[-empyre-] week two - MATTER

[sally jane norman]

hi all

intriguing examples - I enjoyed the Flann O'Brien bicycle, am wondering
whether Deleuzian "objectiles" might have a place in this discussion, and
also wonder how tuned non-francophones might be to Serres' example - the
"furet" being a ferret, a furtive animal par excellence cited in the
children's nursery rhyme and game which inspire this reference (probably
anticlerical, tangentially erotic, etc). Serres makes the "furet" analogous
to the rugby ball: the player with the ball is identifiable, to be reckoned
with, literally tackled, as opposed other members of the team who remain
anonymous by virtue of the fact they are not carrying the ball; they're
bereft of any useful, strategic identity. In short, and I think what Serres
is getting at and what might be useful here, is the fact that the furet,
like the "ballon oval", is above all a relational object.

best
sj



On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Phil Thompson <philjdthompson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hi all,
>
> I will again echo the thanks to Ashley and also to all the previous
> discussants who have made this conversation so interesting.
>
> Nicholas' metaphor as well as the conversation on Heidegger's concept of
> the transition from ready-to-hand to present-at-hand through rupture,
> brought to mind the networked existence of digital files. In his essay
> 'From Image to Image File—and Back: Art in the Age of
> Digitalization' (http://www.altx.com/remix/Groys.pdf), Groys writes about
> how we never experience the original data file, rather we only ever
> experience its representation through varying hardware and software, which
> in turn has multiple variations of settings. For this reason he states that
> all performances of data are original unique events. Therefore if these
> glitches or ruptures to data that allow us to perceive its thing-ness can
> only be experienced through their representations on the screen, through
> the speaker, or through other forms of hardware is it possible to talk
> about the materiality of data without having to account for the entire
> network?
>
> If not, then Nicholas' wonderful example from Flann O'Brien brings to mind
> Michel Serres' concept of quasi-objects as a way of accounting for digital
> files. Serres defines the quasi-object with reference to the game 'pass the
> furet',
>
> 'The quasi-object is not an object, but it is one nevertheless, since it
> is not a subject, since it is in the world; it is also a quasi-subject,
> since it marks or designates a subject who, without it, would not be a
> subject. He who is not discovered with the furet in his hand is anonymous,
> part of a monotonous chain where he remains indistinguished. He is not an
> individual; he is not recognized, discovered, cut; he is of the chain and
> in the chain.'
>
> This definition seems to echo the same revealing that happens when
> Heidegger's object becomes a thing. This could then potentially open up the
> debate as to whether a quasi-object has some form of agency within the
> network (quasi-agency?)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
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