultaneously
•image: visuality, apparatus, institutions, discourse, bodies, figurality, exist within a distinctive socio-legal environment --> **multiple ontologies [Ihde's multistable] move images beyond simple categories of analysis (<-- that is why i am still a visual artist, @Pierre)
***images are extra-organizational entities*** (they are designed by organization but become) *quixotic* and *uncontrollable*
*fable of complex: there is something about the image that is beyond analytic investigation (--Mitchell--> every image theorist seems to find some residue (surplus value) that goes beyond communication, signification, persuassion (there is an extra in images) --> images are complex {
1. they are constantly mutating in meaning and significance
2. they cross aesthetic borders and are not confinable to a particular domain (image = aesthetic + political + social)
3. they act on all domains recursively --impossible--> how the aesthetic life of images affects the political life of images }--Mitchell--> *image as species* (co-evolutionary entities, quasi life-form depend on a host organism) ==>
◦something not fully under human control
◦spread through the host organicism
◦some die some become pandemic
aesthetic --affect--> politic --affect--> aesthetic --affect--> politic
#workshop make an ad for apass
advertising trend
1. information: (from) traditional forms of print & television --to--> intensification and hybridization in oblique ways + through new media (adver-gaming, twitter-piccing, virtual-worlding, Corridor Crew's product placement)
2. persuasion: [as a rhetorical force] (from) information-heavy selling --to--> dramatic persuasion
3. entertainment: communication through entertainment =/= information, persuasion
•(from) staging products in films --to--> embedding of brands so deeply into the fabric of the film's narrative as object-actors that propel the plot
(Corridor Crew's unobtrusive embedding of branded goods and services in storytelling, hybrid both staging and embedding)
brand --> creativity of consumers to create artistic output in the form of art (Star Wars world, Marina Abramovic) -[...]
(368)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%98.3[...]very image theorist seems to find some residue (surplus value) that goes beyond communication, signification, persuassion (there is an extra in images) --> images are complex {
1. they are constantly mutating in meaning and significance
2. they cross aesthetic borders and are not confinable to a particular domain (image = aesthetic + political + social)
3. they act on all domains recursively --impossible--> how the aesthetic life of images affects the political life of images }--Mitchell--> *image as species* (co-evolutionary entities, quasi life-form depend on a host organism) ==>
◦something not fully under human control
◦spread through the host organicism
◦some die some become pandemic
aesthetic --affect--> politic --affect--> aesthetic --affect--> politic
#workshop make an ad for apass
advertising trend
1. information: (from) traditional forms of print & television --to--> intensification and hybridization in oblique ways + through new media (adver-gaming, twitter-piccing, virtual-worlding, Corridor Crew's product placement)
2. persuasion: [as a rhetorical force] (from) information-heavy selling --to--> dramatic persuasion
3. entertainment: communication through entertainment =/= information, persuasion
•(from) staging products in films --to--> embedding of brands so deeply into the fabric of the film's narrative as object-actors that propel the plot
(Corridor Crew's unobtrusive embedding of branded goods and services in storytelling, hybrid both staging and embedding)
brand --> creativity of consumers to create artistic output in the form of art (Star Wars world, Marina Abramovic) --advertising--> rhetorical purpose: *entertain* =/= inform (announcement), persuade, *warn*[old original function of advertising]
*to warn = to inform* [<-- 15th century advertising ==> journalism]
ever growing impetus of advertising to reproduce itself in new forms ==> different account of the evolution of new media : advertising creates new media to propagate itself (*two globally pervasive and path-changing forms of media that would not exist without advertising revenue:)
•search engine
•social networking site
(McLuhan's “medium = message” --> that we should look at the structural nature of media rather than what it contains =/=) *message = medium* (in 20th century)--> [*]advertising: species that create media in order to allow it to replicate =/= a thing that we humans create and put in media as an incidental extra to an originary agent of meaning [<-- hylomorphic understanding of advertising]
[in 20th century (task of)] advertising: to render the invisible [qualities, such as: complexity, network, information,,,] into compelling visualities (--into--> public imagination)
•(in organizational discour[...]
