theory items › MachineMachine /stream

Metafilter Sacrifice, speech, writing and art Sacrifice, speech, writing and art: I am interested in the different ways in which a sacrifice, a sacrament, a spoken word and a written word act as signifiers.…

February 24 2010, 6:28am | Comments

Link Open-Source A Movement in Search of a Philosophy

by Manuel DeLanda The plan of the essay is as follows. I will begin with a few definitions of technical terms ("source code", "compiler", "operating system") which are necessary to…

February 19 2010, 7:37am | Comments

Metafilter De-constructing 'code' (picking apart its assumptions) De-constructing 'code': I am looking for philosophical (from W. Benjamin through to post-structuralism and beyond) examinations of 'code'. That both includes the assumptions contained in the word 'code'…

February 2 2010, 7:35am | Comments

Video

January 26 2010, 4:30pm | Comments

Wikipedia Other The Other or constitutive other (also referred to as othering) is a key concept in continental philosophy, opposed to the Same. It refers, or attempts to refer, to…

January 26 2010, 2:48pm | Comments

Link Transitzone/ Against an Aesthetics of Noise

Ray Brassier – My stance is not particularly original: it’s indebted to the work of several more genuinely original philosophers. The confluence of their influence in my thinking represents my…

January 15 2010, 5:38am | Comments

Link The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication

by Bertolt Brecht In our society one can invent and perfect discoveries that still have to conquer their market and justify their existence; in other words discoveries that have not…

January 6 2010, 8:16am | Comments

Writing from 3quarksdaily The Work of the Moving Image in the…

December 27 2009, 10:06pm | Comments

Link How we read: an investigation

A classical, although often implicit, view in social science is that the human brain, unlike that of other animals, is a learning machine which can adapt to essentially any novel…

November 23 2009, 8:55am | Comments

Link IMG MGMT: Hubris/Nemesis/Whatever

Another binary myth fundamental to Western culture is the eternally popular hubris/nemesis complex. According to this idea, those who transgress against the natural order always get their just desserts. Hubris…

November 13 2009, 5:22pm | Comments

Link IMG MGMT: Teen Image

IMG MGMT is an annual image-based artist essay series. Today’s invited artist, Seth Price presents an essay challenging the traditional photo essay format. Ritualized Unknowing People keep trying to get…

November 5 2009, 3:06am | Comments

Metafilter Innovative Book Designs Innovative Books: I am looking to compile a list of the most innovative uses of the book format. Books that break the mould in their layout and design,…

November 1 2009, 5:37am | Comments

Link Who’s afraid of the avant-garde?

There's a reason why we find it easier to "get" modern art than avant-garde music, and it's not just about our natural conservatism and love of Mozart... Arts & books…

October 27 2009, 11:53am | Comments

Link Luis Camnitzer, ALPHABETIZATION, Part Two: Hegemonic Language and…

In all the traditional approaches to pedagogy, both in art and in literacy, the possibility of perceiving the transitional nature of the space produced by text or image—the common space…

October 27 2009, 11:51am | Comments

Link Spooky Signals from the Future Telling Us to…

A recent essay in the New York Times by Dennis Overbye has managed to attract quite a bit of attention around the internets — most of it not very positive.…

October 15 2009, 8:13am | Comments

Link The Origin of the Work of Art

In his article, Heidegger explains the essence of art in terms of the concepts of being and truth. He argues that art is not only a way of expressing the…

October 8 2009, 9:35am | Comments

Link An Interview with W. Brian Arthur

Technology so pervades our culture that it's sobering to consider how poorly we understand it. How do new tools and techniques arise? What principles guide their evolution? And how does…

October 4 2009, 4:26pm | Comments

Link Altermodern: A Conversation with Nicholas Bourriaud

Independent curator and critic Bartholomew Ryan interviews Nicholas Bourriaud, author of the seminal book Relational Aesthetics and curator of the fourth Tate Triennial, Altermodern, which remains on view in London…

October 3 2009, 8:36am | Comments

Link On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of…

by Umberto Eco

September 8 2009, 9:15am | Comments

Video

August 2 2009, 10:49am | Comments

Video

July 27 2009, 5:37pm | Comments

Link The Art-Work of the Future

AS Man stands to Nature, so stands Art to Man. When Nature had developed in herself those attributes which included the conditions for the existence of Man, then Man spontaneously…

