Some THOUGHTS on modularity in relation to scale and composition in production as politics process
Re-listen: Two days later, we gather in the library to replay the recording of this lecture, while re-annotating. MM has some notes saved from the first pass, that he wants to insert. We take 1.5 hours to re-listen to a one hour recording. (we accidentally cleared authorship colors before starting to re-listen but MM finds back the original dump 14:30) actually starting over is interesting (new wave of colors) -- now listening with 4 editors... a new texture...
Simon Yuill
00:00
[joke: "SIMON SAYS:"]
{re-listening to sound of beanbags being pulled into shape}
Title as placeholder not talk about computing, not talk about software Simon begins... The long title, gone different. Process = politics 02:29
A historical pre-quel inserting history afterwards, recent reading.
Three books:
Karen Barard's - Meeting the universe halfway
Donna Haraway's - crystals, fabrics and fields (Not well know works based on her Phd Dissertation - organisitic theory in embryogenics)
Amy Wendling's - Karl Marx on technology and alienation ("one of sources for stuff i have been doing on craft/kraft")
Development of organistic theory: embryogenics The work on craft
speaking back to Chantal Mouffe in the outline of this workshop
'Universalism is not rejected but particularized; what is needed is a new kind of articulation between the universal and the particular' –Chantal Mouffe in: The Return of the political (1993) The universal vs the particular We haven't talked about this. Universal + Particular
(asking Simon to put his notes in front) Not confrotable with Mouffe's quote. Agonism - the necessity of making decisions in a polticial process. Refers to the cutting away. Looking at Mouffe
Agonism Necessity of making decisions (as political process) decision = cutting something away from something - scissors {zeljko intervention :-) } the idea of cutting, we touched upon it.
political communities? According to Mouffe the decision is"why this" and "not that" politcs is a practice, a form of production of making cuts (the civic and the social) ref: criticality - cutting things apart Guattari: machines cutting into processes of flow
In relation to pipelines - the production of politics is feediing into each other, how to intervene
relation/difference from cutting (relation with the political), how political processes/practices pipe into each other
scale , compostion, modularity, connectivity
Wendling looked at Marx' notebooks and searched for text about his own studies of technology, physics and ... How this (interest and connection with physics and physists) has influenced Marx work on Capital
key component=energy
ideas of the energetisists - key area of thinking around that time consolidating ideas leading to thermodynamics (circa 1850s) emerging from different areas (heat and light - morovsky (sp?)) Two discplines: Engeneering and Medicines (e)merging ideas of/about energy
Joule's work in breweries and steam engines ... Phillip Morovsky : Brume? Brwerey vs. Helmholz
The principle of double entry (things balancing out) in accounting as precursor to conservation laws (energy/momentum).He was the accountant in the Brewery where he was workin.
What is Double entry? Active/passive
Herman Helmholz: Physical processes energy as projections of concepts of economics (double-entry bookkeeping in particular) on to nature balance / conservation of energy Joule also accountant of the brewery where he worked, his nexus of ideas brought together the accounting practice with science basicly what comes in comes out (balancing out)
Marx was following these discussions, was familiar with Joule
Kraft : word used in German by Marx: energy, force, power can have many connotations ... philosophy cognitive energy where language moves through ("Hirnkraft"?) In Kant: Zeit - Raum - Kraft (tr. time, space, energy) key elements of Kantian philosophy In He/irder?: A _volk_ is a group of people sharing a common (linguistic) energy Aristotle: The idea of Kraft is used in Aristotle works with the potential and the actual.
% GRAFT: language, binding, relation, Kraft "Language moves between people as a Kraft" mediate, regulate ... metabolism
13:00 (media time) DISCUSSION: should we jump back? Overflow.
