----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Yes, I was just trying to think about ways of talking about an expanded sensorium that would include the ways various "non-human" creatures sense the environment -- thermal sensing for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoception So, modes of sensing would leave open how many ways of sensing there are (I think Douglas said there are 23 now!). But then my interest was also in asking if thinking about an expanded sensorium covered the entire range of possibilities by which an organism might relate to/through vibration ... in other words is there something other than sensing? Is thinking a kind of sensing ... or not ...? Johannes, as to your question of what imperceptible forces might mean to us ... that's a huge issue. Douglas' book addresses that in terms of electromagnetism, which is often not perceptible (for example you don't hear your own brain waves, or others') but which is nonetheless there (you can measure or track it, and amplify it and/or transduce it so that it does become perceptible). So Douglas is documenting the work of artists such as Alvin Lucier, who make use of work in physics, and technologies that render imperceptible forces perceptible (Lucier uses EEG technologies that can track electrical activity aka brainwaves in the brain, and works out a performative mode of transducing those waves, turning them into audible sounds). I suspect both Douglas and I are referring to recent theoretical work by the speculative realist writers (for example Timothy Morton, Graham Harman, Ray Brassier) who make an anti-postmodern argument that there really is something there ... but that it's not phenomenologically accessible. So then, you have a variety of artists who are finding ways of transducing and (re)presenting in different ways what would otherwise be unpresentable (sounds too deep to hear, brain waves, quantum events etc.). But then the question arises: are they presenting the unpresentable (which would seem by definition impossible) or ... what? Is it a kind of model or metaphor that suggests what cant be presented? On 2014-06-13, at 2:55 PM, Nina Eidsheim wrote: > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- > Hi, Johannes! > >> Nina could you please expand on that past part, what modes of sensing do you >> not subscribe to? > I simply meant that if "modes of sensing" refers to human range of sensing, I > am not sure where I stand in regards to that. (But, it does seem limiting.) > > When I wrote that yesterday, I wrote it thinking I was in agreement with > Marcus. Is that right, Marcus, or perhaps I am misreading you? I think it was > actually Marcus who first brought up the phrase, "modes of sensing," in this > conversation. Would you mind sharing more about what that mean to you? > > > Nina > > > > On Jun 13, 2014, at 7:58 AM, Johannes Birringer > <johannes.birrin...@brunel.ac.uk> wrote: > >> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- >> dear all >> >> thanks for the thoughtful response, Douglas and Nina, and >> and I am reading on, the discussion is opening up such a wide horizon now, >> yes, up to the cosmic scale you invoke Douglas, >> but also a scale that goes much beyond what Nina called the more narrow body >> and material focussed sense perceptions & sensation, >> the anthropomorphized versions of sensation (and motion analysis / motion >> capture)? >> >> >>> >> ...visit to the Lab of Ornithology, I am reminded of the anthropomorphic >> undertone with which the concept of the body and epistemology through >> sensation is often infused. Does paying attention to the body means >> attending to the vibration as I feel the vibrations through the flesh and >> bones as it stands on the airport floor? >> >> Or, does only a given material's seeming continuous material connection to >> what I think of as the object that is body constitute thinking about the >> body? >> >> The latter position, then, to address Marcus' question, does come down to >> "modes of sensing." At this point, I am not ready to subscribe to that. And, >> I doubt whether all of the artists with which Douglas deals in Earth Sound >> would subscribe to that as well. >>>> >> >> Nina could you please expand on that past part, what modes of sensing do you >> not subscribe to? >> >> The ritual and cosmic associations now brought up by Douglas's re-reference >> to Benjamin's "One-Way Street" and "On the Mimetic Faculty" – recontexted >> to war-time destruction (through technologies), self-annihilation and >> ecological catastrophe -- where are you pointing the sonic pathways now? >> Many here may not have read your book yet (sorry, I have not yet), and thus >> I feel the framework of course seems to have been hugely expanded, and I >> cannot follow yet, and I think the nereges or forces have not been fully >> discussed yet, only where you wish to stay away from (new age and psychic >> channeling etc, the Rausch of the trance folks out in the desert at the >> Burning Man revelations..) You very recent example of >> Pauline Oliveros – or Nina's and Marcus's reference to ornithology or >> rather