(369)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%98.3[...]eking a better world)
•postmodern consumer feels more justified in playful enjoyment of the simulation (=/= constantly seeking the somber reminders of “reality”)
hyperreality ==> “loss of history” : historical phenomena = collage with visual excitement = journalism
*voyeuristic exposure to the spectacle = cultural pastiche of the contemporary world*
--> #integration of the hollywood films (nested: music brand names become sub-spectacle within the spectacle of the film) --> (we are immersed in) an era of *metamarketing: marketing itself is marketed (becomes a prominent spectacle ---> go to Devil wears prada movie)
blurring of genres in news programs (Vox news), soap operas (), games ()
decontextualization + spectacle
the duality of ‘appearance =/= essence’ is dead in postmodernity --> cereal strategic decision-making in marketing : ****image = positioning****
-consumer always seeks an essence (in adopting a product)
-consumer of postmodern culture play the game of “surface” (they increasingly acquire the skills of recognizing the images and the positions these images offer)
[*]marketing: institution of simulation, imaginary, hype
(forms of) persuasive communication : transformational propositions ==> simulating potential experiences (=/= true or false discourse)
2- [*]fragmentation: the consumer engages in a series of independent, separate, unconnected acts --each--> require a different product
+ fleeting moments of exciting scenes and images
(postmodern) transcendence of the (modernist) necessity to *understand connections*
***artists of all kinds are increasingly assuming the role of marketing institutions***
the consumers (of postmodernity) are encouraged to play the game of *image-switching* (caring mother, efficient manager, elegant partner, gourmet homemaker --each--> require a different style {labeled as consumer liberation}) =/= central character
[---> go to Deleuze and Guattari's schizophrenia of late capitalism]
disconnected from authentic self ==> (enormous potential for) creativity in manufactured representations
~~--> market becomes a pastiche
postsuburban transformation
complex interaction of high-technology production + socio-spatial configuration + spectacular shopping environment = ubiquitous shopping malls (--acquired--> postmodern theatrical character, fragmented experience of all cultures)
unrestricted ability to use signifiers [?pushed back by some emerging sensibilities of cultural appropriation, political correctness, gender policing, religious, etc.]
--> marketing competition rests on the creation of images (meanings) removed from any history, context, origin =/= excellence and sophistication in form and technique
[---> go to contemporary arti[...]
(370)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%98.5[...]rketing institutions***
the consumers (of postmodernity) are encouraged to play the game of *image-switching* (caring mother, efficient manager, elegant partner, gourmet homemaker --each--> require a different style {labeled as consumer liberation}) =/= central character
[---> go to Deleuze and Guattari's schizophrenia of late capitalism]
disconnected from authentic self ==> (enormous potential for) creativity in manufactured representations
~~--> market becomes a pastiche
postsuburban transformation
complex interaction of high-technology production + socio-spatial configuration + spectacular shopping environment = ubiquitous shopping malls (--acquired--> postmodern theatrical character, fragmented experience of all cultures)
unrestricted ability to use signifiers [?pushed back by some emerging sensibilities of cultural appropriation, political correctness, gender policing, religious, etc.]
--> marketing competition rests on the creation of images (meanings) removed from any history, context, origin =/= excellence and sophistication in form and technique
[---> go to contemporary artists anti-excellence attitude and the celebration of failure and failing]
--> **each instance of communication becomes a spectacle**
purposefully decontextualized + rendered free floating ==> marketable product
(surrealist artists made use of this --now--> shop window designer)
Duchamp, Rauschenberg, Warhol (ready-made)
***themes of postmodern culture:
irreverence
nonconformity
noncommitment
detachment
difference
fragmentation
(paradoxically) what seems to be difference at the level of symbolic culture stems from an underlying uniformity <-- ***heterogeneity has its origins in homogeneity*** : cultures where market and marketing are less developed exhibit greater variance in both the quality and kinds of life patterns
literacy:
•in modernity --> to read + discover connections among seemingly unrelated objects ==> understanding
•in postmodernity --> watching : recognizing images (exposing oneself to innumerable images and recognize what they stand for ~ attach meaning to them) <-- this is what i did in my telegram bestiary text!
literacy in consumption culture ~/=? established nortons of education
3- [*]reversal of production & consumption
•modernist: value is created in production (meaningful) and destroyed in consumption (profane)
•postmodern: production continues during the moment of consumption, value is created during consumption: a process through which individuals define themselves, status, image (=/= common) --> a social act, symbolic meaning ==> an individual with certain tastes, mentality, values (a type of humanity)
production & consumption prove to be diffe[...]
