[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 68, Issue 10 / is there a will to create / the social beyond the mechanisim?

Fri Jul 16 03:52:36 EST 2010

Hi Sean, Simon, but to reduce to some primordial state, seams hardly a
reflection of conscious behavior. It seams to lead to a human math, no good no
bad, no empathy, just unconscious reaction. We are still operating our lives in
the concrete world of language, (as this post supports, in it's verbosity) our
physical bodies, the power and pleasure of both , and concrete functions of
living our lives. 

The ontological is most useful to me as it weaves into the reality of human
experience and the experience of empathy and the sense of the self and the
other.. I Think that Simon is addressing this, talking about something
philosophical, but also very tangible, and consequential, I think that is
important.
Chris Sullivan.

Quoting Simon Biggs <s.biggs at eca.ac.uk>:

> Is "going ontological" similar to going nuclear?
> 
> Simon Biggs
> s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk
> Skype: simonbiggsuk
> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
> 
> Research Professor  edinburgh college of art
> http://www.eca.ac.uk/
> Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
> Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
> http://www.elmcip.net/
> Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts
> http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts
> 
> 
> > From: Sean Cubitt <scubitt at unimelb.edu.au>
> > Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> > Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:57:10 +1000
> > To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 68, Issue 10 / is there a will
> to
> > create / the social beyond the mechanisim?
> > 
> > Absolutely so Simon: and more power to you for having the bottle to go
> > ontological. The axiom can be -- should be -- further reduced: what is the
> > materiality of the formative agency which constitutes relationships and
> > forms things? (You already know which rabbit is in the hat, simon, but
> allow
> > me the ta-dah moment): it is is mediation.
> > 
> > Not communication: not every mediation communicates. Just that
> > everything/process mediates every other contiguous process. This is the
> > ontological nature of the human universe (to coin Charles Olson's usage): 
> a
> > person is a medium for other persons. But it is also the axiom of the
> entire
> > sensory and physical universe.
> > 
> > That places it however in the realm of the second law of thermodynamics: a
> > univers eof pure flux runs down entropically. "Communication" for want of
> > another term is the ordering of the flow of mediation. Any order is,
> > especially among our species but certainly also among dogs, the species I
> > know best of the rest, structural or in-formative. The questions are then
> > about the modes of order applied to the raw stuff of mediation.
> > 
> > The unit question is then a question about the mode of order applied in
> any
> > specific media formation. Grosso modo, we are in an era characterised by
> > unit enumeration (as opposed, for example, to the geometrical moment of
> the
> > renaissance), so the question poses itself as unitary: as digital, as
> > inflected by the exchange principle. On one hand this is why the
> temptation
> > exists to seek out the individual. The effort of thinking otherwise -
> > deleuze's 'dividual' for example - is troubling, but is necessary if we
> are
> > to understand a) how the 'dark matter' becomes the medium (!) of privation
> > and power  that is the specific existential quality of the ontological at
> > the given moment and b) how to operate on it in such a way as to form it
> > otherwise - which is where the creative operates
> > 
> > S
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On 15/07/10 6:33 PM, "Simon Biggs" <s.biggs at eca.ac.uk> wrote:
> > 
> >> I am using agency in a sense that some might find contentious as I am
> >> considering it as an ontological phenomena in a context where
> individuals,
> >> whether human or animal, alive or inert, physical or virtual, are not
> where
> >> agency is located. Rather, I am entertaining the idea that agency is of
> (or
> >> is) the relationships between things (whatever those things might be). In
> >> this respect I am proposing a folding of agency and creativity into one
> >> thing which might be considered somewhat like a dark matter which binds
> >> everything together. The units that are bound within this prima materia
> (for
> >> want of a better term) might then be considered rather like quantum
> >> phenomena - the closer you look the more you realise there is nothing
> there
> >> and that it is the phenomena around the unit that give it its apparent
> >> properties. The subsequent question, of course, is what is the unit (here
> I
> >> include people)? Clearly there is something there - but what?
> >> 
> >> Best
> >> 
> >> Simon
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Simon Biggs
> >> s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk
> >> Skype: simonbiggsuk
> >> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
> >> 
> >> Research Professor  edinburgh college of art
> >> http://www.eca.ac.uk/
> >> Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
> >> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
> >> Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
> >> http://www.elmcip.net/
> >> Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts
> >> http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts
> >> 
> >> 
> >>> From: Kriss Ravetto <k.ravetto at ed.ac.uk>
> >>> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >>> Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:43:44 +0100
> >>> To: <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> >>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 68, Issue 10 / is there a will
> to
> >>> create / the social beyond the mechanisim?
> >>> 
> >>> I am not so sure that experience
> >>> is agency ? but you probably mean something other than what the new
> >>> left means when you say this. Also we are not arguing for the "will"
> >>> as James points out, but something that is also autopoetic, no? The
> >>> difference between the term "thing"(process) as opposed to
> >>> "object"(dead forms) leads us to communication (process) community
> >>> (dead)? So the relation is affirmative, but the definition (the
> >>> limits) amount to its death (Deleuze and Guattari's understanding of
> >>> the state).
> >>> 
> >>> How is Ingold defining agency ? if I remember well he makes a case for
> >>> a human centered study, something that Latour has refuted with his
> >>> critique of sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) ? Ingold "reads
> >>> back to the mind of an agent," i.e, human.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland,
> number
> >> SC009201
> >> 
> >> 
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> empyre forum
> >> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> > 
> > Prof Sean Cubitt
> > scubitt at unimelb.edu.au
> > Director
> > Media and Communications Program
> > Faculty of Arts
> > Room 127 John Medley East
> > The University of Melbourne
> > Parkville VIC 3010
> > Australia
> > 
> > Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667
> > Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494
> > M: 0448 304 004
> > Skype: seancubitt
> > http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/
> > http://www.digital-light.net.au/
> > http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/
> > http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/
> > http://del.icio.us/seancubitt
> > 
> > Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series
> > http://leonardo.info
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 
> 
> 
> Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number
> SC009201
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 

Christopher Sullivan
Dept. of Film/Video/New Media
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 so michigan
Chicago Ill 60603
csulli at saic.edu
312-345-3802