Showing papers in "parallax in 2013"
TL;DR: The discourse surrounding biotechnologies rarely fails to evoke their ‘promise' as discussed by the authors, and this is particularly true when biotehnologies promise to resolve longstanding social, political and moral problems.
Abstract: The discourse surrounding biotechnologies rarely fails to evoke their ‘promise’. This is particularly true when biotechnologies promise to resolve longstanding social, political and moral problems,...
33 citations
TL;DR: The instrumentalisation of life is taking novel and radical forms with the developments in the life sciences and its applied technologies as mentioned in this paper. And so are the ways in which we, humans, deal with these l...
Abstract: The instrumentalisation of life is taking novel and radical forms with the developments in the life sciences and its applied technologies. And so are the ways in which we, humans, deal with these l...
21 citations
TL;DR: Insects are uninvited guests at tables – hovering nearby, crawling on their food or already inside their guts, and the way insects imaginatively figure many of the affects and instincts mobilized when the authors gather about the table is of interest.
Abstract: Insects are uninvited guests at our tables – hovering nearby, crawling on our food or already inside our guts. While we humans come together to talk and eat, insects are also with us in other ways: thoughts buzz, skin crawls; we have butterflies in our stomachs and ants in our pants. These scenes are of interest, both because of the relations that are struck up between insect and human worlds and because of the way insects imaginatively figure many of the affects and instincts mobilized when we gather about the table.
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe a being capable of processing, remembering and sharing information, a being with potentialities proper to it and a world of its own, and most of us will think of...
Abstract: Imagine a being capable of processing, remembering and sharing information – a being with potentialities proper to it and a world of its own. Given this brief description, most of us will think of ...
18 citations
TL;DR: In a 1961 essay, Roland Barthes argues that a central feature of modernity is the proliferation of social situations in which food serves not just to nourish bodies but to communicate identities as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In a 1961 essay, Roland Barthes argues that a central feature of modernity is the proliferation of ‘social situations’ in which food serves not just to nourish bodies but to communicate identities
15 citations
TL;DR: In their introduction to A Postcapitalist Politics, J.K. Gibson-Graham quotes artist-activist John Jordan stating, ‘When we are asked how we are going to build a new world, our answer is, “We don't...
Abstract: In their introduction to A Postcapitalist Politics, J.K. Gibson-Graham quotes artist-activist John Jordan stating, ‘When we are asked how we are going to build a new world, our answer is, “We don't...
12 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, affective and micro-political practices within creative forms of making political worlds are discussed, by focusing on the relations and social reproductions within organizational activities, and by asking not only how we understand ourselves, but also how we address each other.
Abstract: This special issue is about affective and micro-political practices within creative forms ofmaking political worlds. By looking toward the less visiblemoments and processes, by focusing on the relations and social reproductions within our organizational activities, we hope to open up spaces for asking not only how we understand ourselves, but also how we address each other. Oftentimes, when speaking of politics, there is a tendency toward encompassing stories and experiences that come to infer a coherent and smooth narrative. Such narratives obfuscate the mess and uncertainty of political labour. To recognise these more messy and uncertain terrains does not mean to dismiss the role of broaderdiscourse; rather, itmeans to lookat these alongside them, to try andfindpoints of communication that show how more marginal practices can speak to wider conditions and vice versa.
6 citations
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TL;DR: The authors begin this essay on stupidity with two long quotations, one from Husserl and the other from Henri Bergson, the two great thinkers of the twentieth century who diagnosed a constitutive re...
Abstract: I want to begin this essay on stupidity with two long quotations, one from Husserl and the other from Henri Bergson – the two great thinkers of the twentieth century who diagnosed a constitutive re...
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that this tendency resonates strongly with the embrace of art and creativity by the creative industries, which cunningly co-opt creativity as an individual merit and a commodity fetish.
Abstract: In this essay, we reflect upon the highly celebrated notion of creativity in activist practices, especially during the dispersal of the alter-globalization movement. We neither attempt to homogenize a rich cluster of activist practices, nor to dismiss an act’s diverse social, cultural and political impacts. What we do discuss is the need to be alert to, and critical of, the reification of creativity which, when detached from the materiality of resistance practices, is in danger of becoming a goal in itself. We argue that this tendency in fact resonates strongly with the embrace of art and creativity by the creative industries. However, our aim here is not to focus on the critique of the creative industries per se, which cunningly co-opt creativity as an individual merit and a commodity fetish, but rather on that very logic which mischievously leaks into the capillary vessels of activism itself; a topic that has, as of yet, not been fully explored.