(371)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%98.6[...]--> spectacle --> commodities
(marketing helped in entrenching) artist selebrity setting new trends and values <-- a postmodern phenomena with its roots in 1960s “anti-” movements
•not challenging or endorsing or committing to any one style, but rebelling by doing “one's own thing” (Madonna's rebellion 1991 --> she will continue to find large audiences as long as she represents and combines the postmodern aspects of critique of the metanarrative and the marketable commercial sensationalism of the fragmented spectacle)
paradoxical nature of postmodern culture <-- fragmentation and discontinuity of their experience
not owning a TV (conscious rejection) + driving a car (integrated into mainstream)
merging of education and marketing
*televisual generation*
(in north america and western europe) the education is taking place mostly outside of three classroom
(modern) institutionalized education --> (postmodern) marketing system : the individual of the postmodern encounters the institutionalized education as obligation, drudgery, and the means to achieve positions
(from) a process of reading issues and questions for exploration --to--> a process of persuasively communicating the necessities of knowing (and following efficient ways of doing things) --> literacy: being able to manipulate and construct (recognize and grasp multi-layered multi-faceted multi-media images --> to impress upon all senses) }<-- marketing is best situated to educate this
[-can a true critical deconstruction of postmodernism start from literacy? ---> go to telegram bestiary text]
***the consumer is also a signifier***
(constructed in the images that are culturally signified, for example the female)
(even metaphorically) putting somebody on the pedestal (stage) ==> exposure to voyeuristic gaze ==> objectification ~=> commodification }--Baudrillard-->
•a liberation (the subject is the object which has the powers of seduction as the focus of desire --> in control)
•a loss of freedom (the subject is culturally signified and constructed for fonctions determined outside its own power --> a property of the other)
*decoupling of culturally signified categories (of gender, etc.)* --marketing--> (postmodern stance and trend:) male model/actors who represent emotional, nurturing, and sensitive + female model/actors who represent aggressive, powerful, rational (in American advertisement and TV series)
==> “i shop, therefore i am” becomes applicable to men
==> both men and women become ideal consumers --> flourish of market exchange
* * (both male and female) seek authentic self --> (get caught up in) objectification + fragmentation * *
pattern quest: imaging (representing) =/= being, knowing
[image marketing]
*the image does not [...]
(372)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%98.8[...]ies (of gender, etc.)* --marketing--> (postmodern stance and trend:) male model/actors who represent emotional, nurturing, and sensitive + female model/actors who represent aggressive, powerful, rational (in American advertisement and TV series)
==> “i shop, therefore i am” becomes applicable to men
==> both men and women become ideal consumers --> flourish of market exchange
* * (both male and female) seek authentic self --> (get caught up in) objectification + fragmentation * *
pattern quest: imaging (representing) =/= being, knowing
[image marketing]
*the image does not represent the product, but the product represents the image* -->
•consumers are essentially consumers of symbols
•consumption culture = construction of symbolic environment
}==> tourism as the largest industry in the world (translate your culture images into marketable products ~= consumer fetishes) --> *global culturalism*
[manipulation of symbols]
(from) ethical issue (modern) --to--> stylistic issue (phenomenological, postmodern)
[*]globalization: (create fragmented heterogenized market -->) serve the locals with global universal signs
--> transnational: a highly symbolic communication system that is timeless, contextless, diffused in space, located anonymously, with no known history
marketing is the first institution that adapt to postmodernism
...................................
consumer (--impulse--> “i want”) =/= citizen (“we need”)
Sunstein
consumer sovereignty (matters of personal taste, “are they getting what they want?”, ‘freedom: satisfaction of private preferences’, ) =/= political sovereignty (*government by discussion* + reason-giving in the public domain <-- many/most citizens should have a range of common experiences =/= filtering of information, customizing information to fitto fit)
**unplanned unanticipated encounters <-- central to democracy**
(pseudo-democratic) participation interactivity : invitation to participate in one's own manipulation by providing increasingly detailed information about personal preferences (Andrejevic, noted by Hubert)
...................................
*misattunement:
--Stern--> a parental technique for modifying the behaviour (+ affective experience) of the child
--Ahmed--> being out of synch with a world (“of whiteness” that aims to be in harmony)
*attunement: a technique for occupying space
---> go to #integration {for Ahmed: becoming a citizen (= nationalism) ~= the work of attunement =/= stranger: the body we are not with}
clumsiness: being in the way of yourself (to lack the coordination to coordinate yourself with yourself)
--registers--> as the loss of a possibility
(in art, performe[...]
