Realism Materialism Art

206 Pages·2015·12.966 MB·English

by  Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, Suhail Malik

R ealism Materialism Art introduces a wide range
of new realist and materialist philosophies and
examines their influence within the arts. This
dynamic collection of texts and images breaks
realism and materialism out of their philosophical
frames and opens them to broader cultural and
social concerns.
Eds. C. Cox J. Jaskey S. Malik
ISBN 978-3-95679-126-0
Realism
Materialism
Art
Realism Materialism Art

Eds. C. Cox J. Jaskey S. Malik
Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College
Sternberg Press
Coole: From Within the Midst of Things
Ladyman: Things Aren't What They Used to Be
Diederichsen: Is Marxism a Correlationism?
Grosz: Feminism, Materialism, and Freedom
Groys: Entering the Flow
Laruelle/Ó Maoilearca: Artistic Experiments with Philosophy DeLanda/Cox: Possibility Spaces
Poole: The Idiot Paradigm
Malik: Reason to Destroy Contemporary Art
Shaviro: Non-Correlational Thought Speculation
Matter
Lee: Unnatural Participations
Brassier/Malik: Reason Is Inconsolable & Non-Conciliatory Thacker: Pessimism and Realism
Harman/Cox/Jaskey: Art & OOObjecthood
Cox: Sonic Thought
Grant: Suprematist Ontology & the Ultra Deep Field Problem
Object
Scale Schuppli: Law and Disorder
Horgan/Potrcˇ: Blobjectivism & Art
Wark: Absolute Spectacle
Paglen: Geographies of Time
Canini: Real Noise Acts
Representation
Concept
Srnicek: Computational Infrastructures and Aesthetics
Weir: Thick Dia-chronic Crash
Garcia: In Defense of Representation
Kolozova: Concepts that Surrender to Materiality
Negarestani: Synechistic Critique of Aesthetic Judgement
Ritchie: The Temptation of the Diagram
Szepanski: -non-music-non-stop-
Ribas: What Is it that Makes Today’s Realism so Different, so Appealing?
Beech: Concept Without Difference
Avanessian: Speculative Poetics
Parisi: Automated Architecture Meillassoux: Metaphysics & Extro-Science Fiction
Ayache: Technology of the Future
Contents

