[-empyre-] Digital Objects. Week 3. PROCESS

[Anais Nony]

Dear group,

Thank you all for your incredibly rich contributions, you made this past
two weeks so fascinating as we try to unpack collectively the potential of
digital objects.



I would like to circulate the introduction for our third sub-theme, PROCESS
as well as to introduce our participants Dani Robinson, Alexander Wilson,
and Ben Roberts.

Please feel free to join us, the more the merrier!


Best wishes,


Anaïs Nony



On Process



*In analytic philosophy (as represented by Alfred North Whitehead), the
“event” represents an ontological being that is not a static object but a
process. Such a processual ontology is close to the essence of media
technologies itself (because only when in operation is a medium in its
medium state).* (Ernst 184-185)

This week, from the 19th to the 25th of October, we will discuss ongoing
processes of modulation and variation with respect to digital objects. In
the wake of computational technologies, our goal is to pinpoint the
specificity of digital processes.

Process generally refers to, but is not limited by, the operations
proceeding from phase to phase toward the concretion of an object, and
leading to the expansion of a universe composed of relational entities
taking place between and beyond digital objects’ relation to one another.

This week, we will analyze both aesthetic and philosophical productions in
which the becoming of a digital object is at the core of the research. Our
main interest is to address how digital processes shape our experience and
how artists have composed with the time-based quality of digital objects.
Accordingly, we will explore questions such as:

·       What is a digital process? How can it be defined and can it be
differentiated from a non-digital process?

·       What is the time specificity of a digital object?

·       What is a digital phase? And how can we experience it?

·       Does digital process offer a critical model to unpack our extremely
complex and increasingly virtual contemporary visual environment?

·       What are the theoretical tools we have with which we can analyze
digital processes?

Dani Robison <http://danrobisonart.com/> is an experimental stained glass
sculptor and digital object creator working in Oakland, California. Her
work deals with religion, sublimity, mental illness, alcoholism, and
isolation.


*Alexander Wilson* is an artist and theorist based in Montreal whose work
intersects media studies, cultural studies and philosophy. His dissertation
(2014) tackles the concept of aesthesis within an expanded scope beyond the
faculty of human judgment, through the lens of contemporary theories of
emergence, complexity, computation, meta-mathematics, systems theory and
cybernetics, chaos theory, contemporary cosmology, evolutionary theory and
20th century philosophies of process. More recently, he has been
investigating the connection between aesthetics and ecological thinking
with regard to technology and media. His interdisciplinary art practice
deals with related concepts in various videos, sound and multimedia
installations. As co-founder of Parabolik Guerilla Theatre, he has also
directed several experimental multimedia works for the stage. He has held
an appointment as assistant professor in Intermedia/Cyber-Arts at Concordia
University in Montreal.


*Ben Roberts* is Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Bradford.
He has published widely on the work of Bernard Stiegler and recently edited
a special issue of New Formations dedicated to his work. He is currently
working on a book entitled Critical Theory and Contemporary Technology.


**
Anaïs Nony
Ph.D. Candidate in French Studies and Moving Image Studies

Institute for Advanced Study
University of Minnesota
290 Northrop
Minneapolis, MN 55455
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