(373)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%98.9[...]feelings come to reside (magically) in objects [by cutting those objects off from a wider economy of labour and production. it is then as if fear originates with the arrival of others whose bodies become containers of our fear]
(for Ahmed) happiness: a technique of distraction (a cover-up)
--> for her: potency is in the rage
(Ahmed is too fast to celebrate lesbian ‘affect alien’ =/= heterosexual marriage)
good weather --> (showing) safety and wisdom of prediction
the idea of “your unfeeling masks a disbelief”
...................................
interesting =/= appealling --> most satisfying videos
...................................
elite consumption
country house
...................................
dirt
waste
stink
microbes
Campbell on bacteria and market
tropes that bring bacteria into the symbolic realm:
1. cuteness
2. overpopulation
3. lower classes
4. deviant sex
}--channel--> utterances that (indirectly [political discourse of establishment neoliberalism cannot address such things in direct ways]) express fantasies about:
•purity
•gender
•race
•community
•family
•pollution
•class
•disease
•sexual promiscuity (deviancy)
}<--Campbell-- symptoms of a capitalist socio-economic order --> they are found in:
◦explicit rhetoric of anti-establishment politics (the alt-right, anti-immigrant movements)
◦implicit content of the marketing material of globalized and globalizing multinationals
bacteria: symptoms of a capitalist socio-economic order --> repressed fears and fantasies about purity, gender, race, community, pollution, class, sexual promiscuity <-- leveraged by antibacterial brands
from (psychoanalytical concept of) symptom --to--> sinthome
[*]symptom: repressed extrinsic ideology that must be revealed =/= [*]sinthome: a fantasy that does not dissolve when brought to light <== it structures reality intrinsically
a *psychoanalytically informed critical marketing* --> *consumer is made to trace their symptoms* (<-- the perverse effects of emancipatory revelatory critical analysis)
--Campbell--> sinthome presents a tool for analysing *fantasies that focus on the form of their expression, rather than their content*
•in the case of (fantasy takes the form of) bacteria --reveal--> (a confluence between) *the politics of community & the physiology of (auto)immunity* [--> clean and dirty]
dilemma of modern subject : how to live with the unsettling truths given to us by new sciences
•my mother about fake honey
•bacteriology ==> everything (including our very selves) is terrifyingly coated in bacteria
a moment of marketing i[...]
(374)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99[...]feeling masks a disbelief”
...................................
interesting =/= appealling --> most satisfying videos
...................................
elite consumption
country house
...................................
dirt
waste
stink
microbes
Campbell on bacteria and market
tropes that bring bacteria into the symbolic realm:
1. cuteness
2. overpopulation
3. lower classes
4. deviant sex
}--channel--> utterances that (indirectly [political discourse of establishment neoliberalism cannot address such things in direct ways]) express fantasies about:
•purity
•gender
•race
•community
•family
•pollution
•class
•disease
•sexual promiscuity (deviancy)
}<--Campbell-- symptoms of a capitalist socio-economic order --> they are found in:
◦explicit rhetoric of anti-establishment politics (the alt-right, anti-immigrant movements)
◦implicit content of the marketing material of globalized and globalizing multinationals
bacteria: symptoms of a capitalist socio-economic order --> repressed fears and fantasies about purity, gender, race, community, pollution, class, sexual promiscuity <-- leveraged by antibacterial brands
from (psychoanalytical concept of) symptom --to--> sinthome
[*]symptom: repressed extrinsic ideology that must be revealed =/= [*]sinthome: a fantasy that does not dissolve when brought to light <== it structures reality intrinsically
a *psychoanalytically informed critical marketing* --> *consumer is made to trace their symptoms* (<-- the perverse effects of emancipatory revelatory critical analysis)
--Campbell--> sinthome presents a tool for analysing *fantasies that focus on the form of their expression, rather than their content*
•in the case of (fantasy takes the form of) bacteria --reveal--> (a confluence between) *the politics of community & the physiology of (auto)immunity* [--> clean and dirty]
dilemma of modern subject : how to live with the unsettling truths given to us by new sciences
•my mother about fake honey
•bacteriology ==> everything (including our very selves) is terrifyingly coated in bacteria
a moment of marketing in Joyce's Ulysses character Bloom -->
•overwhelmed by the teeming bacteria <--> ingesting a different set of cultured bacteria: wine, cheese, bread
•the city and its germs envelop and simultaneously individuate him --> ****his subjectivity can only be expressed in terms of the dialectic of alienation and belonging that is at the foundation of our social world****
***living in modernity = being in constant contact with the mass of beings***
<== uncontrollable overwhelming disintegrative forces of othernes[...]
