[-empyre-] Liquid Blackness, Matter & Flesh

Mon Apr 11 21:20:57 AEST 2016

Dear all,

Apologies for the late response to Simon. I understood that this thread had closed, so I didn’t check back. I’ll do my best with what are some extremely provocative, but rather large, questions.

First, I hope I’m not “speaking on behalf” of anyone. I try hard not to do that, which I feel is important. The context through which I am exploring these ideas is principally American (and, to a certain extent, European) due to the highly polarized racial environments resulting from chattel slavery. Since race is nothing but complicated, as Alessandra points out, racialization and its consequences will vary geographically and historically. Race is a highly contingent process. Race is exceedingly diverse and is variously tied to colonialism, property, labor, fungibility, religion, slavery, sexuality, and dozens of other variables. My context is that of American white supremacy, which too many scholars to list have concretely yoked to issues of “color” and racializing scopic regimes. My context is that of an ideology that sees Native Americans as mascots and unarmed black people as threats. So, yes, representational. Yes, a paradigm. But not only representational and not only a paradigm, as you hint. 

Allow me an example. One of the most notorious manifestations of America’s representational tendencies in regard to race is the “one-drop” rule whereby any "black blood” synecdochically stands in for the person. Although blood is merely blood, in the US, it comes to troublingly represent a dizzying complex of other racial notions, just as color does. Again, representation, but not only that. And, wouldn’t it be nice to destabilize these sorts of representational processes? I cannot tell you whether race is “essential” or not. Wiser folks than I have been troubling this question for many years. WJT Mitchell recently argued at length that race (not racism) is in fact essential to our understanding of human difference. I don’t know. Race is often essentialist, of course. We can try to imagine the end of race. (I do not mean so-called color-blindness here.) What does that look like? How would it happen?

As for sound, I am thinking of the work of people like Lindon Barrett, Paul Gilroy, Julian Henriques, and Fred Moten. Moten, for his part, argues that sound works counter to ocularcentrism’s repressive tendencies. Or take Josh Kun, who, following Chela Sandoval, foregrounds the importance of popular music’s “differential consciousness,” which Kun says is “an oppositional consciousness of self, citizenship, and nation that actively refutes and reorders oppressive hierarchies of power and control.” Certainly representation is still operative in a “differential consciousness” such as Kun describes, but I am thinking about how music and sound break up the kinds of sensory complexes that stand in for (represent) people as raced. Clearly, sound also works to represent racializing processes—Mark Smith discusses the idea of hearing “black” voices—but I think, more often than not, the sonic moves away from the alleged facticity of seeing race and allows for “consensus” (and Kant?) to be called into question. Again, this is because the visuality through which race is so commonly understood is largely absent in sonic processes.

I’m not sure if any of this helps, but I appreciate your incisive questions. You’ve given me much to think about. 

Oh, and I am using “valences” to mean elements that combine in various ways. It seems to me to indicate the complexities and contingencies of the processes about which we are speaking. (Maybe not, though!)

