Philosophical Responses -and-
Colouring-in Exercises For Young and Old Thinkers
Written and Illustrated by: Michael Lyon KTH, May 2012 Supervisor: Dr HÊlène Frichot -p. 1-
For Trudy, Michael and Steve
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Contents Introduction
4
A Swarm of Butterflies
8
Post Number 2
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The Snowman Effect
12
Emolitics
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The Spirocentric Glass Panopticon
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Airports Observe Museums
18
Air Control
20
Back in my Day...
22
Bibliography
24
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Introduction Philosophy has hardly been one of my significant pastimes, as such, the abstract readings and new concepts were initially mind-boggling until the end when they were merely extremely confusing. I had found it difficult to grasp the concepts until Brian Massumi’s essay on the autonomy of affect, which prefaced each section with an example of ‘affect’ in studies and tests. The grounding of each section on a relatable example made the texts a bit easier to decipher. My weekly responses became mechanisms for me to interpret and represent the text I had just read, it felt dangerous to attempt to challenge the texts with my own thoughts and so, simply attempting to explain to myself what I felt were the key points of the texts at hand seemed like my best option.
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As the readings progressed however, I began to feel able to offer something more than my own interpretations, and attempted to draw on other examples and texts in order to respond to the readings. Our use of example institutions also became useful, providing something of a lens with which to analyse our texts. Unfortunately, picking the institution of the airport matched with texts about control and discipline led me down a slippery slope. I foundmyself nearly unleashing an inner anarchist, criticising modern notions of security, constant surveillance and discipline in airports and the effects of 9/11 on today’s idea of freedom and security. My limited grasp on the subjects of society and the economics of security encouraged me to restrain the flood of narrow-visioned statements available at your local ‘Occupy’ campsite and be a little more even handed. I focused on analysing what aspects of the texts had proven accurate, and which had not (yet) come to pass, or how reality or society could be reinterpreted to be relevant to the text, for example, in order to compare a museum with an airport, elements such as the collection, the admission, the authorities had to be defined and paired up, such that one’s travel destination, became synonymous with the collection of a museum, a motivation for a member of the public to use the institution in question. to understand. It will be interesting to track the progress of societies
In the final response to Jan Verwoert’s texts on exhaustion and exuberance, I found it especially hard to narrow my thinking to a small focus of attention. I thought it potentially hazardous to write responses using large issues as examples such as public safety, happiness or work ethic having not conducted much research or having much critical experience in any. And so, my best attempts were to create spatial or scenic imaginings of the texts, if I was not able to write academically about these topics, at least I could imagine them architecturally. Treating topics like rooms or objects and finding configurations that allow them to function conceptually. Several of my accompanying diagrams tend to be more figurative of bizarre scenes, for example of art attempting to gain admission to a museum or a reworking of the Panopticon to focus its inmates to a singularity. Imagining the colouring book to at one point be in the hand of a child, I avoided, despite my urges, expressing my frustration of securities and control and references to examples of human cruelty, and attempted to let my graphics become a form of cartoon for satire and parody, an overflowing bathtub of work and pleasure or a collection of eyebrow poses for the becoming politician. Also I ensured that each diagram contained at least a few challenges for the inspiring colour-er, that too-simple-a diagram would impede its effectiveness as an exercise for colouring-in and would possibly not be inspire enough to the imagination. In my mind, if the graphic was too simple, the idea must also have been too simple. In reading this colouring-in book then, The text and graphics are intended as a description for a mental image or scene of how I interpreted the texts. I suppose I would suggest that the reader look at the images and ask what does each figure, character or prop represent, some are metaphors for themes or notions, some are merely indicators for a location in a network and some are abstractions or re-workings of other known diagrams.
