Cover: Shezad Dawood, Leviathan Cycle, Episode 1: Ben, 2017 HD Video, 12’52’’ (detail) Courtesy of the artist and UBIK Productions (with footage The from the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA) Large

Glass No. 27 / 28, 2019

CONTENT:

4 Tihomir Topuzovski: Intoduction - Visibilities of becoming

POSTHUMAN CORPOREALITY 93 Heather Dewey-Hagborg & Joerg Blumtritt: Posthumanism, 7 biopolitics and contemporary art Josephine Berry: How to Explain Pictures to a Dying Human: On Art in Expanded Ontologies 97 Eduardo Kac: BIO ART 20 STELARC: Contingent and Contestable Futures: Zombie,Cy- A LENS ON THE RADICAL HORIZON borg and Phantom Bodies 110 30 Saul Newman: Postanarchism and the posthuman horizon Extending and creating new corporealities: Interview with STELARC by Tihomir Topuzovski 117 Chantal Moufe: Critical Artistic Practices: An Agonistic 33 Approach Slavcho Dimitrov: Ron Athey and Acéphale in Skopje 120 37 Sarah W. Sutton: Thinking Diferently, with Creativity, Curiosity Nicole C. Karafyllis: Posthumanism does not exist and Courage

39 123 Igor Grubic: Do Animals...? The MoCA’s Pavilion in Venice Biennial 2019 Nada Prlja Subversion to Red 44 Jef Rasel 126 Vlad Morariu: Nada Prlja: the Left, Language and Writing A LANDSCAPE OF ANXIETY 129 48 Blanca de la Torre: Relocating Red Narratives Jef Diamanti: Heliotropism at the Terminal Beach of Critique 132 The MoCA’s exhibition: Skopje Resurgent: International- 57 ism, Art, and Solidarity, 1963 - 1980 Susanna Hertrich: Haunted Lands 134 62 Contributors Amanda Boetzkes: Posthuman Planetarity

72 Gligor Stefanov: A Conversation with Material and Space

78 Chris Salter: In the Haze of the Technosphere

83 Amanda du Prezz: Do Astronauts Dream of Post-Earth? Posthuman Corpore ality THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019

. 6 ------4 By this he means 5 How Forests Think: Toward However, However, the self-critiquing – or that signification and hence communica hence and signification that tion, selfhood, and even thought can be said to exist within all living beings and systems, as summarised in his proposi tion that “life and thought are one alive.” are and thoughts thinks; life same: the Through an extended discussion of the between exist that assemblages semiotic the Runa and the rich diversity of animal and plant life that cluster in the Amazon, Kohn asserts that “all life is semiotic and all semiosis is alive”. signification challenges the notion that the human world is in some sense on tologically self-sufcient and therefore closed. “By contrast,” he writes, “The Open Whole aims to show that the rec ognition of representational processes as something unique to, and in a sense even synonymous with life, allows us to being of ways human distinctively situate Kohn extends this proposition to exam ine how the non-human production of an Anthropology Beyond the Human expanded expanded anthropological conceptions of culture and semiosis as non-exclusive to humans, the context-sensitivity of de and politics, identity and constructionism the now tangible unfolding of a long an ticipated climate crisis. As Rosi Braidotti puts it, human is a term that ensures a ‘privileged access to resources’, and it in question today. is this privilege that is systematically annihilated almost all oth er forms of being human on Earth today. There are more promising dimensions of posthumanist theory, however, that do not necessarily blame the human for its species self-interest so much as under mine its basis for justifying its diference and superiority to other life. Such a line of argument is convincingly proposed by anthropologist Eduardo Kohn in his eth nography of the Runa of Ecuador’s Up per Amazon, one might say self-hating or antihuman ist – aspect of posthumanism one, is albeit only powerful, tendency discourse; of one which, it should the be said, problematically fails to consider the hu man in this capitalist, globally extended European supremacist sense as victim to, as much as perpetrator of, a social mode of production and relation that has

3 ------comes at the intersection point of a 2 Josephine Berry: How to Explain Pictures to a Dying Human: On Art in Expanded Ontologies 7 scientific discrediting of Cartesian objec Cartesian of discrediting scientific worldview, techno-positivist its and tivity ism’ through nearly all notions of the posthu man. The human, most especially in its Enlightenment conception as a species separated from the rest of nature by vir tue of its superior capacity for symbolic signification, culture and technological artifice, is today a form to be abandoned co capitalist in implicated irrevocably as lonialism, its racist othering of non-Euro peans and its violent expropriation of the natural world that is threatening a near destruction of our biosphere. This desire for exodus from European ‘monohuman liest human cultures and religions, today the term has developed a sharp political edge that previously it either did not pos sess (for instance within animist world views) or did not own (there is doubtless a politics of animism). in However, these earlier times the human was not negated or disparaged by such ‘webbed’ ontolog ical conceptions, while today there is a strong streak of antihumanism running ------Aesthetic

