L9 Machinic Assemblages
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CRITICAL THEORY / PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY Guattari extends the concept of the machine beyond its usual sense to see all the diverse forces that produce a technical object as themselves machinic. This difficult but rewarding reading begins by referring to a number of philosophical readings of technology, and progresses to develop an extended definition of the machine. Guattari, Felix (1995) “Machinic Heterogenesis” in Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm Sydney:Power, pp 33-57.
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L9 Machinic Assemblages
- 1. Technological Assemblages ARIN2600 Technocultures Week 10, Session 1, 2009 Chris Chesher
- 2. Recent weeks
- 3. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage
- 4. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage • control / freedom
- 5. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage • control / freedom • media as message
- 6. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage • control / freedom • media as message • cyborgs
- 7. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage • control / freedom • media as message • cyborgs • social actors and forces
- 8. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage • control / freedom • media as message • cyborgs • social actors and forces • class relations
- 9. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage • control / freedom • media as message • cyborgs • social actors and forces • class relations • space
- 10. Recent weeks • Components in the UoS assemblage • control / freedom • media as message • cyborgs • social actors and forces • class relations • space • actor-networks
- 12. Connecting these components… • Transversality: crosswise • Movements across the social, psychological, technological, biological
- 13. Connecting these components… • Transversality: crosswise • Movements across the social, psychological, technological, biological • Objects are constituted by processes • emergence; events • isolating foreground from background
- 15. Connecting these components… • Deleuze and Guattari • French philosophers writing 1960s–1990s • Translated into English since 1980s
- 16. Connecting these components… • Deleuze and Guattari • French philosophers writing 1960s–1990s • Translated into English since 1980s • Manuel de Landa • War in the age of intelligent machines • Deleuzo-Guattarian theorist
- 17. ‘Machinic Heterogenesis’ What is Guattari doing?
- 18. What is Guattari doing?
- 19. What is Guattari doing? • Critiquing established systems of thought • psychoanalysis; structuralism; capitalism
- 20. What is Guattari doing? • Critiquing established systems of thought • psychoanalysis; structuralism; capitalism • Creating new concepts • generative processes producing technologies, individuals, societies & other assemblages
- 21. What is Guattari doing? • Critiquing established systems of thought • psychoanalysis; structuralism; capitalism • Creating new concepts • generative processes producing technologies, individuals, societies & other assemblages • Developing an ethics • affirms the untiring renewal of machinic assemblages
- 22. Guattari’s Critiques • Theories of technology • mechanistic; vitalist; cybernetic; Heideggerean • Psychoanalysis • Not Lacan’s Oedipal lack, but Desiring machines • Structuralism • Not all semiotics work as significations (presignifying/asignifying systems: the point sign) • Capitalism • not (only) exploitation / alienation, but closes off heterogeneous becomings
- 24. Guattari’s Examples • The material apparatus (p34)
- 25. Guattari’s Examples • The material energy components apparatus (p34) •material and
- 26. Guattari’s Examples • The material energy components apparatus (p34) •material and • semiotic, diagrammatic, algorithmic components
- 27. Guattari’s Examples • The material energy components apparatus (p34) •material and • semiotic, diagrammatic, algorithmic components • individual & collective mental representations and information
- 28. Guattari’s Examples • The material energy components apparatus (p34) •material and • semiotic, diagrammatic, algorithmic components • individual & collective mental representations and information • investments of desiring machines producing a subjectivity adjacent to these components
- 29. Guattari’s Examples • The material energy components apparatus (p34) •material and • semiotic, diagrammatic, algorithmic components • individual & collective mental representations and information • investments of desiring machines producing a subjectivity adjacent to these components • abstract machines installing themselves transversally to the machinic levels previously considered (material, cognitive, affectual & social)
- 32. Guattari’s Examples • Concorde • diagrammatic universe with plans of theoretical feasibility;
- 33. Guattari’s Examples • Concorde • diagrammatic universe with plans of theoretical feasibility; • technological universes transposing this ‘feasibility’ into material terms;
- 34. Guattari’s Examples • Concorde • diagrammatic universe with plans of theoretical feasibility; • technological universes transposing this ‘feasibility’ into material terms; • industrial universes… producing it;
- 35. Guattari’s Examples • Concorde • diagrammatic universe with plans of theoretical feasibility; • technological universes transposing this ‘feasibility’ into material terms; • industrial universes… producing it; • collective Imaginary Universes corresponding to a desire sufficient to make it see the light of day
- 36. Guattari’s Examples • Concorde • diagrammatic universe with plans of theoretical feasibility; • technological universes transposing this ‘feasibility’ into material terms; • industrial universes… producing it; • collective Imaginary Universes corresponding to a desire sufficient to make it see the light of day • political & economic universes… credit
- 37. Guattari’s Examples http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 38. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 39. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 40. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines •machine of spoken language http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 41. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines •machine of spoken language •machines of hewn stone http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 42. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines •machine of spoken language •machines of hewn stone •agrarian machines http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 43. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines •machine of spoken language •machines of hewn stone •agrarian machines • Writing machine http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 44. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines • machine of spoken language • machines of hewn stone • agrarian machines • Writing machine • Urban megamachines http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 45. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines • machine of spoken language • machines of hewn stone • agrarian machines • Writing machine • Urban megamachines • Capitalistic machines http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 46. Guattari’s Examples • Machinic universes (p41) • Neololithic machines • machine of spoken language • machines of hewn stone • agrarian machines • Writing machine • Urban megamachines • Capitalistic machines • urban state / Royal / commercial / navigation… http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/maa/Interview_with_the_Minotaur/Luzzanas.gif
- 48. Building concepts • Deterritorialisation something from one •any process that extracts territory and reconstitutes in another
- 49. Building concepts • Deterritorialisation something from one • any process that extracts territory and reconstitutes in another • Universes of reference • deterritorialisations of different varieties establish and operate according to different universes of reference