July 22 2009, 4:37pm | Comments

Link Adorno on Mimesis in Aesthetic Theory

Art is imitation only to the extent to which it is objective expression, far removed from psychology. There may have been a time long ago when this expressive quality of…

July 13 2009, 7:19am | Comments

Writing from 3quarksdaily Desire Paths: Reading, Memory and Inscription

July 12 2009, 10:35pm | Comments

Link Beyond Postmodernism? Paul Virilio's Hypermodern Cultural Theory

Paul Virilio is one of the most significant French cultural theorists writing today.1 Increasingly hailed as the inventor of concepts such as 'dromology' (the 'science' of speed), Virilio is renowned…

July 7 2009, 9:34am | Comments

Link From Book to Anti-Book

by Harry Polkinhorn - To arrive at a theoretical understanding of artists' books, it is perhaps best to begin, as Richard Kostelanetz points out in his essay entitled "Book Art,"…

July 7 2009, 9:25am | Comments

Link What Skepticism Reveals about Science

“The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It’s all lies. But they’re entertaining lies, and in the end isn’t that the real truth?…

June 24 2009, 3:26pm | Comments

Link Michel Serres's Milieux

Mediation means that which stands, comes or moves between things otherwise separated or opposed. Serres’s work has never ceased to meditate upon mediation in every possible sense: as arbitration; moderation;…

June 23 2009, 2:38pm | Comments

Link Adaptation: On Literary Darwinism

Human beings expend an enormous amount of energy doing things that don't seem to have any survival value: singing, dancing, painting caves, decorating spears and, above all, telling stories. (Think…

June 8 2009, 12:41am | Comments

Writing from 3quarksdaily The Next Great Discontinuity: The Data Deluge

May 5 2009, 7:35am | Comments

Link A Society of Simulations

This essay aims to increase our understanding of simulations and their impact on our notion of reality. Following on some observations regarding the dominant role of visual representations in our…

April 20 2009, 3:22pm | Comments

Link Luis Camnitzer: Art and Literacy | Journal /…

[T]his theory—that if one wants to be able to write something, one should know how it is written—has some logic to it. It forces one first to read, then to…

March 23 2009, 4:00pm | Comments

Link Within Any Possible Universe, No Intellect Can Ever…

Deep in the deluge of knowledge that poured forth from science in the 20th century were found ironclad limits on what we can know. Werner Heisenberg discovered that improved precision…

March 17 2009, 9:35am | Comments

Link Immaterial Labour in the Digital Economy | Eleni…

The Internet, arguably the most influential digital medium, has sparked an explosion of debate throughout recent years, regarding its economic, political and social status; a space where its structure is…

March 13 2009, 5:45am | Comments

Link Fallacy of misplaced concreteness | Wikipedia

In the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, one commits the fallacy of misplaced concreteness when one mistakes an abstract belief, opinion or concept about the way things are for a…

March 12 2009, 6:08pm | Comments

Link Michel Serres: Journals/Articles

Writings about author, Michel Serres

March 11 2009, 10:45am | Comments

Writing for 3quarksdaily Writing (Hyper)text and Image

A Polyptychal Discursion: This text, designed with its own concerns in mind, diverges on many trajectories, crossing over itself, intersecting its arguments and statements…

February 23 2009, 8:07am | Comments

Metafilter New theories of Mimesis (in digital/hypertextual/ hypermedial cultures) I am looking for writings on mimesis in regards new, digital, hypertext and hypermedial technologies and cultures. I am following the redefinition of mimesis. From Plato's disregard of…

February 16 2009, 8:09am | Comments

Link Liam Gillick: The Discursive | Journal / e-flux

A discursive model of praxis has developed within the critical art context over the last twenty years. It is the offspring of critical theory and improvised, self-organized structures. It is…

February 16 2009, 6:59am | Comments

Link Dick Higgins: Statement on Intermedia

Art is one of the ways that people communicate. It is difficult for me to imagine a serious person attacking any means of communication per se. Our real enemies are…

January 30 2009, 7:03am | Comments