[-empyre-] First Postings

[Adam Nocek]

Thanks, Adam, for these helpful reflections.

I'd like to try to tie together some threads in order to encourage some
discussion. It seems to me that Rob's concern over death and affirmation--
or at least as he's expressed it so far-- can be related to Adam Z's
experiences with biomedia and their politics ."Life is uncontained, oozing
revelry and consuming lewdness… this is a question of affirmation. Can we
be all accepting"? This question strikes me as absolutely critical  since
using biomedia is, as both Adam and Rob suggest, messy and uncontained --
it is slimy, oozing, rotting. What are the intersections among death,
affirmation, messy bioart and politics? Incidentally, I couldn't help but
think of Nick Land's critique of philosophies of life (for those of you
familiar), and whether there are certain bioart practices that invoke
thanatropic/accelerationist principles instead of vitalist ones. And what
new intersections between dark media and life would be generated?

In an earlier post, I invoked Whitehead's remark that "life is robbery" in
order to suggest, as Whitehead himself does, that there is not a
straightforward opposition between life and organismic death. My sense is
that bioart is, or at any rate, could be an absolutely critical site for
complicating the life/death relation in the (affirmative) biopolitical
landscape. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Adam


On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 5:37 AM, Adam Zaretsky <emu at emutagen.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Thanks Adam N. for having a mind meld on these topics. Good crew! Off the
> top, Bioart is living-materials-first in my addled brain. No offense to the
> object oriented animism of listmania but tinkers and tailors of life feel
> the experience differently than illustrators. The use of biomedia for
> aesthetic projection is the ethico-political stake we wield. The blood on
> the hands is part of the sacrificial rite, neh? That being sort of put out
> there bare, I am more interested in the debate being started in terms of
> the
> potentials for positive declension in the moulding of populations.
>
> I have to say that optimism in biopolitics, even in terms of
> techno-breeding
> for novel feelings, is not a total ruse. A trajectory from Charles Fourier,
> to Willhelm Reich, to Buckmister Fuller, not to mention the Bronx cheer of
> Charles Fort, trace the potential for a river of amorous flows. But can we
> really limit the emphasis on the work of the negative in Foulcault to that
> of a gore hound, netcasting for yet another Gilles de Rais? We have to
> remember that philosophy is caught up in the industrial confessionary. We
> may be parrahesiac cheerleaders, spreading liturgy for liturgy¹s sake, but
> the toying with fascism is just an armchair away from the radiation's leak.
> Mayr's migrating populations shower us with difference, but population
> genetics is being marketed as a post race identity politics for those in
> need of a new origin story from which to promulgate neo-superiorities (see
> http://www.ancestry.com/). In terms of affirming affirmation, to distort
> et
> echo Cary, I can only find it through that deep ecospheric indiscriminacy
> that Rob mentioned.
>
> Is the work of the positive to posit a function of the organism,
> orgasmically in optimismÉ in every direction? I hope so. Life is
> uncontained, oozing revelry and consuming lewdness. A snail-like acting is
> wet and slap-happy and on itÕs way. This is the question of affirmation.
> Can
> we be all accepting. This is a more systemic question, which should be
> looked at a variety of magnifications: The Panspermic Cosmos, The 'Gaia at
> Werk' Planetary Organism, Populations/Variations/Migrations/Meshing, The
> Crust Operas of Vitality (Spartan/Hedonism of Being inCorporate), The
> Organs
> without a Body (BatailleÕs Big Toe), The Selfish life of Cells, Subcellular
> Congeniality (hanging out on the sofas of the Endoplasmic Reticulum,
> alternative conformating).
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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>
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