13:00 The ways in which energy Kraft is mobilised in Marx work: Marx said:
first of all man and nature... metabolism between himself and nature; Naturemax// Natuurkraft... in order to appropriate the ... external nature is changed and simultaneously his own nature... a process between men and natureLabour is
slumbering selfempowerment. Idea: enregy exchange between nature and labour and the ways in which it is transformative
ZB wants to stop. Not granted
Ludwick Buchner (1848 revolustions) sought to use theories of energetics to support the labor struggles
stoff und kraft (tr. stuff and energy) - materialism - marx is making a metaphor with human labour stuff and energy and the metabolic process
a passage from Stoff to Kraft
% GRAFT: lips, transformation, constant renewal ... [TODO: FIND QUOTE] with each breath that passes from our lips... in a space of 4 - 6 weeks, we are materially new things...[BUCHNER]
Constant renewal of the body as a metabolic process Marx sees laboutr as part of the metabolic process of the human Marx sees labour as part of metabolic process Arbeitskraft - translates as Labourpower (abstraction of labour by capital - the capacity to work independent of the work) Energy is work and this translate at the labor level Labour as a measurable thing.
capacity to work labour "becomes" measurable this produces the possibility of fatigue, exhaustion of energy in the worker = challenge to the morality of work (the bourgeois morality of work which was seen as enobling) Early bourgeois notion of work as bettering vs work is fatigueing sloth as a sin, factory as a nobling device (UK: first factories set up by Quakers, and other Christian spiritualists) not working = (time for) vice! Marx shifts the argument from a moral notion of labour to a materialist one (the enoblement of work from of Christian ideas of virtue)
ST making hand movements. Not sure if she means to express joy or panic. Tension between Spiritualist vs. Materialist (Hegelian) substance theory of value transmited through commodity (Marx) Value as field (what does this mean, to use this image?) shift away from morality of work to a more 'material' concept, by relating it to energy
This makes the 8 hour workday thinkable?
fulfilling animal laborans. work as the fulfilling activity for human.
two theories of value in marx: value as substance (*hegelian?) theory of value (eternal value) value as a field (real cost) (temporal dynamic value) dynamically composed of all aspects that consitute something -- systemic (temporal aspect)
Value as Substance Value as field (real cost);
MM notes the notes have forked .... Marx does adopts these ideas with a critical perspective energetics in relation to economy Contradiction: Constant growth v.s equilibrium model (?)
neoclassical models of ecomonics also using 'energetic' ideas. (e.g. economy finds it's own level through exchange)
growth / groff / gruff
(Morovsky?) contradiction between economic growth / constant growth (energetic) and thermodynamc entropy ('naturalness' as a false basis) Contradiction in neo-liberal of constant growth and the thermodynamic notion of conservation (Capitalist) Economic theory dressed up with a scientific theory (thermodynamics)
Respectability by linking to nature, as a source.
free worker enter the market place, all he has is the potential of his labour (arbeitskraft: what the workers sell - the potential to labour/work and then capital puts it actual) Capitalism intervene between the potential and the actual. The capitalists' work is to intervene between the potential and the actual Captitalism profite from the difference between potential for labour, & actual labour == > Capitalism acts often in the juncture, exploits this gap.
{brp}
Wendeling:
wider implications of Arbeitskraft : continuity of the labor (amongst animals, machines and humans) ? All forms of production are a reduction of natural resources how does metabolic model of work relate to the evironment? Mprinciple recognizes all (c.f. M.Wark - take son this concept of "metabolic rift.") E.g. Marx uses Nitrogene in Farming human / nonhuman
eg. use of Nitrogen in farming - displacement / depeletion of N2 in industrial production molecular rarity
* precapitalist production: local ecology * wide scale capitalism: nitrogen is displaced, not replaced.
27:30 --> People forced into fishing industry (?) ex fishermen Scotland feeding into slave production process in US by sending fish out (commodity production - energy circulation through the food process from Fishermen to the slave to the production of cotton back to UK for making fabrics) colonies (the nitrogren returns via excrement of the local consumers;) ciculations of energy-food production;
MM: Another rift in the notes?
Stanley Jevons (Neo Classical economist) defines "the Coal Problem" (ref?) - peak coal. Exhaustion of coal supply. A posthuman model of labour Kraft suggest the labour is not only ...the production happens through a spectrum producution happens across a spectrum (Wendling rather than Marx) Kraft suggests that work is something that happening across a spectrum of agents (not only humans - as hegel pointed -, but also animals...)