1

“The allergy to aura, from which

The concept of the posthuman is not no art today is able to escape, is in separable from the eruption of inhu Adorno, Theodor manity.”– Theory Ontologie s Expande d On Art in On Art Dying Human: Human: Dying Pictureto a s How to Explain Explain to How Jose phine Be rry world can be found within even the ear certainly was and can be a world with our of conception this While humans. out species’ reciprocal relationship to the munication and events. All it really means really it All events. and munication is that there is no human without a world of which it is continuously, emergently and constitutively a part, although there of continuous individual the on based becoming or transformation and species com causality, of forth and back passing an expanded web of physical, biological, semiotic and material relations of change. Implied within ex this is a process older it gets. Fundamentally it has to do with a non-unilateral conception of the human’s relationship to the world which imagines the species as embedded in really new; the more you think about it the it about think you more the new; really THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019 8 Josephine Berry:HowtoExplain Picturesto aDyingHuman:On ArtinExpandedOntologies portant part of what makes them alive.” them makes what of part portant im an is this and world, the in things’ ‘do eventually processes sign all materiality, and energetics than more something is semiosis “Although material: profoundly as represented is semiosis Conversely, interpretation. and production semiotic with thick world posi a in life, human the tioning of all to extended radically be can meaning-making and ‘thought’ Accordingly, futures. importantly, fore, there and phenomena matter, beings, multiple with time the all systems sign non-symbolic through communicating eis t on semblance own its denies h atoks rbeai illusoriness problematic artwork’s the overstep to art – contemporary add, may we and, – modern by attempt the ever, what is not the result of making”. of result the not is what appearance into “bring to aims artwork the reality, external to diference mous autono own its of semblance the expel r xoe t sau a hvn been having as made. status its expose or product” the in production the “release terial processesofitsownmakingwhich ma the literalise to begins art rejection erence of artworks of diference “The level: higher a at it reimposes semblance, chewing es by which, naturalism’ ‘second a in it snags artwork the within directly reality’ ‘empirical calls Adorno what staging by as art’s ineluctable describes Adorno Theodor what ducing pro amorphous, or inexistent previously was what unity,of semantic out a whole, something of production the minimum – condition art’s impacts it that way the for particular in proposition this in ested inter am I art, for theory posthuman of implications the through think to order In iiiue n rwr, a artwork, in veri similitude for quest century nineteenth the in reached was zenith (whose own facticity its of semblance or illusion the in arises through its rejection of aura based paradox key art’s modern philosopher, nate realm.” otic semi living broader a with continuity in and from emergent both as world the in external reality understood as understood reality external an from, difers also yet from, issues ity factic artwork’sillusory the Adorno, For o ti hg mdrit aesthetic modernist high this For initsrelationtotheartwork. 9 Yet simultaneously, by wishing to wishing by Yetsimultaneously, 7 Outside of language we are we language of Outside semblance semblance that that semblance . u o this of Out ). character. indetermi 10 How 11 ------8

changes for the ontology of art when, in when, art of ontology the for changes What thought? living itself is that a world with continuous as thought and self of conceptions posthumanist to in relation art contemporary of dilemma fining of art,andnotexternalatall? work the making is who artist human the of co-constitutive and alive semantically w premise.” own their out wipe would they world, pirical em the to back reference their destroy to absolutely wanted artworks concept own their of sake the for If it. to position op in and world empirical the of out ed constitut character,is semblance “their from the empirical world,” writes Adorno, its antlers”. its of shake to trying animal an “like illusoriness its ofshake to trying artwork the of image the with charmingly rather dilemma this illustrates Adorno all. at art it makes that diference the onto holding while reality external with continuous simply being to aspire it can too nor derived; are matter” its “form and materials, spirit and subject dent indepen of the external reality from which all wholly something producing to nor realism of character semblance ‘phantasmagoric’ the to aspire neither ahm ( Latham sculptures’ bytheconceptualartistJohn ‘process as Scotland in heaps shale red derelict huge of nomination the to (1911), s o te oor e i his in red colour the of use Matisse’snon-descriptive Henri or literal from scales, of variety a at this of ples ter protests.” it which against reification that to itself assimilates it realia resemble to comes it where process this in yet it; fulfil to der or in concept its transcend must it that in difcult infinitely indeed is “Art else: everything from diference its constitutive loses it whereby determination nal exter to subject becoming risks art tic anti-illusionis that warned also relationships, Adorno semantic and aesthetic new into elements ‘external’ byintroducing scale higher a at semblance poses reim merely art such hand one the on elt’ iety ihn h atok in artwork to made is reality that way a such the within directly reality’ ‘external included increasingly century into appearance. We can find exam find can We appearance. into o te cn e ehn ti de this rethink we can then How idi Woman Niddrie 14 But what if those ‘realia’ are ‘realia’ those if what But 12 otmoay r can art Contemporary 13 Artists of the last the of Artists 17-) While 1975-6). , e Studio Red re-en ------

