tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post247300516125730385..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Elemental Relations (redux)Cord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-14891285712857842592012-09-03T19:07:57.932-04:002012-09-03T19:07:57.932-04:00Thanks, Anonymous, for that link to a thought from...Thanks, Anonymous, for that link to a thought from Harman I know well. For the record and lest I be misunderstood, I am NOT arguing that everything is connected. That is both facile and obviously not true. But I AM arguing that within an ecosystem (even at the scale of the world ecosystem) a great many things are intimately interconncted. Not permanently, not necessarily even for long, and certainly not in some totalizing giving over, but interconnected in profound and unpredictable ways all the same. <br /><br />That is in not the same thing as the soft core spiritualism of "Everything is connected, man."Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-60777951842482059792012-09-03T17:38:33.871-04:002012-09-03T17:38:33.871-04:00http://soundcloud.com/transmediale/in-compatible-s...http://soundcloud.com/transmediale/in-compatible-systems-keynoteAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-38921059606962580642012-09-03T10:41:21.504-04:002012-09-03T10:41:21.504-04:00"elements are indifferent to humans, yes, but..."elements are indifferent to humans, yes, but they are also allies of their own accord"<br />this is an intriguing claim but not an obvious one would take a great deal of spelling out of what terms like "allies" and especially "accord" mean in such an economy, a more Pickering-ish model of mangles of practices, with affordances and resistances, doesn't suggest two realms just one with great and actual variety. A flat ontology does not a democracy make...<br />-dmf Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-25323523188491721322012-09-02T17:00:32.418-04:002012-09-02T17:00:32.418-04:00And thanks for the DTW correction!And thanks for the DTW correction!Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-12413833122371966432012-09-02T17:00:03.392-04:002012-09-02T17:00:03.392-04:00Thank you, everyone, for these useful and helpful ...Thank you, everyone, for these useful and helpful comments.<br /><br />The elements are indifferent to humans, yes, but they are also allies of their own accord. It is too easy to say that world (inhuman) and culture (human) are separate spheres: we uncannily partner with a thing (eg stone fire) that has always already uncannily partnered with us. Stone is documentary AND it can be used as a documentary apparatus.<br /><br />Elements are ready to hand as well as that through which handiness and handedness are possible. Without the mineralization of life -- without stone implanting itself in invertebrate flesh -- we wouldn't be able to touch rock or make art as elements fashion art. And so on.<br /><br />Karl, I'm trying to argue not that that ecologies themselves 'fructify and affirm' -- they don't, so I'm actually with you in believing in pessimistic or at least disanthropcentric ecologies -- but ecological ethics must (in my opinion) move toward affirmation over resignation (or, worse, celebration that all things end in death, that life reduces itself to non-meaning -- a replication of theological misanthropy). <br /><br />Will clarify what I mean by life -- thanks for that: am using Deleuzian notion, I guess, of une vie, impersonal life. And: my BABEL talk is about Curiosity Rover! So I won't place it here.<br /><br />Daniel, quite a moving video melange! I like it,a dn it is part of a genre I've been calling geoautobiography, the narration of personal life stories via lithic spur.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-61863029692392832822012-09-01T18:49:03.958-04:002012-09-01T18:49:03.958-04:00A correction from the Motor City: Detroit = DTWA correction from the Motor City: Detroit = DTWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-35457600355165193052012-08-30T17:10:00.185-04:002012-08-30T17:10:00.185-04:00I enjoyed this very much. Particularly like the wa...I enjoyed this very much. Particularly like the way it asks for refiguring what might be narrative and enacts alternatives in the composition. I'd be interested to see what might happen by pushing that even further, fidgeting with the narrative boundaries in the piece--scholarship's lines, maybe. I wonder a bit if layering narrative over stone and time yields the kind of objects and events of language as much as narrative. Both, as here. Great stuff. <br /><br />I'd be curious to hear what you think of this:<br />https://vimeo.com/42331263 a bit about sediment and stones. Daniel Andersonhttp://iamdananderson.