5 citations
TL;DR: It starts with that stupid mechanical bird as discussed by the authors that starts chirping for about seven seconds and then stops, a minor malfunction that, in retrospect, I am tempted to see as a harbinger of failure.
Abstract: It starts with that stupid mechanical bird. In a scene near the beginning of Goat Island’s The Lastmaker, Matthew Goulish, one of the company’s performers, positions a simple wooden chair on one side of an otherwise empty stage, pulls a small mechanical goldfinch from his pocket, starts it chirping by sliding a little switch on its feather-covered plastic belly, and sets it gently on the floor. The goldfinch chirps for about seven seconds and then stops, a minor malfunction that, in retrospect, I am tempted to see as a harbinger of failure. It starts up chirping again, inexplicably, when Mark Jeffery enters the stage dressed as St. Francis of Assisi in a brown tunic with a knotted rope tied around his waist and an ill-fitting wig with its reddish-brown hair styled in the traditional monk’s tonsure. He circles the stage, which lies between two audiences seated on two sets of bleachers facing each other across the rectangular performance space, his right hand gesturing in a half-wave half-benediction. He returns to the chair and begins a campy monologue, which serves as an explanation of and introduction to the performance as a whole (Figure 1). Although he is dressed as St. Francis, Jeffery’s script is derived primarily from the last public performance made by beloved British comedian Larry Grayson at the Royal Variety Show in 1994. Grayson, who was 71 years old at the time of that appearance, died the following year. Jeffery, who is himself British, repeats Grayson’s monologue:
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that a focus on the biopolitics of the archive of exile can make a signifcant contribution to the understanding of the archives of exile, and argued that the archive is best approached from a biopolitical perspective.
Abstract: This article proceeds from the proposition that the archive of exile is best approached from a biopolitical perspective. It contends that a focus on the biopolitics of the archive can make a signif...
TL;DR: The wandering hero is washed ashore - naked, broken and bereft -and the very integrity of his body is compromized, his skin left hanging from the rocks in shreds as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The wandering hero is washed ashore – naked, broken and bereft. The very integrity of his body is compromized, his skin left hanging from the rocks in shreds. But the people of the island discharge...
TL;DR: In this article, the authorship in the production of creative dissent in the current and recent social movements is explored, and the authors explore the vexed issue of authorship and authorship is discussed.
Abstract: This article explores the vexed issue of authorship in the production of creative dissent in the current and recent social movements.
TL;DR: In this paper, Best's most recent book, Visualizing Feeling, begins with the paradoxical observation that we possess a limited vocabulary to describe artistic feeling and have little experience of detecting and thinking about it.
Abstract: Susan Best’s most recent book, Visualizing Feeling, begins with the paradoxical observation that we – she is thinking of art historians and theorists – possess a ‘limited vocabulary to describe artistic feeling’ and have little experience of ‘detecting and thinking about it’ (p.7). We may expect and want to be moved by art, but we lack the words and concepts for thinking about the precise relationship between form and feeling, represen tation and emotion. She suggests several reasons for this surprising state of affairs (p.30). Since the emergence of the New Art History in the 1970s, most art historians have been preoccupied with questions of context (social history) or meaning (semiotics/post-structuralism) rather than affect. At the same time, the demise of aesthetics has meant that traditional concerns with taste, beauty and genius have been off the agenda. And finally, late modern art of the 1960s and 1970s – the focus of this book – is generally understood to be ‘anti aesthetic, anti-expressive and anti-subjective’ (p.1). The memorable term coined by the American art historian and critic Max Kozloff is ‘zombie art’ (p.42).
TL;DR: The moral of which is that a dog is man's best fri...Stupidity consists in wanting to draw conclusions as discussed by the authors, which is not a good attitude to be in the movies.
Abstract: Stupidity consists in wanting to draw conclusions. Gustav Flaubert I've been to the movies. I saw a very long picture about a dog–the moral of which is that a dog is man's best fri...
