Quantum Creativity: Afracting New Materialism in the Anthropocene

This essay engages the vicissitudes of new materialism at the quantum level, attempting to differentiate what I take to be fundamental differences in the theoretical positions of vitalist theories as developed by Karen Barad and Deleuze and Guattari in relation to the Anthropocene. I treat matter at the quantum level to differentiate conceptions of apparatus and assemblage. It is argued that one should not treat them under the same signifiers. There is the question of creativity that runs through the essay which also raises questions concerning an “affirmative” Deleuze, the dominant position when it comes to the arts, humanities, and pedagogy. Against these particular developments, anorganic life as in|different comes to fore where issues of creative destruction must be faced.

Ontologia del tra. Metamorfosi e incontro per un’antropologia fenomenologica

Metamorphosis seems problematic for our occidental point of view. Becoming in general is viewed as an error or exception by our classic standpoint. In fact, it is strongly against identity and law of non-contradiction: A is fundamentally something different from B and for A it is impossible to be at the same time B. We need to think A as what-becomes-B in order to make metamorphosis possible. Anyway, how can A become B? As a matter of fact, this very claim has been historically the most common critic opposed to becoming. Deleuze and Guattari in their monumental work had tried to offer an enormous contribution to a few related problems. Redefining the subject as an event described by movement and affect can exceed the metamorphosis’ aporia. This new principle of individuation provides a new look upon arisen questions primarily because affects and movements are constant coordinates that define how metamorphosis is experienced. The paper tries to show how the betweenness (Zwischenheit; Aida; Traità) in action in the encounter with people, human beings, things, animals, plants and minerals defines the logic field of metamorphosis. This is shown in dialogue with the ontological turn in anthropology that is particularly focused on this affective and lively dimension of encounter especially among Amazonian populations. Actually this is also what happens in our – occidental and classical but live – relation with things and objects, as long as we try to think a real conceptualisation of experience.

Collaboration, movement and change: An intra-active action research approach

This article elaborates an intra-active approach to action research, with examples from a recently started action research project carried out in collaboration with three preschools. The aim of the article is to contribute to the discussion about how practice-based research for change can take shape. Therefore, these questions are asked: Which concepts are central and what is produced in intra-active action research? Which potentialities for change are enabled via an intra-active approach to action research? New materialism theories, starting with Barad, are used to rethink action research, focusing on collaboration, movements, and change. An analysis workshop within the project, starting in circular and horizontal movements, inspired by Deleuze and Guattari through the work of Lenz Taguchi, is revisited. The intra-actions in the workshop produce both generative and undermining processes. Therefore, the intra-active action research approach implies that staying in the complexity of practices, rather than seeking to reduce the ‘messiness’, holds potentialities for change that unwind from the middle.

Genuine Movement Learning Through a Deleuzian Approach

The purpose of the article is to outline how Deleuzian concepts, notably the notions of apprenticeship in signs based on a pedagogy of the concept, can stimulate thinking and understanding of movement learning, and provide insights about pedagogical implications in various movement educational settings. Methodologically, the article falls somewhere in between theoretical exposition and presentation of original empirical research, i.e., a “theoreticoempirical” exposition. We borrowed some ideas formulated by Deleuze (and Guattari), which have been further developed by educational researchers, about “an apprenticeship in signs” based on “a pedagogy of the concept,” to analyse situations where students explore new movements. We use material generated from pedagogical interventions comprising of exploration of kinescapes. In these interventions, school and university students are encouraged to explore, and learn, juggling, unicycling and dancing. Findings indicate how students pass through interpretative illusions until some of them grasp difference in itself in what could be called its immanent differentiation of the actual, i.e., they learn how to juggle, unicycle or dance. This is what we designate genuine learning. The triadic relation between concepts, percepts and affects offer us clues to what juggling, unicycling or dancing mean to learners (concepts), what learners pay attention to while practising (percepts), and what gets them moving (affects). Importantly, through viewing learning as an apprenticeship in signs, the Deleuzian approach reminds us that the triadic relation is open-ended, meaning that concepts, percepts and affects are never final but always a potential actualisation. Concepts, percepts and affects are constantly in the process of becoming. Since genuine learning is not about narrowing down how a movement should be executed and experienced, the task of a movement educator could, then, be to accompany learners in explorative pursuits. In this way, teachers can help learners escape preconceptions about movements (who can do what and when) and instead explore new movement opportunities.