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-76777703939209923472012-08-30T13:56:28.773-04:002012-08-30T13:56:28.773-04:00thanks for this Jeffrey. super fun. It's an in...thanks for this Jeffrey. super fun. It's an incentive for me to get moving on my O-Zone paper, due sooner than I'd wish! <br /><br />Some comments -- chiefly, I'll let you know that I've now decided to use Morton's stuff about 'interdependence' as a jumping off place for my Boston Babel talk. Hungry worms eating our flesh gives another view of 'interdependence' than one that's 'fructif[ied] and affirmative', at least from our point of view. I'm not proposing some kind of pessimistic ecology that's more 'true' than an affirmative model, but rather (with an eye towards my Book #2), thinking of what it looks like when humans abandon their pretensions to being above the field of play, creation, eating, and being eaten.<br /><br />That's my bag, though.<br /><br />Some other questions for you: wondering if you could clarify that transition from Ingold on life to the lithic, which isn't something people typically think of as 'alive.' I know your work well(ish), so the transition works for me: but maybe slow things down there?<br /><br />With that in mind, if you have space, it would be cool to squeeze in a reference to the Curiosity Rover, which is hunting amid the rocks for evidence of life having been on Mars. Somehow I think that resonates with this paper.medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-3604912871065298652012-08-30T11:26:20.222-04:002012-08-30T11:26:20.222-04:00Kristin, except to categorize as genre, to pre-scr...Kristin, except to categorize as genre, to pre-scribe, is to make use of, I'm with Rorty and pace Heidegger that as the kind of handy critters that we be we are always-already manipulating (hear an embodied/fleshy take on Derrida's narcissism(s) without end),homo-rhetoricus, if you will. <br />http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2011/03/the-weird-a-discussion-of-fiction-and-politics-with-china-mieville/<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-57809819212317109642012-08-29T22:22:16.961-04:002012-08-29T22:22:16.961-04:00Lovely, provocative, and lyrical post--and I am wr...Lovely, provocative, and lyrical post--and I am writing from a Southern California location that' just had an earthquake, today, and feels very much alive!<br /><br />I was thinking about the role of smog as living antagonist in China Mieville's <i>Un Lun Dun</i>, near the end of your piece (Mieville conference approaching, so I'm rereading much of his work) and how "pollution" works in the world, changing and altering the other elements (rain, for example). Might be of use in that section, perhaps?<br /><br />In response to the anon above, I like the "thick stone as documentary" phrasing--stone as genre, as testament to observation--as opposed to the "can be used as documentary" suggestion, which implies external force using the stone. But I will second the question about the move from disinterestedness to alliances--though of course one can be personally disinterested in the machinations of other beings but still be concerned about how to live in harmony with them.<br /><br />Unless they're sharks, with lasers.Kristinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07958323486427668466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-80867701993947730092012-08-29T17:19:52.709-04:002012-08-29T17:19:52.709-04:00"Thick stone is documentary" or can be u..."Thick stone is documentary" or can be used as documentary? also in terms of "alliances" how does this fit with elemental disinterestedness?<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-3091935033013467332012-08-29T16:40:19.815-04:002012-08-29T16:40:19.815-04:00Provided the shark has a frickin' laser.Provided the shark has a frickin' laser.Rob Barretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17791752557408134270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-15543487864895194692012-08-29T16:32:03.802-04:002012-08-29T16:32:03.802-04:00Please tell me that the narrative also features a ...Please tell me that the narrative also features a shark, Steve. It is not going to be an exciting swim without a shark in hot pursuit.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-79744884284208668642012-08-29T16:26:30.859-04:002012-08-29T16:26:30.859-04:00Very nicely done. You're a few days ahead of m...Very nicely done. You're a few days ahead of me (as usual, and at least), but I am also working up a semi-narrative format for O-Zone, which will take me into "swimmer poetics" across the Chesapeake Bay in the company of my friends Hamlet, Nemo, Emily Dickinson, etc.Steve Mentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02927244468764583378noreply@blogger.com