Aluminology

Author(s):  
Mimi Sheller

This chapter examines how the light yet strong metal aluminium shaped modern material cultures around practices and ideologies of speed and mobility. Aluminium-based light modernity became definitive of the twentieth century through both military air power and innovative civil applications, informing modernist visions of a streamlined future. The archaeology of metallic modernity opens up a space for thinking about the material remains that contemporary cultures of mobility have left on the Earth, and beyond, in outer space. By tracing the infiltration of this unique metal into the material cultures of modernity the chapter uncovers a layer of modern artefacts-buildings, aircraft, vehicles, appliances, satellites-that express a certain moment in human existence, and also express that period’s hopes for the future of humanity.

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 612
Author(s):  
Jon Bialecki

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is an intense interest in creating “speculative fiction”, including speculative fiction about outer space. This article ties this interest to a broader tradition of “speculative religion” by discussing the Mormon Transhumanist Association. An interest in outer space is linked to nineteenth and twentieth-century speculation by Mormon intellectuals and Church leaders regarding “Abrahamic Astronomy”. The article suggests that there is a Mormon view of the future as informed by a fractal or recursive past that social science in general, and anthropology in particular, could use in “thinking the future”.


2001 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Bounama ◽  
S. Franck ◽  
W. von Bloh

Abstract. Questions of how water arrived on the Earth’s surface, how much water is contained in the Earth system as a whole, and how much water will be available in the future in the surface reservoirs are of central importance to our understanding of the Earth. To answer the question about the fate of the Earth’s ocean, one has to study the global water cycle under conditions of internal and external forcing processes. Modern estimates suggest that the transport of water to the surface is five times smaller than water movement to the mantle, so that the Earth will lose all its sea-water in one billion years from now. This straightforward extrapolation of subduction-zone fluxes into the future seems doubtful. Using a geophysical modelling approach it was found that only 27% of the modern ocean will be subducted in one billion years. Internal feedbacks will not be the cause of the ocean drying out. Instead, the drying up of surface reservoirs in the future will be due to the increase in temperature caused by a maturing Sun connected to hydrogen escape to outer space. Keywords: Surface water reservoir, water fluxes, regassing, degassing, global water cycle


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (53) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Hernando Guarín Martínez ◽  
Marta Jimena Cabrera Ardila

Resumen: Este artículo aborda los modos como las imágenes prefiguran el tiempo por venir, el futuro. En otras palabras, lo que entendemos por el futuro, un tiempo sin historicidad, es articulado en el tiempo presente y corresponde a un paradójico movimiento entre tiempo de nostalgia y tiempo de deseo. Para explorar el tema, abordamos las nociones de profecía y predicción y posteriormente ahondamos en las imágenes técnicas, que son centrales en la producción de la era geológica conocida como Antropoceno. El Antropoceno, en tanto escenario planetario inminente, significa un particular encuentro entre las profecías apocalípticas de las religiones y el pensamiento mítico, y las predicciones catastróficas de las ciencias, derivando en una singular imagen de futuro que pareciera ser un fin y un comienzo a la vez: la conquista del Espacio y la terraformación de otros mundos, donde Marte es una suerte de espejo de la Tierra que proyecta imágenes que son simultáneamente del pasado y del futuro.Palabras Clave: Antropoceno. antropología de la imagen. historicidad. Marte. terraformación ¿Existe una imagen del futuro? Sobre tiempos, imágenes, mundos otros y Antropoceno Abstract: This article explores the ways in which images prefigure times to come, the future. In other words, what we understand as future, a time devoid of historicity, is articulated in the present and corresponds to a paradoxical movement between nostalgia and desire. To delve into the matter, we explore the notions of prophecy and prediction, then we examine technical images, which are key to the production of the geological era known as the Anthropocene. The Anthropoce, seen as an imminent planetary scenario, implies a remarkable encounter between apocalyptic prophecies, mythical thinking, and scientific catastrophic predictions which condensate in a singular image of the future that speaks of beginnings and ends: the conquest of outer space and the terraforming of other worlds where Mars mirrors the Earth and projects images that belong simultaneously to the past and the future.Keywords: Anthopocene. anthropology of the image. historicity. Mars. terraforming EXISTE UMA IMAGEM DO FUTURO? SOBRE TEMPOS, IMAGENS, OUTROS MUNDOS E O ANTROPOCENO Resumo: O artigo aborda os modos como as imagens provém o tempo por vir, o futuro. Em outras palavras, aquilo que entendemos por futuro, um tempo sem historicidade, é articulado no tempo presente e faz parte de um movimento paradoxal entre o tempo da saudade e o tempo do desejo. Para fazer essa abordagem, partimos das noções de profecia e predição, para compreender as imagens técnicas como elementos centrais da visualidade da era geológica conhecida como Antropoceno. Essa era geológica, em quanto cenário planetario iminente, significa um particular encontro entre as profecias apocalípticas das religões e o pensamiento mítico, e as predições catastróficas das ciências, dando lugar a uma singular imagem do futuro que se propõe como um final e um começão ao mesmo tempo: a conquista do Espaço e a terraformação de outros mundos, onde Marte é um tipo de espelho da Terra, que projeta imagens que são do pasado e do futuro ao mesmo tempo.Palavras-chave: Antropoceno. antropologia das imagens. historicidade. Marte. terraformação