outcome will be a future self”? future a be will outcome whose interpretation sign new for points comes of semiosis as well as the starting out are complex, or simple nonhuman, or human “Selves, formulation, Kohn’s oetniiy ih lvn, thinking living, a with co-extensivity art’s declaring by i.e. matter, subject as use mere its exceeds that way a in ality re of conception posthuman a engage to want artists if project posthumanist the with contradiction in fundamentally naturalism’, ‘second its art, process istic anti-illusion radically of even character semblance ineluctable the is addition, life as its object,” its as life takes power when power to resistance Deleuze’s formulation that “Life becomes Gilles of becomes What is: then, tically, artis as much as politically pertains that question A systems. living all commodify and informatise capture, map, to power brink of capitalism’s own world-changing the at stands opening this relationships, and exchanges living entangled of sea multitudinous a into out fades man-form is to imagine an ‘open whole’ in which the discourse posthumanist of intention the While creation. value of processes into subsumed is production semantic and creative nonhuman also not but human only whereby image ideal capitalism’s creative into reality of all converting risk also might posthumanism one: broader even an within arguably exist these dilemmas All world? thinking the resignify and interpret can it which by reality,and empirical from diference vestigial its is that semblance the attain to possible it is how autonomy, own its of power the rejects however,it If, meaningful? ready al is what upon meaning or semblance reimposing by dismantle to intends it ism exceptional human the perpetuate only ing semiosis and calls it art, does this not liv worldly around autonomy of lasso its throws simply art posthumanist If world? tion of contemporary capitalism? contemporary of tion afrma the with complicity risks life of 20 the than docile, or stabile objectlike, less intelligent, and sentient more is that ity real ‘empirical’ or reified a protest can art how ask to is question this put to way mn that afrming by suit follow ‘realia’ of powers semiotic the of art’sassimilation th etr iaiay ol fto? In fathom? could imaginary century 16 when the afrmation the when 15 Another 17 Does ------THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019 ------My art is grounded in the belief century art instead of disappearing of instead art century th of one universal energy which runs through everything: from insect spec from spectre, to man from to man, tre to plant from plant to galaxy. My I would like to consider this perfor between the ‘preindividual’ that remains in all beings, and the always contingent process of individuation: into a cacophonous cosmos. mance by Beuys together with the work of Ana Mendieta, not only because both belong to what, after Beuys, I am calling the ‘anthropological stage’ of neo-avant garde art, but also due to their important diferences. In her ‘earth-body works’ of the 1970s and ’80s, we certainly find an expanded idea of human/world relations connected to an anthropological even primordial and conception of human-centric art. their of spite in or despite, Yet ontological expansions, the works per sistently interrogate the contingent na ture of identity, body, culture and power. This should not necessarily be seen as since, contradictory, like the philosopher of technological becoming, Gilbert Si mondon, she is interested in the relation acter undeniable and limit the perception the limit and undeniable acter and risk The unities. semantic other all of potential of the loss artwork’s of distinc tion is ofset by these separation and conventions autonomy, and the of work canon the in place its occupies staunchly 20 of autonomy autonomy or heteronomy, because the living world in which the artwork tran spires is not of a diferent, merely ‘empir ical’ order that can be submitted to such treatment. Mediation and semblance, by implication, are not the exclusive prov ince of humans, and art does not exist in exceptional opposition to characterised by facticity and indetermi a reality nateness. Yet for all this, Beuys is still a is still dead, the superstar artist, the hare gallery continues to act as the artwork’s as behaves audience the device, framing if it is at the circus, and the entire perfor mance is filmed for television broadcast. The connection between the human and its ‘much greater being’ is across layers scafolded and levels of semblance char that make the artwork’s mediation ------) as the most This greater be 21 Wesen Yet here Yet it is important to emphasise Josephine Berry: How to Explain Pictures to a Dying Human: On Art in Expanded Ontologies 9 important task of art.” ma of choosing between illusionism or anti-illusionism, mediation or immediacy, artwork’s semblance is thinkable as a se a as thinkable is semblance artwork’s mantic unity that participates in numer ous others generated within a monistic reality. The semblance of this artwork is to point out diferent semantic territories beneath or above the consciousness of art includes (which reality human prosaic as conventionally understood). The hu mul a to relation in of thought is self man tiplicity of other selves, yet this does not threaten to dissolve the human as such. The precarious status of the artwork’s elements that are drawn together in its unity seem to almost overstep the dilem ing, he explains, relates to magical ap a to belong that realms to and pearances ‘higher principle’ than mankind, involving everything above and below us. that for Beuys the human is not under mined or negated but given a concen trically expanded identity of being-in-re lation which does not appear to present ‘mankind’. for crisis existential of sort any the of status the proposal, Beuys’s Within much greater being ( ing art change our sensibility and there fore change art? Beuys’s animation of the touch to out reach it making hare, the pictures with creates its a paw, beautiful and extraordinary sequence of gestures in which man and animal momentarily fuse. In his later television the discussion, entered have we how explains Beuys field of anthropological art, and that we ‘innovation’ of art an within longer no are but one in which ‘mankind’ stands in the middle of ‘the creative path’ as such. “I have,” says Beuys, “always seen connection between the humans and their hare is also lamented – it cannot ‘under stand’ because it is dead and because it isn’t human, and probably it was also killed by the humans. inclusion Yet of the hare, not as a mere material but a poten tial consciousness (even if cancelled), introduces something of ‘broader Kohn’s living semiotic realm’ to which the art work is, in certain respects, subordinat ed. What does or would the hare think, hare the does how point, the to more and think? How does thinking the hare think