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Colouring instructions are liberal. The diagrams become more and more sketched scenes than hard-line diagrams as the book progresses, perhaps one enjoying this book could appreciate the development from hard lines to sketchy lines as the desire for a concrete understanding dissolves into the desire to provoke discussion. With this notion, I recommend the colours remain faithful to the line work in the beginning and become gradually more chaotic towards the end. Perhaps as Jan Verwoert suggests, we are being pressured to perform too much, and so, in the last image, the lines are to be completely disregarded and the pleasure of colouring be the primary focus. Whilst these readings have highlighted my lack of knowledge in the immense sea of philosophical thought, I have enjoyed the chance to acquaint myself with some of the concepts, hopefully they will prove useful in future problem solving strategies. Ideas of affect, the study of precognitive interactions between two bodies, may compliment nicely studies of post-modern architecture, which fold back and create a series of architectural in-jokes that require some processing to understand. It will be interesting to track the progress of societies of control through itself and its institutions and use this knowledge to perhaps tailor a more relevant form of Panopticon (or simply to be aware of the double-edged sword of transparency and visibility) when the time arises for the construction of a new branch of an institution. - Michael Lyon
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A Swarm Of Butterflies The notion of Affect, the phenomenon of a body’s perception of an action before any recognition or reaction is made by the body’s processing ability. A slim concept, perhaps like defining the space between my clothes and myself, the space between two pages in a closed phone book. As Seigworth and Gregg describe, it is a study of inbetween-ness, (1) however much study and theory one can prescribe to the area between zero and the next smallest increment above zero is anyone’s guess – no one yet knows what a body can do. Nevertheless, in organisms, the moment of sensation known as affect, before reaction, before emotion, before feeling, before even knowing, the moment simply when the wires connecting a sense to the brain fire to life in an unorganised mass of ‘shimmers’ is something that may link us all, since before the interpretation and comparison with our vast collection of experiences and knowledge, the signal is the same. Yet while there is a moment where two bodies may be affected by the same (third) body, the subtle variances between the two experiences, the angle at which they are seen, the distance from which they are heard and myriad other factors ensure that no body will experience a single moment in quite the same way as any other body. And so, at the moment of affect, between the vast range of sensations falling on every body at every scale, and fracturing exponentially for every microsecond beyond, there is a singularity where every sight, smell, bump, taste, point, punch line, realization and experience is instantaneously comparable and shared across every body, human, animal, material, non-material at every moment that has ever and will ever exist. The symmetrical nature has no beginning and no end, as the moments fracture infinitely and continuously, defining affect in terms of cause and effect is as if trying to define the start of a swarm of butterflies.
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1.Gregory Seijworth and Melissa Gregg ‘An Inventory of Shimmers’ 2010.
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Post Number 2 In ‘The Logic of Sensation,’ Deleuze compares concepts of abstract painting with figurative painting to the works of Francis Bacon. He suggests that Bacon’s works are unique in that they defy both of these categories. The ‘diagram’ separates the methodologies of abstract artists such as Pollack and Michaux from figurative artists such as Cezanne and Van Gogh. Deleuze write ‘the diagram ends the preparatory work and begins the act of painting’ (1), suggesting the differences between the two schools. Abstract painting engages more with the visual, ongoing assessment by the artist while painting, where to put paint and colour, when it is finished, which way is up, its initial ‘diagram’ is expressed as a coded concept of technique. Pollack’s abstract series express vividly the way they were painted, the movement, gravity and forces. Michaux’s works are simpler but, as Deleuze suggests, retain a greater strength of diagram, the repetitive technique is more vividly described with series’ of similar brushstrokes which allow the viewer to experience the entire painting process from start to finish. We see in earlier paintings a repression of technique in favour of expressing the ‘diagram,’ we ask ‘what does this mean?’ as opposed to ‘how and why was this painted?’ The figurative works are researched, planned and ‘diagrammed’ before being painted. The action of the brush, the sways and swearing of the artists are hidden to the viewer behind the final product which serves to speak for itself but perhaps not the artist. Bacon’s most known works are disfigured, figurative portraits, their diagram is clear and at the same time unclear for there appears to be two paintings in each work, one, a figurative portrait and two, and abstract disfiguration of another painting. The ambiguity arises when we consider the intention of the works. Bacon’s figurative portraits were painted in order to be abstracted, and so we find ourselves asking the questions we ask for both abstract and figurative paintings, what does this mean? and how and why was this done?
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1. Gilles Deleuze, ‘The Diagram’ 2003
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The Snowman Effect
Massumi’s essay on the anatomy of affect was much easier to read through than other articles on the subject of affect. It is broken into four parts, each beginning with reference to a study or example that relates to the discussion. What is significant is that the first part begins with a melancholy retelling of a German television program which prompted a study into emotion and cognition. The study found that a version of the program with an overlaid ‘emotional’ descriptive narration allowed the subjects to remember the content better. (1) Allowing the reader to start with the story as well makes the reading instantly more relatable and more memorable, a case in point of the case being described. The emotional attachment seems to better convey affect into cognition and memory, which seems like a logical statement considering one’s own experiences attempting to memorise a list of items versus a story with an emotional thread to follow. This breakdown of cognition and interpretation has made an anatomy of affect much more understandable, visualising the process to thought as a series of messy interactions and pathways rather than a simple flowchart helps explain the potential of affect as something that can be trained and utilised as opposed to a very thin and indeterminable step in a linear process.
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1. Brian Massumi, The Autonomy of Affect, 2002.
