[-empyre-] Critical Dromology - and Hyper-Inertia

[fredericneyrat at free.fr]

Dear Ricardo, dear others,

“The 
earth itself needs fixed points
 and alter-flows to
function” you said, i agree with that and would like to pursue the
matter further – with my rough english.

In fact, the problem is that our world is build on bad flows and bad
fixed points, as if all were INVERSED.
Most of our anthropocentric, “humanistic”, nationalist, etc., fixed
points should be destroyed (in my own vocabulary: more than
deconstructed = DIS-INTEGRATED ...), and on the other hand we need
slow motions, times of inertia, etc. (against, for instance, consumer
imperative, self-improvement capitalist request, or superegoical ask
for ‘jouissance’, as Zizek says after Lacan).

We need Hestia, not only Hermes.

In this respect, one could explain catastrophes in two differents ways
(which are linked, of course)
1/ as effects of hyper-flows (of news, affects, mimetic behaviors
conducting to financial crisis), emballements and racing,
schismogenesis – so a lack of limits (P. Virilio);
2/ but according to me, no hyper-flow is able to exist without an
hyper-inertial basis. For instance (alas), financial liquidities are
based upon the fact that the financial market itself is not liquid !
(André Orléan – a french economist - calls this the “paradox of
liquidities”).

So, there is a real practical problem, if one tries to accelerate the
acceleration or to immobilize the inertia, with a sort of hyper-hyper
flow or hyper-hyper inertia...
Cf. Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus: “car peut-être les flux ne
sont pas encore assez déterritorialiés, pas assez décodés, du point de
vue d’une théorie et d’une pratique des flux à haute teneur
schizophrénique. Non pas se retirer du procès, mais aller plus loin,
“accélérer le procès”, comme disait Nietzsche”.
Well, I can’t say that, because it depends of the flows nature. To
accelerate any bad flow instead of dis-integrate its inertial basis
would be really ... catastrophic.
A last example to illustrate my talk: to finish with the “Grand
Partage” (Latour) between human beings and others forms of life
without a vigorous anti-humanism would be only able to replicate
humanism and its dangerous effects.


Para-inertialy,

Frederic


Selon rrdominguez at ucsd.edu:

