[-empyre-] Meillassoux / Harman

[Ian Bogost]

Just in case anyone else is looking, I found the archives:

http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/

On Jun 14, 2012, at 4:13 PM, Jacob Gaboury wrote:

> No worries, it's an important discussion and I'd imagine Michael and
> others will want to contribute later tonight. I'll forward you some of
> the earlier threads so you can check them out.
> 
> - Jacob
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Ian Bogost <ian.bogost at lcc.gatech.edu> wrote:
>> Jacob,
>> 
>> Thanks for this clarification. I apologize if I was thread-hijacking.
>> 
>> Not sure if you're aware, but the empyre list website is very slow to
>> respond, and I can't find any archives thereon, so it's hard to go back and
>> see the conversation that's already taken place...
>> 
>> Ian
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Jun 14, 2012, at 4:02 PM, Jacob Gaboury wrote:
>> 
>> Hello Ian. Thanks for joining the discussion, and for your
>> contributions. The goal of this week's conversation is a larger look
>> at computation and the nonhuman, and the broader theme of this month
>> is queer new media. SR/OOO is clearly important to any discussion of
>> the nonhuman, and I think one of the goals was to think through what
>> queer theory has to say to that field specifically, both in supporting
>> and critiquing it. This may explain the focus participants have made
>> on what is missing, rather than what is there.
>> 
>> That said there are other ways of discussing these issues, such as
>> Micha and Jack's conversation on the Queerreal and the Transreal, or
>> our earlier discussion of uncomputability and the failure of technical
>> objects. I think it's useful to continue this conversation but my hope
>> is that it doesn't stop other people from chiming in about the other
>> topics and questions we have covered this week, or even to hear what
>> you have to say about these other approaches.
>> 
>> It seems like part of the debate here is the notion that queer theory
>> and the tradition of continental philosophy focus a great deal on
>> issues of identity as they relate to the human. Part of our earlier
>> discussion was an attempt to theorize those nonhuman objects and
>> practices that we might productively understand as queer. That is, to
>> decouple the human, identity, and human-embodied experience from the
>> field of queer theory and apply it to the nonhuman and the
>> computational. Not as a way of "queering" these things but as a way of
>> understanding them as already queer to begin with. My impulse is to
>> look to uncomputable processes and super-Turing machines, Jack looked
>> to specific types of nonhuman objects such as animation or "stuffed"
>> objects in what I read as a continuing application of a kind of "low
>> theory".
>> 
>> I don't know if this gets us outside this debate over the different
>> canonical/historical approaches of these two disciplines, but I think
>> it's a useful way of bringing them into conversation. I'd love to hear
>> more from all of you on this approach.
>> 
>> - Jacob
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Ian Bogost <ian.bogost at lcc.gatech.edu>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Look, I'm new here, but is this really the level of conversation this list
>> 
>> strives to support?
>> 
>> 
>> If this is just a place where like-minded folk pat each other on the back,
>> 
>> please let me know so I can unsubscribe.
>> 
>> 
>> Ian
>> 
>> 
>> On Jun 14, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Rob Myers wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 06/14/2012 07:02 PM, Ian Bogost wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> As for queer and feminist formulations, I agree with the spirit of what
>> 
>> 
>> you say, but I'll reiterate my observation that SR/OOO is moving in a
>> 
>> 
>> slightly different direction—one that concerns toasters and quasars as
>> 
>> 
>> much as human subjects (note the "as much as" here). Why not take this
>> 
>> 
>> work for what it is, at least for starters, rather than for what it
>> 
>> 
>> isn't?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The "as much as" is precisely the problem.
>> 
>> 
>> Galloway's critique of OOO that Zach mentioned explains why:
>> 
>> 
>> http://itself.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/a-response-to-graham-harmans-marginalia-on-radical-thinking/
>> 
>> 
>> But I wouldn't lump Meillassoux in with Harman. I think Meillassoux's
>> 
>> philosophy can indeed be interesting for this debate because of its
>> 
>> embracing of contingency and possibility.
>> 
>> 
>> - Rob.
>> 
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