to the birds, animals and other species interests me obviously, as >> does Benjamin's imaginary dance with the clouds, dancing the storms [= >> "sensuous similarity"] – >> interests me, and there could be a political reading desired by Marcus, not >> sure, when you speak of >> >>> >> Oliveros produce[s] overtones from subaudible fundamentals, even if they >> cannot be felt, the audible sounds do >> not necessarily abdicate their epiphenomenal relationship. >>> >> >> that is a daring formulation, I feel, anthropomorphizing sound into an >> agent, and there then are co-agencies, some that are not known/recognized >> (like invisible drones that capture us or shoot us, not drone music) But >> maybe you read waves and ultrasound etc as forces that operate on the >> universe, on the earth, on social spaces and habitats, but the imperceptible >> ones, what effect do they have on humans, animals, objects, architectures, >> ecologies? what type of agency would be that that could be resisted or >> coopted, or in-corporated (whether along the axis of an anatomy or >> furtherfield) or contested (the sounds and epiphenemena that are dangerous >> to the health of the planet or the inhabitants). Could you all say a bit >> more about the overtones, or what Marcus mentioned regarding tuning or being >> out of tune - "The unpresentable aspects of sound and vibration become a >> model for the unpresentable as such"? >> >> >> regards >> Johannes Birringer >> >> >> >> >> >> [Douglas schreibt] >> >> [..] >> >> On "non-sensuous similarity"...has any Benjamin scholar out there >> approached this directly? I read Mimesis and Alterity years+ ago and don't >> have my books nearby right now. It seems to me that the faculty of the >> mimetic faculty/doctrine of the similar that informs it should neither be >> brought into a perceptual or apperceptual frame too quickly, nor into one >> of a drive. Rather, it is something either within humankind (since "the >> ancients" as Benjamin calls them) or operating at a larger scale (I >> wouldn't know how to characterize it). It surely is not merely manifested >> in seeing animals in constellated stars, or kids imitating people, things >> and forces; in one of the most amazing (long) paragraphs in One-Way Street, >> "To the Planetarium"....I discuss this on page 77f. in ESES, sees an >> alienated/repressed union with the cosmos practiced ritually by "the >> ancients" sputtering along in "the poetic rapture of starry nights" but >> really snapping back with a vengeance on the killing fields of WWI. "Human >> multitudes, gases, electrical forces were hurled into the open country, >> high-frequency currents coursed through the landscape, new constellations >> rose in the sky, aerial space and ocean depths thundered with propellors, >> and everywhere sacrificial shafts were dug into Mother Earth. The immense >> wooking of the cosmos was enacted for the first time on a planetary >> scale--that is, in the spirit of technology." >> >> There is so much to say about the piece and this passage, but for here we >> can note the presence of energies and a planetary scale notion of feminized >> Nature. It posits the First World War as an energetic manifestion at a >> global scale which would be punctuated at the end of the Second World War >> with perhaps the most important one, Hiroshima, since according to Michel >> Serres this was the first instance of a self-awareness of self-annihilation >> at a global scale shared now with global warming and ecological >> catastrophe, i.e., as in To the Planetarium, energy war and Mother Earth. >> >> But even more relevant, since Marcus this is where drone might be >> revisited, is that this ritual (war, planet, technology) engagement with >> the cosmos was conducted collectively through Rausch. This is one of those >> German words that doesn't fit into English very well, but from my >> understanding among its meanings/connotations are ecstatic trance (the way >> its translated in the English) and relatedly, intoxication, but also the >> sound of an onrush (on-rausch), like the white noise disorientation in >> breaking waves, with an undercurrent of rumbling or roar (roar you feel, >> but I think you also feel the hiss, with or without the mist). I could very >> well be wrong because I haven't tried to sort it out with any precision, >> but there might be some there there. >> >> One last thing. A qualification on the sensory, an artist like Robert Barry >> posits in his work that even though a person does not immediately sense >> something, say, ultrasound or radio waves, it does not mean that they are >> not there. When musicians like Pauline Oliveros produce overtones from >> subaudible fundamentals, even if they cannot be felt, the audible sounds do >> not necessarily abdicate their epiphenomenal relationship. In LaMonte >> Young's butterfly piece he stated that, sure, the butterfly makes a sound, >> just because we can't hear it does not mean it is not there. So there is a >> "listening in" along the lines of a "reading into" at work and at play. >> >> Douglas >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