> Hola Frederic and all other critical dromologist,
>
> > So i want to question the artists: what do you do with inertia ?
> Have
> > the artists to create a new kind of inertia, or not?
>
> I think/feel that new media artivist and digital zapatistas have
> created new
> forms of hyper-speed(s) and hyper-inertia(s) that are aware that
> these
> trajectories function tactically in different forms of fractal
> time(s) zones.
>
> So, that it may be tactically better to use hyper-inertia to shift
> the .mil
> speeds and that it may be better to use hyper-speed trajectories
> when dealing
> with CNN timelines - or that it has to be poly-spacial strategy of
> the
> "speed"
> of feet in Chiapas, Mexico and the hyper-inertia of bodies blocking
> road to
> stop Mexican army tanks. Each being aware of the timezone/planes of
> the
> other.
>
> The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) was among the first to
> develop a
> relationship between bad technology, inefficient code and rebellion
> with a
> good cause – EDT operated/operates in “contradiction to
> cyberspace.”
> EDT's mass demonstration machine (FloodNet created by artists Brett
> Stalbaum and Carmin Karasic) connects to mass actions on the
> streets that
> was and is intimately linked to the Zapatistas and the
> alter-(lo)balization movements – a performative matrix which shifts
> the
> core of the network from communication and documentation to one of
> mass
> direct action on-line, a gesture that attempts to suture
> individuals and
> browsers, the virtual mass and mass demonstrations in public spaces
> that
> are local and (lo)bal at the same time.
> 	“Virtual sit-ins,” as EDT came to name these network based actions
> were a
> direct echo of Critical Art Ensemble's vision for ECD, but rather
> than
> the CAE version of a cadre of secret and efficient hackers, EDT
> created a
> transparent and artivistic reconfiguration of ECD – that by all the
> laws
> of well-made code
> should never work – but, since when does art need to be well-made
> to spill
> out into world? It was a new social poesis that allowed EDT's
> version of
> ECD to negotiate with pre-9/11 state and transnational powers over
> the
> discursive mobilizations of  “cybercrime,” “cyberwar” and
> “cyberterrorism”
> and shifting the frame to that of Civil Disobedience (CD) and its
> legal
> histories in relation to ECD – without giving up the “art” in
> artivism or
> the “activism” this hybrid term contains: “...the Electronic
> Disturbance
> Theater illuminates a new set of possibilities for understanding
> the
> relation between performance, embodiment, and spatial practice in
> cyberspace. Unlike a number of other performance artists who have
> explored
> the relation of the body to technology through the literal
> encounter of
> individual physical bodies to machines—Orlan's livecast surgeries;
> Stelarc's cybernetic experiments—EDT, in turn, has placed the very
> notion
> of “embodiment” under rigorous question, and thought to understand
> the
> specific possibilities for constituting presence in digital space
> that is
> both collective and politicized...Those actions suggest that
> performance
> in cyberspace can reproduce—rehearse or practice—cyberspace in ways
> that
> produce an alternate form of spatiality. For EDT, as for the
> Zapatistas,
> cyberspace can be practiced as a new public sphere, a runway for
> the
> staging of more productive “lines of flight” for those struggling
> for
> social change.”
>
> It may also be a question of disturbing the conditions of
> hyper-speed(s)
> and hyper-inertia(s) that function on other planes - such as the
> question
> of the
> polar ice caps as/IS THE DISASTER. Where question of slowing
> down/or just
> stop some segments of global production and speed up others - with
> the
> understanding that is not only the states of time are fractal - but
> the
> earth itself needs fixed points
> and alter-flows to function - a type of geo-philosophy as a
> critical
> dromology.
>
> My best in flow and blockage,
> Ricardo
>
>
>
> On Mon, November 10, 2008 10:21 am, fredericneyrat at free.fr wrote:
> > Dear Ricardo, and dear other guests,
> >
> > inertia surely is one of the main topics of Virilio theory, maybe
> the
> > central point, a fear AND a desire for him (and the problem is
> the
> > transition / the link between these two affects...).
> >
> > a/ a desire : in his last book, ‘L’université du désastre’
> (2008), he
> > says that nowadays we have to « faire maintenant l’’éloge de
> > l’inertie’ ; de cette statique, de cette fixité photosensible
> dont
> > l’épreuve photographique est le témoin »  (p.71). « Depuis la
