POSTHUMANISM AND CONTEMPORARY ART [RESOURCE PAGE]

R E A D I N G L I S T

[RG=reading group]

Cary Wolfe: What is Posthumanism? -Introduction

LECTURE by Karoliina Lummma 01.03.

Karoliina Lummaa: Introduction

Karoliina Lummaa: Corpo-Realities

Lummaa texts in RG: 08.03.

LECTURE by Jussi Parikka 02.03

Jussi Parikka: Insect Media - Introduction

Jussi Parikka: TECHNICS OF NATURE AND TEMPORALITY Uexküll’s Ethology
(also see Agamben Chapter "Umwelt")

Parikka and Uexküll texts in RG: 09.03.

LECTURE by Tuula Närhinen 15.03.

Patricia Vieira Phytographia: Literature as Plant Writing

Michael Marder: Plant Thinking

Marder in RG: 16. 03.

LECTURE by Antti Salminen 22.03.

Antti Salminen: Parasites -- Fragments of the Non-Human.
plus:
Salminen & Vaden: An Essay in Nafthology (book link, optional for those who chose Salminen)

Salminen in RG: 23.03

LECTURE 29.03. Caspar Stracke

John Berger: Why Look at Animals?

Berger in RG: 30.03.

Lecture, RE-SCHEDULED: 04.04. Tuija Kokkonen

Giorgio Agamben: The Open - Human and Animal, Frankfurt 2003
Only the chapters: Taxonomy -Without Rank - Anthropological Machine - Umwelt - Tick (p.23 - p.47)
 

Agamben in RG: 05.04.

Bruno Latour: A Plea for Earthly Sciences.

Latour in RG: 05.04.

Jacques Derrida: The Animal That Therefore I am (More to Follow) 2002

Jean-Luc Nancy: "Eating Well" - or the Calculation of the Subject. An interview with Jacques Derrida

Derrida in RG: 23.03

Donna Haraway: A Cyborg Manifesto (1984)

Donna Hawaway:
Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden

Donna Hawaway:

Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective

Matthew Fuller: Art for Animals

Derrida, Timothy Morton and the re-mark

gotcha!

Timothy Morton:
I use the term re-mark after Jacques Derrida’s analysis of how paintings differ (or not) from written texts. How can you tell that a squiggle is a letter and not just a dash of paint? [56] This is a genuine problem. You enter a classroom. The blackboard is scrawled with writing. But as you come closer, you see that the writing is actually not writing at all, but the half-erased chalk marks that may or may not have been writing at some point.
Any mark, argues Derrida, depends upon at least one other thing.
This could be as simple as an indescribable surface, or a system of what counts as a meaningful mark. For there to be a difference that makes a difference there must be at least one other object that the mark can’t explain, re-marking the mark. Marks can’t make themselves mean all by themselves. If they could, then meaning could indeed be reduced to a pure structuralist system of relations. Since they can’t, then the “first mark” is always going to be uncertain, in particular because it’s strictly secondary to the inscribable surface (or whatever) on which it takes places. There must be some aperture at the beginning of any system, in order for it to be a system—some irreducible uncertainty. Some kind of magic, some kind of illusion that may or may not be the beginning of something.

M.H. Ducey:
If both sender and receiver were entirely present when the mark was inscribed, and they were thereby present to themselves –since, by hypothesis here, being present and being present-to-oneself are considered to be equivalent– how could they even be distinguished from one another? [when one writes a note to one's neighbor] the note is precisely designed to make up for the possible absences and it therefore implies them, and they leave their mark on the mark. They remark the mark in advance. Curiously, this re-mark constitutes part of the mark itself. And this remark is inseparable from the structure of iterability.

