Joe Gerlach, Cologne
There’s a great post over at Vernacular Mappings which attempts to ‘conjure’ the micropolitics at play in the recent publication of disOrientation2. I think it’s great because Gerlach (2009) really tries to stretch and put at risk, in the Stengersian sense, the notion of micropolitics: neither small-scale nor situated on the ‘left’ or ‘right’ of the political spectrum, micropolitics operates transversally, activating the “affective potential of the interval between feeling and doing” (Himada & Manning, 2009: 5). I would like to quote at length from this paper, found in the recent issue of Inflexions, Micropolitics: Exploring Ethico-Aesthetics:
“For some, this may make it sound like a “soft” politics, but it’s quite the opposite. What is usually constituted as the real thing – Politics with a capital P – is far less rigorously inventive, precisely because it operates in the sphere of representation where precomposed bodies are already circulating. The micropolitical is that which subverts this tendency in the political to present itself as already fully formed. All politics is infested with micropolitical tendencies. This is what makes the political an event. In my opinion, much of political theory continues to invest too heavily in the already articulated “capital P” Politics. The reason for this is simple: it is extremely challenging to speak of what has not yet fully taken form. Like the microperception that tweaks the event of perception, the micropolitical is the force of the political event that potentially unmoors it.” (2009: 5).
Micropolitics, or the creation of techniques for collaboration, involve experimentation and an openness to be experimental. Micropolitics then, offers a point of departure for a new kind of politics.
The description of the disOrientation2 project is rich and does not seek to reduce the mapping as a simple “case of resistance versus a nebulous hegemony, but instead it seems to offer tactics, or lines of flight for others to generate their own articulations of the university and beyond” (2009: 2, original emphasis). I liked the way in which it related the project to the SenseLab’s concept of a ‘technology of lived abstraction’ (the name for the lab’s new series of books): “an active platform of creative productivity and political movement” (Gerlach, 2009: 4).
The exploration of affect, increasingly well-honed with every iteration it seems, is refreshingly clear. It highlights what I find most interesting and productive about affect, that it does not start with the subject, and while it can be bodily it is not embodied. However, Gerlach does point to some difficulties of engaging with affect. One troubling aspect is his suggestion that we strive to animate affect; this seems to suggest that not only does affect exist a priori but that it is qualitatively different kinds of affect that we are generating by seeking to animate. I wonder if it is possible to write of affect without writing for affect.
Navigating the tension between disOrientation2 as a representation and as a technology of lived abstraction is not straightforward. I would be very interested to hear how the 3Cs generated techniques to keep the virtual open, to allow space for the unexpected, to not know everything that is possible, when they were working on this project. Gerlach’s engagement with disOrientation2’s micropolitical articulations are at once exploratory and experimental, yet reach-towards a becoming-with the world. This is neither an idealisation nor a festishization of a concept (micropolitics) that has been put to work in a radically empirical manner. Bravo!
This post is tagged affect, cartography, experimentation, guattari, micropolitics, SenseLab, virtual
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…