Comments for spacesof[aesthetic]experimentation

Comment on Downtime. And subsequent recovery by Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:55:29 +0000

Still having problems with trackbacks and links to other blogs in general (receiving and sending)… Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Comment on Downtime. And subsequent recovery by Francoise

Francoise — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:00:13 +0000

Call it the Phoenix!

Comment on Disorientation and micropolitics: a response by Joe

Joe — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:08:56 +0000

Thomas, thanks for your generous reading of the piece on disOrientation 2 and micropolitics.

The quote from Himada and Manning really sums it up for me, and is a timely riposte to critics who denigrate micropolitics as somehow ’soft’, ethereal, or worst of all, liberal.

The very threat, or sheer radicalism of micropolitical spaces, experiments and moments is their incompleteness and what I see as their deliberate lack of ontological coherence (i.e. no rallying cry emanating from a coercive politics of identity, that is to say, an unethical politics of forced meaning).

That said, and as you point to in your response, there is still the ongoing question of how we mobilise micropolitics and in particular, how we understand, animate and deploy affect without its capture. Guattari of course suggests ethico-aesthetic experiments which SenseLab and others have done a lot of work to bring into being, but perhaps for social activist collectives who continue to work along traditional lines of affinity, there is still more convincing to be done regarding the potential of micropolitics, not as concept, but as device(s).

In response to your question on how 3Cs kept the virtual open, I’m not sure where to go with this, partly because I think one aspect of the virtual is that you can’t close it down – sure, there are limiting processes which can be enacted, but to borrow from our conversations with Derek McCormack, even constraint can be generative. Perhaps the only concrete example I can give is that 3Cs are determined to state the partiality of the cartographies, and that they outward keep the virtual open by opening their cartographies, in very material terms (i.e. interactive maps online). No doubt though that 3Cs could think some more on how to generate different virtualities/affects…

Comment on Telepresence and experimental music by Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:07:06 +0000

It turns out it does have a name (drumroll…): it’s a panoscope! I think it might appear claustrophobic from the outside but strangely doesn’t feel that way once you’re in it.

I think that Christoph is not looking to shut out the world (singular) but create other worlds where things are not quite what they seem, where we are forced (or simply encouraged?) to react, to think, to live differently. For example, it might be that in the panoscope, gravity could work differently to what we are accustomed to. How might we move if the tendencies of the world are not what we expect? That’s perhaps too simplistic an example but I was trying to get at how the panoscope might offer the chance to experiment and challenge the very notion of ‘lived space’…

Comment on New issue of Inflexions by Joe

Joe — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:44:35 +0000

at long last!!

Comment on Telepresence and experimental music by Joe

Joe — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:07:49 +0000

I like the contraption with no name… a sort of claustrophobia-inducing panopticon. I wonder about Christoph’s wanting to experience and interact differently in the world, in so far as the machine seems to ’shut out’ a particular world (though i realise this relies on a crude distinction between an external reality and a lived space).

Comment on Telepresence and experimental music by Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:13:59 +0000

I’ve had a few questions about e-textiles and I confess, I wasn’t clear. I have copied-and-pasted from wikipedia below for some sort of introduction:
—
E-textiles, also known as electronic textiles, are fabrics that enable computing, digital components and electronics to be embedded in them. Part of the development of wearable technology, they are referred to as intelligent clothing or smart clothing that allow for the incorporation of built-in technological elements in everyday textiles and clothes. It does not strictly encompass wearable computing because emphasis is placed on the technology not being visible on the fabric and a computer is not actually embedded into the fabric. While not part of the mainstream form of fashion, its popularity is increasing and more research is being devoted to it.

Comment on Guattari (2008) The Three Ecologies by Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:51:24 +0000

I just edited a few sentences on here as I re-read the post before the upcoming SenseLab reading group; the three ecologies in question were repeated in several places and didn’t add much to the review.

SenseLab monthly meeting
Tuesday October 27, 5pm
Location: Concordia University, EV 1515 Ste. Catherine West, rm 11.625
Reading: Felix Guattari, 3 Ecologies
http://www.senselab.ca/

Comment on Frankenstein installation by Thomas

Thomas — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:58:52 +0000

I’m glad you like the photos. Good question about the last one! There was a pair of cameras set up in front of two seats for the face-morph exercise/experiment. I was stood a few metres back when I took the photo, although you can see one of the seats in the bottom right-hand corner of the shot, and so was picked up by both cameras. The projector that you can see, precariously balanced, is for the body on the boxes (different parts of the body were shot separately, then stitched together again).

Comment on Frankenstein installation by Francoise

Francoise — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:14:11 +0000

Amazing photography all through, but on this page especially. On a technical point, how did the bottom picture get taken? Where were you?! F.J.