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Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, tr. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 54, 104, 205, 208, 222, 253

The book is online: here

For further readings on the re-mark check for instance the passage we read: p 47 - 49

ANIMAL LOGIC LECTURES

FILIPA RAMOS

JIM SUPANICK

FILIPA RAMOS AND JIM SUPANICK Q+A

GREETINGS FROM GERRIT RIETVELD

(Jesuz Christ)

(To go to this page of 200+ clips related to Posthumanist studies, click on "Studium Generale", the "Introduction" then "Blog")

MATTEO PASQUINELLI

... on carbosilicon assemblages and cyberfossil capital

(intro in e-flux)

(full article on Academia)

WRAPPING POSTHUMANISM

wrap up talk part 1

wrap up talk part 2

http://theharrisonstudio.net/

WORLD BRAIN

(website)

link to the video collection on arte

recommended episodes 07 - 13

07 Meute de chercheurs nomades
08 Laboratoire du schizophrénie contrôlee
09 Fluide universel
10 Entra la bête et le cristal
11 Lost in distraction
12 Reseau universel
13 Cybernetic Ecology

DONNA HARAWAY IN THE LIBRARY

AUDIO from first session (pls contact me or Aarni if you have trouble with accessing the sharepoint)

Monika's video:

AGEMBEN / LATOUR presentations

Agamben presentation audio file

Latour presentation here pw: Latour

TUJIA KOKKONEN LECTURE

part 1 pw: Kokkonen

part 2 pw: Kokkonen

ANIMISM, ANIMAL PHENOMENOLOGY, EMERGENCE

ANSELM FRANKE
ANIMISM
(introduction p. 11 - 14)*

RON BROGLIO
SURFACE ENCOUNTERS
(Making Space for Animal Dwellings, p.61 - 63)*

Broglio is also referring the the T. Nagel essay:
What is it like to be a bat?

MANUEL DELANDA
EMERGENCE, CAUSALITY, REALISM
(p.385 - 386 "Let's return to the question of emergence")*

from
Speculative Turn:
Continental Materialism and Realism
Levy Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman (Eds.)

___

CASPAR'S LECTURE:

*excerpts I read in lecture until my voice was more raspy than that of Andy Kaufmann

PARASITOLOGY

Six definitions of PARASITE
(according to Michel Serres)

"[...] Serres's primary argument is that the relationship between a parasite and its host serves as a useful model for all forms of social, cultural and technological mediation. Instead of conceptualizing social relations according to the model of exchange, for example, Serres argues that all acts of exchange are actually based on exploitation. Serres explains this idea by replacing Marx's concept of "exchange value" with the term "abuse value," which he defines as "complete, irrevocable consummation" that only works in "one direction". Abuse value "precedes use and exchange-value," according to Serres, because "exchange is always weighed, measured, calculated, taking into account a relation without exchange, an abusive relation". The French word "parasite" also signifies noise or static, which enables Serres to extend his argument to communication systems as well. Instead of seeing communication as a two-way process, for example, he argues that every channel also contains an element of interference, which constantly threatens to disrupt the signal. Serres adds, however, that such disruptions are potentially productive, as they result in the formation of a "new system". Serres even extends this metaphor to biological systems by arguing that evolution similarly depends on "mutations" within a system. The value of the parasite as a concept, therefore, is that it encompasses such a wide range of fields, including anthropology, biology and communications." (Anthony Enns)

LATOUR AND HIS FRIENDS

We moved the yellow file folder now to the 2nd floor kitchen table so it's accessible outside the library hours. We included five copies of the Laour text...

NYU. Now playing...

conference website

ANTTI SALMINEN LECTURE

1/5 https://vimeo.com/209893735 pw: antti
2/5 https://vimeo.com/209893858 pw: antti
3/5 https://vimeo.com/209893967 pw: antti
4/5 https://vimeo.com/209893989 pw: antti
5/5 https://vimeo.com/209894069 pw: antti (Q&A)

GLOSSARY

• Anergy

• Anthropological Universals
.

• Autopoiesis, (self-referential)

Beyond our questions regarding Autopoiesis, it was quite surprising to read that the latter term is already regarded problematic:

“There are multiple criticisms of the use of the term in both its original context, as an attempt to define and explain the living, and its various expanded usages, such as applying it to self-organizing systems in general or social systems in particular.^[16] Critics have argued that the term fails to define or explain living systems and that, because of the extreme language of self-referentiality it uses without any external reference, it is really an attempt to give substantiation to Maturana's radical constructivist or solipsistic epistemology.

Donna Haraway has introduced Sympoiesis to address precisely the problem of full autonomy.
She writes: Sympoieses means "making-with" Nothing makes itself.