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Emolitics Thrift’s discussion of the role of affect in politics left me questioning what was the role of reality in politics? Initially, I question specifically, what ‘politics’ means. Politics, most broadly, refers to ‘the science of art of political government’ (Dictionary.com). Which leaves ’politics’ inseparable from government. However, throughout the reading, it appears that Thrift is mainly focused on the role of political representation, the vision, the interaction of a politician, whether current or in opposition. His brief mention of drill theory describes how the management of affect in policy can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a population, does not extend so much to actual examples of governance. We have a separation between the use of affect in what is being sold to the population, through media representation, through speeches and through urban space, as opposed to what role affect has in governing population, as with drilling. Thrift quotes Nolan to highlight the effectiveness of emotional affect in political campaigning. How “the individual is encouraged to escape from within and refer to the language of emotions” (1). Thus, even within the fantasy world of political representation, the most effective strategies reduce the population to emotional beings that respond to affect rather than lift them to logical ones that respond to reason. As we discovered earlier, children better remembered a cartoon which combined imagery with both factual and emotional information. Employing the two-channel approach, an emotional speech could become considerably more useful than simply to garner emotional support by utilising an additional media-based information system that operates in parallel to the emotional speaker. I am therefore left wondering about the reality or relevance of it in politics. Can politics be considered a constant show? Is there no state of rest where policy making and management overshadow policy selling and revolution? Or is that commonly referred to as a state of obedience, where the leadership and competence of the leader is unquestioned? And of course, what is the difference, when the population are not logically engaged in the process anymore? I am reminded of the character Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams, 1979), The president of the universe, who’s role is purely to distract the population from the true rulers of the Universe. Additionally, he has three arms and has split his personality in to two separate heads, one is hidden and contains all his ‘un-presidential traits’ such as logic and reason, the other is his public head. His outrageous clothes and antics are emotionally engaging and beloved while his policy is nonexistent. -p. 14-
1. Nigel Thrift, ‘Spatialities of Feeling’ 2008.
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The Spirocentric Glass Panopticon I stand quietly in line, boarding pass in hand and a small satchel slung over my shoulder. I have ensured to pack no liquids with me to avoid trouble but still, the feeling remains that I have left something tucked in an unknown pocket to alert the security guards ahead. I place my bag, keys, wallet and belt in the basket to pass through an x-ray machine and step as nonchalantly as possible through the metal detector doorway. Although I pass through with no issues, I am stopped and directed to a machine that will scan the contents of my shoes, while my bag is brushed with swabs to detect explosive substances. I continue towards the boarding gate, having presented no perceptible risk to airport security. Michael Foucault’s texts ‘discipline and punish’ describe aspects of the experience as methods of control and surveillance. There is isolation, where I am singled out, removed from discussion and conversation with others, even families are separated briefly and individualized as a prisoner in a cell. There is routine and repetition, each traveler follows a series of steps starting in the home with packing, then the collection of boarding passes, the multitude of opportunities to wait in a queue and the process of security screening. And there is the continuous submission to the airport authorities, your freedom, the permission to board an aircraft can at anytime be impeded by any member of the airport, without a call for reason. The removal of liberties is not by force, but by an acceptance that the only way to fly, is to respect the authorities. The public spectacle of punishment and humiliation is still somewhat present, pat-downs, bag openings and screenings are all performed in view of the public. The element of the threat of observation is only partially retained in the so-called random searches; the system is more reliant on total control and observation, which in Foucault’s eye may appear to be an archaic method of control. A greater level of surveillance understanding may be observed in subway networks, where only random checks or inspections are present, and posters dictate the mantra: ‘if you see something, say something.’ The reliance is on the panoptic possibility of observation (random inspectors) as well as the reliance of the public to observe and report suspicious behavior or events. Michel Foucault, ‘Complete and Austere Institutions’ 1991. -p. 16-
Michel Foucault, ‘Spaces and Classes’ 1989
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Airports Observe Museums
The museum institution, in a reversal of the Panopticon, which allows a small or non-existent number of wardens to oversee a large number of inmates; allows a large number of people to view, in great detail, a small number of exquisite objects. Airports and airlines are institutions which offer the promise not of being able to see small objects, but actually to immerse oneself into a totally different environment. The museum originally fought the idea that the public would be able to enter a museum, labeling the public as an unruly and drunken class (an assessment later proven unfair) which would risk the preservation of the collection. Today, alcohol is provided on most flights free of charge, the comfort of the public during their transportation becomes the main selling point of a carrier since the attraction is their destination. The institution of the airport is notorious for overcharging for alcohol, and for becoming all intrusive in its quest for security, it is a necessary step towards a destination, and the monopoly offered by this bottleneck affords it the ability to be as authoritarian as it deems necessary. While airlines offer the public the opportunity to subdivide themselves by class, as the great exhibition did in 1851, airports reduce all to an equal level of suspicion under an unseen but ever perceived authority.