Cheers,
CPL

> On Apr 9, 2016, at 6:23 PM, simon <swht at clear.net.nz> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------Dear <<empyreans>>,
> 
> some questions to Charles follow, that may or may not require a wider 
> audition, although Johannes's
> 
>> where 'representation' falters a little, at least.
>> 
>> affects?  attaching meanings and metaphors nevertheless seems unavoidable for the toucher.
> leads me to think these thoughts, however ragged, are yet worth adding 
> to the texture of the fabric of the discussion. And on the "affective 
> sensorium" Alessandra recalls from Derek's introduction, a note that 
> Michel Serres/'s The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies (I)/ 
> (1985 & 2008 English) when not harping on the supremacy of the exact 
> sciences, provides a term, /coenaesthesia/, for the mingling sensoria to 
> set them free from their allocated roles, and from being affectively 
> enclosed under the bell-jar of a singular sensorium, about which he writes:
> 
>    Here is the tomb of empiricism, clad in engraved marble. The body,
>    the statue, our knowledges or memories, libraries or cenotaphs: all
>    imprison the phantom by denying its existence.
> 
> On coenaesthesia in a mouthful of wine:
> 
>    I taste; existence for my mouth. I feel; and a piece of me thus
>    comes to exist. There was a blank void in the place which was just
>    born of the sensible. ... The edges of my tongue had no existence of
>    their own until they emerged from underneath a coating of Chateau
>    Margaux; the broad sides of the body itself remain blank; empty
>    coenaesthesia suffers or enjoys this multiple birthing, ongoing
>    creation. A new tongue grows. Then touch, a real hand with five real
>    fingers, my very own palm ...this improbable skin envelopes me at
>    the zones that see, hear, shiver and fold inwards, to great depths.
> 
> A final line from Serres:
> 
>    Darkness is concerned with optic space and retains Euclidean volume;
>    shadow, like clarity, preserves the order of common geometry; fog
>    occupies a variety of topologies and is concerned with the
>    continuous or ragged space of touch. ... Shadow leaves everything
>    invariable and mist makes everything variable - continuously,
>    whether broken or unbroken.
> 
> 
> To Charles:
> 
> on whose behalf are you speaking when you write that "blackness and race 
> are still largely *understood* representationally"?
> 
> I would also like to question the "essential labor" of "[d]estabilizing 
> the representational paradigm of race". Is race essentially a 
> representational paradigm? Is race essential? Or, does race, not to 
> speak of blackness [!], have to be considered essential in order that 
> this "essential labor" be undertaken?
> 
> Sound, because it is "largely *understood*" to be "less beholden" (what 
> a strange way of putting it) to representation ("than images"), is 
> surely then more likely to be largely left unanalyzed in its 
> representational role.
> 
> And, in that role, or according to "representational and metaphorical 
> valences of Blackness and race" what would it do? what role would it be 
> playing if it could be uncovered that sound was in fact playing a role?
> 
> What else is this 'representation' than an understanding? If it be 
> largely understood this way, it is playing the role of a consensus, no? 
> A very Kantian tribunal is at work here.
> 
> I would suggest that such valences--and I have to admit, I don't quite 
> understand this word--as are representational and metaphorical largely 
> carry on because of an inadequate (perhaps because it is at large) 
> understanding of the work they do, and how they labour, all too 
> productively, at it.
> 
> Best,
> Simon Taylor
> 
> http://squarewhiteworld.com/
> 
> On 09/04/16 07:20, Linscott, Charles wrote:
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Dear Jenny,
>> 
>>  Regarding the representational and metaphorical valences of 
>> Blackness and race more generally:
>> 
>> 
>>  Yes, these are absolutely problematic and far too facile. 
>> Nevertheless, blackness and race are still largely *understood* 
>> representationally, which is why the work of liquid blackness (as a 
>> group), along with the efforts of its progenitors and influences, is 
>> so vital. Destabilizing the representational paradigm of race is a 
>> difficult but essential labor. For me, sound helps to perform this 
>> labor because it is less obviously beholden to representation than 
>> images. Of course, strictly opposing sound and image is problematic in 
>> itself, but I do feel that thinking about Blackness and sound is 
>> fecund and provocative. What kind of work does Blackness do in sound, 
>> music, and voice? What (or where) is the “Blackness” in a “Black” 
>> voice or “Black” music? What happens to “Blackness” without the 
>> representational ease provided by an allegedly legible “Black” body?
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks to everyone—but particularly Derek, Alessandra, Jenny, and 
>> Murat (superb questions!)—for the opportunity to be a part of this 
