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

[Simon Biggs]

Hi James

I guess you are referring to Durkheim's concept of collective conscience. If
so then I don't have any real problem with this and would consider it as a
reasonable part of considering how people become socially. I am aware of it
as a general concept but I am no expert on Durkheim and thus can't comment
on the nuances of his arguments.

I think I probably do regard the autopoietic as something of a principle
(not a force). I agree it is descriptive, but it is descriptive of processes
and interactions. It is not agency but it is a way of conceptualising it. I
don't want to get into a discussion of how we represent things (the
autopoietic and that it describes) as that leads us into a semantic trap
where we are no longer considering our original focus on creativity as
social ontology.

Discussing the will opens a can of worms. I try to avoid such a term, even
if that exclusion isn't rigorous.

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: James Leach <james.leach at abdn.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:01:41 +0100
> 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?
> 
> 
> 
> On 15 Jul 2010, at 10:47, Simon Biggs wrote:
> 
>> As I suggested in my earlier post today, which Kriss picked up on, I am
>> looking at agency and creativity from an autopoietic point of view. I am not
>> seeking to situate agency in the individual but in the collective and,
>> specifically, in the in-between. This could be considered a "gathering",
>> although this suggests a sense of common purpose, individuals recognising
>> they can enhance their capacity to act, to bring themselves and the world
>> into being, through collective action. That isn't what I am trying to get
>> at. Of course, I am wearing my artists hat when I suggest this and am not
>> really equipped to defend what is possibly an indefensible position.
>> Nevertheless, I think it is an interesting line of thought.
> 
> 
> Yes, this is an interesting line, but the question would become what you could
> mean by agency, if it is an emergent property of interactions, and thus
> located outside individual actors, other than a kind of 'social force' - one
> that is not within any one person's control, authorship, and therefore, not
> really easily covered by 'agency' as it is commonly understood.
> I think you might be veering towards some notion of the autopoietic as itself
> as kind of force, the momentum of which bestows form on those those things and
> persons (interactors in your terms I think) that partake of it?
> But is there a danger here of mixing a descriptive term with a thing that does
> something? What we call autopoeisis is not a force or thing at all, but a way
> of describing the way certain elements of relationships condition one another
> in an ongoing process that is not 'autopoeisis', but people living human
> lives. The 'danger' (well, the line it might take us down) of thinking of 'it'
> as 'something' is that we are not too far here from a much older notion of
> social emergence - Durkheimian notions of the superorganic, (society is sui
> generis, and arises from but then determines social interaction). Society for
> Durkheim certainly did have agency.
> 
> James
> 
> ___________________________________
> Professor James Leach
> Head of Department, Anthropology
> School of Social Science
> Edward Wright Building,
> University of Aberdeen,
> Aberdeen AB24 3QY
> UK
> 
> T:  + 44 (0)1224 274354
> E: james.leach at abdn.ac.uk
> W: www.jamesleach.net
> Skype/ichat: jamieleach2
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> 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: James Leach <james.leach at abdn.ac.uk>
>>> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 10:02:33 +0100
>>> 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?
>>> 
>>> But Simon, you also are keen to explore the emergent possibility, to
>>> actually
>>> look at what is made visible in emerging digital networked forms that is not
>>> visible in previous ways of working?
>>> 
>>> What is being gathered? what are the constraints on those gatherings? and
>>> what
>>> is created through them - ie, what changes because of them?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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