------20 The original per original The 19 enable us to think 18 (‘How to Explain Pictures Art and the Expande d Human Wie man dem toten Hasen die Before the term posthumanism be or, or, perhaps, a ‘being of sensations’. bol of reincarnation. The animated dead hare is neither living being nor object; it has become instead an aesthetic being chine-god, part cyborg, part totem. The symbolism of the gold is that of conduc tivity, while the honey symbolises com sym a is hare the and productivity munal Beuys’s Beuys’s head is covered in a mixture of gold and honey, giving him the discon certing appearance of a hybrid man-ma outside of the gallery, and only ted admit after some time, staging a series of proximities, intensities and assemblies. paws and ears of a hare as he murmurs to it, introducing the dead creature to an assortment of pictures which are hard to discern. Initially the audience is locked formance at Galerie Schmela in Dussel dorf involved the artist walking around a gallery cradling and gently animating the ‘trans/individuation’ ternatively, ternatively, to what extent can the post humanist rmation af of the biosphere’s and thought of orders and layers diferent rms? Or al Or afrms? also now capitalism which The artwork compellingly introduces the hare’s would-be consciousness into the space of art, while the deadness of the pands this idea by adding: “The work gets gets work “The adding: by idea this pands into the human being, and the human be work.” the into gets ing al explanation of the piece. He counters that it is not art’s job to be understood through pure intellection, but rather ex He understanding’. ‘full in a of sense the TV programme ‘Club 2am’, Beuys made a crucial statement to deflect his inter conceptu cogent a for requests viewer’s to a Dead Hare’) on the West German formance Bilder Erklärt an expanded human creativity that in volved communion with other spirits, materials beings, and intelligences. In a per 1965 his of discussion television 1983 came current, Joseph Beuys was using the term ‘anthropological art’ to refer to enlightenment humanism? beyond our present course of a capital ist ecocide unfolding out of the legacy of Ana Mendieta: Imagen de Yagul © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co. Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Ana Mendieta: Alma Silueta en Fuego © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co. Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019 12 Josephine Berry:Howto ExplainPicturesto aDyingHuman:On ArtinExpanded Ontologies tion. In tion. occupa material and signification tural cul embodiment, of states all relativise to as way a such in temporalities shifting and elements earthly with colour of body and female a of mixing the stages films, short photographs as captured series, e aotv hm o Iw, USA. Iowa, of home adoptive her and Mexico in settings natural within – mound heaped or outline incised ence, pres direct a as – body own her stages h dsotniis f oent ad its and modernity of discontinuities the and earth the with continuity material a to macabre, the and seduction to dead, the and living the to art, contemporary of exclusivity the as much as cultures bian pre-Colom to links its claims the it as body of eruption polysemic a produces particular in performance this of graph photo The act. conjugal first bride’s a even rebirth, and burial both evoke limbs half-exposed her and face, her obscure flowers fresh-cut The flowers. white of spray a with covered Mexico, Yagul, in tomb ruined a in naked lying tographed pho is she 1973, in began which series soil, as a way of locating herself, or a self, pression or immersion in water, sand and im physical gunpowder, scoring, or paint fire, blood, of way by image) jected pro its (or body her inscribes series, Mendieta this in documented formations trans and occupations of sequence a In world. natural the to relation sensuous and one’sculture time, within orientation losing mean not does othered and raced gendered, be to Mendieta, phatically,for Em dialogue. complex a into power and identity of interrogation poststructuralist a with together ancestral and el emental the composites which humanness expanded an explores work Mendieta’s Beuys, to contrast In society. every from us dislocates which exploitation sexual transhistorical women’s to and longing, be and identity creates the that ancestors of sap’ ‘cosmic the to mediations, In her mate theworld. ani that thoughts unconscious the accumulations, primordial the be liefs, original the sap, ancestral the universal fluid. Through them ascend this of veins irrigation the are works Imagen de Yagul de Imagen Silueta series in particular, she 22