> > révolution des transports (industriels)”, he says, “l’inertie a
> très
> > mauvaise réputation”, on ne cesse de “dévaloriser le solide et sa
> > statique au bénéfice de la dynamique (des ondes, des fluides)” -
> > however: « Souvenons-nous : pour que la roue tourne, il lui faut
> un
> > point fixe, le moyeu qui, lui, ne tourne pas » (pp.63-64). So it
> > seems, we need an inertial point (or inertial space, or area – or
> > someting else...), a ‘fixed point’. In this respect, the lack of
> > inertia is the condition of possibility of any kind of
> CATASTROPHES :
> > no ‘permanent’ point means no wheel...
> >
> > b/ however, in his firts books he seems to argue something else:
> speed
> > leads to a lethal inertia. In ‘L’espace critique’ (1984) :
> ‘l’inertie
> > tend a renouveler l’ancienne sedentarité’ = ‘l’arrivée supplante
> le
> > départ: tout ‘arrive’ sans qu’il soit nécessaire de partir” =
> > telescopage = suppression of space = ‘desertification’ = ‘moment
> > d’inertie de l’environnement' ... and so on; the conclusion of
> all
> > that is in the last chapter of “L’inertie polaire” (1990): ‘la
> perte
> > de l’exo-centration territoriale developpe et accroit
> l’ego-centration
> > comportementale de l’homme’.
> > An image to sum up this techno-ego-centration, that allows a
> ‘trajet
> > sans trajet’ (a trip without any real trip), that allows to see
> > without moving:
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7472559.stm
> > In this case, (polar) inertia IS THE DISASTER !
> >
> > So i want to question the artists: what do you do with inertia ?
> Have
> > the artists to create a new kind of inertia, or not?
> >
> > L’inertie est-elle ce qui doit être évitée par excellence, une
> maudite
> > immobilité, ou tout au contraire ce qui doit être formé, imaginé,
> > construit dans la forme même de l’art?
> >
> > Ou autrement dit encore: la ‘disturbance’ dont parle Ricardo
> Dominguez
> > doit-elle importer du flux - de la mobilité - ou de l’inertie?...
> >
> > In a friendly way,
> >
> > Frederic
> >
> >
> > Selon rrdominguez at ucsd.edu:
> >
> >> Hola toda/os,
> >>
> >> It is a pleasure to be a part of the list this turn of time. I
> was
> >> asked
> >> to diagram some thoughts on Virilio’s influence on the work that
> >> we/I
> >> as the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) have done in
> developing
> >> the practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience (we are now
> >> celebrating
> >> 10 years of electronic disturbances).
> >>
> >> I thought I would post the statement that introduced my
> >> presentation
> >> at the gathering in S.F. and then a statement made during phone
> >> interview in 1999 on EDT’s framing of Demos and Dromos in
> relation
> >> to the Agora-on-line.
> >>
> >> I look forward to your gestures and responses.
> >>
> >> Yours in speed,
> >> Ricardo
> >>
> >>
> >> >>>S.F. Statement:
> >>
> >> Hacktivism and Critical Dromology
> >> (Ricardo Dominguez)
> >>
> >> Paul Virilio's deep vision of the 'politics of speed’ and THE
> >> 'aesthetics
> >> of disappearance' is full of anxieties about the nature of
> >> post-contemporary art's relationship to the "body" and the
> >> "virtual". His
> >> fear of dromology-as-art has created a blind spot, an inability
> to
> >> see the
> >> potential of current art practices over the course of the last
> ten
> >> years.
> >> Hacktivism and Digital Zapatismo have been about creating
> >> visibility for
> >> mute body/bodies around the planet. The work of the Electronic
> >> Disturbance
> >> Theater [EDT] has created possibilities for constituting
> presence
> >> in
> >> digital space that is both collective and politicized -
> performance
> >> art as
> >> critical dromology. By extracting the core ideas from the canon
> of
> >> Virilian thought and mixing them with new modalities in art and
> >> performance, a new paradigm emerges- a radical dromology for our
> >> time.
> >>
> >> >>>Phone Interview
> >>
> >> Performance Art in a Digital Age: A Live Phone Conversation with
> >> Ricardo
> >> Dominguez
> >>
> >> Took place on Thursday 25 November 1999, Institute of
> International
> >> Visual
> >> Arts, London.
> >> By Coco Fusco
> >>
> >> I was in NYC and Coco Fusco was in London with an audience:
> >>
> >> CF: When you theorize EDT's practice you often mention
> connections
> >> with
> >> Ancient Greek concepts of the Agora and Demos. How do you
> envision
> >> virtual performance as a kind of metaphorical speech in light of
> >> this
> >> genealogy?
> >>
> >>
> >> RD: The idea of a virtual republic in Western Civilization can
> be
> >> traced
> >> back to Plato, and is connected to the functions of public
