#thing power

[apocalypsepark]

We are walking talking minerals.

Manuel De Landa 

[apocalypsepark]

     From this point forward the bear pictured above will be referred to as “Lake Bear” (I choose this title because it does not constrict the abstract thought, but still guides the perspective of the viewer).   

                                        Lake Bear: A Vibrant Matter   

     Objects are truly significant forms of human expression. An object may be used to portray an everlasting love to a partner either through rings or a marriage license. An object could demonstrate the accomplishments that have been made by way of a diploma or degree. Objects can illicit distinct feelings, invite speculation, or divide communities. Though these observations raise a question that deserves to be pondered: do these objects, these things, provoke individual effects in us because of our own personal backgrounds? Or do they themselves represent their own lively nature that calls to all intentionally (Bennett, 4-5)? Consider the gun that was used to kill Trayvon Martin in 2012. This gun was auctioned off and closed at a price of $138,900. The idea of the the gun was nothing special, yet the experience of the gun formed a desire, its exuberant nature required that it be valued so highly.

     In the case of Lake Bear, I have attempted to create an origin story, using both my cultural and personal experiences. Let us first consider the visual nature of Lake Bear and how the physical representation almost implores us to seek out the reasoning behind the (perceived) abandonment. Lake Bear appears to be a little worse for wear, almost as if it has been in Apocalypse Park for several months. Although Lake Bear still maintains its form, there are clear signs of dirt, matted fur, and a faded color. What looks to be a scarf is really a plastic bag wrapping around its neck. This plastic toxicity reminds us of the impact we have and how some animals (such as sea turtles or penguins) are negatively effected. There are red hearts on the fur that may suggest Lake Bear was a romantic gesture, either cast away in a rage, or unfortunately dropped into the glassy waters of Apocalypse Park. Lake Bear emanates the concept of vibrant matter and how we react and grow attached to certain items. Yet if Lake Bear was a romantic gesture, why is it that it was not retrieved? Could we atone this abandonment to Mary Douglas’ concept of dirt? Is Lake Bear now too unclean to express romance? Could the availability of stuffed bears play a role in the choice of retrieval? If Lake Bear was a model of only 20 made, should there be more desire to save it? Now we begin to pay credence to the individuality of thing value, whereas Lake Bear has its own sense of thing power, its value will drastically change from person to person.

[jamabushi]

Tammy Lu, detail from Levi R. Bryant, The Democracy of Objects

The world is due for a resurgence of the original speculative metaphysics. The New Metaphysics series aims to provide a safe house for such thinking amidst the demoralizing caution and prudence of professional academic philosophy. We do not aim to bridge the analytic-continental divide, since we are equally impatient with nail-filing analytic critique and the continental reverence for dusty textual monuments. We favor instead the spirit of the intellectual gambler...

[orangesphynx]

The Place of Society

One of the most common ways I can think of to define a "society" in the terms most common to the word is by its location.  I have considered it a group of people, most often  describing those living together and possibly sharing other similar characteristics,though not everyone in the society necessarily agrees with everything to which the society strives to adhere.  I'm sure many have shared this definition, yet Latour troubles that saying it is "not a special domain, a specific realm, or a particular sort of thing, but only (as a) very peculiar movement of re-association and reassembling".  

This makes it much more temporary and ever-changing.  More of an effect than a cause. More of an element to be considered in a situation than an explanation for said situation.  This seems to make my original idea of what society is into thing which, in turn, becomes an "actor".  

Latour says for "non-human" things to gain "ANT membership" they must be "actors and not simply the hapless bearers of symbolic projection".  This would make my idea of society more like a setting.  And many settings (or "sets" in tv and film) seem to be as much an actor as the characters themselves.  Who doesn't recognize the living room from the Roseanne show?  Or the bar from Cheers?  Even the post-apocalyptic world of  the popular "Walking Dead" plays as much of a role as the people themselves.  These places possess thing power, bringing to mind our favorite scenes or moments much like a character's catch phrase does.  

If this is simply a piece of what makes up a "society" rather than an encapsulation of it, I will have to do more studying and reading to fully understand this new and interesting concept.    

[iliveforschool-blog]

Thinghood

I really enjoyed the Bennett reading and was intrigued by one of the passages on pg. 4:

“The story will highlight the extent to which human being and thinghood overlap, the extent to which the us and the it slip-slide into each other. One moral of the story is that we are also nonhuman and that things, too, are vital players in the world. The hope is that the story will enhance receptivity to the impersonal life that surrounds and infuses us, will generate a more subtle awareness of the complicated web of dissonant connections between bodies, and will enable wiser interventions into that ecology.”

I felt like this was a great summation of a lot of what she talks about throughout the rest of the reading. The first few lines got me thinking about the extent of “thinghood” and how it relates to us humans, especially when she says “we are also nonhuman and that things, too, are vital players in the world.” This reminded me of Varnelis and how he talks about MMORPGs; how “Even though they are still rather early in their development, MMORPGs seem to have the capacity to feed back into real culture.” The avatar of a MMORPG is an extension of the person or the player behind it, but couldn’t the avatar be considered just a thing as well? Would Bennett say that the avatar is a thing that makes us nonhuman, a thing that plays a role in the world as well but is still just a thing? Maybe somebody could help me understand this better?