- 50. Building concepts • Deterritorialisation something from one • any process that extracts territory and reconstitutes in another • Universes of reference • deterritorialisations of different varieties establish and operate according to different universes of reference • Abstract machinediagram of relations between • a distinctive map or forces by which reterritorialisations are produced
- 51. Building concepts • Deterritorialisation something from one • any process that extracts territory and reconstitutes in another • Universes of reference • deterritorialisations of different varieties establish and operate according to different universes of reference • Abstract machinediagram of relations between • a distinctive map or forces by which reterritorialisations are produced • Machinic assemblages connecting universes of • components that transversally reference that maintain a consistency based on an abstract machine
- 53. Developing concepts • Ontogenesis and phylogenesis
- 54. Developing concepts • Ontogenesis and phylogenesis • Enunciative consistency
- 55. Developing concepts • Ontogenesis and phylogenesis • Enunciative consistency • Assemblages of subjectivation
- 56. Developing concepts • Ontogenesis and phylogenesis • Enunciative consistency • Assemblages of subjectivation • Asignifying semiotics
- 57. Developing concepts • Ontogenesis and phylogenesis • Enunciative consistency • Assemblages of subjectivation • Asignifying semiotics • Point sign
- 58. Developing concepts • Ontogenesis and phylogenesis • Enunciative consistency • Assemblages of subjectivation • Asignifying semiotics • Point sign • Alterity (alterification)
- 59. Developing concepts • Ontogenesis and phylogenesis • Enunciative consistency • Assemblages of subjectivation • Asignifying semiotics • Point sign • Alterity (alterification) • Structure / machine
- 61. Aesthetics and ethics • Ontological relativity
- 62. Aesthetics and ethics • Ontological relativity • Heterogenising force of the abstract machine • ‘untiring renewal of the consistency of machinic assemblages of valorisation’
- 63. Aesthetics and ethics • Ontological relativity • Heterogenising force of the abstract machine • ‘untiring renewal of the consistency of machinic assemblages of valorisation’ • This is not a normative morality, but a heterogenising ethics
- 64. Aesthetics and ethics • Ontological relativity • Heterogenising force of the abstract machine • ‘untiring renewal of the consistency of machinic assemblages of valorisation’ • This is not a normative morality, but a heterogenising ethics • Aesthetics of becoming
- 65. Some examples of machinic assemblages
- 66. schecter20 Guitar riff, post feedback http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnBQIcCGw80
- 67. Ontological universes • Reterritorialisations: equipment; sound; YouTube • Universes of reference: musical scales feedback thresholds • Assemblages of subjectivation Heavy metal identities • Singularities
- 68. Ontological universes • Reterritorialisations: equipment; sound; YouTube • Universes of reference: musical scales feedback thresholds • Assemblages of subjectivation Heavy metal identities • Singularities
- 69. Ontological universes • AC/DC • Financing • Touring schedules, promotion, album sales • Global Fan Community
- 70. 2008 Year-End Shipment Statistics Manufacturers' Unit Shipments and Retail Dollar Value 202-775-0101 (In Millions, net after returns) Digital % CHANGE % CHANGE 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2006-2007 2007-2008 • - - - - - - 139.4 366.9 586.4 809.9 38.1% 1,033.0 27.5% (Units Shipped) Download Single - - - - - - 138.0 363.3 580.6 801.6 38.1% 1,022.7 27.6% (Dollar Value) - - - - - - 4.6 13.6 27.6 42.5 54.0% 56.9 33.9% Download Album - - - - - - 45.5 135.7 275.9 424.9 54.0% 568.9 33.9% - - - - - - - 0.7 1.4 1.8 28.5% 1.6 -8.7% 1 Kiosk - - - - - - - 1.0 1.9 2.6 38.1% 2.6 -1.2% - - - - - - - 1.9 9.9 14.2 43.0% 20.8 46.7% Music Video - - - - - - - 3.7 19.7 28.2 43.0% 41.3 46.7% Total Units - - - - - - 143.9 383.1 625.3 868.4 38.9% 1,112.3 28.1% Total Value - - - - - - 183.4 503.6 878.0 1,257.2 43.2% 1,635.4 30.1% - - - - - - - 170.0 315.0 362.0 14.9% 338.4 -6.5% Mobile2 - - - - - - - 421.6 773.8 880.8 13.8% 816.3 -7.3% - - - - - - - 1.3 1.3 1.8 42.8% 1.6 -15.0% Subscription3 - - - - - - - 149.2 206.2 201.3 -2.4% 188.2 -6.5% Digital Performance Royalties4 - - - - - - 6.9 27.4 31.5 47.0 49.2% 81.8 74.1% Physical 847.0 938.9 942.5 881.9 803.3 746.0 767.0 705.4 619.7 511.1 -17.5% 384.7 -24.7% CD 11,416.0 12,816.3 13,214.5 12,909.4 12,044.1 11,232.9 11446.5 10,520.2 9,372.6 7,452.3 -20.5% 5,471.3 -26.6% 56.0 55.9 34.2 17.3 4.5 8.3 3.1 2.8 1.7 2.6 51.5% 0.7 -71.7% CD Single 213.2 222.4 142.7 79.4 19.6 36.0 14.982 10.9 7.7 12.2 59.0% 3.5 -71.3% 158.5 123.6 76.0 45.0 31.1 17.2 5.2 2.5 0.7 0.4 -41.2% 0.1 -62.8% Cassette 1,419.9 1,061.6 626.0 363.4 209.8 108.1 23.7 13.1 3.7 3.0 -18.4% 0.9 -70.7% 3.4 2.9 2.2 2.3 1.7 1.5 1.4 1.0 0.9 1.3 36.6% 2.9 124.1% LP/EP 34.0 31.8 27.7 27.4 20.5 21.7 19.3 14.2 15.7 22.9 46.2% 56.7 147.7% 5.4 5.3 4.8 5.5 4.4 3.8 3.5 2.3 1.5 0.6 -58.5% 0.4 -30.9% Vinyl Single 25.7 27.9 26.3 31.4 24.9 21.5 19.9 13.2 9.9 4.0 -59.6% 2.9 -27.4% 27.2 19.8 18.2 17.7 14.7 19.9 32.8 33.8 23.2 27.5 18.6% 12.8 -53.6% Music Video 508.0 376.7 281.9 329.2 288.4 399.9 607.2 602.2 451.1 484.9 7.5% 218.9 -54.9% 0.5 2.5 3.3 7.9 10.7 17.5 29.0 27.8 22.3 26.6 19.4% 12.3 -53.8% DVD Video5 12.2 66.3 80.3 190.7 236.3 369.6 561.0 539.8 442.8 476.1 7.5% 215.7 -54.7% Total Units6 1123.9 1160.6 1079.2 968.5 859.7 798.4 814.1 748.7 648.2 543.9 -16.1% 401.8 -26.1% Total Value6 13,711.2 14,584.7 14,323.7 13,740.9 12,614.2 11,854.4 12,154.7 11,195.0 9,868.6 7,985.8 -19.1% 5,758.5 -27.9% Total Retail Units 869.7 788.6 733.1 675.7 658.2 687.0 634.8 558.8 464.4 -16.9% 348.7 -24.9% Total Retail Value 13,048.0 12,705.0 12,388.8 11,549.0 11,053.4 11,423.0 10,477.5 9,269.7 7,495.3 -19.1% 5,474.3 -27.0% Total Digital & Physical Total Units7 1,123.9 1,160.6 1,079.2 968.5 859.7 798.4 958.0 1,301.8 1,588.5 1,774.3 11.7% 1,852.5 4.4% Total Value 13,711.2 14,584.7 14,323.7 13,740.9 12,614.2 11,854.4 12,345.0 12,296.9 11,758.2 10,372.1 -11.8% 8,480.2 -18.2% Retail value is value of shipments at recommended or estimated list price 1 % of Shipments 2005 2006 2007 2008 Includes Singles and Albums 2 Physical 91% 84% 77% 68% Includes Master Ringtunes, Ringbacks, Music Videos, Full Length Downloads, and Other Mobile 3 Digital 9% 16% 23% 32% Weighted Annual Average 4 Estimated payments in dollars to artists and record companies distributed by SoundExchange. Amounts based on prior year's collections and airplay 5 While broken out for this chart, DVD Video Product is included in the Music Video totals 6 Total includes Cassette Single, DVD Audio, and SACD shipments not broken out separately in this report 7 Units total includes both albums and singles, and does not include subscriptions or royalties Permission to cite or copy these statistics is hereby granted, as long as proper attribution is given to the Recording Industry Association of America.
- 73. P.W. Singer Military robots and the future of war
- 74. P.W. Singer Military robots and the future of war
- 75. Manuel de Landa War in the age of intelligent machines
- 76. Manuel de Landa War in the age of intelligent machines
- 77. Abstract machine • Clockwork Steam engine • Syllogism Boolean logic • Abstract motor: • reservoir • exploitable difference • diagram or program to exploit differences
- 79. Machinic phylum • process by which order emerges from chaos (p20) • emergence of singularities • e.g. dynamics of a storm formation • integration of elements into an assemblage more than the sum of its parts (p20)
- 81. Essay questions • Q1. Analyse how YouTube appropriates and exploits other media, with reference to McLuhan. As a cultural form, is it closest to cinema, television or home movies? Justify your answer with reference to specific examples. • Q2. In ‘A cyborg manifesto’, Haraway identifies a contemporary transition from hierarchical domination to networked informatics of domination. Concentrate on one or two of the examples of this transition in evaluating whether the trends that she identified in the early 1990s have continued, accelerated or changed. • Q3. Trace the development of a standard of Internet software (eg web, email, swf, blogger, google search), following a SCOT analysis. Has this standard found closure?