, the first in the in first the , 23 The ------and theconventionsofautonomousart. society contemporary of specificity cal histori the outside world material living the in immanently and sensuously self a rooting entails always nearly struction decon this Yet engendered. has history this that art of regime the with less-than-human together deemed subjects all against the levels it which self autonomous and monohumanism Eurocentric interrogates It once. at expansive ically anthropolog and deconstructive ically crit is power.work and her culture Thus of orders successive but decomposition, and individuation death, and birth of only orientating within the unstable cycles not of means a as on seizes Mendieta which plored as a transhistorical human activity autonomous semblanceoftheself,isex an create to semiosis, living and nature project the self to onto the external world of capacity The he ‘site/non-site’. relation termed a – discourse art virtual a and landscapes singular upon erations op parallel performed which time this from work Smithson’s Robert of niscent remi is fields discursive contemporary of excavation critical of and sites natural occupation physical Her simultaneous silhouettes. her to afterimages as up flash which identity of conceptions biopolitical and capitalist specificity current our to historical giving manness, hu of incarnations multiple the explore works Her subject. Latina female the of within and against the social positionings hs ucin y pitn te technolog the splitting by function this enacts and for in stands performances voke. The presence of the camera in both in they cultures animistic or ancient the to diference their marks what is this and overstep, not do or cannot works these limit a is art autonomous thor-functionof au The realm. semiotic living the with dialogue any to does it as selfhood ist’s art the to much as relates semblance of creation the which for art tonomous au of paradigm the within inescapably remain both world, living the from art its and human the modernity’sof severance critique Mendieta and Beuys by works u wie hs neo-avantgarde these while But h BiopoliticalScission The ------ai rgms of regimes matic schis the into over carried is which and groups), or individuals to specific life’ of d, ua o aia. h lf ta is the that from excluded life The animal. or human add, should we and, – parent heterosexual or person transgender slave, or master refugee, or citizen that be opportunities, life and life of forms certain of cription as the for pretext a as life biological of life deployment normative the of entail which politicisations all underwrites scission This labour. reproductive productive and as well as object, and ject sub particular, and universal body, and oiis a mr booia lf i thus is life biological mere as politics, ersnens o te latter.” the of representedness the in found and sought is is, whatever of Being The forth. sets and represents who man, by up set is it that extent the to being in is only and being in is first it that way a such in taken now is tirety, en its in is, “What picture’: ‘world the of age the in ‘man’ of practices defining the from Heidegger,indivisible is activity this (e.g. thegalleryorcatalogue).ForMartin elsewhere ordered) institutionally cause (be empowered discursively more a in valorisation discursive of purposes the for it removing world, living and concept aesthetic between receptivity semiotic and sensuous the from image the tracts ex separation This world. their to artist the of presentness the from image ical ipltcl tt. hs s h scission divided has Aristotle, least at the since that, is This state. biopolitical nml) from animals) zoë nih peet a nty aao for paradox knotty a presents insight h cascl Greek classical the from epistemology western throughout running as identifies Agamben Giorgio which life human of ‘scission’ the to age im (technical) the and immediacy suous sis ofsomething’s ‘representedness’. ba the on only being accords which ing imag technical of manoeuvre semantic universalising the with facticity illusory) in creasingly to overwhelm even this (albeit but sense, Adorno’s in semblance, as unities aesthetic induce to only not continuing while life other all to tionship rela expropriative human’s the critique to wishes that artwork posthuman the (the creaturely life we share with all with share we life creaturely (the e a rlt ti sltig f sen of splitting this relate can We bios oikos polis te niiul ‘form individual (the polis and , or the space of space the or , o h modern the to polis 24 mind , This ------THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019 - - - - - Intsallation view, Ophiux, Joey Holder, 2016 Ophiux, Joey Holder, Intsallation view, Courtesy of the artist of agency resulting from ‘its own’ tech nological extensions which are at odds posthuman of valences positive the with ist discourse and the ‘open whole’. If we compare what could be