Localising urbanism

<p>This research began as a personal dissatisfaction with how the notion of indeterminacy very commonly gets used in contemporary landscape architectural design discourse and practice, most strongly associated with but not limited to what gets termed ‘landscape urbanism’. The dominant use of this notion is associated with design preoccupations such as change over time, bodily movement, the inability to predict, allowing for change and ecological growth or succession - and uses of representation related to these ideas. Peter Connolly has termed this conception the ‘abstract’ notion of indeterminacy. This notion was inspired by the writings of Deleuze and Guattari, however Connolly’s examination of the literature, and my field studies and design investigations point to an alternative version, a ‘concrete’ notion of indeterminacy¹ as being more relevant to designers. The abstract version will only ever be indirectly relevant to the human involvement in landscape. The ‘concrete’ is affectual and intensive and is directly relevant to human spatiality and life. Instead of change in space or over time, the concrete version is, in contrast, about the liveliness and shiftiness of affect (the shiftiness of affects / affordances, / propensities / capabilities…)—the shiftiness of powers. This research attempts to move beyond the attractive ambiguity and confusion associated with the abstract version and engage with the concrete ‘indeterminacy-of-affect’ by focusing on a very restricted realm of small urban spaces, which might be considered incidental spaces, in Wellington city. Through this intentionally limited attempt to directly engage with concrete indeterminacy there emerged, a way to engage with a type of localness associated with these spaces. This process has involved the development of aesthetic and representational techniques and it is suggested that this work is not just relevant to the question of indeterminacy and the local, but is very relevant to the newly emergent interest by landscape architects in design aesthetics².</p>

Localising urbanism

<p>This research began as a personal dissatisfaction with how the notion of indeterminacy very commonly gets used in contemporary landscape architectural design discourse and practice, most strongly associated with but not limited to what gets termed ‘landscape urbanism’. The dominant use of this notion is associated with design preoccupations such as change over time, bodily movement, the inability to predict, allowing for change and ecological growth or succession - and uses of representation related to these ideas. Peter Connolly has termed this conception the ‘abstract’ notion of indeterminacy. This notion was inspired by the writings of Deleuze and Guattari, however Connolly’s examination of the literature, and my field studies and design investigations point to an alternative version, a ‘concrete’ notion of indeterminacy¹ as being more relevant to designers. The abstract version will only ever be indirectly relevant to the human involvement in landscape. The ‘concrete’ is affectual and intensive and is directly relevant to human spatiality and life. Instead of change in space or over time, the concrete version is, in contrast, about the liveliness and shiftiness of affect (the shiftiness of affects / affordances, / propensities / capabilities…)—the shiftiness of powers. This research attempts to move beyond the attractive ambiguity and confusion associated with the abstract version and engage with the concrete ‘indeterminacy-of-affect’ by focusing on a very restricted realm of small urban spaces, which might be considered incidental spaces, in Wellington city. Through this intentionally limited attempt to directly engage with concrete indeterminacy there emerged, a way to engage with a type of localness associated with these spaces. This process has involved the development of aesthetic and representational techniques and it is suggested that this work is not just relevant to the question of indeterminacy and the local, but is very relevant to the newly emergent interest by landscape architects in design aesthetics².</p>

Fantasmorphoses and Hybrid Becomings of Identities

Deleuze and Guattari crafted the concept of “becoming” as a way of theorizing the rampant chimerization and polymorphism of identities in today's world. They used Kafka's work to show how the frequent use of metamorphosis in his stories prefigures this widespread phenomenon of hybridization of identities. The frequency of such hybrid becomings raises questions about the very foundations of modernity's subjective construct. Does this proliferation reflect new configurations of desiring activities, or is it the result of early interference in what Melanie Klein conceptualized as “primary confusion”? The author will use Klein's notion to show how, early in life, envy of the breast and primary confusion can blur the organization of binary logic essential to establishing the ability to judge and the activity of primal symbolization.

Desarticulación de la máquina antropológica en “Axolotl” de Julio Cortázar.