• Emergence

• EROEI

• Daoist (Taoist) Philisiophy

• Derridaoism

• Derrida Key Terms

• Desinterrance

• Gnosticim

• Immanence / Plane of Immanence

• Iterability

• Neo-Cybernetics

Neocybernetics is the term adapted for this particular movement. In response to the apparent dissolution of boundaries at work in the contemporary technosciences of emergence, neocybernetics observes that cognitive systems are operationally bounded, semi-autonomous entities coupled with their environments and other systems. Second-order systems theory stresses the recursive complexities of observation, mediation, and communication. Focused on neocybernetics, the most prominent players are Foerster,Chilenial biologists Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana and Niklas Luhmann, the latter especially with his adaptations of autopoiesis to social systems theory. (source: Emergence and Embodiment)

• Neo-Darwinism

• Recursion

• Re-mark

• Second-order systems theory

Cybernetics and Systems Theory

In 1940s, the first cybernetics—the study of communication and control systems—was mainstreamed under the names artificial intelligence and computer science and taken up by the social sciences, the humanities, and the creative arts. The systems theory Emergence focuses on cybernetic developments that stem from the second-order turn in the 1970s, when the cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster catalyzed new thinking about the cognitive implications of self-referential systems. The crucial shift he inspired was from first-order cybernetics’ attention to homeostasis as a mode of autonomous self-regulation in mechanical and informatic systems, to second-order concepts of self-organization and autopoiesis in embodied and metabiotic systems.

In mathematical logic, a first-order theory is given by a set of axioms in some language.

First-order and Second-order is not exclusively links to Systems theory. Second-order generally indicates an extended or higher complexity. The way I recalled it was in relation to emergent structures, which I was not able to real that here the second order is actually the temporal dimension, it’s a beautiful poetic detail in evolutionary geology:

“It is useful to distinguish three forms of emergent structures. A first-order emergent structure occurs as a result of shape interactions (for example, hydrogen bonds in water molecules lead to surface tension). A second-order emergent structure involves shape interactions played out sequentially over time (for example, changing atmospheric conditions as a snowflake falls to the ground build upon and alter its form). Finally, a third-order emergent structure is a consequence of shape, time, and heritable instructions. For example, an organism's genetic code sets boundary conditions on the interaction of biological systems in space and time.”

• Social Darwinism

• ( solipsistic) Neo-Kantian Idelialism

Tuula Närhinen lecture: Phenomenotechnique in Visual Arts Practice

https://vimeo.com/209014874
pw: tuula

Tuula Nähiren lecture transscript (ENGL)

Tuula Nähire: Kuvan Apparaatti (FIN)

Audio from reading group March 9th

Ksenia and Frederik on Parikka /Uexkül

https://vimeo.com/207635853

passw: posthuman

PRESENTATIONS: WHO WHAT and WHEN

This is the lineup so far.
Please forgive name misspellings!
If you are not in a group so far, join existing ones!

March 8
Eeva Pulkkinen + Noora Sandgren + ..
Karoliina Lumma: Corpo Realities
__________________
Thursday, March 9
Ksenia Yurkova and Frederik Enges: Parikka/Uexküll

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Thursday, March 16
Kalle Karvinen and Saska Ylätalo: Cary Wolfe What is Posthumanism?
Ōie Holm and Aoibhe Jessen + Lilli Haapala: What is Plant thinking?
Hemmo Siponen + Vilma Määttänen: Michael Marder: Plant Thinking
__________________
Thursday, March 23

Geir Byrkjeland + Kristiina Lokko: Antti Salminen Parasites
Maria Hekkala + Moona Pennanen: Antti Salminen Parasites

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Thursday, March 30
Philip Lernhammar & Yu-Chuan Wang: John Berger
Astrid Strömberg + Liisa Karintaus: John Berger
Inka Kynkäänniemi + Katarzyna Kosieradzka: Nancy / Derrida interview

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Wednesday April 5
Emma Luukkala and Maija Lassikla: G.Agamben The Open
Inga Meldere + Celeen Mahe +Andreas Behn-Eschenburg: G.Agamben The Open
Ida-Eliabeth Larsen, Johannes C. Birlinger, Jussi Salminen,
Terhi Nieminen, Felizaveta Lace, Anniina Ala-Ruona: Bruno Latour: A Plea for Earthly Science

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April 6 (date and time to be confirmed, depending on Kiasma trip)
Monika Czyzyzk + Haliz Muhilden: Kim Taffoletti / Donna Haraway
Venla Helenius + Milla Piiroinen: Donna Haraway Cyborg Manifesto