called the inter special work of Beuys and Mendieta in which the human ‘grows’, to use Beuys’s word, into an expanded field of meaning, to certain contemporary formulations of may be reflective of the ‘meaningless ness’ and noise engendered by a ubiqui tous technological mimesis of the living world. Bound up with this is a sense field of imploding or decreasing human’s the ------Instead, 29 Locke d-in Syndrome ? If progressive art of the post-war Josephine Berry: How to Explain Pictures to a Dying Human: On Art in Expanded Ontologies 13 lieux. This in turn seems to produce the artwork’s weakened semblance, which these artworks register something like a waning of vitality connected to a gener al inability to cognitively map self/other relations within naturo-technological mi manist) theory that jars with our state of late capitalist ecocide. In her account, “Precisely when life, bodies, and vitality ex face and endpoint their reached have been have they because this and tinction, vanquished by technology and non-living systems (including the psychotic desires systemic of man) – precisely at and this point in history – theory has retreat ed into an ‘afrmation of life’.” ontological field as a way out of moder death drive, nity’s we find in the ‘posthu manist’ art of today abundant signs of a dystopian fragmentation of the human whose sense of connection and agency is not so much liberated from oppressive monohumanism as confronted by massive social inscription the of knowledge in the form of ubiquitous informationali sation and technical images. This is dif ferent from what cultural theorist Claire Colebrook condemns as the disconnect between the afrmative tone of (posthu to wander the digital rhizome waiting to be deployed for any potential (capitalist) use. This digital proto-life, which is con verted into a ‘standing reserve’ for capi compris thus utility, and production talist writ large. es the biopolitical scission and pre-networked ’60s and ’70s interested in was elaborating a (not unpara at aimed that art anthropological doxical) reconnecting the human to an expanded sees as human life’s open-ended poten tial; its world-making ‘species being’, to adopt Marx’s term. The Internet, then, threatens not only the ‘simple, massive social inscription’ of human knowledge that circulates in a digital stratum devoid of sensuous receptivity, but, still more also worryingly, entails the circulation of informatic inscriptions of planetary life forms split from their universal, i.e. not only human, potential for self-afection. Like zombies, these data-objects are left ------Here 27 28 For Agamben, this 25 of corporeal thought receptivity Thinking does not mean simply life unsegregatable from its form, its from unsegregatable life 26 fected by one’s own receptivity, gain receptivity, own one’s by fected a of thought, every in experience, ing pure potential of thought. Thought is, in this sense, always use of oneself, always entails the afection that one receives insofar as one is in contact with a determinate body […] being afected by this or that thing but this or that content of thought in act, but being at the same time af For Agamben, abstract universal ‘universality’ of human intelligence and the sensuous, habitual and sufering ex perience of each and every human life: terested in developing a reciprocal mod el of afection which circulates between thought and the specificity of forms of life and produces a relation between the model of corporeal thought to the wider web of organisms that sustains and ex changes with human life. He is more in Agamben is close to Kohn’s statement that “all life is semiotic, and all semiosis is alive” but for the fact that Agamben his connecting explicitly from away shies tion, by which it is negatively included, becoming ‘bare life’. inversely inversely politicised through its separa describes is also the crux of what he the relation between use of the self and thought, which orientate and experience each other. The motor of recursivity he as they are lived, and life as it thinks; the living of thought transforms thought and life, uniting them as one. This is also concepts do not simply bear down upon the individual life like a knife, as it were, thoughts of self-afection the undergo but nadir in late capitalism with the advent of advent the with capitalism late in nadir the Internet and its technical capacity to split the schismatic schismatic ordering of life reaches its of-life, from the ‘simple, massive social inscrip tion’ of our collective knowledge. this To he counterposes the authentic human capacity for thought: “Thought is form- ty of corporeal processes and there habitual theory, in than less not life of modes and there alone is there thought.” and wherever there appears the intimacy the appears there wherever and of this inseparable life, in the materiali Intsallation view, Ophiux, Joey Holder, 2016 Courtesy of the artist

THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019 16 Josephine Berry:Howto ExplainPicturesto aDyingHuman:On ArtinExpanded Ontologies tion mist, imaginaryandpotential. ani not capitalist, a to linked principally an exploration thisof transindividuation which is with and subject, forming central their now technology of presence conspicuous the see we posthumanism, rvds h mscl nlge o the to analogue musical the provides This lifeforms. speculative on working a-subjectivities technological of sound the – soundtrack eerie and minimalist a into woven are sounds electronic whose lab, the in machines scanning of images to forth and back cuts film The by. pass world underwater trippy the watch we windscreens impassive whose through robots science marine mote-controlled are re real, of biomorphs footage with together spliced animated CGI and life entire marine ‘the assorted of Footage ecosystem’. mapped having of which boasts material, promotional Ophiux’s as itself dissembles film accompanying Holder’s entity. corporate faceless this of property the become has mapped, ly genetical been having life, all which in scenario possible too all an create to is puter programmed.” puter and where human biology has been com expectancy, life increase and evolution human advance both to applied and ized real fully been has biology “synthetic which in science, biogenetic temporary con upon drawing future, near afictional develops Holder piece this In world. natural the of mimesis techno-capitalist by on brought depotentiation and tation disorien of sense this of paradigmatic is sinister eyethe – technology scanning reptilian with overlaid a of image an alongside logo Ophiux the of font gothic charged, super the with emblazoned are trines vi advertorial These water. ocean and seabed of swatches together swirl that images CGI against posed crustaceans preserved containing boxes illuminated stacked, of inclusion the through mercial com ghoulishly as staged is space The lab machine. sequencing gene machines a and imaging biological than life-size larger with installed and Ophiux, called company biotech speculative a to belonging room’ ‘clean scientific a in oy odrs eet l installa film recent Holder’s Joey Ophiux telos Wsn At Cnr, 2016) Centre, Arts (Wysing of the cyborg. The intention The cyborg. the of 30 The project is set is project The ------ih Minds with ae ih hi minds.” their with made also they which thoughts from came that words with or hands those with things made have They fingers. with work that hands have that arms have “They disc: blue blank a by eclipsed been has face whose head female white a of image ing mov slowly the over plays humanness on meditating ‘voice’ AI’s An target. and object its becomes which being, human the onto back folded is life from stract unleash itsforce. to organisms dead of millions of bustion age’s reliance upon oil, requires the com industrial the like which, order economic new a of data stored the is into thought flattened living of reflexivity the this, Through care. and sufering from vorced di abstraction techno-human of power relentless the and processes, vital their with organisms of semiosis preyed-upon the colliding: but communicating not es univers semiotic two of consequence inexorable the feel we there, clustering colony ocean small the over the hovers it on As floor. crabs albino tiny at ing grasp clumsily arm robot a of footage sad inexpressibly the with out plays film the cartoonery its all for Yet exchanges. virtual creepy and non-specific of series a into together brought cro-organisms, mi magnified massively scientific and equipment of assemblages CGI’d film’s apn o eoin n iett, n a and identity, and emotion technological of mapping the for cipher a as acts Courtesy oftheartist Film still,Ophiux,JoeyHolder,2016,21’32’’ n éie . vns 03 film 2013 Evan’s B. Cécile In hs ua cpct t ab to capacity human this 31 h bu disc blue The Made Made ------ht per t b a htgahc im photographic a be to appears pan, what one In aesthesis). computational asignifying, of presentation intentional its through itself reimposes nevertheless the artwork’s claim to semblance, (which challenges and shots of sequence the structures also replication technological mass governing indiference The ject’. ‘ob available every and any of mimesis digital ubiquitous the be to seems taking under This life. all perhaps or human of is quietlybeingbuiltagainsttheinterests ect’ that, through ingenuity and patience, the disconcerting sense of a hostile ‘proj undercuts than rather reinforces it here work’sthe to crucial legibility,overall but fetishises behaviours we ourselves may ourselves we behaviours fetishises human be to AI’s‘desire’ The templates. con it agency hostile the of personation im comical the through film, Holder’s in does it as comes, transcription artistic) extension by (and computational man’s hu the of presentation poker-faced this tex grey tured background. The important chink in a on face blue-circle a with head female the of image doubled a by followed field, magenta blank a of tion inser the through terminated abruptly is sequence the until sky the to parasol the from continues shot The poolside. a at though as it of bouncing water of tion reflec the with parasol a of underside the as itself reveals surface cloth a on developed body draped partially a of age s with As achieved. been has mapping this once these of becomes what for placeholder Ophiux te ontak s also is soundtrack the , ------THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019 ------s or , trans. conatu Aesthetic Theory