Man working on the world => Ecology working on itself Arts & Crafts movent Ruskin: reducing necessary working time (does not question the centrality of work, while Marx does question it) Instead of making work better, try to abolish it, getting rid of guilt about not-working Marx questions the centrality of work;
ZELJKO doubts: Marks does or does not question the centrality of work?
Marx's nephew, essay on Idleness: Rejection of work altogether [source? Used by Isabelle Stengers to speak about laziness?]
FS: Re-ordering notes from first round
in "fragments of machine" marx tends toward rejection of work but never fully accepts it (ref. essay on idleness) The beginning of the idea of the rejection of work.
Steam machines transfering energy from the engine to the tool via the transfer belt as a pipeline) (images of cover showing MaARX's drawings of the steam engine)... The tool is where the skill of labour becomes calcified... So labour is something channeled along pipelines goal: reduce necessary working time (craft movement : ruskin, morris in the arts and craft movements, reduce the ways in which people are impelled to work.)
Tool is the location where work gets calcified (?) state of mutual separation... for any production to take place they must be connected; how the connection defines the epochs of (labour? / character of production) ( look for other forms of connectivity )
pipelines present in ideas of production ex transfer belt (cover Marx), labour channeled on pipelines How potential is translated into the actual... How we intervene in this is key area of political intervention. (intervening, in relation to Promscuous Pipelines = cutting into? interacting? leaks?)
35:10 --> Modularity in Biology / Haraway
In the 20th century: ideas where modularity idea emerge is with the developement in biology - cf Haraway
Modularity - derived from embyrology - Three main theorists - organicist theory with biology c.f. harrison, needham (organicist), Paul Weiss, Waddington (systems theory / ecology)
all interested in which science can articulate Marksist theory Haraway: is interested in how "cocencious (?) sensuously lived metaphors" shapes the way people study ex Eleanor's discussion of LARP (metaphor)
Vitalistic v. mechanistic models of biology that have dominated theory in the 20th century (life force or 'reductionist' understandings) both focus on identifying substance (building blocks or 'vital energy'), without looking at relationshsips, process (c.f Whitehead) and transformation
vitalist (1) vs mechanistic (2) theory 1. single concept from singular non-mechnical. External Agency. Singular Spirit 2. redunctionist: seeks the fundamental unit from which all else can be built (basic building block)
Whitehead While seemingly opposed these are two sides of the same coin. (Both tend to the singular)... Whitehead Neither a basic building block, but neither an external agency / spirit / life emerrges ... but rather it's relationships and process
there is not one thing we can point to Rejecting ideas of Ernst Heskell (?) associates darwinism to idea of division of labour (German abolitionist theorist) from energeticist approach; has view of distinct races as a form of division of labour blurring the boundary between organic and inorganic
Race as a way to divide labour (proto-fascist aspects). Links to class Heskell also blurs organic/inorganic...
"Recapitulation" entygogy recapitulates phytology ?? embryo mimics the development of evolution, repeats stages of history of a species Needham rejects this idea - stages of development embryo evolves different capacities which reflect requirements at a particular stage of development (appropriate to capacties at a time?) (different orders, skipping steps) Simple cell structure to complex organism reflect the different capacities of the organism at a different time. mmmmmnnmnnnm nanananananannaa... appropriate comments
Analogy with child's speech in 19th century was simple/primitive, but it is appropriate to capacities of the child in a certain moment in time (not lesser form of speach, but just adequate for its point in life)
Needham - malfunction in an organism, partial faliures, against the mechanistic view of organisms (not been able to address why whole organism have not failed) Mechanistic model can't deal with breakdowns / organisms seem to be able to restructure themselves So, organisms are not like machines
dimension of active metabolism of the creature -> Arbeitskraft Active metabolism of an organism that maintains itself (capital containing conditions under which metabolism can be controlled (?)) Capital produces certain pipelines through which metabolism can be controlled Social reproduction of labour + domestic economy (The canal as a pipeline enabling capital)
"pipelines to control metabolism" "modularity appears"
Needham: Every org has levels of organisation (capacities appropriate to ability) modularity - irreducability at various levels of scale Paul Weiss on scale - modularity developped through issues of scale regularities related to scale; cf. capacities and adequateness. Things work different on different scales. Haraway: Related to boundary/substance, not fixed but passage possible. (at some point uses the term conditions rather than substance) Scale and composition scale / modularity(composition?) are related
A shift from energetics/thermodynamics to substance within identities to an understanding of relations Haraway argues that "the relation is the smallest possible unit of analysis" -> biology as studying patterns of relations
47:45 --> Relation and analysis, links to Karen Barard Buler idea of performativity She brings materiality.