>> extraordinary conversation. I look forward to the coming weeks.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Chip
> Dear <<empyreans>>,
> 
> some questions to Charles follow, that may or may not require a wider audition, although Johannes's
> 
>> where 'representation' falters a little, at least. 
>> 
>> affects?  attaching meanings and metaphors nevertheless seems unavoidable for the toucher.
>> 
> leads me to think these thoughts, however ragged, are yet worth adding to the texture of the fabric of the discussion. And on the "affective sensorium" Alessandra recalls from Derek's introduction, a note that Michel Serres's The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies (I) (1985 & 2008 English) when not harping on the supremacy of the exact sciences, provides a term, coenaesthesia,  for the mingling sensoria to set them free from their allocated roles, and from being affectively enclosed under the bell-jar of a singular sensorium, about which he writes: 
> 
> Here is the tomb of empiricism, clad in engraved marble. The body, the statue, our knowledges or memories, libraries or cenotaphs: all imprison the phantom by denying its existence.
> On coenaesthesia in a mouthful of wine:
> 
> I taste; existence for my mouth. I feel; and a piece of me thus comes to exist. There was a blank void in the place which was just born of the sensible. ... The edges of my tongue had no existence of their own until they emerged from underneath a coating of Chateau Margaux; the broad sides of the body itself remain blank; empty coenaesthesia suffers or enjoys this multiple birthing, ongoing creation. A new tongue grows. Then touch, a real hand with five real fingers, my very own palm ...this improbable skin envelopes me at the zones that see, hear, shiver and fold inwards, to great depths.
> A final line from Serres:
> 
> Darkness is concerned with optic space and retains Euclidean volume; shadow, like clarity, preserves the order of common geometry; fog occupies a variety of topologies and is concerned with the continuous or ragged space of touch. ... Shadow leaves everything invariable and mist makes everything variable - continuously, whether broken or unbroken.
> 
> To Charles:
> 
> on whose behalf are you speaking when you write that "blackness and race are still largely *understood* representationally"? 
> 
> I would also like to question the "essential labor" of "[d]estabilizing the representational paradigm of race". Is race essentially a representational paradigm? Is race essential? Or, does race, not to speak of blackness [!], have to be considered essential in order that this "essential labor" be undertaken? 
> 
> Sound, because it is "largely *understood*" to be "less beholden" (what a strange way of putting it) to representation ("than images"), is surely then more likely to be largely left unanalyzed in its representational role. 
> 
> And, in that role, or according to "representational and metaphorical valences of Blackness and race" what would it do? what role would it be playing if it could be uncovered that sound was in fact playing a role? 
> 
> What else is this 'representation' than an understanding? If it be largely understood this way, it is playing the role of a consensus, no? A very Kantian tribunal is at work here. 
> 
> I would suggest that such valences--and I have to admit, I don't quite understand this word--as are representational and metaphorical largely carry on because of an inadequate (perhaps because it is at large) understanding of the work they do, and how they labour, all too productively, at it. 
> 
> Best, 
> Simon Taylor
> 
> http://squarewhiteworld.com/
> 
> On 09/04/16 07:20, Linscott, Charles wrote: 
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- 
>> Dear Jenny, 
>> 
>>   Regarding the representational and metaphorical valences of Blackness and race more generally: 
>> 
>> 
>>   Yes, these are absolutely problematic and far too facile. Nevertheless, blackness and race are still largely *understood* representationally, which is why the work of liquid blackness (as a group), along with the efforts of its progenitors and influences, is so vital. Destabilizing the representational paradigm of race is a difficult but essential labor. For me, sound helps to perform this labor because it is less obviously beholden to representation than images. Of course, strictly opposing sound and image is problematic in itself, but I do feel that thinking about Blackness and sound is fecund and provocative. What kind of work does Blackness do in sound, music, and voice? What (or where) is the “Blackness” in a “Black” voice or “Black” music? What happens to “Blackness” without the representational ease provided by an allegedly legible “Black” body? 
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks to everyone—but particularly Derek, Alessandra, Jenny, and Murat (superb questions!)—for the opportunity to be a part of this extraordinary conversation. I look forward to the coming weeks. 
>> 
>> Cheers, 
>> 
>> Chip 
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