- 82. Essay questions • Q4. Compare & contrast different conceptions of how social class relates to information technology (refer to the readings on Class and technology). What are the implications of each analysis for policy and action? • Q5. Analyse the spatialities involved in a computer game you have played: both the space ‘inside’ the game, and the space in your house / arcade / internet café / remote networks in which you play. What is distinctive about the way this game works with space? Refer to the readings on technology and spatiality. • Q6. What is a machine? Compare and contrast Guattari’s concept of the machine with conventional dictionary definitions. • Q7. Write an essay that analyses how you will write / are writing / have written that essay; with attention to how the technologies you used contribute to your thinking and your writing. (refer to the readings on technology and thought)
- 83. Next week
- 84. Next week • Heidegger and technology
- 85. Next week • Heidegger and technology • Heidegger, Martin, Macquarie, John, and Robinson, Edward (Trans) (1961 [1927]) Being and time, New York: Harper and Row: 95-107.
- 86. Next week • Heidegger and technology • Heidegger, Martin, Macquarie, John, and Robinson, Edward (Trans) (1961 [1927]) Being and time, New York: Harper and Row: 95-107. • Winograd, Terry (1995) ‘Heidegger and the design of computer systems’ in Feenberg, Andrew and Hannay, Alastair (1995) Technology and the politics of knowledge, Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press: 108–127.
Notes de l'éditeur
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- Over the past weeks we’ve introduced a range of themes about technoculture, and found that information and communications technologies are implicated in social and cultural transformations in many universes: media, language, social actors, class, thought and space. But what’s the connection between these universes? Today we look at the work of theorists who try to make connections across these universes to show how all these universes we’ve explored over the past weeks are interconnected.
- This week we are looking at some other more recent critical theoretical work that develops conceptions about media processes that involve individuals technologies, societies and environments. Usually we talk as though these were separate, if related, things: individuals live in societies in environments and use technologies. The basic assumption that they are split from one another is almost invisible. It’s so embedded in the way we talk about things that we don’t even think about it. The approaches we will talk about today show how these boundaries are historically specific. The tendency to think about society and nature as separate things in the way that we do, is a modern phenomenon. (Or what Latour would call a (non) modern phenomenon). The dominance of these categories of specialised knowledge have made it quite difficult to talk about things that move across them — from biology to culture; from society to technology. Both Latour and Guattari reject the idea that there is some essential characteristic that defines what is ‘human’, ‘natural’, or ‘technological’. They challenge the conventional boundaries between nature and culture, subject and object, micro and macro. Even in some critical humanities, these assumptions are important. The question of whether a particular problem is cultural or biological is a great controversy in IQ testing, criminal responsibility, social policy. They also tend to refuse to see objects as something in themselves. Rather, objects are always part of events that have defined the objecthood of the object. What is an object at a particular moment is evidence of ongoing processes that brought it into existence, and that are breaking it down again.
- This week we are looking at some other more recent critical theoretical work that develops conceptions about media processes that involve individuals technologies, societies and environments. Usually we talk as though these were separate, if related, things: individuals live in societies in environments and use technologies. The basic assumption that they are split from one another is almost invisible. It’s so embedded in the way we talk about things that we don’t even think about it. The approaches we will talk about today show how these boundaries are historically specific. The tendency to think about society and nature as separate things in the way that we do, is a modern phenomenon. (Or what Latour would call a (non) modern phenomenon). The dominance of these categories of specialised knowledge have made it quite difficult to talk about things that move across them — from biology to culture; from society to technology. Both Latour and Guattari reject the idea that there is some essential characteristic that defines what is ‘human’, ‘natural’, or ‘technological’. They challenge the conventional boundaries between nature and culture, subject and object, micro and macro. Even in some critical humanities, these assumptions are important. The question of whether a particular problem is cultural or biological is a great controversy in IQ testing, criminal responsibility, social policy. They also tend to refuse to see objects as something in themselves. Rather, objects are always part of events that have defined the objecthood of the object. What is an object at a particular moment is evidence of ongoing processes that brought it into existence, and that are breaking it down again.
- The two readings today: Guattari’s ‘Machinic heterogenesis’ and Manuel de Landa’s War in the age of intelligence machines. Guattari is an abstract writer who also practised as a psychoanalyst (or schitzoanalyst), as well as writing a number of books in collaboration with the philosopher Gilles Deleuze. De Landa’s work draws on Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts and approach, but uses them to work with empirical examples, such as the emergence of computing machines.
- The two readings today: Guattari’s ‘Machinic heterogenesis’ and Manuel de Landa’s War in the age of intelligence machines. Guattari is an abstract writer who also practised as a psychoanalyst (or schitzoanalyst), as well as writing a number of books in collaboration with the philosopher Gilles Deleuze. De Landa’s work draws on Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts and approach, but uses them to work with empirical examples, such as the emergence of computing machines.
- Felix Guattari’s essay ‘Machinic heterogenesis’ is particularly useful to new media studies because: 1. It offers a reading of technological form and technological change that extends the concept of the machine beyond its usual sense (‘A device consisting of fixed and moving parts that modifies mechanical energy and transmits it in a more useful form’ - dictionary.com) to incorporate into the concept of machinism a much wider range of entities and processes that are productive. We might think of the connections between machine components as sites of mediation. 2. In developing the concept of the machine, Guattari demonstrates a transversalist method. Most social science and humanities disciplines tend to start by partitioning off their field of knowledge in advance: language (linguistics), signs (semiotics), individual thought (psychology), societies (sociology), the past (History), art (art history / theory), technology (Philosophy of Technology), etc. Guattari’s transversalist approach lays crosswise across all these fields and tries to conceptualise how might be conceptualised as interconnected. This essay is quite densely written, and uses a large number of terms that are likely to be unfamiliar. This is partly because of the transversalist approach, which draws from a specialise vocabulary from wide range of fields (philosophy, psychoanalysis, biology). It also uses some terms that have a specific meaning that Guattari’s develops elsewhere, both on his own, and with philosopher collaborator Gilles Deleuze. So this lecture will give some suggestions about how to approach reading this essay.
- Part of Guattari’s project is to identify the limitations of other approaches to subjectivity, technology, society and economics. So some of the essay criticises the arguments of other theories: particularly psychoanalysis, structuralism and capitalism. More importantly, Guattari is involved in a productive task of creating concepts. Guattari emphasises processes and events over institutions or stable objects. He shows how even something as material as a hammer can best be conceptualised as an event (just a slow one that lasts as long as it remains a coherent object) — and part of a machinic assemblage. Such productive processes are likely to involve a whole combination of things including ideas, materials, operations of language, biological components, desires and so on. But why does it matter? Guattari’s analysis is not interested in making more efficient technologies, or in building a perfect theory, but in finding a basis for making ethical and political interventions in (events around) technologies. His critiques of other modes of thought are not for the sake of finding falsehoods, but in developing an ethics of becoming. Guattari’s ethics is immanent. That is, the ethical questions are implicit throughout the materiality and virtuality of the events. They are not imposed afterwards or from outside.
