scholarly journals Superficiality and Representation: Adding Aesthetics to “Knowledge without Truth”

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-57
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Vaillo
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Epistemological Model ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology

Abstract This article has two parts. The first one compares the ontological and epistemological implications of two main philosophical stances on how reality relates to appearance. I call the first group the “plane of superficiality,” where reality and appearance are the same; there is no gap between what a thing is and how it manifests itself. I call the second group “volume of representation,” in which reality is beyond appearances; there is an insurmountable gap between the thing and its phenomena. The second part of the article focuses on Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) as the second group’s contemporary position. Within the OOO epistemological model of “knowledge without truth,” Harman’s schema of the observer’s participation in the object’s knowledge production is questioned. Alternatively, based on the notion proposed here of “flat representativity” in which each appearance is equally valuable to represent different aspects of the object, I argue for the full spectrum of the sensual as the basis for “knowledge without truth.” In particular, the aesthetic method, excluded from Harman’s concerns about knowledge, is suggested as another contribution to the episteme.

Humanisms, Posthumanisms, and Their Discontents

Reified Life ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
J. Paul Narkunas
Keyword(s):  
Object Oriented ◽  
Financial Capital ◽  
Dynamic Processes ◽  
Smart Machines ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology

The introduction outlines how we are living in an automated posthuman future with smart machines that blur boundary between human and non-human. The chapter also summarizes the general problems with humanism and posthumanism for instrumentalizing the human, and documents how both work too closely with neoliberalism and financial capital. How neoliberalism functions like culture and has created a world of economic ontology are also addressed. The author then traces problems with notions of agency based on subjectivity including the posthuman and object-oriented ontology, and proposes a different strategy for thinking agency along Gilbert Simondon’s notion of transindividuation that he calls ahuman. The ahuman is then defined as a stable figuration that embodies dynamic processes and forces that actually frame reality. The chapter ends with a discussion of the aesthetic as new figurations of existence that can be mobilized for alternative political purposes, as well as a brief outline of the chapters.

scholarly journals Two Ambiguities in Object-Oriented Aesthetic Interpretation

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 599-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Taxier
Keyword(s):  
Object Oriented ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Risk Ambiguity ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology

AbstractThe aesthetic theory of Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) revolves around the concept of allure, a nonliteral experience of an object’s displacement from its qualities that draws attention to a deeper reality. But applying allure to aesthetic interpretation is hampered in two ways. First, OOO necessarily moves between the constrained viewpoint of experience and a more global perspective. Yet mixing these “inside” and “outside” views can risk ambiguity. Second, the phenomenological difference between the parts and qualities of an object must be clarified before Harman’s model of wholes and parts can be incorporated into OOO aesthetics. Addressing these two ambiguities will make it possible to further develop OOO’s resources for aesthetic commentary. For instance, one conclusion is that allure itself has two varieties: a tension between the object and its qualities (“allusion”) and a tension between the whole and its parts (“collusion”). These options parallel Harman’s twofold critique of reductionism. Another conclusion is that the literal needs an explanation within the framework of OOO insofar as it is a genuine feature of experience.

Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Harman
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Causal Relation ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Human Contact ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Real Objects ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology

Object-oriented ontology (OOO) is an intellectual movement in the arts and humanities sharing certain affinities with both phenomenology and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). It is a philosophically realist position often at odds with existing currents in postmodernism and critical theory. The best-known idea of OOO is that objects “withdraw” from all direct human and non-human contact, so that relations between things are always indirect and must be accounted for rather than taken for granted. More broadly speaking, however, OOO is a theory of two kinds of objects (real, sensual) and two kinds of qualities (real, sensual). Real objects and qualities are not directly accessible to thought, perception, practical use, or even causal relation, and must be approached by more allusive means. Sensual objects and qualities, by contrast, exist only for some other entity, human or otherwise. Each type of object has troubled relations with each of the two forms of qualities, resulting in four basic tensions, the analysis of which is the heart of object-oriented method in every field and not just literature. OOO literary theory has a special fondness for the weird: especially the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, whose work is taken to exemplify two of the key ontological tensions. Dante and Edgar Allan Poe are also key OOO figures, due to their manner of theatrically investing their characters and readers in sincere relations with objects. OOO’s relation with the formalist aesthetics of Immanuel Kant is ambivalent, since Kant is admired for cutting off the aesthetic object from its surroundings but challenged for his modernist assumption that the human and non-human must never be mixed.

scholarly journals Słabe, chrome i skołowaciałe. O praktycznych wymiarach teorii ekokrytycznych.