TL;DR: The Babylonian Talmud as mentioned in this paper states that there was a gentile who came before Shammai and said to him: “Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot”.Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding.
Abstract: Once there was a gentile who came before Shammai and said to him: “Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot”. Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding. The same fellow came before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying: “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it”. Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a.
TL;DR: This article on the place of metalanguage in cultural theories of stupidity was selected for open access publication in 'Parallax' 19:3 (2013) a peer-reviewed journal of cultural studies, critical theory and philosophy, in a special issue on the theme of stupidity.
Abstract: This article on the place of metalanguage in cultural theories of stupidity was selected for open access publication in ‘Parallax’ 19:3 (2013) a peer-reviewed journal of cultural studies, critical theory and philosophy, in a special issue on the theme of stupidity.
Other contributors to this issue are Mieke Bal, Jane Blocker, Claire Colebrook, Natalie Pollard, David Jenemann.
The discussion of Bentham’s ethics in this article was developed from another article by Quinn entitled ‘The Invention of Facts: Bentham’s Ethics and the Education of Public Taste’ in ‘Revue d’etudes Benthamiennes’ 9 (2011).
TL;DR: Rickels' I Think I Am: Philip K. Dick as mentioned in this paper is organized into five parts, each of which contains fairly short essays, and each part contains a short essay.
Abstract: Laurence A. Rickels (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010) Laurence Rickels' I Think I Am: Philip K. Dick is organized into five parts, each of which contains fairly short essays...
TL;DR: Exodus is not, at least to begin with, a flight to anywhere as mentioned in this paper, and one of the most notable features of the Bible is the lack of empty space, which limits the amount of space available.
Abstract: Inability to tolerate empty space limits the amount of space available. Wilfred R. Bion1Exodus is not, at least to begin with, a flight to anywhere. One of the most notable features of the bibl...
TL;DR: The room contains little: a display cabinet of dark wood, glassfronted; a child-size wooden chair; on one wall hangs a simple picture: in it the outline of a swallow, crudely shaped in wire, perches on a real branch as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The room contains little: a display cabinet of dark wood, glassfronted; a child-size wooden chair. On one wall hangs a simple picture: in it the outline of a swallow, crudely shaped in wire, perches on a real branch. An old white lace curtain blurs what would have been the view from the room into the yard outside. As a visitor, you can sit or crouch down, as you prefer, to observe what is inside the vitrine. On each of its three shelves are cups and saucers in domestic display: pretty, not valuable. The top shelf also holds a model caravan, fashioned in unbleached calico, which would fit in the palm of your hand. On the bottom shelf is a leather suitcase (shut), approximately three teacups wide. On the centre shelf, behind china, is an ornate photo frame. The picture inside is moving. There is no sound, only a changing landscape sharply bordered like a view from a train window. But the movement of the scene is slower than this implies; the little caravan now seems to you a clue. The photo-film is empty of people. It captures countryside: maybe moorland, or seaside. Wind sweeps through the picture, trees swaying, a hot air balloon overhead, some laundry flapping on a line. You realise that the action is not photographed but animated, each frame with the smudgy quality of coloured chalk; the peachy haze of sunrise or sunset overlays it, interrupted by the occasional black line, or bright scribble of a lightning flash at the moment when the sky clouds over. Perhaps the seaside, you conclude: the teacups have sand in them.
TL;DR: In J. M. Coetzee's novel, Diary of a Bad Year, an elderly academic composing a series of essays expresses his bafflement at the mind's shortcomings: Why is it that the intellectual apparatus...
Abstract: In J. M. Coetzee's novel, Diary of a Bad Year, J.C., an elderly academic composing a series of essays, expresses his bafflement at the mind's shortcomings: Why is it that the intellectual apparatus...
TL;DR: The recent development of affect as a focus of scholarly activity has followed a proliferation of creative activism that addresses the emotional and embodied experience of social and political life as mentioned in this paper, and expectations for academic discourse in the humanities run the risk of "dis-affecting" affect.
