[-empyre-] "(E)MOTION FREQUENCY deceleration: time/space prospection, vacant lots

Sat Oct 29 19:45:42 EST 2011

I find Branden's post fascinating, and to pick out one point:
'Put simply, this predation consists only of renaturing entities so that
they are rendered compatible to networks of various kinds, so transforming
them into constituents of systems. This network imperative is predatory to
the extent that it can only ever seek its own expansion . ..'
The idea of a 'network imperative' can be linked with
acceleration/deceleration, in that networks are to some extent defined by a
shared rhythm/pace. As Branden also suggests,
'One might argue that deceleration is increasingly a privilege (and perhaps
at the same time even an imperative) reserved for those at the top of the
economic, political, and cultural food chain (e.g., executive retreats at
Eselen), who require some level of mastery over techniques of deceleration
in order to maintain the capacity to invent and distribute the
techno-cultural accelerations that more and more define both the labor and
consumption of the majority. '
in this sense, voluntary deceleration is a privilege, but there is also an
involuntary deceleration that takes place when people are economically
ejected from the accelerated networks of labor and consumption, as is
increasingly happening at the moment. And perhaps it is here that the real
resistive force will emerge because while deceleration as privilege is
compatible with predatory network imperatives - indeed in some sense it may
be said to fuel them, as the elites 'recharge their batteries' in order to
be more efficient motors of the networks - forced deceleration on the other
hand is inimical to the expansion of the system, and brings it into question
in a more challenging way - at immense cost for those concerned.
Dee

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 2:44 PM, Johannes Birringer <
Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> It's very stimulating to read Branden's post from last night, it puts many
> of our discussions into an even sharper focus, regarding late
> capital/globalization, its dynamics,
> its "network imperative [being] predatory to the extent that it can only
> ever seek its own expansion; in the book I figured this as a "pandemonic
> eye" constantly scanning its environment for that which it can incorporate
> into itself.."
> and its intertwinings with issues of design, urban
> architecture/gentrification and counter-gentrification (the dross, and
> deliberate decay, letting die?)...
>
> here i do not know where to start, as you mention this fruitful period of
> time when you worked in Houston, about a decade or so after I arrived there,
> marveling at a "post-urban city"  (via Lerup: a kind of "of non-linear
> weather system defined by the interaction of attractions (stim) and
> wasteland sprawl (dross)" that excited me because it was disorienting in a
> positive sense and yet immensely subtropically attractive and sensually
> demanding,  but obviously not for political reasons;
>
> and the temporal processes of gentrification and displacement addressed
> mournfully by Sérgio -- these I have experienced in every warehouse or funk,
> mixed arts/underground, queer neighborhood where I have lived or worked (in
> the US) since 1980, and Sérgio there is of course nothing unusual about them
> (except the futile arts protests and the perplexing – as you rightly say –
> self blindfolding of the (migrated) inhabitants. Or is this so?
>
> Sérgio writes
> >>
>  Certainly, it should not be understood as futility -- as you read it, not
> without reason -- but as a way of re-signifying spaces. We had a place which
> was empty and would be demolished in a matter of
> days -- in fact it is already being demolished. I must say, in my defense,
> that I was the first to point, in the debates, these questions regarding
> people that had to leave their places, the predatory nature of
> late-capitalism, the traces of those people`s lives let in there. In fact,
> I've even asked people not to change anything before we had a clear concept
> of how to ocupy such spaces in a meaningfull way.
>
> Because of this, the previous owner of the place, himself a historian,
> lectured to all the group about all the meanings and memories involved with
> the place, built by his grandfather, a portuguese imigrant, with his own
> hands.
>
> To make things a little more complex, those small houses built by this
> immigrant 70 years ago, in his weekends, were previously rent by low-middle
> class workers families, and this neighbourhood, Vila Madalena, which was
> characterized 10 years ago by a mix of artists, intelectuals and low-middle
> class families, will be reduced to a high-middle class neighbourhood, while
> the previous people will have to move to far away suburbs, This was very
> disturbing to me since the
> begining.
>
> It seems, however, that people just accept it as natural, and maybe this is
> the most serious question. In this context, I placed in a wall a poem which
> radically discussed this matter of commodities, of everrything, including
> people, seeming to have a price. Unfortunatally, the way words were used in
> Portuguese is not possible to translate -- the word "venda" being at the
> same time "selling" and "blindfolding the eyes".
>
> >>
>
>
> I wonder about the blindfolding. Who is blindfolding whom, and in terms of
> the current "OCCUPY" movements (Madrid, London, New York, and many other
> locations), can we make sense of the struggle for protesting global
> financial injustice in  terms of the rights the occupiers claim on
> protesting public space in the first place (i.e. "public" space and not
> privately own or controlled and prospected space)?
>
> Could you re-enter the discussion, Sonja, and comment on Branden or extend
> your observation:
>
> >>
> skin of our cities still remains inflexible, and the choreographies of
> public spaces are shockingly limited and overly neurotic.  Unable to deal
> with the ambiguities of these choreographies, the majorities world–wide look
> for re-recreation in escapism and consumerism..>> (Sonja)?
>
>
> As to celeration and "acting techniques"  – and Branden's exquisite comment
> on "relative deceleration" and his analogy  "vertigo to orientation"  – I
> will anticipate Branden's writings on the cockpit interface, being reminded
> that on any given day, I might teach a workshop on butoh, scenography, or
> "aural immersion," and then walk to the cafe on my campus and meet a
> colleague from Design/Engineering who may have just taught the same class,
> but differently, namely on "human factors" and design enhancements,  late
> capitalist ergonomics.
>
> As to rushing on our streets with your nerves wide open, pushing yourself
> hard,   I stumbled across a new publication in latest issue of "Leonardo,"
>  and just mention it here:
>
> Joe Marshall, with Alan Chamberlain & Steve Benford, "'I seek the Nerves
> under Your Skin': A 'Fast' Interactive Artwork,"  Leonardo 44:5 (2011), pp.
> 401-404.
>
> (Abstract):  I Seek the Nerves under Your Skin is a wearable audio artwork
> that is experienced by people running while wearing a special jacket and
> headphones. This artwork encourages people to run increasingly fast, pushing
> themselves physically and mentally, which mirrors the intense, crescendoing
> performance of a poet heard on the headphones. This article discusses the
> challenges of designing and deploying an artwork that is experienced at high
> speeds.
>
> http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/leonardo/summary/v044/44.5.marshall.html
>
> best
> Johannes Birringer
>
>  - - -
>
> To subscribe via  the World Wide Web, visit
>       http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/empyre
>
> Send your own posting to:
>       empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>

-- 

Dee Reynolds

Dee.Reynolds at manchester.ac.uk
http://www.watchingdance.org/
http://watchingdance.ning.com/

School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures
University of Manchester
M13 9PL
UK
tel: +44(0)161 275 3212
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20111029/b92f3080/attachment.htm>