(375)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.1[...]r />
•class
•disease
•sexual promiscuity (deviancy)
}<--Campbell-- symptoms of a capitalist socio-economic order --> they are found in:
◦explicit rhetoric of anti-establishment politics (the alt-right, anti-immigrant movements)
◦implicit content of the marketing material of globalized and globalizing multinationals
bacteria: symptoms of a capitalist socio-economic order --> repressed fears and fantasies about purity, gender, race, community, pollution, class, sexual promiscuity <-- leveraged by antibacterial brands
from (psychoanalytical concept of) symptom --to--> sinthome
[*]symptom: repressed extrinsic ideology that must be revealed =/= [*]sinthome: a fantasy that does not dissolve when brought to light <== it structures reality intrinsically
a *psychoanalytically informed critical marketing* --> *consumer is made to trace their symptoms* (<-- the perverse effects of emancipatory revelatory critical analysis)
--Campbell--> sinthome presents a tool for analysing *fantasies that focus on the form of their expression, rather than their content*
•in the case of (fantasy takes the form of) bacteria --reveal--> (a confluence between) *the politics of community & the physiology of (auto)immunity* [--> clean and dirty]
dilemma of modern subject : how to live with the unsettling truths given to us by new sciences
•my mother about fake honey
•bacteriology ==> everything (including our very selves) is terrifyingly coated in bacteria
a moment of marketing in Joyce's Ulysses character Bloom -->
•overwhelmed by the teeming bacteria <--> ingesting a different set of cultured bacteria: wine, cheese, bread
•the city and its germs envelop and simultaneously individuate him --> ****his subjectivity can only be expressed in terms of the dialectic of alienation and belonging that is at the foundation of our social world****
***living in modernity = being in constant contact with the mass of beings***
<== uncontrollable overwhelming disintegrative forces of otherness (the problem of living in a community in modern metropolis)
<-- *multiplicity of strange strangers through whom the healthy subject finds his or her sense of self*
(@Femke, analysing political arrangments of X) *market society* =/= looking at the way that we come (and invited to come) into contact with X (in Campbell's case: bacteria)
[*]sinthome: why X (symptoms) appear to us as such =/= what X mean
sinthome --> (mode of analysis) aiming to identify ***what fantasies are permitted to be sustained when the symptom take the form of X*** (in this case bacteria) =/= seeking to find what ideology lies hidden beneath the symptom [=/=! problem of artists]
Campbell mode of analysis (with sinthome) =/= a revelatory mode [...]
(376)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.1[...]ace their symptoms* (<-- the perverse effects of emancipatory revelatory critical analysis)
--Campbell--> sinthome presents a tool for analysing *fantasies that focus on the form of their expression, rather than their content*
•in the case of (fantasy takes the form of) bacteria --reveal--> (a confluence between) *the politics of community & the physiology of (auto)immunity* [--> clean and dirty]
dilemma of modern subject : how to live with the unsettling truths given to us by new sciences
•my mother about fake honey
•bacteriology ==> everything (including our very selves) is terrifyingly coated in bacteria
a moment of marketing in Joyce's Ulysses character Bloom -->
•overwhelmed by the teeming bacteria <--> ingesting a different set of cultured bacteria: wine, cheese, bread
•the city and its germs envelop and simultaneously individuate him --> ****his subjectivity can only be expressed in terms of the dialectic of alienation and belonging that is at the foundation of our social world****
***living in modernity = being in constant contact with the mass of beings***
<== uncontrollable overwhelming disintegrative forces of otherness (the problem of living in a community in modern metropolis)
<-- *multiplicity of strange strangers through whom the healthy subject finds his or her sense of self*
(@Femke, analysing political arrangments of X) *market society* =/= looking at the way that we come (and invited to come) into contact with X (in Campbell's case: bacteria)
[*]sinthome: why X (symptoms) appear to us as such =/= what X mean
sinthome --> (mode of analysis) aiming to identify ***what fantasies are permitted to be sustained when the symptom take the form of X*** (in this case bacteria) =/= seeking to find what ideology lies hidden beneath the symptom [=/=! problem of artists]
Campbell mode of analysis (with sinthome) =/= a revelatory mode of critique (where our illusions arre laid bare) [<-- artists’ symptom]
advertisements offer striking evidence of *autoimmune tendecies* in contemporary market society : the body politic misrecognizes its own boundaries and attacks parts of itself
@Femke
(Joyce's Bloom) first thing that we see or feel is not in fact ourselves, but bacteria [---> go to body image] --> (his solution:) avoiding one kind of bacteria by embracing another (<-- psychoanalytically effective ***non-solution***)
(in social sciences [Ereshefsky]) *species pluralism : how various biopolitical forces use segmentation strategies in the organic world to produce competing species’ hierarchies and taxa*
thinkers in social theory --> the entities under investigation are:
•so massive --> Gaya regulatory system of planetary scope
•so dispersed --> climate change
•so ancient --Har[...]