11 Preface
Tom Eccles
15 Introduction
Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik
Matter
35 Things Aren’t What They Used to Be:
On the Immateriality of Matter and the Reality of Relations
James Ladyman
41 From Within the Midst of Things: New Sensibility, New Alchemy, and
the Renewal of Critical Theory
Diana Coole
47 Feminism, Materialism, and Freedom
Elizabeth Grosz
61 Is Marxism a Correlationism?
Diedrich Diederichsen
71 Entering the Flow
Boris Groys
87 Possibility Spaces
Manuel DeLanda in Conversation with Christoph Cox
Object
97 Art and OOObjecthood
Graham Harman in Conversation with Christoph Cox and Jenny Jaskey
123 Sonic Thought
Christoph Cox
131 Unnatural Participations
Nathan Lee
137 Law and Disorder
Susan Schuppli
145 Blobjectivism and Art
Terry Horgan and Matjaž Potrˇc
151 Absolute Spectacle
McKenzie Wark
Concept Speculation
163 Pessimism and Realism 345 What Is It That Makes Today’s Realism So Different, So Appealing?
Eugene Thacker João Ribas
173 Making Non-Standard Thoughts: An Introduction to François Laruelle 351 Speculative Poetics—Preliminary Reflections
John Ó Maoilearca Armen Avanessian
177 Artistic Experiments with Philosophy 363 Automated Architecture: Speculative Reason in the Age of the Algorithm
François Laruelle in Conversation with John Ó Maoilearca Luciana Parisi
185 Reason to Destroy Contemporary Art 371 Metaphysics and Extro-Science Fiction
Suhail Malik Quentin Meillassoux
193 Non-Correlational Thought 387 Technology of the Future
Steven Shaviro Elie Ayache
205 The Idiot Paradigm
Matthew Poole 395 List of Figures
213 Reason Is Inconsolable and Non-Conciliatory Jenny Jaskey and Alicia Ritson
Ray Brassier in conversation with Suhail Malik
231 Suprematist Ontology and the Ultra Deep Field Problem: 400 Image Credits
Operations of the Concept 401 Contributor Biographies
Iain Hamilton Grant 405 Colophon

Representation
245 In Defense of Representation
Tristan Garcia
253 Concepts That Surrender to Materiality and to the Real
Katerina Kolozova
263 The Temptation of the Diagram
Matthew Ritchie
283 -non-music-non-stop-
Achim Szepanski
289 Concept without Difference: The Promise of the Generic
Amanda Beech
Scale
301 Geographies of Time (The Last Pictures)
Trevor Paglen
307 Computational Infrastructures and Aesthetics
Nick Srnicek
319 Real Noise Acts
Mikko Canini
325 Thick Dia-Chronic Crash. Incision into Delay
Andy Weir
333 Synechistic Critique of Aesthetic Judgment
Reza Negarestani
Preface
Tom Eccles
Edited by Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik, Realism Materialism
Art (RMA) grew out of discussions within the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard
College. With a broad focus on exhibition and artistic practices since the 1960s
to the present day, CCS Bard has, since its inception in 1990, sought to locate the
“visual arts” in the broader context of contemporary culture and, as such, the
masters course offered at Bard has always engendered a distinct interest in theoret-
ical concerns that many may feel unusual, if not downright inappropriate. As the
editors note in their introduction, “realism and materialism challenge many of
these now prevalent assumptions of cultural practice and theoretical inquiry” and
it was out of the need to question the dominance of post- structuralist, psychoana-
lytic, and Marxist theories that constitute these assumptions, and which continue
to form the basis of much of the theoretical and critical elements of advanced art
education, from which this current project was born. This current publication
demonstrates the pertinence and vitality of this inquiry and its applications, and
we hope that RMA will serve a broad set of academic and non- academic interests.
The volume provides a key source in, and guide to, the most innovative and
exciting realist and materialist projects taking place today. To that end, RMA
features new material from leading figures in Speculative Realism and mate-
rialism, and puts these in dialogue with the inventive work of emerging, unfa-
miliar, and unexpected practitioners and researchers from many areas of intel-
lectual, artistic, and scientific enquiry and practice. Particularly important to
the ambitions of this volume are the prospective intersections of these research
areas: as the editors of this volume note in their introduction, “For all the
gathering interest in the possibilities opened up by the relationships between
realism, materialism, and art, there is to date a dearth of reflection and argu-
ment on their reciprocal salience.” RMA looks to rectify this situation, acting as
a sourcebook of recent critical developments across disciplines, taking up the
renewed interest in realism and materialism from art, philosophy, culture, and
theory, while also providing both an introduction to this demanding and fast-
moving set of debates and practices, as well as a unique convergence between
its diverse approaches and disciplines. The collection of new essays, interviews,
and discussions extends the current debate on materialism and realism beyond
the prevalent strands of “Speculative Realism” and “object-o riented philos-
ophy” by linking these innovative philosophical approaches to recent work in
feminist-m aterialist theorizations of gender and affect, political theory, network
art, science, finance, and literature. This uniquely diverse combination looks
11
PREFACE TOM ECCLES
to break realism and materialism out of its narrow theoretical frame, opening it has proved an invaluable resource to CCS Bard over the years. And finally, my
out into broader cultural and social terms, drawing contributions from across thanks to designer Zak Kyes and the Zak Group in London who never fail to
diverse fields of inquiry that demonstrate the breadth and challenge of new provide an inspired response to the raw material presented.
materialist and realist approaches to received disciplinary categories and forms
of practice.
The editors have organized the contributions to the book in a quasi-
encyclopedic format, allotting the contributions to five primary categories with
historical and practical significance in art, art history, philosophy, and theory.
These categories are: matter, object, concept, representation, scale, speculation.
These categories were selected because they are primary to current materialist
and realist thinking. They also serve to relay the philosophical arguments that
have for the most part inspired the renewed interest in these traditions, with
canonical terms familiar to audiences and readers in art and art theory. As well
as acting as common identification markers for the reader, categorizing the oth-
erwise diverse contributions with the familiar and well- worn markers chosen by
the editors has a two- fold purpose: on the one hand, the diverse contributions
in any one category push current philosophical, scientific, artistic, and theoret-
ical research into dialogue with one another in unexpected and inventive ways;
on the other hand, these familiar if not canonical categories are themselves
challenged and reworked by the diverse entries thus reshaping the conventional
sense of the categories themselves. In this way the book has the ambitious aim
to make a contribution to the development of art, theory, art history, and philo-
sophy itself.
