Aesthetics, ideology? I was thinking of Lotfi Zadeh's work when I mentioned that - not fur balls.
best Simon On 27 Jun 2012, at 18:04, Timothy Morton wrote: > Dear Simon, > > OOO objects are far more fuzzy than your metaphysically present fuzz. They > are ontologically fuzzy. > > To say fuzzy things are better than smooth things--this is just aesthetic > ideology run mad. > > Tim > > > http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com > > On Jun 26, 2012, at 6:34 PM, Ian Bogost <ian.bog...@lcc.gatech.edu> wrote: > >> On Jun 26, 2012, at 3:01 AM, Simon Biggs wrote: >> >>> But Kosuth's chair engaged the simulacra - it addressed conventional >>> notions of the real as not sustainable. Kosuth's chair is an equivocal >>> chair, a fuzzy chair, all types of chair - and never a chair. It's a >>> conundrum, and that was the point. >> >> Kosuth's One and Three Chairs is about language, about semiotics. Like >> everything else has been, for so long. The fact that there are chairs, and >> there are photographs, and there are words—this is what interests me. The >> fact that conceptual artists can play pranks on the rich benefactors of >> museums and galleries is not very interesting to me. It's too bad, because >> when enacted, One and Three Chairs actually DOES begin to draw our attention >> to things in an appealing way. But not because the real is unsustainable. >> Rather, because the real is, well, real. >> >>> I admit I've not read much about OOO and am yet to be convinced it is worth >>> the effort. I've never been an early adopter - prefer to see the bugs >>> ironed out of things, at least for one cycle, before buying the gizmo in >>> question (and I'm mean with my money, so most often I never buy). >> >> Harman has been writing under the shingle "object-oriented philosophy" since >> 1999. His first systematic take, the book Tool-Being, was published in 2002. >> That's a decade ago. Countless other books and articles on and peripheral to >> OOO have been published in the intervening time. Like it or not, his work >> and that of others has had an impact on many fields, even if particularly in >> recent years. >> >> If you aren't interested, fine. If you don't want to do the work, fine. But >> own up to it. Otherwise, it is too tempting to conclude that you wish only >> to adopt the ideas that prove popular, that become fungible among the same >> communities for the same purposes. >> >>> My initial apprehension of OOO is that it doesn't seek to address the >>> ontology of things as things but their relationships with one another. >> >> This is precisely the opposite of the main contention of OOO, which holds >> that something is always left over in things, not used up in their >> relations. It also addresses, in various and sometimes conflicting ways >> among its proponents, how things can possibly relate given this basic fact. >> >>> The downside of OOO though is that it doesn't seem very fuzzy. I like fuzzy >>> things. They are soft. I also don't like black boxes - and OOO, by its >>> nature, will create black boxes (which brings us back to Plato - damn!). >> >> OOO rejects the idealism of Plato (it's more like Aristotle, another >> tragically unpopular figure)—you won't find universal forms in OOO, nor even >> universal properties, or what Whitehead sometimes calls eternal objects. >> You're right though that OOO embraces the black box, just as Heidegger and >> Latour do, in different ways. >> >> In any case, I think we've really hit on what's really going on here. OOO is >> threatening to many popular theories of art, culture, identity, politics, >> and so forth because it holds that a toaster is not an octopus. Somehow, we >> got so turned around in the last half-century, that we decided that a >> toaster not being an octopus is oppressive and dangerous. This is a >> fascinating lesson for me and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. >> I'll have to consider it further. >> >> Ian >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype: simonbiggsuk s.bi...@ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.co.uk/
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