It caught my attention...

Really excited about tomorrow’s event in Zurich even though I can’t be there. Brian Massumi and Erin Manning will be talking about Generating the Impossible as part of the Inventions series (a series of double lectures actualising post-structuralist theories):

Abstract

“Invention is neither inductive nor deductive. It is transductive, corresponding to the discovery of the dimensions according to which a problematic can be defined. . It is the taking charge of a system of virtualities by the system of actuality. . No determinism presides over it. . It is the advent of possibilities.”
– Gilbert Simondon

According to Gilbert Simondon, invention is problematizing, rather than resolving. It does not realize possibility: possibility is precisely what emerges through invention. This means that there is no linear causal path as a means to it. What precedes its own means and its own possibility is impossible, until it happens. What could be more problematic? Simondon nevertheless underlines the rigourously technical nature of invention. Our talk will discuss a series of collective experimentations undertaken at the SenseLab in Montreal over the past seven years which attempt to put a concept of invention similar to Simondon’s to the test toward the production of new forms of collaborative activity at the boundary between conceptual research and artistic creation. What techniques of relation foster the inventive emergence of collective possibilities? What economies of activity are involved? What are the politics of aesthetic activity guided by a problematic practice of invention in Simondon’s sense?

Many important figures have been invited as part of this series and I recommend having a look at the concept paper.

View of downtown Montreal

Now in the last week of my stay in Montreal, I am preparing to head back to Oxford. There’s been a lot to take in and at times, I’ve wondered what research materials I am generating. I recently filled in a Graduate Supervision System (GSS) entry on my ‘progress’ this term and thought I might include it here as a (somewhat limited) summary or reminder of some of the things I’ve been doing and thinking since I arrived.

I have spent this term in Montreal, where I have been exploring a variety of spaces of aesthetic experimentation. Affiliated to both the Topological Media Lab and the SenseLab, as well as an active member of Hexagram (an institution for research-creation), this fieldwork has allowed for a prolonged engagement with notions of experimentation, interactive or responsive environments, rapid prototyping and ethico-aesthetic play, as well as collective action.

I have been involved in reading groups, classes, colloquia, workshops and aspects of experimental design. I adopted an experimental approach where I have sought to be not only an attentive observant but allow room for the research to unfold and develop in unexpected ways. An example of this has been working with a choreographer in the development of a theatrical production.

It has been very stimulating to work with people who have read similar philosophers to myself (such as Bergson, Deleuze, Guattari, James, Whitehead) but also be able to share new avenues of enquiry (including, but not limited to, Bateson, Debaise and Simondon). Moreover, it has been fruitful to talk about my work to others, forcing me to rethink and refine aspects of my questions. One area that I’ve been thinking about in particular concerns collaboration, and how this might not necessarily result in some ‘thing’. Collaboration might be better thought of as processual, and not necessarily goal-oriented. This also relates to how to how I might address questions of participation, ‘critical distance’ and my role, such as it is, within the labs.

I have tried to generate materials through visual means (photos, video), textual (diaries, blog entries) and talks (recorded, remembered). Responding to the call to attend to registers which are neither talk nor text has proven more problematic but has been explored through diagrams.

I’m hoping to keep active on the blog when I return to Oxford – with an aim for more regular posts rather than flurries of them – and have a few book reviews that I’m working on at the moment. I’m also trying to translate one of Didier Debaise’s articles. As ever: watch this space!

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Pont de la Concorde, Montreal

Didier Debaise recently came to Montreal to present his current research, which Brian Massumi described as a speculative pragmatism. He explored the resurgence of speculative philosophy (philosophies?) of the past decade or so and is currently trying to put it to the test by asking if we can have a non-anthropocentric approach to the subject. Rather than do away with the notion of a subject, or extend what the human indicates, Didier would suggest that we retake all the categories of the subject and redistribute them across nature. In effect, he is asking: can we talk of subjectivity for non-humans? This refusal to begin with the human or, put differently, a development of propositions that are non-human, resonates with several philosophers whose work was largely ignored in the twentieth century: Tarde, Whitehead and James (in Europe).