- Part of Guattari’s project is to identify the limitations of other approaches to subjectivity, technology, society and economics. So some of the essay criticises the arguments of other theories: particularly psychoanalysis, structuralism and capitalism. More importantly, Guattari is involved in a productive task of creating concepts. Guattari emphasises processes and events over institutions or stable objects. He shows how even something as material as a hammer can best be conceptualised as an event (just a slow one that lasts as long as it remains a coherent object) — and part of a machinic assemblage. Such productive processes are likely to involve a whole combination of things including ideas, materials, operations of language, biological components, desires and so on. But why does it matter? Guattari’s analysis is not interested in making more efficient technologies, or in building a perfect theory, but in finding a basis for making ethical and political interventions in (events around) technologies. His critiques of other modes of thought are not for the sake of finding falsehoods, but in developing an ethics of becoming. Guattari’s ethics is immanent. That is, the ethical questions are implicit throughout the materiality and virtuality of the events. They are not imposed afterwards or from outside.
- Part of Guattari’s project is to identify the limitations of other approaches to subjectivity, technology, society and economics. So some of the essay criticises the arguments of other theories: particularly psychoanalysis, structuralism and capitalism. More importantly, Guattari is involved in a productive task of creating concepts. Guattari emphasises processes and events over institutions or stable objects. He shows how even something as material as a hammer can best be conceptualised as an event (just a slow one that lasts as long as it remains a coherent object) — and part of a machinic assemblage. Such productive processes are likely to involve a whole combination of things including ideas, materials, operations of language, biological components, desires and so on. But why does it matter? Guattari’s analysis is not interested in making more efficient technologies, or in building a perfect theory, but in finding a basis for making ethical and political interventions in (events around) technologies. His critiques of other modes of thought are not for the sake of finding falsehoods, but in developing an ethics of becoming. Guattari’s ethics is immanent. That is, the ethical questions are implicit throughout the materiality and virtuality of the events. They are not imposed afterwards or from outside.
- One of Guattari’s goals is to develop a critique of other approaches to technology. He starts the essay by outlining (very quickly) some of the conventional approaches to technology. He points out the limitations of mechanistic accounts (which only defines the components and their interaction), and vitalist approaches (which talks about machines as though they were the same as living things), as well as Heidegger’s approach (which seeks to return to the ground of Being, rather than opening out into indeterminacy and heterogeneity). He also critiques psychoanalysis for its tendency to explain psychopathology on the basis of what the psyche is lacking, and in terms of the image of family relations (and its theatrical metaphor of the Oedipal relation based on the idea of the repressed desire for the Mother and aggression towards the Father). Guattari’s concept of ‘desiring machines’ (and proto-machines) sees He critiques structuralist linguistics because when it talks about language, it partitions off everything that cannot be reduced to syntax or semantics. For Guattari, the pragmatics of language (what language does), are inseparable from its meaning. Guattari’s critique of capitalism is somewhat different from Marx’s. Where Marx sees capitalism as characterised by an economic substructure that determines other things (subjectivity) as superstructures & producing alienation, Guattari sees capitalism as reducing all heterogeneity to the same measure: monetary semiotics.
- Perhaps the best way into this article is through the examples that Guattari uses to develop the more abstract concepts. He starts with the example of the material apparatus — the hammer, and later the aeroplane on the runway (Heidegger also used these examples). It is possible to look at any technical object and ask these same questions. For example, let’s think of the 109 lab in the Brennan building as an example of a material apparatus. It has material components (walls; electronic computers; students). It has energy components (electricity; food that students eat…). It has semiotic components (signs saying don’t eat food in the lab; the unfamiliar Mac OS-X interface; the swipe card system that says ‘swipe your card here’). It has diagrammatic components (an architectural floor plan; circuit diagrams that were necessary to build the computers; the diagram of student status: full time, part time, academic program, etc). It has algorithmic components (software in the labs, and in the security swipe system). It has individual and collective mental representations (your own thoughts and memories, and also shared practical and theoretical knowledges). You might identify many different desiring machines adjacent to the lab. There are official desiring machines of ambition to succeed in the course; there are desires to professional vocation— becoming a designer or producer. There are desires to impress others around you. There are desires to get out of the lab and go to the Uni bar. Each of these forces has a different character, duration and intensity. But all are forces of subjectivation: they operate to create or transform subjectivity. Finally, there are abstract machines: education; consumerism; sexuality…
- Perhaps the best way into this article is through the examples that Guattari uses to develop the more abstract concepts. He starts with the example of the material apparatus — the hammer, and later the aeroplane on the runway (Heidegger also used these examples). It is possible to look at any technical object and ask these same questions. For example, let’s think of the 109 lab in the Brennan building as an example of a material apparatus. It has material components (walls; electronic computers; students). It has energy components (electricity; food that students eat…). It has semiotic components (signs saying don’t eat food in the lab; the unfamiliar Mac OS-X interface; the swipe card system that says ‘swipe your card here’). It has diagrammatic components (an architectural floor plan; circuit diagrams that were necessary to build the computers; the diagram of student status: full time, part time, academic program, etc). It has algorithmic components (software in the labs, and in the security swipe system). It has individual and collective mental representations (your own thoughts and memories, and also shared practical and theoretical knowledges). You might identify many different desiring machines adjacent to the lab. There are official desiring machines of ambition to succeed in the course; there are desires to professional vocation— becoming a designer or producer. There are desires to impress others around you. There are desires to get out of the lab and go to the Uni bar. Each of these forces has a different character, duration and intensity. But all are forces of subjectivation: they operate to create or transform subjectivity. Finally, there are abstract machines: education; consumerism; sexuality…
- Perhaps the best way into this article is through the examples that Guattari uses to develop the more abstract concepts. He starts with the example of the material apparatus — the hammer, and later the aeroplane on the runway (Heidegger also used these examples). It is possible to look at any technical object and ask these same questions. For example, let’s think of the 109 lab in the Brennan building as an example of a material apparatus. It has material components (walls; electronic computers; students). It has energy components (electricity; food that students eat…). It has semiotic components (signs saying don’t eat food in the lab; the unfamiliar Mac OS-X interface; the swipe card system that says ‘swipe your card here’). It has diagrammatic components (an architectural floor plan; circuit diagrams that were necessary to build the computers; the diagram of student status: full time, part time, academic program, etc). It has algorithmic components (software in the labs, and in the security swipe system). It has individual and collective mental representations (your own thoughts and memories, and also shared practical and theoretical knowledges). You might identify many different desiring machines adjacent to the lab. There are official desiring machines of ambition to succeed in the course; there are desires to professional vocation— becoming a designer or producer. There are desires to impress others around you. There are desires to get out of the lab and go to the Uni bar. Each of these forces has a different character, duration and intensity. But all are forces of subjectivation: they operate to create or transform subjectivity. Finally, there are abstract machines: education; consumerism; sexuality…
- Perhaps the best way into this article is through the examples that Guattari uses to develop the more abstract concepts. He starts with the example of the material apparatus — the hammer, and later the aeroplane on the runway (Heidegger also used these examples). It is possible to look at any technical object and ask these same questions. For example, let’s think of the 109 lab in the Brennan building as an example of a material apparatus. It has material components (walls; electronic computers; students). It has energy components (electricity; food that students eat…). It has semiotic components (signs saying don’t eat food in the lab; the unfamiliar Mac OS-X interface; the swipe card system that says ‘swipe your card here’). It has diagrammatic components (an architectural floor plan; circuit diagrams that were necessary to build the computers; the diagram of student status: full time, part time, academic program, etc). It has algorithmic components (software in the labs, and in the security swipe system). It has individual and collective mental representations (your own thoughts and memories, and also shared practical and theoretical knowledges). You might identify many different desiring machines adjacent to the lab. There are official desiring machines of ambition to succeed in the course; there are desires to professional vocation— becoming a designer or producer. There are desires to impress others around you. There are desires to get out of the lab and go to the Uni bar. Each of these forces has a different character, duration and intensity. But all are forces of subjectivation: they operate to create or transform subjectivity. Finally, there are abstract machines: education; consumerism; sexuality…