(377)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.1[...]spersed --> climate change
•so ancient --Haraway--> bacterial protist Mixotricha paradoxa (“the paradoxical being with mixed-up hairs”)
•so minute جزئی --> new materials engineered through nanotechnology
•so boundless --Sagan--> metametazoa: human as a multiple afloat in the omnisexuality or bacterial exchange
•so relational --thacker--> swarm, pack, flock, epidemic [go to --> ERG website's epidemic nodes --> *the image of the relational*]
•so
}<==motivation==
1. considering the strangeness of life forms act as a template ==to==> think differently about life by mobilizing new ***prepositions of connection*** (with, alongside, between, sym-, etc.) ==provoke==> different theoretical insights into how society might work
2. ethical political drive to promote radical inclusivity and to challenge mindsets that fixate on identity and difference (<-- Harawayian) [--> Isabel, Sara]
3. work of decentering the human as the premier valance of the universe (may in turn) ==cultivate==> an ethics that is ecological, in the sense of global and interspecies (<-- Mortonian) [--> Sina]
4. conceiving of the ‘other’ as planetmate, messmate, natureculture, mind-body, etc. (maybe) ==lead==> new conceptions of camaraderie, community, society, friendship [--> artistic research, apass, Viveiros de Castro]
bacteria [also: mushroom, swamp] --> poster-creatures of the flat ontology movement --> challenging classification
replacing Tree of Life with DNA-based model of life (homo sapiens: a micro-ingredient of an astonishing bacterial soup of prokaryotes, archaea, eukaryotes)
*bacteria: the ground zero life forms* -->! ***nearest we can get imagining the Lacanian Real***
we are more bacteria than human
(global) bacterial biome: para-collective (=/= “merely” biological)
*our ways of reacting to bacteria are as political as they are scientific*
...................................
purity & pollution + their deep-seated link with social order and its transgression --Douglas--> {from the idea of poisonous vapours (miasma [unrelated to cleanliness]) --to-->} discovery of pathogenic organisms بيمارى زا ==> modern concept of bacteria
cleansing rituals before the bacteriological age functioned to ward off spirits and restore social order and control (@Elke, @Isabel, the artist as medium)
discovery of germs ==> radical re-conceptualization of dirt (--> it is difficult to think of dirt except in the context of pathogenicity)
if we can abstract pathogenicity and hygiene from our notion of dirt --Douglas--> we are left with the very old definition of [*]dirt: matter out of place