RESUMEN: La literatura de Julio Cortázar ha expresado en diversos momentos la cuestión animal, dando constancia de su habilidad para exponer la percepción del tiempo animal, su espacio, su campo visual, su umwelt, el medio del animal (vox Uexküll). En este artículo se analiza la obra “Axolotl” (1956), como pieza crucial de las preocupaciones de Cortázar en su búsqueda por confrontar la máquina antropológica, vista como la forma de negación de la animalidad humana y la subordinación de lo animal, según Giorgio Agamben. De ahí que la hipótesis de este artículo sostiene que “Axolotl”, más que expresar una confrontación humano-animal, incide en el devenir-animal (Deleuze y Guattari) como vía de acceso a una posibilidad ontológica. Con ello, el devenir animal conforma un dispositivo de oposición y desarticulación de la máquina antropológica, a través de líneas de fuga y desterritorializaciones; además, en el plano discursivo, esta ficción plantea la posibilidad para una zoo-autobiografía, una capacidad compartida para producir un discurso del yo, animal y humano, ambos como animales autobiográficos (Derrida). ABSTRACT: Julio Cortázar's literature has expressed the animal question on many occasions, giving evidence of his ability to expose animals' perception of time, space, and visual field, the umwelt, the medium of the animal (vox Uexküll). This article analyzes the work “Axolotl” (1956), as a crucial piece of Cortázar's concerns in his search to confront the anthropological machine, seen it as the form of denial of human animality and the subordination of what is animal, according to Giorgio Agamben. Consequently, this article's hypothesis maintains that Axolotl, rather than expressing a human-animal confrontation, affects the becoming-animal as a way to access an ontological possibility. Thus, the becoming-animal (Deleuze and Guattari) forms a device of opposition and disarticulation of the anthropological machine through lines of flight and deterritorializations. Furthermore, on the discursive plane, this fiction raises the possibility for a zoo-autobiography, which implies a shared capacity to produce a self, animal and human, discourse, considering both as autobiographical animals (Derrida).

Framing the startup accelerator through assemblage theory: A case study of an intensive hub in Indonesia

This article presents how assemblage theory, as taken from Deleuze and Guattari, can be used to understand the intensive approaches of startup accelerators in supporting startup companies. Through a study of a startup accelerator in Jakarta, Indonesia, we present three snapshots to exemplify manifestations of what we argue as the accelerator’s “ seed accelerator” form of content and “ seed funding” form of expression as well as their reciprocal presupposition to demonstrate the multiplicity of assemblage as the organizational principles of the accelerator. Employing the tenets of formalization and territorialization from assemblage theory to analyze the results, this article shows that the “ seed accelerator” form of content is manifested by way of how the accelerator’s bodies of its human elements, activities, events, and infrastructure relate and interconnect throughout the accelerator’s 12-week program towards its end point, that is, fulfilling the stakes for the Final Demo-Day, while, on the other hand, the “ seed funding” form of expression is manifested by way of the usage of terms related to fund-raising, expressions of worry, and the expectations of the hub management and the VC in preparing the startups for the next level of funding. Moreover, we argue that the formalized function of the accelerator assemblage is to intensively seed scalable startups. This assemblage analysis thus offers an interrelational perspective regarding startup accelerators, and demonstrates the value of formalization and territorialization in assemblage theory to understand the programming arrangements in a startup accelerator.

Opposing acceleration: the tragedy of resistance in Brazil

PurposeThe study aims to highlight and reflect on resistance to Brazil's illiberal accelerationist politics highlighting alternative possibilities based on affects and forms of relatedness.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the case of public universities and the arts in today's Brazil, the authors point out a tragedy of resistance (when opposing change fuels its acceleration) and explore a strategy of lines of flight and becomings in the light of Deleuze and Guattari's perspective on acceleration.FindingsAlongside an oppositional and reactive resistance, that is caught in a tragedy of resistance, the authors explore an alternative strategy that protects a plurality of life forms and forces and their becoming. This strategy differs from most critiques of accelerationism.Originality/valueThis strategy of resistance seems more faithful to Deleuze than the accelerationist strategies that claim to be inspired by him. The authors suggest another reading of the often quoted passage by Deleuze and Guattari. While Deleuze and Guattari favor continuous deterritorializations of the flows of desire, accelerationism reterritorializes these flows towards a (often) undesirable future.