Jacques Rancière prepares for us a parable. A student who is illiterate, after living a fulfilled life without text, one day decides to teach herself to read. Luckily she knows a single poem by heart and procures a copy of that poem, presumably from a trusted source, by which to work. By comparing her knowledge, sign by sign, word by word, with the poem she can, Rancière believes, finally piece together a foundational understanding of her language:

“From this ignoramus, spelling out signs, to the scientist who constructs hypotheses, the same intelligence is always at work – an intelligence that… ]]> Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:43:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/arts/rancieres-ignoramus http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/to-crush-a-morlock%E2%80%99s-skull

Although the Time Traveller is an inquisitive type his journey through the ancient museum offers him little insight. The relics are from his future: the arché has all but snapped off from archeology. As he leaves the museum the Time Traveller ponders how best to crush a Morlock’s skull.

The Neanderthal is the most futuristic thing I can think of. Riddled with mythic charm, and soon to have its genes… ]]> Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:42:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/to-crush-a-morlock%E2%80%99s-skull http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/audio-essay-on-pharaohs-cults-and-parasitism-the-condition-of-division

audio essay : On Pharoahs, Cults and Parasitism (The Condition of Division)

Originally broadcast on Resonance 104.4 FM as part of Antepress’ Digestives series, Monday 24th May 2010

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Subscribe: via iTunes

]]> Mon, 24 May 2010 10:29:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/audio-essay-on-pharaohs-cults-and-parasitism-the-condition-of-division http://hellograndad.com

some text, an image: every day

]]> Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:27:00 -0700 http://hellograndad.com http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/system-of-enthalpy

Rooted in our language is a bias. It’s a bias that we can hardly be blamed for, based as it is in our conception of ourselves as distinct entities whose existence can be felt, from one moment to the next, through time. Nature appears to move ‘forwards’, the ice-cube melts if left unattended, the scream in the night dissipates into silence.

For very similar reasons we see society as a progressive entity. The 19th Century, Positivist appeal to a human reality that moves towards an ultimate goal still… ]]> Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:46:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/system-of-enthalpy http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/raising-neanderthals

In northern Spain 49,000 years ago, 11 Neanderthals were murdered. Their tooth enamel shows that each of them had gone through several periods of severe starvation, a condition their assailants probably shared. Cut marks on the bones indicate the people were butchered with stone tools. About 700 feet inside El Sidrön cave, a research team including Lalueza-Fox excavated 1,700 bones from that cannibalistic feast. Much of what is known about Neanderthal genetics comes from those 11 individuals.

Lalueza-Fox does not plan to sequence the entire genome of the El Sidrön Neanderthals. He is interested in specific genes. “I choose genes… ]]> Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:35:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/raising-neanderthals http://machinemachine.net/text/words/3quarksdaily-arts-and-literature-prize-vote-for-me

Four times a year 3quarksdaily runs a competition for great blog writing. This month it’s the Arts and Literature prize. An article of mine from October (Mapping the Cracks: Art-Objects in Motion) is in the running, all I need now is some votes…

• To check out the details of the prize go here
• To see the list of nominations go here
• To vote directly go here

That should keep you busy, there’s lots and lots… ]]> Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:27:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/words/3quarksdaily-arts-and-literature-prize-vote-for-me http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/podcasts-ahoy

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Introducing the MachineMachine Podcast!

Browse at MachineMachine.net/noise

Subscribe: via iTunes

MachineMachine /noise is an unintentional, somewhat rhythmic, eruption involving to-and-fro movements (oscillations) of one or more aural parts. MachineMachine /noise instigates involuntary cultural tremors and…

]]> Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:44:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/podcasts-ahoy http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/speaking-about-ants-superman-and-centaurs

This text was read out loud on the 21st November, as part of the Volatile Dispersal: Festival of Art-Writing, held at The Whitechapel Gallery

Thanks must go to Maria Fusco and Francesco Pedraglio for asking me to take part…

In one of the most uncanny revelations in science fiction, the protagonist of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine awakes from his anthropic slumber: the museum is filled with artefacts not from his past, but from his future.