In the second event, Didier went on to elaborate, making links between Whitehead and Simondon, outlining what sort of descriptions constructivism and speculative pragmatism do and explained his critique of anthropology (less a rejection, more a desire to highlight its limits). The conversation was lively and there was an interesting discussion on ‘distance’. Rather than create some kind of distance (“se mettre en distance”), Didier suggested that we need artifices, citing Deleuze’s claim that we need to make things resemble with methods which do not resemble one another (“faire ressemblant avec des moyens non ressemblants”). Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find the original quotation… although there is something similar in What is Philosophy?

Conférence publique / séminaire
Didier Debaise, Institut Max Planck, Berlin

Conférence

“Métaphysique des sujets. Reconstruire la notion de subjectivité avec Tarde et Whitehead”

18 novembre 18h00
SenseLab, Pavillon EV, Université Concordia, local 11.625
1515, Ste-Catherine Ouest, métro Guy-Concordia

Séminaire

20 novembre 9h30 – 11h30
11h30 – 12h00 lunch léger
Pavillon Marie-Victorin, Université de Montréal, local B-427
90, Vincent d’Indy, métro Édouard-Montpetit

Lectures préparatoires :
—Didier Debaise, « Qu-est-ce qu’une pensée relationnelle ? » (sur Simondon)
—Didier Debaise, « Une philosophie des interstices. Whitehead et la question du vivant »
—Bruno Latour, « Tarde’s Idea of Quantification »

If anyone would like to listen to the lecture and/or the seminar, please get in touch.

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!

Laboratory life: a reflection, TML

Last week was really busy and I didn’t find time to post about it. So this is a chance for me to recount some of the things I’ve been hearing-saying-thinking-feeling… On Tuesday evening I attended a lecture/workshop organised by a variety of departments at McGill University and the SenseLab:

Ecosophy: Rethinking the Culture Concept with Félix Guattari
Nov. 10, 2009 – 5:30 PM to 6:45 PM
Arts Building, Arts 160 , 853 Sherbrooke Street West

Please join us for a lecture and workshop:
Janell Watson is an Associate Professor of French in the Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures at Virginia Tech University, and incoming editor of The Minnesota Review.  Professor Watson’s new book, Guattari’s Diagrammatic Thought: Writing Between Lacan and Deleuze, is a much needed guide to the individual writings of Felix Guattari.  Guattari’s own work (such as The Three Ecologies, Molecular Revolution and Chaosmosis), as well as his famous collaborations with Gilles Deleuze (Anti-Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy?), are becoming increasingly influential particularly in relation to the study of media ecologies and what Guattari termed the ethico-aesthetical paradigm of contemporary art and critical thought.  Professor Watson will present a short talk, which will be immediately followed by a workshop for faculty and students around selections from Guattari’s books Chaosmosis (chapter 1,5 and 7)  and The Three Ecologies (entire text), as well as chapter 3 from Watson’s book entitled “An Energetics of Existence”.

Although it got off to a bad start – it felt like ecosophy was being used as a substitute for culture, and there was a long ‘question’ from the audience (about the abstract versus the concrete) – it picked up steam and there were some  stimulating interventions by Erin Manning and Chris Salter.

The evening finished in giggles as we heard from Brian Massumi about translating A Thousand Plateaus; when he wrote a letter to them to query parts of the text:

Deleuze would say ‘I have no idea, ask Félix’. And he would say ‘Whatever you think!’

After the talk I chatted with Erin and she invited me to attend a few classes that she was taking (normally taught by Brian), both over at l’Université de Montreal (UdM). Although longer classes than I am used to (around three hours or so), they were incredibly interesting, as well as inspiring. In the first class, on Wednesday, Erin wanted to to bring Guattari to life (“remettre en vie Guattari”), to show what an extraordinary thinker he was. Not only was it conceptually rich, but the examples she deployed and the diagrams she would scribble on the board really made me think differently.

The second class, on the Thursday, was a close reading of a few chapters from Whitehead’s (1933) Adventures of Ideas, where he seeks to define many of the concepts that he uses throughout his work. Although his writing is not seductive, Erin argued, it is incredibly precise. It was very useful to read the text together and work through some of the ideas, and we were reminded that we need to put these concepts to work (“il faut faire travailler ces concepts”). The classes were both in ‘Franglais’: predominantly in French (it’s a French-speaking university, after all) but with plenty of switching between the two languages.

