Thank you Heather,
Your question "how do we think of the human reaching beyond the human?" is of
great importance to me.
I want to quote Elizabeth Grosz here , who is a big influence for me and my
project .
"What is distinctively human in the humanities if man is again, in the light of
Darwin's rearrangement of the universe, placed in the context of animals and
animal-becomings?
What would the humanities, a knowledge of the posthuman, be like far in the
future, after mankind has evolved beyond man? "
"What kind of new understanding of the humanities would it take to adequately
map this decentering that places man back within the animal, within nature, and
within a space and time that man does not regulate, understand, or control?
What new kinds of science does this entail? And what new kinds of art? "
( Grosz, Becoming Undone, p12)
Grosz emphasizes Darwin's contribution in decentering of the human by placing
the animal right next to the human , not above, not below. The nihilism Heather
has pointed out is unavoidable at the moment of no-future future and nanocaust.
Yet Grosz' approach fills my lungs with fresh , uncontaminated air, and a
genetically modified desire to create rather than annihilate.
If human is not at the center anymore we can look at future as a pool of animal
possibilities. I personally strongly believe that the bio-nano realism
surrounding us can at least pave the way to post-human ecosystems where the
residues or 'cruft' of capitalism gives birth to new species , species beyond
capitalism, beyond military and maybe perhaps hopefully beyond religion.
Pinar Yoldas
-----------------------------------------------
{artist, designer, neuroenthusiast}
-----------------------------------------------
PhD Student
Art , Art History and Visual Studies
Duke University
-----------------------------------------------
{http://pinaryoldas.info}
On Jun 27, 2012, at 7:24 PM, Heather Davis wrote:
> The no-future future is definitely something that lays heavy on me, as a
> person and as a thinker, especially as it relates to what you call the
> 'nanocaust' with its differential racial/class distributions over this earth.
> it seems precisely at the level of the nano that these struggles are being
> played out, within and outside of our own bodies, other living organisms, the
> surface of the earth and the composition of water.
>
> what i have been struggling with for a while is a desire to avoid the kind of
> nihilism that would lead to a relishing in the terminal capitalism/empire
> moment we seem to be finding ourselves in. beauty in pure destruction is at
> once a driver of social change and its expiration. This tendency, seen within
> certain strands of SR (I am thinking of Nick Land/Reza Negarestani) has an
> incredible appeal in its heightening of (nano) intensities, in maintaining
> destruction as an important political concept, but seems to also slide
> towards messianic end-of-the-world christian narratives of destruction and
> perfection. is it possible or desirable to think with this material moment,
> think with the dying cows, rapidly extinguishing species, without giving over
> to the pure pleasure of annihilation? how do we think of the collective as
> necessarily reaching beyond the human, its transversal ontogenesis that
> encompasses the object revenge that you speak of (especially in relation to
> non-living objects, such as chemicals, minerals, polymers, etc.) without
> falling into a kind of christian rapture of the end times. perhaps this is
> for me where art and theory provide a kind of breaking point/ambiguity that
> would enable a different kind of movement. in other words, the
> anti-anti-utopian position of art (through it's multiple negatives that
> leaves us where exactly?) provides this kind of useful ambiguity that pushes
> in the direction of new organisms (such as pinar's or ricardo's poetic
> nano-interventions) operate as a magical object, that is, the object that
> wards off the devil by becoming the devil.
>
> I really love Pinar's categorization of 'post-natural ecosystems' and Elle's
> ethno-dysphoric cloning in this regard because this categorization offers a
> way to acknowledge the destruction of capitalism while refusing the scenario
> of apocalypse that gives too much weight to figures of origins and certainty.
> thank you for these interventions.
> heather.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 5:57 AM, rrdominguez2 <rrdoming...@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> Hola Heather and all,
>
> The transperversal movement(s) that *particle group* attempts to trace via
> bio/nano scale(s) gestures may indeed call forth "a kind of material
> corollary" of affect/effect. Elle's capturing the EEG of "ethno-dysphoric
> cloning" or Pinar's new organ/ism pass and are passing between the utopian
> synthetics of particle capitalism(s) and the nanocaust (or the revenge of the
> object) - an apocalyptic materiality. The bio/nano aesthetic in the above
> work moves within and around a critical anti-anti-utopian condition of making
> these engines of imperceptibility visible - transperversal or a type of
> queering movement.
>
> But one does not have to look very far into the no-future future or the
> freeze dried past to see what grey ecology of bio/nano is manifesting via
> pre-set accidents or trans-effects at the bio/nano scale:
>
> Genetically modified grass linked to cattle deaths
> http://wtvr.com/2012/06/24/genetically-modified-grass-linked-to-cattle-deaths/
>
> Indeed a new materialism transmuting feed grass into poison which now only
> Texas grasshoppers are enjoying (the transperversal moment).
>
> As artists we are all Texas grasshoppers - but for how long?
