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Nov
7th

Sat

However, where the anti-realist epistemologists and the realist ontologists part ways is with respect to the thesis that questions of our access to beings is sufficient to determine what beings are. For the object-oriented ontologist, over and above questions of how we know objects there remains an important and crucial question of what it means for a being to be. This question, following Roy Bhaskar, is not, for the realist ontologist, exhausted by how we know. Likewise, while the object-oriented ontologist readily acknowledges the limitations of our knowledge, the fact that we must engage in inquiry to know any particular type of object, and so on, the realist ontologist rejects the thesis that the differences discovered in and through inquiry belong to the domain of outputs alone. Rather, the realist ontologist begins from the premise that these differences cannot be restricted to outputs alone, but rather that there must be something about the inputs, about the world that produces these differences, that is mind-independent.

—

From this post.

There’s something beautiful and inspiring about using the limits of our knowledge as aids in seeing just how unlimited objects are. We are limited observers, there’s whole worlds we don’t have access to (yet?). What object-oriented approaches do, to my mind, is successfully knock us off our pedestals. It’s a humbling move, but one that feels more honest. And one that opens up whole new possibilities, and seems full of hope. Harman’s writing in particular helps restore wonder to the world by admitting there are interactions we’re not privy to, and what we see is just a slice, but that slice is not ALL THERE IS.

Nov
1st

Sun

…when an artist tells you that the bombing or dramatic events that take place next to your house can be ignored by changing the channel, it signals the end of civilazation.

— George Lazongas in the Sept/Oct issue of Art Papers. While I don’t agree entirely, there’s something important being expressed.

Oct
31st

Sat

The number of times I have accidentally tried to add, say, GMail to my Amazon wishlist with the universal add to wish list bookmarklet is ridiculously high.

Oct
25th

Sun

merlin:

repose:

(via juliasegal)

Oct
15th

Thu

I feel like there’s often a pull, especially from the critical end, that demands constant novelty, and when that expectation isn’t met, there is disappointment and the artist is said to have lost it, to become a shade of her former self. But the pleasure that comes from listening to this music isn’t the pleasure of discovery, but the pleasure of watching them play their aesthetic game, exploring the ideas they’ve already discovered and finding new and interesting ways to hit those concepts. Maturity isn’t just the realm of monotony and routine, but rather the phase where artists have the ability to start on the same page as their audience and thus investigate the aesthetic the artist has created in concert with their listeners.

— From this review of the new Built to Spill. I agree, and would include a hearty “So stop calling Sonic Youth necro-whatever, stupidheads.” But in my most mature, insightful critic voice.

Oct
11th

Sun

No, this is not an disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into…

— Gravity’s Rainbow

Oct
10th

Sat

Badiou’s dislike for analytic philosophy is not just a question of taste, which, for a Frenchman, is the province of the real gourmet. Analytic philosophers, who strangle philosophy with a linguistic noose just because nothing else seemed to be working fifty years ago, fail to see the danger in thinking that language is the only truth procedure—or even one at all. The revolutionary moments most interesting to philosophy, whether political, artistic, or that of great world-changing love, have more often than not been the work of blood.

— http://www.nplusonemag.com/badiou-badass

Oct
8th

Thu

I spent an hour trying to explain why I like something and realized I’d rather just listen to it. I think this means I’m doomed to never be a critic.

Sep
27th

Sun

Wandelweiser by Michael Pisaro

Sep
16th

Wed

uh huh

Sep
15th

Tue

But perhaps the simplest way to summarize Harman’s position is to cite the informal addition he offers to Lee Braver’s notions of realism: “The human/world relation is just a special case of the relation between any two entities whatsoever.” I’d clarify that “special” in this case just means a particular, not exceptional.

There is one lap I need to swim before drying us off from our refreshing dip in the pool of metaphysics, and it passes through Levi Bryant’s adaptation of Harman’s object-oriented philosophy into what the former calls flat ontology. This is a term that first occurs in the work of Manuel DeLanda, who uses it to refer to an ontology comprised entirely of individuals (rather than species and genera, for example). Bryant’s use of the phrase is somewhat different: a flat ontology allows all objects the same ontological status. And furthermore, as for Latour, “objects” can mean corporeal or incorporeal entities, including objects of intention: quarks, Harry Potter, keynote speeches, single-malt scotch, Land Rovers, lychee fruit, love affairs, dereferenced pointers, Slavoj Žižek, bozons, horticulturists, Mozambique, Super Mario Bros., all are fair game.

— from Ian Bogost’s incredibly awesome talk, located http://www.bogost.com/writing/videogames_are_a_mess.shtml

SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY. How were they this good?

Sep
14th

Mon

I will show that objects themselves far from the insipid physical bulks that one imagines, are already aflame with ambiguity, torn by vibrations and insurgencies equaling those found in the most tortured human moods.

— From Tool-Being by Graham Harman. Who I kind of love.

Aug
28th

Fri

There’s just always too much to do.

“What Deleuze and Guattari are ultimately developing is a politics of creativity, a theory of revolution that is based neither on beginnings (the conquest of the old system) nor on ends (the implementation of a new system) but on middles - interregnums, intermezzos, the space in between, the unpredictable interstices of process, movement and invention.”

Deluze and Guattari by Ronald Bogue pg 105

Seriously just beautiful. And that, dear readers, is why I’m continuing to muddle through.