- Perhaps the best way into this article is through the examples that Guattari uses to develop the more abstract concepts. He starts with the example of the material apparatus — the hammer, and later the aeroplane on the runway (Heidegger also used these examples). It is possible to look at any technical object and ask these same questions. For example, let’s think of the 109 lab in the Brennan building as an example of a material apparatus. It has material components (walls; electronic computers; students). It has energy components (electricity; food that students eat…). It has semiotic components (signs saying don’t eat food in the lab; the unfamiliar Mac OS-X interface; the swipe card system that says ‘swipe your card here’). It has diagrammatic components (an architectural floor plan; circuit diagrams that were necessary to build the computers; the diagram of student status: full time, part time, academic program, etc). It has algorithmic components (software in the labs, and in the security swipe system). It has individual and collective mental representations (your own thoughts and memories, and also shared practical and theoretical knowledges). You might identify many different desiring machines adjacent to the lab. There are official desiring machines of ambition to succeed in the course; there are desires to professional vocation— becoming a designer or producer. There are desires to impress others around you. There are desires to get out of the lab and go to the Uni bar. Each of these forces has a different character, duration and intensity. But all are forces of subjectivation: they operate to create or transform subjectivity. Finally, there are abstract machines: education; consumerism; sexuality…
- Perhaps the best way into this article is through the examples that Guattari uses to develop the more abstract concepts. He starts with the example of the material apparatus — the hammer, and later the aeroplane on the runway (Heidegger also used these examples). It is possible to look at any technical object and ask these same questions. For example, let’s think of the 109 lab in the Brennan building as an example of a material apparatus. It has material components (walls; electronic computers; students). It has energy components (electricity; food that students eat…). It has semiotic components (signs saying don’t eat food in the lab; the unfamiliar Mac OS-X interface; the swipe card system that says ‘swipe your card here’). It has diagrammatic components (an architectural floor plan; circuit diagrams that were necessary to build the computers; the diagram of student status: full time, part time, academic program, etc). It has algorithmic components (software in the labs, and in the security swipe system). It has individual and collective mental representations (your own thoughts and memories, and also shared practical and theoretical knowledges). You might identify many different desiring machines adjacent to the lab. There are official desiring machines of ambition to succeed in the course; there are desires to professional vocation— becoming a designer or producer. There are desires to impress others around you. There are desires to get out of the lab and go to the Uni bar. Each of these forces has a different character, duration and intensity. But all are forces of subjectivation: they operate to create or transform subjectivity. Finally, there are abstract machines: education; consumerism; sexuality…
- Guattari uses the Concorde as an example of a technological assemblage that illustrates the contingency of technical systems. Concorde has only enough consistency to be a small niche in aviation, and not the dominant way of flying. The outcome is not as closed as Heidegger proposed. Digital television in Australia has still not yet established itself across all of Guattari’s ‘universes’ — while it exists as a technical diagram, operational material object, and industrial universes producing it, it has not established itself in the ‘collective imaginary’ universes or political and economic universes (there’s little perceived value in having terrestrial digital TV, as there is little new content available).
- Guattari uses the Concorde as an example of a technological assemblage that illustrates the contingency of technical systems. Concorde has only enough consistency to be a small niche in aviation, and not the dominant way of flying. The outcome is not as closed as Heidegger proposed. Digital television in Australia has still not yet established itself across all of Guattari’s ‘universes’ — while it exists as a technical diagram, operational material object, and industrial universes producing it, it has not established itself in the ‘collective imaginary’ universes or political and economic universes (there’s little perceived value in having terrestrial digital TV, as there is little new content available).
- Guattari uses the Concorde as an example of a technological assemblage that illustrates the contingency of technical systems. Concorde has only enough consistency to be a small niche in aviation, and not the dominant way of flying. The outcome is not as closed as Heidegger proposed. Digital television in Australia has still not yet established itself across all of Guattari’s ‘universes’ — while it exists as a technical diagram, operational material object, and industrial universes producing it, it has not established itself in the ‘collective imaginary’ universes or political and economic universes (there’s little perceived value in having terrestrial digital TV, as there is little new content available).
- Guattari uses the Concorde as an example of a technological assemblage that illustrates the contingency of technical systems. Concorde has only enough consistency to be a small niche in aviation, and not the dominant way of flying. The outcome is not as closed as Heidegger proposed. Digital television in Australia has still not yet established itself across all of Guattari’s ‘universes’ — while it exists as a technical diagram, operational material object, and industrial universes producing it, it has not established itself in the ‘collective imaginary’ universes or political and economic universes (there’s little perceived value in having terrestrial digital TV, as there is little new content available).
- Guattari uses the Concorde as an example of a technological assemblage that illustrates the contingency of technical systems. Concorde has only enough consistency to be a small niche in aviation, and not the dominant way of flying. The outcome is not as closed as Heidegger proposed. Digital television in Australia has still not yet established itself across all of Guattari’s ‘universes’ — while it exists as a technical diagram, operational material object, and industrial universes producing it, it has not established itself in the ‘collective imaginary’ universes or political and economic universes (there’s little perceived value in having terrestrial digital TV, as there is little new content available).
- Guattari uses the Concorde as an example of a technological assemblage that illustrates the contingency of technical systems. Concorde has only enough consistency to be a small niche in aviation, and not the dominant way of flying. The outcome is not as closed as Heidegger proposed. Digital television in Australia has still not yet established itself across all of Guattari’s ‘universes’ — while it exists as a technical diagram, operational material object, and industrial universes producing it, it has not established itself in the ‘collective imaginary’ universes or political and economic universes (there’s little perceived value in having terrestrial digital TV, as there is little new content available).
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Elsewhere in the article Guattari talks about the large historical machinic universes of which a material apparatus would be a part. The Macintosh lab in which we have our tutorials belongs to a number of machinic universes:machines of education; machines of consumerism; machines of security. Hopefully the key attachment of the lab is to the abstract machine of tertiary education. The lab is there as part of a machinic assemblage that transforms student subjectivity into graduate subjectivity. This is sometimes articulated as specified learning outcomes. It is structured by official relationships of enrolment. It is covered by a range of contractual legal and economic relationships. It is marked by the ritual of graduation. But hopefully what also happens is something that cannot be captured by any of these signs. In between, in the chaotic gaps, at 3 O’clock in the morning before the assignment’s due, in the headaches and joys of getting something to work,
- Guattari’s examples, and his criticisms of other concepts, are not the main game, though. His main work is to create concepts that are abstract, but also immanent to events themselves. The concept should not represent or explain things or events, but come into some abstract relation with them. For example, the concept of the deterritorialisation can relate to any event by which something is extracted from a territory, and converted, translated or transduced such that it can be reterritorialised somewhere else, or at another time. A telephone is a deterritorialisation of the voice; a map is a deterritorialisation of the territory; a name is a deterritorialisation of the person… This is a very abstract concept, but has a precise and specific meaning. The whole article develops an analysis of the relationships between machinic assemblages (spatio-temporally located, material machines which also have virtual dimensions) and abstract machines (the consistencies within the ontogenetic & phylogenetic forces that make the machinic events ultimately autopoetic). Anything that has any consistency — anything that persists through time and space — must be operating as some part of a machinic assemblage, in association with abstract machines. The Mac lab, for example, isn’t just a room for containing classes. The computers have to be maintained and upgraded. Classes have to be scheduled and taught. The room has to be cleaned and monitored through security, and so on. Each of the components is subject to processes of ontogenesis and phylogenesis. Ontogenesis is how actual entities are produced and maintained: humans are born, eat and breathe; computers are designed, built in factories, and consume power. Phylogenesis is the process over a longer duration by which entities change and evolve: biological evolution; social change; technical innovation. All of these machines (and parts of machines) open onto different universes of reference. The cleaner’s universes of reference includes vacuum cleaner suction power (with certain thresholds of effectiveness); cleaning fluids, etc). Each software program opens onto universe of reference (Final Cut Pro opens onto televisual languages of shots, takes, scenes, transitions; PhotoShop opens onto the darkroom concepts of dodge and burn, layering and airbrushing, but also the aesthetic universes of the image).