>
> Very best,
> Ricardo
>
>
>
> On 6/24/12 5:27 PM, Heather Davis wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> Apologies for my tardy arrival. I am so excited to be a part of this
>> conversation with each of you, and find myself stunned by the quality of
>> thought and engagement of my brilliant interlocutors here. Thank you for
>> your contributions so for and to Zach and Micha for initiating and curating
>> this conversation. I am curious about the way in which the nano, in each of
>> your work, becomes a kind of significant imperceptibility. I am thinking
>> about how, in a previous discussion this month, the idea of 'queer is
>> everywhere' was broached. My initial reaction to this was a kind of doubt,
>> not trusting the utopic overtones, nor the amorphous quality of the
>> statement that lacked the dissensus that characterizes politics. What I
>> appreciate about the nano, in each of your works, Pinar, Ricardo, and Elle,
>> is the way in which this kind of utopic moment of the viral meets with an
>> politics of imperceptibility not as simply an aversion or counter-move to
>> surveillant systems (of sex, the state, neoliberal corporate models, etc.)
>> but as an imperceptibility that moves through the body to make significant
>> changes. It makes me wonder about the nano as being a kind of material
>> corollary of affect - that which carries a force, but is seen through its
>> effects, rather than in a chain of causes or origins. this is indeed a queer
>> position, a kind of passing that is important in its movement, of what it
>> touches and shifts, that is locatable in its actions. the nano seems
>> particularly adapted to this kind of effect, movement.
>>
>> I cannot present here as beautiful a summary of the work that I am doing, as
>> it has yet to begin. Aside from dirt, which I love because of its
>> contaminating/contaminated qualities, because of its amorphousness and its
>> ability to be distinct while encompassing a range of materials, metaphors,
>> etc, I have become increasingly fascinated with plastic. It marks our
>> current age that is seemingly ubiquitous, unfathomable (in its scale,
>> duration, reach) and also makes the nano a human possibility. for it is only
>> because of the creation of purely synthetic polymers that we both have the
>> ability to manipulate things at a nanoscale, and are able to perceive the
>> nano as a separate measurable scale. I am interested in the way in which
>> plastic, as a medium, connects to a politics of imperceptibility.
>>
>> heather.
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Clough, Patricia <pclo...@gc.cuny.edu>
>> wrote:
>> Thanks to all who engaged during week 3 and welcome week 4 Patricia
>> ________________________________________
>> From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> [empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Elle Mehrmand
>> [ellemehrm...@gmail.com]
>> Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:43 PM
>> To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> Subject: [-empyre-] Week 4 - Bio/Nano/Materialisms
>>
>> Hello out there,
>>
>> I am honored to have this opportunity to neuro-jaculate on this list. The
>> notions of materialisms/ immaterialisms/ bio-materialisms/ -erialisms,
>> within the context of the bio-political, bring to mind the pixellated flesh
>> of my holographic/ fauxlographic clones who live in my most recent
>> performative installation entitled fauxlographic. For the past year I have
>> been working within the speculative space of an ethno-dysphoric cloning
>> laboratory, where diasporic anxiety is analyzed through the process of
>> fauxlographic cloning. The clones enact sonic rituals, singing in Farsi,
>> English and Perz-ish [a faux-ish language], based on multiple sources of
>> information including embodied memories, wikileaks cables, and textual/
>> visual/ aural references concerning Iran and Persia. The ethno-dysphoric
>> scientist analyzes her dislocated subjectivity by performing a daily
>> neurotic ritual within a glass computing chamber while wearing an EEG
>> neuro-headset. As she neuro-jaculates with the clones
>> in order to (pars)e their data streams, the diasporic computing sounds of
>> the EEG oscillate in pitch based on her neural activity. When high levels of
>> CO2 are detected by the lab's sensors, the clones become aware of those
>> gazing upon them, resulting in an anxious act of erasure and multiplication
>> of their pixellated flesh on the fauxlographic screen, reciprocating the
>> affective presence and implications of other bodies within the laboratory.
>> The use of organic sensors transforms the lab into a cyborgian spatial
>> interface, allowing for unconscious collaboration between multiple bodies in
>> space, confusing the somatic architecture of the performance.
>>
>> // bodies
>>
>> [fragmented.dislocated.flesh]
>>
>> the metaphor of the split subject in a multitude of representations calls
>> for the split subjectivity of the diasporic body. the hologram. the clone.
>> the screenal flesh of the projection. the reflection on the glass. the live
>> specimen with a neural prosthetic.
>>
>> //donna haraway's cyborg reconfigured
>>
>> the live specimen lays in a burst of stillness within the glass chamber for
>> 30 minutes. the liveness of her naked body creates an affect that the clones
>> cannot produce, but ultimately she will become a reproduction of herself.
>> she performs analysis on the clones by means of neural computing. her
>> experiments are open to the public, allowing for multiple bodies to inhabit
>> the laboratory. the intersectionality of all of the bodies produce the
>> organic energy that is necessary for the installation to function.
>>
>> the fauxlographic clones are fragmented and displaced as they interact with
>> their ironic head scarfs from american apparel through gestural research.
>> the black scarf cuts into their screenal skin, erasing their flesh due to
>> the translucent nature of the fauxlographic screen. they are never fully in
>> or out of the fabric, creating a fluidic relationship to the object, one
>> that is not part of a binary construct, but one that arises from a unique
>> space within the perception of being persian, and is expressed through the
>> gestures of their diasporic anxiety. fractured elements of their being are
>> echoed in the displacement of their body parts. they are vulnerable in their
>> nudity with their pixellated flesh and informatic contents exposed, but that
>> is the nature of the clone.
>>
>> - elle mehrmand
>>
>> --
>> elleelleelle.org<http://elleelleelle.org>
>> assemblyofmazes.com<http://assemblyofmazes.com>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
> _______________________________________________
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