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-149
Author(s):  
Tymon Adamczewski
Keyword(s):  
Object Oriented ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology

Autor omawia w artykule współczesne osiągnięcia dyskursów ekokrytyki, próbując odczytać je przez pryzmat słabej myśli. Główna uwaga poświęcona jest intrygującym propozycjom teoretycznym Timothy‟ego Mortona dotyczącym hiperobiektów, które ukazane zostają w kontekście OOO (object-oriented ontology), a które uznać można za przykłady innego sposobu uprawiania teorii i praktyki akademickiej. Wykorzystując pojęcie veering (skołowacenia) Nicholasa Royle‟a, autor wskazuje zalety osadzenia rozważań w „osłabionej”, nieantropocentrycznej perspektywie, która stanowi alternatywę dla bardziej dydaktycznych i opartych na poczuciu winy dyskursów krytycznych.

scholarly journals TRADUCCIÓN POST-HUMANA EN LA CUARTA FASE DEL CAPITALISMO GLOBAL: TECNOLOGÍAS DIGITALES, LENGUAJES SENSORIALES Y BIG DATA. UN ACERCAMIENTO CRÍTICO DESDE EL ARTE

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 215-234
Author(s):  
Federica Matelli
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Aesthetic Concepts

A partir del concepto de traducción y de comunidad de humanos y no – humanos de Bruno Latour, y retomando algunos conceptos estéticos centrales en la OOO (Ontología Orientada a los Objetos), este articulo expone un tipo de traducción post-humana estrechamente relacionada con la situación global del capitalismo computacional. En este orden extremo del capitalismo global, que está gobernado por algoritmos y condicionado por techno - políticas, la difusión transnacional de las tecnologías digitales instaura un lenguaje sensorial único que traduce, uniformándolas, culturas distintas y al mismo tiempo garantiza el control sobre el presente y el futuro por medio del Big Data, así como nos advierte Armen Avanessian. Su máximo agente es el design de objetos tecnológicos y servicios. A partir de esta constatación se aporta el ejemplo de un proyecto artístico que, trabajando con la traducción de datos por medio de un diseño alternativo, desvela este estado de la cultura digital actual, traduciendo y explicitando las funciones ocultas de algunos objetos digitales de uso cotidiano –como el teléfono móvil– en una instalación con objetos tecnológicos y mapas de datos. Based on the Bruno Latour’s concept of translation and community of humans and non - humans, and retaking some central aesthetic concepts in the OOO (Object Oriented Ontology), this article exposes a type of post-human translation closely related to the global situation of computational capitalism. In this extreme order of global capitalism, which is governed by algorithms and conditioned by techno - policies, the transnational diffusion of digital technologies establishes a unique sensory language that translates, unifying them, different cultures and at the same time guarantees control over the present and the future through Big Data, as Armen Avanessian warns us. Its maximum agent is the design of technological objects and services. From this finding, the example of an artistic project is provided that, working with the translation of data through an alternative design, reveals this state of the current digital culture, translating and explaining the hidden functions of some digital objects for everyday use –Like the mobile phone– in an installation with technological objects and data maps.

scholarly journals Growing in the dark: algorithmic books and possibilities for the contemporary manuscript

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reg Beatty
Keyword(s):  
Object Oriented ◽  
Artist's Book ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology ◽  
Dark Ecology

This essay documents a generative bookwork of mine called Growing in the Dark. It responds to the challenges of current thought including object-oriented ontology (Levi Bryant and Ian Bogost), the dark ecology of Timothy Morton, and the vibrant materialism of Jane Bennett. It also asks how the contemporary artist's book might be studied as a set of procedures, and then "grown" from that code.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document