- Guattari’s examples, and his criticisms of other concepts, are not the main game, though. His main work is to create concepts that are abstract, but also immanent to events themselves. The concept should not represent or explain things or events, but come into some abstract relation with them. For example, the concept of the deterritorialisation can relate to any event by which something is extracted from a territory, and converted, translated or transduced such that it can be reterritorialised somewhere else, or at another time. A telephone is a deterritorialisation of the voice; a map is a deterritorialisation of the territory; a name is a deterritorialisation of the person… This is a very abstract concept, but has a precise and specific meaning. The whole article develops an analysis of the relationships between machinic assemblages (spatio-temporally located, material machines which also have virtual dimensions) and abstract machines (the consistencies within the ontogenetic & phylogenetic forces that make the machinic events ultimately autopoetic). Anything that has any consistency — anything that persists through time and space — must be operating as some part of a machinic assemblage, in association with abstract machines. The Mac lab, for example, isn’t just a room for containing classes. The computers have to be maintained and upgraded. Classes have to be scheduled and taught. The room has to be cleaned and monitored through security, and so on. Each of the components is subject to processes of ontogenesis and phylogenesis. Ontogenesis is how actual entities are produced and maintained: humans are born, eat and breathe; computers are designed, built in factories, and consume power. Phylogenesis is the process over a longer duration by which entities change and evolve: biological evolution; social change; technical innovation. All of these machines (and parts of machines) open onto different universes of reference. The cleaner’s universes of reference includes vacuum cleaner suction power (with certain thresholds of effectiveness); cleaning fluids, etc). Each software program opens onto universe of reference (Final Cut Pro opens onto televisual languages of shots, takes, scenes, transitions; PhotoShop opens onto the darkroom concepts of dodge and burn, layering and airbrushing, but also the aesthetic universes of the image).
- Guattari’s examples, and his criticisms of other concepts, are not the main game, though. His main work is to create concepts that are abstract, but also immanent to events themselves. The concept should not represent or explain things or events, but come into some abstract relation with them. For example, the concept of the deterritorialisation can relate to any event by which something is extracted from a territory, and converted, translated or transduced such that it can be reterritorialised somewhere else, or at another time. A telephone is a deterritorialisation of the voice; a map is a deterritorialisation of the territory; a name is a deterritorialisation of the person… This is a very abstract concept, but has a precise and specific meaning. The whole article develops an analysis of the relationships between machinic assemblages (spatio-temporally located, material machines which also have virtual dimensions) and abstract machines (the consistencies within the ontogenetic & phylogenetic forces that make the machinic events ultimately autopoetic). Anything that has any consistency — anything that persists through time and space — must be operating as some part of a machinic assemblage, in association with abstract machines. The Mac lab, for example, isn’t just a room for containing classes. The computers have to be maintained and upgraded. Classes have to be scheduled and taught. The room has to be cleaned and monitored through security, and so on. Each of the components is subject to processes of ontogenesis and phylogenesis. Ontogenesis is how actual entities are produced and maintained: humans are born, eat and breathe; computers are designed, built in factories, and consume power. Phylogenesis is the process over a longer duration by which entities change and evolve: biological evolution; social change; technical innovation. All of these machines (and parts of machines) open onto different universes of reference. The cleaner’s universes of reference includes vacuum cleaner suction power (with certain thresholds of effectiveness); cleaning fluids, etc). Each software program opens onto universe of reference (Final Cut Pro opens onto televisual languages of shots, takes, scenes, transitions; PhotoShop opens onto the darkroom concepts of dodge and burn, layering and airbrushing, but also the aesthetic universes of the image).
- Guattari’s examples, and his criticisms of other concepts, are not the main game, though. His main work is to create concepts that are abstract, but also immanent to events themselves. The concept should not represent or explain things or events, but come into some abstract relation with them. For example, the concept of the deterritorialisation can relate to any event by which something is extracted from a territory, and converted, translated or transduced such that it can be reterritorialised somewhere else, or at another time. A telephone is a deterritorialisation of the voice; a map is a deterritorialisation of the territory; a name is a deterritorialisation of the person… This is a very abstract concept, but has a precise and specific meaning. The whole article develops an analysis of the relationships between machinic assemblages (spatio-temporally located, material machines which also have virtual dimensions) and abstract machines (the consistencies within the ontogenetic & phylogenetic forces that make the machinic events ultimately autopoetic). Anything that has any consistency — anything that persists through time and space — must be operating as some part of a machinic assemblage, in association with abstract machines. The Mac lab, for example, isn’t just a room for containing classes. The computers have to be maintained and upgraded. Classes have to be scheduled and taught. The room has to be cleaned and monitored through security, and so on. Each of the components is subject to processes of ontogenesis and phylogenesis. Ontogenesis is how actual entities are produced and maintained: humans are born, eat and breathe; computers are designed, built in factories, and consume power. Phylogenesis is the process over a longer duration by which entities change and evolve: biological evolution; social change; technical innovation. All of these machines (and parts of machines) open onto different universes of reference. The cleaner’s universes of reference includes vacuum cleaner suction power (with certain thresholds of effectiveness); cleaning fluids, etc). Each software program opens onto universe of reference (Final Cut Pro opens onto televisual languages of shots, takes, scenes, transitions; PhotoShop opens onto the darkroom concepts of dodge and burn, layering and airbrushing, but also the aesthetic universes of the image).
- Guattari insists that human and non-human elements should not be talked necessarily about in different ways. This is not to say that humans are equivalent to machines, but that the domains of what is a human phenomenon, and what is a technological phenomenon, are always inextricably interwoven. If the concepts and discourses used to talk about humans (intentions; understanding; desires) and the vocabularies to talk about technical objects (processor speeds; technical standards; ) are kept apart, then large parts of the event are missing. For example, to understand how PhotoShop works, you need to consider not only the software and hardware in operation, but also the knowledge, sensory perceptions, judgements and desires of the person using the system. These are not something outside the PhotoShop’s essence, but entirely bound up with it. Learning to use PhotoShop is to participate within an assemblage of subjectivation. Another more authoritarian mode of subjectivation that operates in the lab is the swipe card system. The card, and the network produce a form of deterritorialisation that establishes your subjectivity as an authorised user of the lab. When you swipe your card to get into the lab, this transaction is semiotic, but you do not experience it as an event of signification. It is an asignifying semiotic. It is a point sign (49). It has a direct material effect of letting you open the door — opening you onto the Universe of the Mac Lab. In quite a different way, when you use the ‘pointillism’ filter in PhotoShop, you don’t signify impressionism. You open your image to the Universe of impressionism, making an invocation of the mode of visual representation developed in painting by Seurat, Pissaro, etc. In both these cases, there are processes of alterification. The swipe card secures the difference between the inside and outside of the room. The outside becomes the alterity. The photographic image is also positioned in a relation of alterity — it is no longer a photographic image. It is something other (but it’s also has an alterity to impressionist paintings). Another question to ask about PhotoShop and the lab is in what ways these are structures or machines. A structure seeks eternity; while the machine seeks its own abolition. Education seeks its own abolition inasmuch as once a student has learnt something, they no longer need to be taught it. Educational institutions are structures that seek to continue.