**when we see dirt --> we see a system**
--Campbell--> when we see bacterial images we are seeing something else
***contamination = a violation of some mythical, symbol[...]
(378)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.2[...]le with “clean” streets)
•the idea that a veritable subterranean system delivering *shit-free cleanliness* ==> citizen's physical, moral, sipritual cleanliness --with--> materila markers of the civilized society: cubicles, toilets, drains, sewers
(Lacan > Morton > Campbell >) the problem of human society : what to do with one's shit
anti-bacterial advertising --> fantasy of awayness
keeping nature at a distance ==Morton==> (act out an imagined preservation -->) dumps on the rest of the world
[sadistic admiration] putting something called nature on a pedestal and admiring it from afar (for the environment) ~= what patriarchy does for the figure of the woman
bacteria adhere to each other and to their environment --> *they make any environment cohere as itself* : without bacteria there is no environment
3. lower classes
overweigth
bad skin
bad teech
criminally deviant
griminess سياهى
slick sheen ليز
dinginess چرکى
slouch اويخته
decay
in advertisement:
bacterium suicide bomber
ear-picking homeless man: the incarnation of bacterial cross-infection
**community <--> infection**
(health of the community is theatened by undesirable members)
*bacteria ==> community can come into full self-expression*
bacteria = disruption of social order ~-=> bacteria stabilizes the social order
***bacterial threat = biological model for a political necessity***
(familiar terrain of) hand: a vast and foreign bacterial colony
in a world of microbial resistance [in which common infections and minor injuries can kill <-- real possibility for 21st century and not a apocalyptic fantasy] --> *antibacterials carve out spaces of near-perfect security*
bacteria:
•overwhelm usr />
•outnumber us
•outclassify us
•exceed us
•pre-date us
}--> concealed by antibacterial discourse
good bacteria exists in the gut: their market-sanctioned place
*good bacteria: fantasy of the efficient worker*
4. deviant sex
bacterial sex
bacteria **propagate in the most ancient way : they have sex by contagion** = endosymbiosis, symbiogenesis --> ‘prolonged symbiotic associations ==> appearance of new organism’ (massive contagion that moves across phyla and lineages across biotic and abiotic spaces ~/= Darwinian natural selection)
1940s --> monomorphism: (in bacteria sex, proposing that) male and female are separate but visually indistinguishable
categories of inside/outside, host/guest, parent/child, original/copy, female/male --> organize civil life =/= bacteria
==> in advertising bacteria propagation appears “deviant” (in non-productive[...]
(379)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.4[...]sex
bacterial sex
bacteria **propagate in the most ancient way : they have sex by contagion** = endosymbiosis, symbiogenesis --> ‘prolonged symbiotic associations ==> appearance of new organism’ (massive contagion that moves across phyla and lineages across biotic and abiotic spaces ~/= Darwinian natural selection)
1940s --> monomorphism: (in bacteria sex, proposing that) male and female are separate but visually indistinguishable
categories of inside/outside, host/guest, parent/child, original/copy, female/male --> organize civil life =/= bacteria
==> in advertising bacteria propagation appears “deviant” (in non-productive forms) --> antibacterials confer moral righteousness
Karin's germ management ♥
(Karin) “good germ management =/= good parenting”
(Dettol:) “good germ management = good parenting” [when a mother at home protects children from contact with the floor]
(in iran:) contact is contagion
Campbell assuming women tolerate germs more than men --> not in iran
**staging the unbacterial woman**
*body is a closed private property =/= contagion emanates from bodies that are not properly closed or private*
“community = the single biggest source of threat” (our sovereign cleanliness) --> *bacteria as other people* مجاز مرسل metonymically (not just metaphorically)
•degenerate human
•homeless man
•transvestite
•street sweeper
•
(cleanliness is always sovereign)
if ”(deep) ideology =/= (critical) thought” --then--> fantasy =/= ?
‘deviant’ mobilizes deep-seated fears and fantasies ==> images that are visually intense + build exceedingly successful brands
critical analysis can move from thinking about symptoms as indirect expressions of deep ideology (paranoia) --to--> *indirect expressinos of structurating fantasies*
(brands know that) ***fantasy =/= ideology***
•Lacan --> even when patients could articulate their symptoms it didn't seem to dissipate ==> symptom was a constitutive core of their own subjectivity
•Zizek --> ideology: fantasy structuring out social reality itself =/= an illusion masking the real state of things
•Marx, Freud, Zizek --> symptom =/= a thing behind which secret content is hidden
for Marx *the secret is in hte form of commodity itself** (<--but-- commodity as a central symptom of capitalism) --Sina--> in the form of the hair-styles in The Magicians TV series
from symptom (veil) --to--> sinthome (screen)
*sinthome* is not directly analysable --Campbell--> images of bacteria are symptoms of the Real, not the symbiotic order, because the Real unsymbolizable
sinthomes organize the subject (without them the subject would be obliterated, Zizek)
(ps[...]
