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.

Multitudes #34 (Autumn 2008)

This journal looks well worth checking out:

Established in 2006, Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy is dedicated to publishing the latest work on continental philosophy, along with new translations and interviews with contemporary thinkers.

There are not one but two (!) current issues: #7 On Gilbert Simondon and #8 The Post/Human Condition.

Another bookmarked journal of mine is Multitudes, “une revue politique, artistique et philosophique”. The content is arranged thematically and engages with contemporary debates. Don’t be put off by the French!

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.

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!