- Guattari insists that human and non-human elements should not be talked necessarily about in different ways. This is not to say that humans are equivalent to machines, but that the domains of what is a human phenomenon, and what is a technological phenomenon, are always inextricably interwoven. If the concepts and discourses used to talk about humans (intentions; understanding; desires) and the vocabularies to talk about technical objects (processor speeds; technical standards; ) are kept apart, then large parts of the event are missing. For example, to understand how PhotoShop works, you need to consider not only the software and hardware in operation, but also the knowledge, sensory perceptions, judgements and desires of the person using the system. These are not something outside the PhotoShop’s essence, but entirely bound up with it. Learning to use PhotoShop is to participate within an assemblage of subjectivation. Another more authoritarian mode of subjectivation that operates in the lab is the swipe card system. The card, and the network produce a form of deterritorialisation that establishes your subjectivity as an authorised user of the lab. When you swipe your card to get into the lab, this transaction is semiotic, but you do not experience it as an event of signification. It is an asignifying semiotic. It is a point sign (49). It has a direct material effect of letting you open the door — opening you onto the Universe of the Mac Lab. In quite a different way, when you use the ‘pointillism’ filter in PhotoShop, you don’t signify impressionism. You open your image to the Universe of impressionism, making an invocation of the mode of visual representation developed in painting by Seurat, Pissaro, etc. In both these cases, there are processes of alterification. The swipe card secures the difference between the inside and outside of the room. The outside becomes the alterity. The photographic image is also positioned in a relation of alterity — it is no longer a photographic image. It is something other (but it’s also has an alterity to impressionist paintings). Another question to ask about PhotoShop and the lab is in what ways these are structures or machines. A structure seeks eternity; while the machine seeks its own abolition. Education seeks its own abolition inasmuch as once a student has learnt something, they no longer need to be taught it. Educational institutions are structures that seek to continue.
- Guattari insists that human and non-human elements should not be talked necessarily about in different ways. This is not to say that humans are equivalent to machines, but that the domains of what is a human phenomenon, and what is a technological phenomenon, are always inextricably interwoven. If the concepts and discourses used to talk about humans (intentions; understanding; desires) and the vocabularies to talk about technical objects (processor speeds; technical standards; ) are kept apart, then large parts of the event are missing. For example, to understand how PhotoShop works, you need to consider not only the software and hardware in operation, but also the knowledge, sensory perceptions, judgements and desires of the person using the system. These are not something outside the PhotoShop’s essence, but entirely bound up with it. Learning to use PhotoShop is to participate within an assemblage of subjectivation. Another more authoritarian mode of subjectivation that operates in the lab is the swipe card system. The card, and the network produce a form of deterritorialisation that establishes your subjectivity as an authorised user of the lab. When you swipe your card to get into the lab, this transaction is semiotic, but you do not experience it as an event of signification. It is an asignifying semiotic. It is a point sign (49). It has a direct material effect of letting you open the door — opening you onto the Universe of the Mac Lab. In quite a different way, when you use the ‘pointillism’ filter in PhotoShop, you don’t signify impressionism. You open your image to the Universe of impressionism, making an invocation of the mode of visual representation developed in painting by Seurat, Pissaro, etc. In both these cases, there are processes of alterification. The swipe card secures the difference between the inside and outside of the room. The outside becomes the alterity. The photographic image is also positioned in a relation of alterity — it is no longer a photographic image. It is something other (but it’s also has an alterity to impressionist paintings). Another question to ask about PhotoShop and the lab is in what ways these are structures or machines. A structure seeks eternity; while the machine seeks its own abolition. Education seeks its own abolition inasmuch as once a student has learnt something, they no longer need to be taught it. Educational institutions are structures that seek to continue.
- Guattari insists that human and non-human elements should not be talked necessarily about in different ways. This is not to say that humans are equivalent to machines, but that the domains of what is a human phenomenon, and what is a technological phenomenon, are always inextricably interwoven. If the concepts and discourses used to talk about humans (intentions; understanding; desires) and the vocabularies to talk about technical objects (processor speeds; technical standards; ) are kept apart, then large parts of the event are missing. For example, to understand how PhotoShop works, you need to consider not only the software and hardware in operation, but also the knowledge, sensory perceptions, judgements and desires of the person using the system. These are not something outside the PhotoShop’s essence, but entirely bound up with it. Learning to use PhotoShop is to participate within an assemblage of subjectivation. Another more authoritarian mode of subjectivation that operates in the lab is the swipe card system. The card, and the network produce a form of deterritorialisation that establishes your subjectivity as an authorised user of the lab. When you swipe your card to get into the lab, this transaction is semiotic, but you do not experience it as an event of signification. It is an asignifying semiotic. It is a point sign (49). It has a direct material effect of letting you open the door — opening you onto the Universe of the Mac Lab. In quite a different way, when you use the ‘pointillism’ filter in PhotoShop, you don’t signify impressionism. You open your image to the Universe of impressionism, making an invocation of the mode of visual representation developed in painting by Seurat, Pissaro, etc. In both these cases, there are processes of alterification. The swipe card secures the difference between the inside and outside of the room. The outside becomes the alterity. The photographic image is also positioned in a relation of alterity — it is no longer a photographic image. It is something other (but it’s also has an alterity to impressionist paintings). Another question to ask about PhotoShop and the lab is in what ways these are structures or machines. A structure seeks eternity; while the machine seeks its own abolition. Education seeks its own abolition inasmuch as once a student has learnt something, they no longer need to be taught it. Educational institutions are structures that seek to continue.
- Guattari insists that human and non-human elements should not be talked necessarily about in different ways. This is not to say that humans are equivalent to machines, but that the domains of what is a human phenomenon, and what is a technological phenomenon, are always inextricably interwoven. If the concepts and discourses used to talk about humans (intentions; understanding; desires) and the vocabularies to talk about technical objects (processor speeds; technical standards; ) are kept apart, then large parts of the event are missing. For example, to understand how PhotoShop works, you need to consider not only the software and hardware in operation, but also the knowledge, sensory perceptions, judgements and desires of the person using the system. These are not something outside the PhotoShop’s essence, but entirely bound up with it. Learning to use PhotoShop is to participate within an assemblage of subjectivation. Another more authoritarian mode of subjectivation that operates in the lab is the swipe card system. The card, and the network produce a form of deterritorialisation that establishes your subjectivity as an authorised user of the lab. When you swipe your card to get into the lab, this transaction is semiotic, but you do not experience it as an event of signification. It is an asignifying semiotic. It is a point sign (49). It has a direct material effect of letting you open the door — opening you onto the Universe of the Mac Lab. In quite a different way, when you use the ‘pointillism’ filter in PhotoShop, you don’t signify impressionism. You open your image to the Universe of impressionism, making an invocation of the mode of visual representation developed in painting by Seurat, Pissaro, etc. In both these cases, there are processes of alterification. The swipe card secures the difference between the inside and outside of the room. The outside becomes the alterity. The photographic image is also positioned in a relation of alterity — it is no longer a photographic image. It is something other (but it’s also has an alterity to impressionist paintings). Another question to ask about PhotoShop and the lab is in what ways these are structures or machines. A structure seeks eternity; while the machine seeks its own abolition. Education seeks its own abolition inasmuch as once a student has learnt something, they no longer need to be taught it. Educational institutions are structures that seek to continue.