I would like to thank the editors first and foremost for their inspired list of
invited contributors and their dedicated efforts to bring this challenging project
to fruition. Both Christoph Cox and Suhail Malik have reshaped the theoret-
ical and philosophical courses at the Center for Curatorial Studies, some of
the material from this book having already contributing to a CCS course ded-
icated to Speculative Realism in 2013, while Jenny Jaskey, who graduated from
CCS Bard in 2012, has developed her research outside academia through exhibi-
tions and public programs in New York City. RMA provides a clear example of
how an institute, its faculty, students, and alumni with a shared research focus
can extend their research and discussions far beyond the particularities of any
given course.
I am also grateful to my former colleague Johanna Burton who initiated
a series of “readers” at the CCS Bard in 2011 and to the current director of the
graduate program, Paul O’Neill, who has reinvigorated the conditions for curato-
rial research at Bard. Our publications for the past several years have been made
possible by the extraordinary efforts of Jaime Baird, who singlehandedly oversaw
these complex projects with dedicated enthusiasm. For RMA, Molly Whalen has
provided a truly impressive service in carefully editing and proofing a series of
challenging texts. Orit Gat steered the early evolution of this publication and
12 13
Introduction
Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik
Realism and materialism have become important watchwords in intellectual and
cultural discourse today. Despite their differences, these philosophical stances
propose that thought can think outside itself, that reality can be known without its
being shaped by and for human comprehension. This position sharply contrasts
with the philosophical and cultural view dominant over the last half century,
a view that affirms the indispensability of interpretation, discourse, textuality,
signification, ideology, and power. Diverse as they are, the theoretical pro-
grams that constitute this latter orthodoxy (notably phenomenology, hermeneu-
tics, post- structuralism, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis) maintain that our
apprehension of the natural and social worlds is either constituted or mediated
by a discursive field or a cognitive subject, and that nothing—or nothing mean-
ingful—exists outside of discourse or its socially- organized construction. In short,
this orthodoxy has been staunchly anti-r ealist. Today’s realism and materialism
explicitly challenge many of these now prevalent assumptions of cultural practice
and theoretical inquiry.
Realism Materialism Art (RMA) presents a snapshot of the emerging and rapidly
changing set of ideas, practices, and challenges proposed by contemporary realisms
and materialisms, reflecting their nascent reworking of art, philosophy, culture,
theory, and science, among other fields. Further, RMA strives to expand the hori-
zons and terms of engagement with realism and materialism beyond the primarily
philosophical context in which their recent developments have taken place, often
under the title “Speculative Realism” (SR). While it is SR that has most stridently
challenged critical orthodoxies (even if, as discussed later in this introduction, the
positions convened under the SR banner are often discordant and form no unified
movement), RMA purposefully looks to extend the purview of realist and materialist
thought by presenting recent developments in a number of distinct and heteroge-
neous practices and disciplines.
Cutting across diverse thematic interests and modes of investigation, the con-
tributions to RMA demonstrate the breadth and challenge of realist and materialist
approaches to received disciplinary categories and forms of practice. This pluridis-
ciplinarity is typical of the third term in our title: art. RMA affirms, as art now does,
that there is no privileged area, thematic, or discipline in the investigation or reach
of realism and materialism: not philosophy, not science, not even art itself. Art is
then not just a field transfigured by realism and materialism; it is also a method for
convening and extending what they are taken to be and do when extended beyond
philosophical argument.
15
INTRODUCTION CHRISTOPH COX, JENNY JASKEY, AND SUHAIL MALIK
A short history of some of art’s intersections with recent realisms and mate- we mean the idea according to which we only ever have access to the
rialists is presented below. However, for all the gathering interest in the possibilities correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term consid-
opened up by the relationships between realism, materialism, and art, there is to ered apart from the other. […] Correlationism consists in disqualifying the
date a dearth of reflection and argument on their reciprocal salience. RMA looks to claim that it is possible to consider the realms of subjectivity and objectivity
provide a corrective to this situation. Featuring new contributions from a number independently of one another. Not only does it become necessary to insist
of established figures in contemporary variants of realist and materialist theory, that we never grasp an object “in itself,” in isolation from its relation to the
these ideas are situated in relation to the inventive work of established and emerging subject, but it also becomes necessary to maintain that we can never grasp
practitioners and researchers in art as well as from other areas of active inquiry on a subject that would not always already be related to an object.2
the consequences and effects of realism and materialism. Because many of these
contributions assume familiarity with the key claims of the resurgent realisms and For the correlationist the world is only ever the world for thought or the experience
materialisms, rehearsing their core arguments and motivations here may help pro- of a subject. The existence of things in themselves, independent of their relation-
vide orientation through them. ship to the thinking or experiencing subject, is either bracketed as inaccessible or
dismissed as a fiction.