After the class I made my way over to the CCA, for the second IRHA public forum:

IRHA Public Forum #2, Novemeber 12, 2009
Maison Shaughnessy
6:00PM

Interactivity: The City as Performative Space

Alessandra Ponte, University of Montréal
Patrick Harrop, University of Manitoba/Concordia University

New digital technologies increasingly are being deployed by architects, artists and designers in order to transform dead public spaces into new urban zones of performance and play. In effect, the city has become a responsive environment set in motion by pedestrians and new technologies.The second IHRA forum will investigate how concepts of interaction brought on from digital technologies meet concepts of social interaction. At the center of the forum will be artistic and design projects that also suggest new possibilities of interacting in public space.

Patrick Harrop, who collaborates with the lab, presented a paper which explored Gilbert Simondon’s enagement with architecture, through Le Corbusier, whilst Alessandra Ponte turned to a rather different philosopher: Peter Slotterdijk. On the Friday, at the third graduate colloquium of the semester, Patrick was able to discuss the same paper in more detail, with greater lucidity! I’m rather intrigued by Simondon, having not really encountered his work before coming to Concordia, who was trained by both Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Georges Canguilhem and links are increasingly being made between his work, and that of Deleuze.

So the title for this post – Laboratory life – is supposed to be ironic, as I haven’t spent that much time in the TML!

My notes for the reading group with shadow of camera (Sony DSC T-700)

Last week I attended the monthly SenseLab reading group, where we were reading Guattari’s The Three Ecologies. As my copy of the book was still in transit (I fear it’s been lost in the post), I read a .pdf version from my computer screen which wasn’t ideal. There was just a small group of people, ten or so, and we all introduced ourselves as the composition is ever-changing. Erin asked us to try to do it in a way which we might not normally do, which made for an amusing opening to the session. It was interesting to see how the group would switch between French and English for discussion, and for the versions of the book read (plenty of time was spent trying to compare page numbers).

Erin had noticed an interesting parallel with Guattari’s idea of the individual as a terminal, and William James’ notion of the ‘terminus’: not as an end, but a force that activates a beginning. Here is the particular section of the text that we were looking at – it’s a really wonderful passage:

Rather than speak of the ‘subject’, we should perhaps speak of components of subiectfication, each working more or less on its own. This would lead us, necessarily, to re-examine the relation between concepts of the individual and subjectivity, and, above all, to make a clear distinction between the two. Vectors of subjectification do not necessarily pass through the individual, which in reality appears to be something like a ‘terminal’ (TE: 36)

Guattari’s use of another term, gentleness, stood out for me (and others) and I remember circling the word when he used it in both Chaosmosis and The Three Ecologies because it contrasts with his rather heroic style of writing:

It seems to me essential to organize new micropolitical and microsocial practices, new solidarities, a new gentleness, together with new aesthetic and new analytic practices (TE: 51)

It was suggested that gentleness might relate to questions of value (rather than evaluation) and with the techniques of creating an alternate political articulation. One way that the SenseLab is thinking about this is  in terms of generosity and Erin explained that they try to produce generous events. Other issues that we tried to talk/think through included the ‘habitable’, potential (as something which is not necessarily positive), phantasms and react-ability… Plenty to mull over.

]]> http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/montreal/senselab-reading-group/feed/ 0 http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/montreal/new-issue-of-inflexions/ http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/montreal/new-issue-of-inflexions/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:13:50 +0000 Thomas http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/?p=696

Inflexions: an open-acess journal for research-creation

Inflexions has just released its third issue today and focuses on the theme ‘Micropolitics : Exploring Ethico-Aesthetics’.

The journal has a distinctive style, with nodes

a group of conceptually interlinked pieces that engage with a particular problematic in a variety of different modes, incluidng but not limited to academic essays

and tangents

individual contributions to the theory and practices of research-creation. Tangents strike off in directions all their own, and resonate across their divergences. Taken together, they suggest potential connections with each other and the issue Node.

Perhaps what is most exciting for me, even more than an issue which explicitly addresses the question of micropolitics, is that the work from the Society of Molecules and the hitch-hiking is included! It’s really interesting to find out what the other molecules were up to and the web-design is excellent. And it’s open-access.