(382)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.5[...]f the hair-styles in The Magicians TV series
from symptom (veil) --to--> sinthome (screen)
*sinthome* is not directly analysable --Campbell--> images of bacteria are symptoms of the Real, not the symbiotic order, because the Real unsymbolizable
sinthomes organize the subject (without them the subject would be obliterated, Zizek)
(psychoanalytic paradigm --> emerging research in marketing:)
•sustainability practices’ fetishistic disavowal of reality can serve to exacerbate ecological catastrophe
•the inherently narcissistic nature of the consumer needs others to suffer in order to derive pleasure from (consumer) objects
•reinvestigation of consumer desire as jouissance --> a perverse pleasure in the “mad destruction” of our bodies and minds
}--> examples of critical marketing pursuing emancipatory unveiling procedures
--✕--> sinthome can offer:
1. an *analytic strategy for feeling out* the contours of symptoms
2. directing us to a new *question we may ask of texts of all kinds* --> ***why do they take the form that they do?*** [=/= what ideology is beneath them --> at the level of the latent contents (meaning) of a symptom] --bacteria-->
◦why do fantasies about community, sex, death, deviance take the form of the bacteria?
◦what is it about bacteria that is so compelling that it provides a structure for this array of phenomena? (<-- we can ask that at art/artists use of biology)
***the problem of bacteria for humans = the problem of living with others***
bacteria --think--> the problem of surviving in large, alienating, cross-infecting, co-dependent populations --> *metonymy between immunity & community*
•مجازمرسل metonymy =/= structural similarity تشابه
==reveal==> disciplines of *biology* and that of *political organization* are closely related [--> to understand fundamental concepts such as individuality and agency we need to frame the immune system not as a biological but a politico-psychic-physical phenomena]
*munus: public service, duty
{munus = onus + officium, obligation + office --> root of communitas}
co-munus: to be part of a community = to be a giver and receiver of the munus, which has a kind of coercive connective power
-anyone outside this gifting cycle is described as “immune” (@apass)
-munus: a gift (a contractual obligation that one has with the community) that marks one's entry to social life
the immunity/community dynamic is a negative aporetic dialectic پویایی دیالکتیک آپورتیک منفی (=/= dichotomy دوگانگی) ~= immunity: a process that always involves an open system of self-definition that consistently produces self and other
antibacterial sinthome gives form to this ambivalent position as individuals in market society --> o[...]
(383)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.6[...]ly
“primitive =/= advanced” :
**hyper attention to the material circumstances of an act** =/= christian (rules of holiness --> motive & disposition of agent is important)
contact with corpse
contact with blood
theology: god man relationship ==> assert (a definition of) nature of human
*most thinking men in the second part of 19th century were amateur anthropologists*
--> confused dialogue between anthropology & theology
(Tylor:) the theory of progression: “civilization = gradual progress from an original state similar to that of savagery” --> the idea of general continuity of human culture [---> go to integration]
“man = long process of (cultural) evolution”
what we do & believe is fossil (petrified appendages)
•Tylor --interest--> what quaint relics can tell us about the past ==found==> folklore
•Smith --interest--> common elements in modern and primitive experience ==found==> social anthropology
Green
theory of moral progress
existence and recognition of specific duties
self-sacrifice
reverence
man = unrealized ideal of a best (God)
*religion <--> ethical values of community life* (=/= speculative thought, exotic mythology, arbitrary relationship of an individual person to supernatural power...)
...
(moralizing human society = community)
(intellectual asset)
Durkheim
fictive abstract nature of religious entities [with no material reference] (==> fluid liable contagious sacred ==> rituals of separation & demarcation)
•gold and purple style of writing (Golden Bough)
•“ethical meaning =/= magical meaning”
non-sacred magic =/=? sacred
magical belief <--> primitive hygiene
two assumptions of English nineteen century thought:
1. ethical refinement is a mark of advanced civilization
2. magic had nothing to do with morals or religion
}==Frazer==> assigned evolutionary assumptions to human culture three stages of development -->{ “magic: primitive science” --to--> “religion: priestly & political fraud” --to--> “science” }<-- Hegelian dialectic
}--✕--> wisdom and philosophic depth of primitive cultures
Babylonian + Assyrian --> “sin = material impurity” --> blood: sin-remover
(during Homer) Greek thought --> relatively free of ritual pollution
pollution concepts emerge later (expressed in classical drama)
clean and polluted --> man's destiny
(it seemed always we had a clean future)
the bad idea of *medical approach to symbolism*
comparative religion =/= medical materialism
(for example Jewish and Islamic avoidance of eating pork is explained as due to the dangers of eat[...]
(389)[...notes/clean notes.txt]%99.8