Tony Bennett, ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’, 1995, -p. 18-
Douglas Crimp, ‘On the Museum’s Ruins’ 1985
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Air Control The recent phenomenon of travel has come to represent aspects of Foucault’s control societies. As airports change and enhance their control, society appears to follow. The airport is a laboratory for the biopolitics of control societies, testing from its series of interactions, screenings and permissions. The annually increasing crowd of travellers from the privileged few of the past to the working class masses of today are pushing the limits of a disciplined society archetype, yet airports persist with individual screening and the bodily training mechanisms of queues, checkpoints and gates. As the airport progresses towards a society of control, perhaps we will see change in this process. Travellers will be stopped and scrutinised so many times it will become perceptibly continuous. The security process will occur on a travelator (another icon of the airport) directly from the kerb of the drop-off area to your seat on the aircraft. In the example of Foucault’s planned society, child support is paid through the wages of the father. He criticises how this single notion implies a level of obedience in a social order. That the child is of a legally married mother and father, of the understanding that the father will work and the mother will maintain the home for the father and child. When travelling, the classic security question “business or pleasure?” is loaded with the same implied obedience. At once, one is presented with the two legitimate reasons for travelling (a binary option), working, or taking a break from working. Any other response to this question immediately arouses suspicion and embarrassment to the hopeful traveller. Lastly, the progression of disciplined societies to control societies occurs with the traveller themselves. In a once disciplined, blissful time before Facebook, the internet and digital photography, the memories and anecdotes of travels were conveyed in a small number of photographs and letters. Now, the intercommunication between family and friends is continuous, everyday thought and musings are dispersed faster and denser than ever in the past, whilst becoming continually more trivial and meaningless in nature. Is this bifurcation of information really enhancing us travellers? Perhaps as distance and separation become irrelevant, the term ‘traveller’ will also be rendered obsolete in favour of ‘mobile.’
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Maurizio Lazzarato, ‘The Concepts of Life and the Living in the Societies of Control’ 2006.
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Back in my Day... Compared to Lazzarato’s studies on control societies, where the infinite multiplicity reduced the work/pleasure barrier to a gradient between ‘hard work’ and ‘hard play’ where all possibilities between exist. In Verwoert’s essay on exhaustion, the idea of work and pleasure seems to be increasingly distinguished. In the exhaustive society, we stay up all night working to allow us more free time in our leisure, which usually ends up with us sleeping in late and wasting our valuable time off. The premise of hard work is tempting, concentrate your efforts into a small period of time, more will be done and more free time will be left over. However, it holds a sinister evolution, exerting one’s self can help you get ahead, but there is always someone who can exert themselves more. Herein lies the dilemma, in a constant battle to improve, one must work continually harder and faster, approaching the increasingly probable ‘burnout’ (1) Verwoert’s essay expresses a tone of nostalgia, a sense that the evolution of work and segregation of pleasure has led us to a bad place. With a greater range of pleasures at our grasp, travel, gourmet food, consumables the whistle to work mentality, where work was one’s passion, is all but gone. We envy those that value their work yet spend so much time preventing ourselves from doing the same, and conversely we continue to allow our work life to penetrate into our home life through iPad‘s, Smartphones and email. There is an inequality growing where the number of hours in a day do not add up to the combined hours of working and not working. As Verwoert suggests, the fierce protection of latency in the services, maybe the only bastion of true free-time left and the only thing stopping a headlong charge towards burnout. So, next time you are waiting in a queue or on hold, call you mum and tell her you love her or send someone a postcard.
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1. Jan Verwoert, ‘Exhaustion an Exuberance’
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Bibliography Bennett, Tony, ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, London: Routledge, 1995, excerpt, pp. 59-79. Crimp, Douglas, ‘On the Museum’s Ruins’ in Hal Foster, ed., Postmodern Culture, London: Pluto Press, 1985, pp. 43-56. Deleuze, Gilles, ‘The Diagram’, in The Logic of Sensation, London: Continuum, 2003 Foucault, Michel, ‘Complete and Austere Institutions’ in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Penguin, 1991. Foucault, Michel, ‘Spaces and Classes’ in The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, London: Routledge, 1989 Seijworth, Gregory and Gregg, Melissa ‘An Inventory of Shimmers’ in Gregory Seijworth and Melissa Gregg eds. The Affect Theory Reader, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010. Lazzarato, Maurizio, ‘The Concepts of Life and the Living in the Societies of Control’ in Martin Fuglsang and Bent Meier Sorensen, eds. Deleuze and the Social, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. Massumi, Brian, The Autonomy of Affect, in Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Thrift, Nigel ,‘Spatialities of Feeling’ in Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect, London: Routledge, 2008. Verwoert, Jan ‘Exhaustion an Exuberance’ in Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want, Sternberg Press, 2010.
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