Abstract: The recent development of affect as a focus of scholarly activity has followed a proliferation of creative activism that addresses the emotional and embodied experience of social and political life. Just as the affective turn in aestheticallyinflected political work has led to the development of new forms and methods (and the re-interpretation of old ones), so to does an attention to ‘felt life’ demand changes in how scholars approach their subject and understand their methods. Yet expectations for academic discourse in the humanities – from privileging the masterful critical gesture to the imperative of scrupulous citation to long publication timelines – runs the risk of ‘dis-affecting’ affect. A project rooted in desire and affection can quickly be transformed into yet another academic chore or, worse yet, an anxiety-ridden exercise in delivering an analysis rooted in extraordinarily deep feeling or personal experience in professionally acceptable form. Sensitive to this danger, the editors of parallax announced that this special issue would take a more exploratory mode, inviting contributors to draw on ‘the primary texts, interviews, participatory action research and critical self-reflection to draw out the tensions and possibilities produced in [ . . . ] practices which traverse the institutional territories of art and politics’.
TL;DR: In this paper, the Udder series (1990-1994) of sculptures transforming daily objects with cow hide is considered. But they are not shown on a white plinth, or on a limestone floor, something clean that would emphasise their sculptural status, distinguish them as objects.
Abstract: They could be photographed atop a white plinth, or on a limestone floor, something clean that would emphasise their sculptural status, distinguish them as objects. But they are not. The photograph documenting Dorothy Cross’s Spurs positions them on a grubby looking, slightly out of focus ground, probably cement. The narrow palette of earthy colours together with the shallow focus plays against the photographic documentation of this work (as seen in exhibition catalogues or internet reproductions – a key method of the work’s dissemination) and seems instead rather more painterly. Extant writing on Cross frames Spurs – alongside the rest of the sculptures transforming daily objects with cow hide collectively called the Udder series (1990-1994), substantially in terms of gender, partly in terms of Irish cultural identity, perhaps with some acknowledgement of the proximity between human females and those of other species. With the hindsight of Jacques Derrida’s late work on the animal question in which he welcomes animal and sexual differences across the same threshold, this paper will begin a more detailed reading of the questions which her work provokes. Concentrating principally on Spurs within the Udder series, it is also informed by Derrida’s essay ‘Restitutions of the truth in pointing [ pointure ]’, an essay that addresses competing readings of paintings of shoes by Vincent Van Gogh, paintings that this work uncannily recalls.
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TL;DR: For the French writer, the word does not so much pose the question of voluntariness, consciousness, or intelligence, but of repetition, and his masterpiece Madame Bovary has the extraordinary quality of making people weep while despising the stupidity of the characters.
Abstract: Not so sure what stupidity or its better French equivalent, betise, can mean, and weary of unwarranted extension of this or any word's meaning, I stay in the orbit of Flaubert – the undisputed mast...
TL;DR: The family is a subject-object that hasn't been dealt with much in recent ‘young’ social movements like those of Global Justice, EuroMayDay or more recent student movements as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The family is a subject-object that hasn’t been dealt with much in recent ‘young’ social movements like those of Global Justice, EuroMayDay or more recent student movements. While affect and micropolitics have been discussed variously in relation to post-Fordist labour, life and organization, the broader question of social reproduction is largely left untouched in those debates. These days, with the deepening of current social and economic crises and with a generation of activists (from which I speak) growing older, questions around the social organization of reproduction emerge as urgent: how can we sustain our lives and collaborations in this context? The current crises are not just financial, social and environmental but more broadly may also be seen as reproductive, concerning the economies and ecologies of the commons and their sustainability.
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TL;DR: In this paper, Novero argues that any former or future appropriation of food in visual art demands its own critical engagement within its socio-economic context, which cannot be fully accomplished without first interacting with the avant-gardes of the twentieth century.
Abstract: chocolate and Jana Sterbak’s use of meat is then discussed in terms of archiving the ephemeral. It should be mentioned that the first three of these artists can be found in a chapter of the 1998 book Eating Culture, where their practice is examined by Laura Trippi. Novero addresses this, but one cannot help but wonder why no alternative examples of contemporary practice are introduced here to satisfy the question I have cited above. Perhaps this is the task she sets the reader. Regardless, concluding a highly enjoyable and conscientious book is the final assertion that any former or future appropriation of food in visual art demands its own critical engagement within its socio-economic context. This cannot be fully accomplished without first interacting with the avant-gardes of the twentieth century. Notes