Judith Butler thinking through performativity When performativity meets matter
Contradiction in Bohr's srgs in whcih he falls back to classical mechanics to regain an objective perspective, could escape via 'performativity' (J Butler) Niels Bohr's work on Complementality Bohr doesn't fully follow through his own ideas but fall back to newtonian... An anthropocentic view.
relation between observer and observed, and how it makes objectivity (im)possible we can analyse better representation of matter than matter itself Butler's concept of performativity might articulate a way to overcome this contradiction in Bohr. It is a rejection of representation thinking. Connection to Mouffe who is still working in a representional framework.
...such as the (?), citizen and liberal subject
no stable representations. Chantal Mouffe still working with that (quite litterally, as in her insisting on the importance of representational politics) Avoidance of a superiority of representation language in analysis We should not give priority to the representation framework.
Aparatus used can not be intairly outside of thing massured accessibility of the thing, as matter. apparatus is not outside what is measured it moves with the thing
concepts are developed by the context (?) of measurment...
position vs momentum (c.f Heisenberg) position: the apparatus needs to be fixed in place Camera on a tripod or the fixed plate where the particle hits momentum: the apparatus needs to be moving the plate is on a sping so it moves as it measures
Can't measure both at same time So a phenomenon is in part defined by the circumstances necessary to measure it
wave behaviour particle behaviour
all Q measure has a performative element, analogous to recognition of gender, through performance. it does not mean that matter does not exist. "assigning a measurement to matter" BARARD connects to BUTLER, we construct the condition under which the results (gender) are recognized. Permativity is about how aspects are brought into alignment to each other; It's neither purely one thing or the other (structure).
recurrent alignment = phenonema, rather than measurement Bohr argued/saw the inability to remove oneself entirely form an observation. Sought to reclaim objectivity. You can not entirely remove yourself from the object (?) of measurement phenomena as basic unit of physical world, physics, not atoms re-mapping: where observer (apparatus) and observed come together
repeatability
apparatus as a way to make a cut between observer and observed [apparatus is never 'external'] agential observability Numeric sum => Measurement VS Phenomenon => "Recurrent alignment"
55:00 --> Return to Barard / Conclusion
For Bohr the phenom is the basic unit of physics, not atoms, where apparatus and that which is observed come together. Bohr argued that because of repeatability, quantum can be mapped back to classical Newtonian physics.This woulnd't map back to traditional gender in a butlerian sense This is where Barad departs from Bohr...
The normative concept of gender could be reconstructured through iteration; Barard departs from Bohr: Ti should emerge from rather then be imposed upon the theory. 'Agential seperability' - exteriority within phenomenon
Aparatus is cut made between between...(?) ...phenomena Buttlers argues concepts of gender - reconstructed trough iteration
We discuss this part.
