Andreas Broeckmann on Tue, 21 Jan 97 13:37 MET |
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nettime: Machine Aesthetics - a conversation 2/2 |
Andreas: But for me it is this transformative potential which is of particular interest. The folds and loops in these dynamic processes are the planes of immanence at which auto-poetic effects occur, moments of self-production or subjectification. In musical terms, one can speak of the refrain or the 'ritornelle', the temporary emergence of a relative order around which patterns can form that further crystallise, or collapse into renewed disorder. The aesthetics of the machinic resides in these movements, processes, foldings. Machinic art practices are directed at forms of behaviour and exchange, and at transformative processes. Machinic art is an art of unpredictability and of instability. Ken: ... or perhaps more to do with the changes and relations between states, than favouring one particular state. I'm wary of seeing the deterritorialised moment as an ethical or aesthetic good. As to whether one is on the side of de- or reterritorialisation -- that's always a tactical decision. Andreas: The point for me is that there is no meaningful differentiation between human and machine in the machinic assemblage. Rather, the functionality of the machine itself becomes the core of the aesthetic force it exerts, creating a phylum that does not distinguish between human and machine agency. Machinic art practices disregard representation and concentrate on an intensification of action, communication, play and disruption, as ways of stirring and accelerating the flow and recomposition of the singular parts of assemblages. The aesthetics of the machinic works towards describing an attitude, it focuses its attention on the preparation towards the facilitation of a process during which a temporary event can take place. Art, in this context, is the facilitation of an aggregation of bodies and forces in an unstable environment. As an aesthetic principle, the machinic confronts its own ambivalence and works towards making visible its territorial orders, dispersing and transforming them. The hybridisation I describe ... Ken: God I hate that word! It seems to me always to presume a prior state of 'pures' that are then cross bred into 'hybrids'. I think deleuzoguattarian thought is always about multiplicities. In this case: that there never was a purely human that's been cross bred with the machine. They always exist together. Body-tool-word-territory. Andreas: OK, let's say, this multiplicity of states of becoming is part of what we experience daily, even though we are more often subjected by the regulatory and industrial machines of a segmented existence. Only occasionally will art or other practices embrace the machinic. The Internet, still often described as a machine of multiplicity and difference, is no more than an aggregation of machinic potentialities which are currently being explored and experimented upon with mixed successes. The machinic is not a new aesthetic principle; the commitment to the machine of the Futurists, the ecstasy of ˇcriture automatique, the Situationists' practice of derive, Fluxus - these are examples of practices that emphasise the machinic over the intentional, representational, expressive. The machinic aesthetics derives from a commitment to chaotic, or as Guattari would say, chaosmic instability and the initiation of turbulences that allow for auto-poetic processes in which we can recognise our selves as other. Becoming machine is an aesthetic principle that recognises the multiple and differentiated machinic assemblages as the environments of subjectification, of de- and reterritorialisation. The forms of subjectification associated with the machinic are neither enveloped in an expansive, all-embracing consciousness, nor can they be described as the infiltration and infection of a unitary organism by an exterior virus. Ken: The trouble here is that by always refering back to this other paradigm, the new one comes into being in its shadow. I think its more interesting to think the machine assemblage without refering back to the dialectical notion of human/machine at all. Take, as an example, the way D+G talk about mining and metalurgy, about holes and tools, etc. The way of thinking just unfolds, producing itself out of itself. Andreas: I know what you mean, but for me it is also a question of how do I communicate and contextualise a thought. I understand that dialectical thought can be obstructive, but in this case I feel it helps to understand the conceptual shift from machine art, to a notion of the machinic. For me this conversation takes place in an art critical context in which I am trying to develop criteria for describing certain media art practices. The scenario that should come to mind is one in which a multiplicity of singular organisms and forces are entangled in mutually parasitical relationships, tied up in temporary productive, polymorphous interdependencies. They move from one plane of consistency to the other, using and swapping hosts constantly, creating larger agglomerations at times, even unproductive large-scale structures, yet more often they dissolve and rearrange their singular and momentary ties, feeding on the most beautiful potentialities of the machinic. -- * distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission * <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, * collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets * more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body * URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de