> space.
> >> The
> >> Republic incorporated the central concept of the Agora. The
> Agora
> >> was the area for those who were entitled to engage in rational
> >> discourse of Logos, and to articulate social policy as the Law
> >> (Nomos),
> >> and thus contribute to the evolution of Athenian democracy. Of
> >> course
> >> those who did speak were, for the most part, male, slave-owning
> and
> >> ship owning merchants, those that represented the base of
> Athenian
> >> power. We can call them Dromos: those that belong the societies
> of
> >> speed. Speed and the Virtual Republic are the primary nodes of
> >> Athenian
> >> democracy – not much different than today. The Agora was
> constantly
> >> being disturbed by Demos, what we would call those who
> demonstrate
> >> or who move into the Agora and make gestures. Later on, with the
> >> rise
> >> of Catholicism – Demos would be transposed into Demons, those
> >> representatives of the lower depths. Demos did not necessarily
> use
> >> the rational speech of the Agora, they did not have access to
> it;
> >> instead, they used symbolic speech or a somatic poesis - towards
> >> defining Nomos. The Demos gesture towards Nomos, with a language
> >> of gaps that points to invisibility, that points to the lacks in
> >> the Agora.
> >> The Agora is thus disturbed; the rational processes of its codes
> >> are
> >> disrupted, the power of speed was blocked. EDT alludes to this
> >> history
> >> of Demos as it intervenes with Nomos. The Zapatista FloodNet
> >> injects
> >> bodies as  Nomos into digital space, a critical mass of gestures
> as
> >> blockage.
> >> What we also add to the equation is the power of speed is now
> >> leveraged
> >> by Demos via the networks. Thus Demos_qua_Dromos create the
> space
> >> for a new type of social drama to take place. Remember in
> Ancient
> >> Greece, those who were in power and who had slaves and commerce,
> >> were the ones who had the fastest ships. EDT utilizes these
> >> elements
> >> to create drama and movement by empowering contemporary groups
> >> of Demos with the speed of Dromos – without asking societies of
> >> command and control for the right to do so. We enter the Agora
> >> with the metaphorical gestures towards Nomos and squat on
> >> high-speed
> >> lanes of the new Virtual Republic – this creates a digital
> platform
> >> or
> >> situation for a techno-political drama that reflects the real
> >> condition
> >> of the world beyond code. This disturbs the Virtual Republic
> that
> >> is accustomed to the properties  of Logos, the ownership of
> >> property,
> >> copyright, and all the different strategies in which they are
> >> attempting
> >> enclosure of the Internet.
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Ricardo Dominguez
> >> Assistant Professor
> >> Hellman Fellow
> >>
> >> Visual Arts Department, UCSD
> >> http://visarts.ucsd.edu/
> >> Principal Investigator, CALIT2
> >> http://calit2.net
> >> Co-Chair gallery at calit2
> >> http://gallery.calit2.net
> >> CRCA Researcher
> >> http://crca.ucsd.edu/
> >> Ethnic Studies Affiliate
> >> http://www.ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/
> >>
> >> Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics,
> >> Board Member
> >> http://hemi.nyu.edu
> >>
> >> University of California, San Diego,
> >> 9500 Gilman Drive Drive,
> >> La Jolla, CA 92093-0436
> >> Phone: (619) 322-7571
> >> e-mail: rrdominguez at ucsd.edu
> >>
> >> Project sites:
> >> site: http://gallery.calit2.net
> >> site: http://pitmm.net
> >> site: http://bang.calit2.net
> >> site: http://www.thing.net/~rdom
> >> blog:http://post.thing.net/blog/rdom
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> empyre forum
> >> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
>
>
> --
> Ricardo Dominguez
> Assistant Professor
> Hellman Fellow
>
> Visual Arts Department, UCSD
> http://visarts.ucsd.edu/
> Principal Investigator, CALIT2
> http://calit2.net
> Co-Chair gallery at calit2
> http://gallery.calit2.net
> CRCA Researcher
> http://crca.ucsd.edu/
> Ethnic Studies Affiliate
> http://www.ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/
>
> Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics,
> Board Member
> http://hemi.nyu.edu
>
> University of California, San Diego,
> 9500 Gilman Drive Drive,
> La Jolla, CA 92093-0436
> Phone: (619) 322-7571
> e-mail: rrdominguez at ucsd.edu
>
> Project sites:
> site: http://gallery.calit2.net
> site: http://pitmm.net
> site: http://bang.calit2.net
> site: http://www.thing.net/~rdom
> blog:http://post.thing.net/blog/rdom
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>