This would not map back to Butler's concept of performed gender (Femke: I don't understand this // ) A normative concept of gender could (not) be reconstructed through iteration? Cf. Bohr repeatability
"An account of measurement should emerge from rather thanbe imposed upon thetheory" (this means that your questions are important)
the possibility of objectivity
Another fold in the original notes ... that is reiterated through re-noting
Agential separability
"Exteriority within phenomena"; recognizing and accounting for how we make a cut bbetween the observer and the observed in the phenomenon; accounting of the apparati's operation rather than treating as external | bodies as patterns as a result of the specific. | V We decide to repeat the last part a few times, to get this correct :-) {Trying slowing down ... ridiculous but great relief laughter. Cyborg Simon Speaking .. Simon walks in. Walks out with a grin} Speaking about cuts ... We listen a third time, at normal speed. Our notes are forking once again. | Cut between the observed and the observer of the phenonoma. Through apparatus is how it is done. Recognise how these aparatus are build and perform. How the apparatae are build, and how they perform. They are part. Bodies: patterns of the world as a result of cuts that are enacted.
Challenging Mouffes position: Not a choice (in the humanist sense), but specifity of cuts (decisionality). Barard v.s Mouffe: very different understanding of model of the world in particular. "Which cuts, is not a matter of choice as in neo-liberalism but a matter of material ... to which the notion of the is differentially constituted". different ideas of decisionality: Mouffe (model: universal and particular) vs Barard (Butler cuts as distinct from Mouffe cuts) a matter of specific notion ... where human is differentiality constituted diffraction. not a matter of choice... cut or decisionality
bodies arise based on the enacted cuts...
57:40 -->
History of political structures: Feudal, Bourgeois property based, Marxism, Information sciety, Network culture of today, highlighy differentiated (such as identity, gender, problems of class composition...). The Enlightement was a response to Fedualism, Marx was a response to the Bourgeois, all different "structures of responses" to response to different economic structures. A highly differentiated society. each spawns it's own critical practises: food riot, mass demonstration, landgrab, republicanism, occupy movement, activism... all responses to different political econoic structures Marx reponse to Bourgeois political system Structures of responses -
In the paper "Reticular fallacy" Alexander Galloway, dissatisfied with the reification of the network structure - neoliberalism is a form of differiented form of structure (can't just take the network as a given ... form) neoliberalism degree of mirroring as is network anarchismner
How to develop a critical practice within that?
To come back to Mouffe ...she is trying to address a highlighly differiented polticial structure Addressing a highly differentieted political struture in her idea of reclaiming the universal and the
Mouffe: Integration through a representationalmodel of entities who recognised themselves in certain particular structures Barard: diffraction = patterns of interference between wavesin quantum particularity Modularity suggests something different the particularlity that partakes in the universal, instead politics drawing on needham, that is apprpriate to different scales; how to we negotaite .. arrange in relation to large structures
We don't seem to have time to read and write at the same time (at least not THIS!)
Needums Modularity: bring in scale and capacity (that are left out, not dealt with by reference to the Universal, as in Mouffe) responses to differential differentiated political structure integrational vs a diffractive principle movement of movements So relations are the units rather than the subjects relations are units of political rather than subject As Quantum measurement recognizes we are part of the observation we make, We are part of the politics we seek to critique
01:02:33 -->
politics as a phenonema we cut into. conditions producing judgement.
Barard: instead of anology - we should look at methodology. The idea of apparatus as a methodological aspect. How we form the question as a consequence on the response. the idea of the appartus with quantum has a methodological aspect; the apparatus phsyicaly embodies a question: How to the questions... scale as a product of relations, scale at which particular capabilities (and other relations) are possible. (there are always other patternings happening)
questions as apparatus, the apparatus physically embodying a question
we need to look at methodologies
coffee grinding, recorded or in RT? And where did the sirens go?
% GRAFT: failing, questions, critique How can our questions be our politics. How we build the question, through apparatus. How can we fail well at politics (because most of our experiments don't work most of the time; RATHER THAN THINKING ABOUT A SUPREME POLiTICS that's always right, we should think about a how do we fail well in politics, so we should accept that this happens, not look for politics that are universally right) (is this all a quote, and from who?)
The boundary of the quote ...
Barard quotes Ian Hacking: Most experiments don't work most of the time so rather than thinking of a Supreme politics that always works but how do we fail well at politics: - failing well at politics rather then look instead for a FAIL well politics...
Meme: Simon says
That's where my thoughts lead me... That's where my thoughts leave me... That's where my thoughts love me... That's where my thoughts left me...
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