Like… ]]> Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:29:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/speaking-about-ants-superman-and-centaurs http://machinemachine.net/text/miscellaneous/100-magenta

Hear that crocus? A ripe alcove chock full of crooked Theremins. Inside is a Jekyll, your personal rejoinder to alkali: the bright and beautiful mother of a brutal shade. Because this breakthrough is not malignant the resultant effervescence is only 18% frenetic. It is a real live sports car. It is a thoroughly enjoyable smoke. It will keep bottle-fed babies strong and virile.

There’s a heaping crust of manganese here – enough for one or two backbones of amaranth. And as it ogles onwards a fuller sense of violence precipitates.… ]]> Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:40:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/miscellaneous/100-magenta http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-unveiled-divide

The object holds within itself a series of meanings and values, both imminent and latent. The Berlin Wall, long standing as a symbol of closure, restriction and confinement, came down as a symbol of movement, release and freedom. The Berlin Wall embodies each and every one of these meanings, whilst latent within it stir the possibility of yet more, as now, unseen symbolic possibilities.

In Roman law objects belonging to the Gods were ascribed as sacred. Sacred objects exist removed from the world of… ]]> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:50:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-unveiled-divide http://machinemachine.net/text/things/simulating-kim-jong-il

Will the real Kim Jong Il please stand up?

The idea of Kim Jong Il has become commodity. There is a reality inside North Korea, and there is another outside. Which is real and which is simulation?

For the past half decade an excess of images, simulations and caricatures of the North Korean leader have bombarded us. The media of excess has repeated the mantra of simulation in bold headlines, in news-print and digital text : “Is… ]]> Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:28:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/things/simulating-kim-jong-il http://machinemachine.net/text/arts/profane-prisms

by artist Koizumi Meiro

“It is a delimitation of spaces and times, of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise, that simultaneously determines the place and the stakes of politics as a form of experience. Politics revolves around what is seen and what can be said about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak, around the properties of spaces and the possibilities of time.”

Jacques Rancière, The Distribution of… ]]> Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:14:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/arts/profane-prisms http://machinemachine.net/noise

MachineMachine is an unintentional, somewhat rhythmic, eruption involving to-and-fro movements (oscillations) of one or more aural parts. MachineMachine instigates involuntary cultural tremors and can affect the hands, arms, head, face, vocal cords, trunk, legs, elbows, ears and spleen. MachineMachine is making discordant.

Listen to MachineMachine live at Wired Radio every Friday from 5pm

COMING SOON: Full track listings, podcasts and news. What even is this?

]]> Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:18:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/noise http://machinemachine.net/text/featured/moon

Moon is a return to form, not for its 1st time director, Duncan Jones or even for its central star, Sam Rockwell, but for the very genre that the film so carefully encapsulates. Moon is a return to form for science fiction. A looking-glass on the human condition long over due for a bit of spit and polish.

At the peak of the 1960s science fiction was more than… ]]> Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:58:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/featured/moon http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-movement-of-the-middle

Words, bread, and wine are between us, beings or relations. We appear to exchange them between us though we are connected at the same table or with the same language. They are breast-fed by the same mother. Parasitic exchange, crossed between the logical and the material, can now be explained… Do we ever eat anything else together than the flesh of the word?[...]

Mediations, relations - one can make believe one is lost in this fractal cascade…… ]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:05:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-movement-of-the-middle http://machinemachine.net/text/featured/seeing-centaur

It is written that when the Maya people of The New World were first set upon by the Spanish cavalry it was spiritual confusion that hastened their demise. To their eyes the seething onslaught of man and horse was made of but one, new and terrifying, species of creature. In the West we might call these creatures Centaurs: liminal entities fused of two distinct species. To the Maya the border between God and beast was breached by the Spanish invaders, truly alien beings who in all… ]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:50:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/featured/seeing-centaur http://machinemachine.net/text/featured/beyond-the-topology-of-the-book

…the human perceptive apparatus [has] a potential to break with action and self-organisation: to see as such, without that point of view being folded around my organizing striving centre. It is precisely the image of bounded life that Deleuze sees as the illusion that has dominated philosophy and that is overcome in the radical connections of art.

- Claire Colebrook, Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed

Books are passive, denying their rigid topologies only… ]]> Wed, 27 May 2009 09:01:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/featured/beyond-the-topology-of-the-book