I With the term “correlationism” Meillassoux not only reveals an important
In various ways, the currently dominant modes of contemporary critical theory— commonality among the otherwise disparate theoretical and philosophical programs
perhaps most strikingly post- structuralism, deconstruction, and psychoanalysis— of the twentieth century already mentioned (as well as hermeneutics, Wittgensteinian
insist on the absence, infinite deferral, or fiction of what Jacques Derrida called the philosophy, pragmatism, analytic anti- realism, existentialism, etc.); he also reveals
“transcendental signified,” that is, a fundamental reality that could arrest or ground this idea’s deep roots in the history of philosophy. According to Meillassoux,
the proliferation of discourse, signification, and interpretation. Jacques Lacan, correlationism is “the central notion of modern philosophy since Kant.”3 Indeed,
for example, maintained that “there is no such thing as a prediscursive reality” Immanuel Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” consisted in arguing that, contrary to the
because “every reality is founded by a discourse”—or, even more strongly, that “it ordinary view that thought conforms to the objects it apprehends, objects conform
is the world of words that creates the world of things.” In a similar vein, Michel to our thought.4 For Kant, the apprehension of reality is always mediated by a set of
Foucault argued that “there is nothing absolutely primary to interpret, for after all cognitive structures shared by all human beings. Hence, what we call “the world”
everything is already interpretation. […] There is never, if you like, an interpretandum is always the world for- us. The “object of thought” is only ever the object for- thought
which is not already interpretans.” Derrida’s notorious claim “there is nothing out- and not the object as it exists in- itself. Kant insists that things- in- themselves must
side of the text” offers another expression of this idea, as does Roland Barthes’s exist in order to provide the content for thought. Yet he also insists that such things-
remark that, apropos the domain of discourse, “there is nothing beneath.” As in- themselves can only be posits of thought or faith, not items of knowledge.5
Slavoj Žižek, the most prominent current heir to this tradition, concludes: Kant’s successors insisted that the notion of an unknowable thing-i n- itself
“The pre-s ynthetic Real is, stricto sensu, impossible: a level that must be retroac- is contradictory and superfluous. On the one hand, Kant claimed that the thing-
tively presupposed, but can never actually be encountered.”1 in- itself is unknowable, beyond the limit of human knowledge; yet, on the other
These positions are all variants of what, in his influential book After Finitude, hand, he nonetheless seemed to know enough about it to posit its existence and
Quentin Meillassoux calls “correlationism.” “By ‘correlation’,” Meillassoux writes, thus to transcend the limit he had declared impassable. Responding to this con-
tradiction, G. W. F. Hegel, Kant’s most prominent successor, sought to show
that there is no genuine division between the world-a s- it- appears- to- us and the
1 See Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freud’s Papers on Technique, 1953–1954, ed.
Jacques- Alain Miller, trans. John Forrester (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988), 66; Lacan, The
Seminar of Jacques Lacan: On Feminine Sexuality: The Limits of Love and Knowledge (Book XX), ed. 2 Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, trans. Ray Brassier
Jacques- Alain Miller, trans. Bruce Fink (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 32; Lacan, “The (London: Continuum, 2009), 5.
Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis,” in Écrits, trans. Bruce Fink (New 3 Ibid. In A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti- Realism (Evanston: Northwestern
York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 229; Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Freud, Marx,” in Aesthetics, Method, University Press, 2007), Lee Braver gives a detailed account of this prevalence of “correlationism”
and Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, vol. 2, ed. James Faubion (New York: New (which Braver calls by the more standard philosophical term “anti- realism”) from Kant, Hegel,
Press, 1998), 275; Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Nietzsche through Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida.
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 158; Roland Barthes, “The Death of the 4 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, ed. and trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood
Author,” in Image, Music, Text, ed. and trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), 147; and (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Bxvi–Bxviii, 110–11.
Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject (London: Verso, 1999), 33. 5 Ibid., Bxxvi and Bxxx, 115, 117.
16 17