1965 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.N. Afriat

The human population is the base of human existence. This, when considered, seems an inescapable proposition. But in the minds of most men it must have an absurd remoteness. The process of population has seemed like primordial creation itself, hardly a thing to be touched by mere scruple. Beyond the scope of any deliberation, the peopling of the earth has, for mankind as a whole, remained unquestioned as the earth, an axiom behind which there was no going and from which all proceeded. But according to a relentless gathering of awareness, as witnessed in an abundance of recent writings, it appears that history has marched to a new point. The condition of the world is being modified by a constellation of emergencies, and any observation and reflection on them, any rough glance at the outlines of trends in the life of the world, points to the swelling flood of population as the central reality in every perspective on the future.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-219
Author(s):  
Meindert E. Peters

Friedrich Nietzsche's influence on Isadora Duncan's work, in particular his idea of the Dionysian, has been widely discussed, especially in regard to her later work. What has been left underdeveloped in critical examinations of her work, however, is his influence on her earlier choreographic work, which she defended in a famous speech held in 1903 called The Dance of the Future. While commentators often describe this speech as ‘Nietzschean’, Duncan's autobiography suggests that she only studied Nietzsche's work after this speech. I take this incongruity as a starting point to explore the connections between her speech and Nietzsche's work, in particular his Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I argue that in subject and language Duncan's speech resembles Nietzsche's in important ways. This article will draw attention to the ways in which Duncan takes her cues from Nietzsche in bringing together seemingly conflicting ideas of religion and an overturning of morality; Nietzsche's notion of eternal recurrence and the teleology present in his idea of the Übermensch; and a renegotiation of the body's relation to the mind. In doing so, this article contributes not only to scholarship on Duncan's early work but also to discussions of Nietzsche's reception in the early twentieth century. Moreover, the importance Duncan ascribes to the body in dance and expression also asks for a new understanding of Nietzsche's own way of expressing his philosophy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-262
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Therezo
Keyword(s):  

This paper attempts to rethink difference and divisibility as conditions of (im)possibility for love and survival in the wake of Derrida's newly discovered—and just recently published—Geschlecht III. I argue that Derrida's deconstruction of what he calls ‘the grand logic of philosophy’ allows us to think love and survival without positing unicity as a sine qua non. This hypothesis is tested in and through a deconstructive reading of Heidegger's second essay on Trakl in On the Way to Language, where Heidegger's phonocentrism and surreptitious nationalism converge in an effort to ‘save the earth’ from a ‘degenerate’ Geschlecht that cannot survive the internal diremption between Geschlechter. I show that one way of problematizing Heidegger's claim is to point to the blank spaces in the ‘E i n’ of Trakl's ‘E i n Geschlecht’, an internal fissuring in the very word Heidegger mobilizes in order to secure the future of mankind.


Author(s):  
VICTOR BURLACHUK

At the end of the twentieth century, questions of a secondary nature suddenly became topical: what do we remember and who owns the memory? Memory as one of the mental characteristics of an individual’s activity is complemented by the concept of collective memory, which requires a different method of analysis than the activity of a separate individual. In the 1970s, a situation arose that gave rise to the so-called "historical politics" or "memory politics." If philosophical studies of memory problems of the 30’s and 40’s of the twentieth century were focused mainly on the peculiarities of perception of the past in the individual and collective consciousness and did not go beyond scientific discussions, then half a century later the situation has changed dramatically. The problem of memory has found its political sound: historians and sociologists, politicians and representatives of the media have entered the discourse on memory. Modern society, including all social, ethnic and family groups, has undergone a profound change in the traditional attitude towards the past, which has been associated with changes in the structure of government. In connection with the discrediting of the Soviet Union, the rapid decline of the Communist Party and its ideology, there was a collapse of Marxism, which provided for a certain model of time and history. The end of the revolutionary idea, a powerful vector that indicated the direction of historical time into the future, inevitably led to a rapid change in perception of the past. Three models of the future, which, according to Pierre Nora, defined the face of the past (the future as a restoration of the past, the future as progress and the future as a revolution) that existed until recently, have now lost their relevance. Today, absolute uncertainty hangs over the future. The inability to predict the future poses certain challenges to the present. The end of any teleology of history imposes on the present a debt of memory. Features of the life of memory, the specifics of its state and functioning directly affect the state of identity, both personal and collective. Distortion of memory, its incorrect work, and its ideological manipulation can give rise to an identity crisis. The memorial phenomenon is a certain political resource in a situation of severe socio-political breaks and changes. In the conditions of the economic crisis and in the absence of a real and clear program for future development, the state often seeks to turn memory into the main element of national consolidation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Davide Sparti