- Guattari insists that human and non-human elements should not be talked necessarily about in different ways. This is not to say that humans are equivalent to machines, but that the domains of what is a human phenomenon, and what is a technological phenomenon, are always inextricably interwoven. If the concepts and discourses used to talk about humans (intentions; understanding; desires) and the vocabularies to talk about technical objects (processor speeds; technical standards; ) are kept apart, then large parts of the event are missing. For example, to understand how PhotoShop works, you need to consider not only the software and hardware in operation, but also the knowledge, sensory perceptions, judgements and desires of the person using the system. These are not something outside the PhotoShop’s essence, but entirely bound up with it. Learning to use PhotoShop is to participate within an assemblage of subjectivation. Another more authoritarian mode of subjectivation that operates in the lab is the swipe card system. The card, and the network produce a form of deterritorialisation that establishes your subjectivity as an authorised user of the lab. When you swipe your card to get into the lab, this transaction is semiotic, but you do not experience it as an event of signification. It is an asignifying semiotic. It is a point sign (49). It has a direct material effect of letting you open the door — opening you onto the Universe of the Mac Lab. In quite a different way, when you use the ‘pointillism’ filter in PhotoShop, you don’t signify impressionism. You open your image to the Universe of impressionism, making an invocation of the mode of visual representation developed in painting by Seurat, Pissaro, etc. In both these cases, there are processes of alterification. The swipe card secures the difference between the inside and outside of the room. The outside becomes the alterity. The photographic image is also positioned in a relation of alterity — it is no longer a photographic image. It is something other (but it’s also has an alterity to impressionist paintings). Another question to ask about PhotoShop and the lab is in what ways these are structures or machines. A structure seeks eternity; while the machine seeks its own abolition. Education seeks its own abolition inasmuch as once a student has learnt something, they no longer need to be taught it. Educational institutions are structures that seek to continue.
- Guattari insists that human and non-human elements should not be talked necessarily about in different ways. This is not to say that humans are equivalent to machines, but that the domains of what is a human phenomenon, and what is a technological phenomenon, are always inextricably interwoven. If the concepts and discourses used to talk about humans (intentions; understanding; desires) and the vocabularies to talk about technical objects (processor speeds; technical standards; ) are kept apart, then large parts of the event are missing. For example, to understand how PhotoShop works, you need to consider not only the software and hardware in operation, but also the knowledge, sensory perceptions, judgements and desires of the person using the system. These are not something outside the PhotoShop’s essence, but entirely bound up with it. Learning to use PhotoShop is to participate within an assemblage of subjectivation. Another more authoritarian mode of subjectivation that operates in the lab is the swipe card system. The card, and the network produce a form of deterritorialisation that establishes your subjectivity as an authorised user of the lab. When you swipe your card to get into the lab, this transaction is semiotic, but you do not experience it as an event of signification. It is an asignifying semiotic. It is a point sign (49). It has a direct material effect of letting you open the door — opening you onto the Universe of the Mac Lab. In quite a different way, when you use the ‘pointillism’ filter in PhotoShop, you don’t signify impressionism. You open your image to the Universe of impressionism, making an invocation of the mode of visual representation developed in painting by Seurat, Pissaro, etc. In both these cases, there are processes of alterification. The swipe card secures the difference between the inside and outside of the room. The outside becomes the alterity. The photographic image is also positioned in a relation of alterity — it is no longer a photographic image. It is something other (but it’s also has an alterity to impressionist paintings). Another question to ask about PhotoShop and the lab is in what ways these are structures or machines. A structure seeks eternity; while the machine seeks its own abolition. Education seeks its own abolition inasmuch as once a student has learnt something, they no longer need to be taught it. Educational institutions are structures that seek to continue.
- The title of the book in which this essay was published is Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm. The subtitle is significant, because it suggests that Guattari’s ontological concepts are the basis for a different conception of ethics and aesthetics: the good and the beautiful. Guattari is certainly not an ethical relativist. But he is also not interested in defining rules for ethical judgement. Instead, his ethics is related to the ontology we have just outlined. If what we usually think of as institutions are machinic assemblages, held together by quite dynamic processes of constant renewal according to intersections driven by abstract machines, then the ‘good’ is characterised by maximising these intersections, and energising these processes. Significantly, ethical questions arise even before there is a secure knowing subject to make a judgement. Ethics arises before there is a finished technical system that might be assessed in terms of its ‘impacts’. Such an ethics cannot partition off certain activities from others, if all participate in relations of alterity and interconnectivity.
- The title of the book in which this essay was published is Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm. The subtitle is significant, because it suggests that Guattari’s ontological concepts are the basis for a different conception of ethics and aesthetics: the good and the beautiful. Guattari is certainly not an ethical relativist. But he is also not interested in defining rules for ethical judgement. Instead, his ethics is related to the ontology we have just outlined. If what we usually think of as institutions are machinic assemblages, held together by quite dynamic processes of constant renewal according to intersections driven by abstract machines, then the ‘good’ is characterised by maximising these intersections, and energising these processes. Significantly, ethical questions arise even before there is a secure knowing subject to make a judgement. Ethics arises before there is a finished technical system that might be assessed in terms of its ‘impacts’. Such an ethics cannot partition off certain activities from others, if all participate in relations of alterity and interconnectivity.
- The title of the book in which this essay was published is Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm. The subtitle is significant, because it suggests that Guattari’s ontological concepts are the basis for a different conception of ethics and aesthetics: the good and the beautiful. Guattari is certainly not an ethical relativist. But he is also not interested in defining rules for ethical judgement. Instead, his ethics is related to the ontology we have just outlined. If what we usually think of as institutions are machinic assemblages, held together by quite dynamic processes of constant renewal according to intersections driven by abstract machines, then the ‘good’ is characterised by maximising these intersections, and energising these processes. Significantly, ethical questions arise even before there is a secure knowing subject to make a judgement. Ethics arises before there is a finished technical system that might be assessed in terms of its ‘impacts’. Such an ethics cannot partition off certain activities from others, if all participate in relations of alterity and interconnectivity.
- The title of the book in which this essay was published is Chaosmosis: an ethico-aesthetic paradigm. The subtitle is significant, because it suggests that Guattari’s ontological concepts are the basis for a different conception of ethics and aesthetics: the good and the beautiful. Guattari is certainly not an ethical relativist. But he is also not interested in defining rules for ethical judgement. Instead, his ethics is related to the ontology we have just outlined. If what we usually think of as institutions are machinic assemblages, held together by quite dynamic processes of constant renewal according to intersections driven by abstract machines, then the ‘good’ is characterised by maximising these intersections, and energising these processes. Significantly, ethical questions arise even before there is a secure knowing subject to make a judgement. Ethics arises before there is a finished technical system that might be assessed in terms of its ‘impacts’. Such an ethics cannot partition off certain activities from others, if all participate in relations of alterity and interconnectivity.