Obwohl jede menschliche Handlung mit einem gewissen Grad an Improvisation erfolgt, gibt es kulturelle Praktiken, bei denen Improvisation eine überwiegende Rolle spielt. Um das Risiko zu vermeiden, einen zu breiten Begriff von Improvisation zu übernehmen, konzentriere ich mich im vorliegenden Beitrag auf den Jazz. Meine zentrale Frage lautet, wie Improvisation verstanden werden muss. Mein Vorgehen ist folgendes: Ich beginne mit einem Vergleich von Improvisation und Komposition, damit die Spezifizität der Improvisation erklärt werden kann. Danach wende ich mich dem Thema der Originalität als Merkmal der Improvisation zu. Zum Schluss führe ich den Begriff affordance ein, um die kollektive und zirkuläre Logik eines Solos zu analysieren. Paradigmatisch wird der Jazzmusiker mit dem Engel der Geschichte verglichen, der nur auf das Vergangene blickt, während er der Zukunft den Rücken zugekehrt hat, und lediglich ihr zugetrieben wird. Weder kann der Improvisierende das Material der Vergangenheit vernachlässigen noch seine genuine Tätigkeit, das Improvisieren in der Gegenwart und für die Zukunft, aufgeben: Er visiert die Zukunft trotz ihrer Unvorhersehbarkeit über die Vermittlung der Vergangenheit an.<br><br>While improvised behavior is so much a part of human existence as to be one of its fundamental realities, in order to avoid the risk of defining the act of improvising too broadly, my focus here will be upon one of the activities most explicitly centered around improvisation – that is, upon jazz. My contribution, as Wittgenstein would say, has a »grammatical« design to it: it proposes to clarify the significance of the term »improvisation.« The task of clarifying the cases in which one may legitimately speak of improvisation consists first of all in reflecting upon the conditions that make the practice possible. This does not consist of calling forth mysterious, esoteric processes that take place in the unconscious, or in the minds of musicians, but rather in paying attention to the criteria that are satisfied when one ascribes to an act the concept of improvisation. In the second part of my contribution, I reflect upon the logic that governs the construction of an improvised performance. As I argue, in playing upon that which has already emerged in the music, in discovering the future as they go on (as a consequence of what they do), jazz players call to mind the angel in the famous painting by Klee that Walter Benjamin analyzed in his Theses on the History of Philosophy: while pulled towards the future, its eyes are turned back towards the past.


Author(s):  
Admink Admink

Прослідковуються урбанізаційні та дезурбанізаційні процеси в моді ХХ ст. Звернено увагу на недостатню вивченість питань естетичних та культурологічних аспектів формування моди як видовища в контексті образного простору культури повсякдення. Визначено видовищні виміри модної діяльності як комунікативної сцени. Наголошено на необхідності актуалізації народних мотивів свята, творчості в гурті, певної стилізації у митців та дизайнерів моди мистецтва ностальгійного, втраченого світу з метою осягнення фольклорної, глибинної стихії моди як екомунікативного простору культури повсякдення. Ключові слова: міф, мода, етнокультура, етнос, свято, площа Ключові слова: міф, мода, етнокультура, етнос, свято, площа. According to E. Moren ethnic cultural influences take place in urbanized environment and turn it into "island ontology".Everyday life ethnic culture is differentiated, specified as a certain type of spectacle. However, all that powerful cosmologism, which used to exist as an open-air theater in settlements, near rivers, grasslands, roads, is disappearing. The everyday life culture loses imperatives, patterns, and cosmological designs, where, for example, the “plahta” contains rhombuses, squares, and rectangles - images of the earth, and the top of the costume symbolizes the sky. Yes, the symbolic marriage of earth and sky was a prerequisite for marrying young people. The article deals with traces of the urbanization and deurbanization processes in the twentieth century fashion.Key words: ethnic culture, culture of everyday life, ethnics, holidays, variety show, knockabout comedy, square.


Author(s):  
Jason Phillips

This conclusion explains how American temporalities changed after the war and sketches how expectations and anticipations of the future have alternated as the dominant view in American culture through the twentieth century to today. This chapter also shows how the short war myth, the story that Civil War Americans expected a short, glorious war at the outset, gained currency with the public and consensus among scholars during the postwar period. It contrasts the wartime expectations of individuals with their postwar memories of the war’s beginning to show how the short war myth worked as a tool for sectional reconciliation and a narrative device that dramatized the war by creating an innocent antebellum era or golden age before the cataclysm. It considers why historians still accept the myth and showcases three postwar voices that challenged it.


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