. Instead, as studies of contempo □ Roman rary neocolonialism as well as of its predeces sors colonialism and postcolonialism reveal, Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Athlone Press, 1997), p.103. Sylvia feminist radical black of term the is This 2 who explains it thus: “There is one pro Wynter, empire found diference Rome’s here, however. was By way of a necessarily provisional References: 1 Theodor Adorno, the purposive purposelessness of per severing in existence. Only within such an open horizon, which should never be confused with indiference to conditions, is it possible for life and art to attain their true purpose, which is to be governed by any to adapted nor purpose ostensible no residual use. of art made by humans no longer tain cer of their species characteristics nor confined to a closed ontology may augur something more promising than these recent posthumanist works might imply. This is imaginable as the repositioning of art within a wider creativity understood neither as innovative (as Beuys interest ingly insists, given capitalism’s creative proclivities) nor anthropological but as connected to a living realm the attainment of semblance, in ‘purposive which purposelessness’, is not a talent monop oloised by human art but discovered as the productive activity of all life, which, as the reverse face of capitalist half-life, reveals itself in purposeless sequent sequent deflection or ironic objectifica tion of expression produce a muted, and self-im the at sorrow expressive, latently posed prohibition on any art that would purpose’. express a ‘living pros several with left are we conclusion, technogenesis that pects. One is that the could vitalities of replication the of feeds itself start to produce beings of sensa tion capable of achieving the semblance attained by artworks – beings, that which is, could attain a pleteness unity that is and at once com undetermined and ‘purposeful’. Given that the nogenesis currently tech unfolding is nearly entirely governed by capitalism’s value form and profit principle, this unlikely. However, is a most cyborgian genesis ------When ‘life itself’ no 34 He elaborates on this idea by 35 This predicament is reminiscent of Josephine Berry: How to Explain Pictures to a Dying Human: On Art in Expanded Ontologies 17 to algorithmic taste mapping to service con whose artworks other, the on work); thwarts our instinctual life drive. Similar ly, art, which is a ‘being of sensations’, an aesthetic organism (a that semblance) moves freely between internalisations, is confronted by subjective a wave of technocratic inscriptions of its own and other vitalities that render all such externalisations and potentially productive of internalisations economic, not only aesthetic value. The result of this is two-sided: on the one creasing hand, depersonalisation of afect that an in arises from its ubiquitous and codification normative requirement (from emojis explaining that social existence pels us com to act as ‘means of production’ and not ‘living purposes’ which, in turn, from their receptive corporeality, all and subsequent extractions this implies within capitalism. This epochal project of life’s technological over-coding and subsequent deadening as informational commodity is expressed in a neous waning simulta of what Noys, following Foucault, describes as avant-garde vi talism and its aesthetic pursuit of life as a counter-discourse to social and aes thetic conventions. the possibilities of such seem an tainted by extension the rising techno-capi talist powers to extract and depotentiate living creativity in the same moment. Adorno’s prognostication that, with the advancement of capitalism’s composition’, ‘organic “the will to live self finds dependent on it the denial of the will to live”. self-overcoming onto which art can fall back to elude a ‘fully administrated life’ and the problems of autonomous separation, art’s the exodus from aura also meets its limit. Art, with its aura’ ‘allergy which to has only deepened within posthuman epistemics, can neither cele brate its autonomy from ‘prosaic reality’ nor, it seems, exodus from its paradox ical condition of wanting to ‘bring into appearance what is not the making’ through recourse result to an of anthro pological extension in a charged cosmos. This semantically latter is because longer provides a resource of creative ------co or bare life is in has relied upon the zoë life as having value. 33 all The of Art and Life Conatus What is left for the artwork to 32 : “The demand by means of which How then do these two films relate vested with value and rights and, by the same token, subjected to a barrage of political decisions, life would consequently be terms Spinoza, citing Agamben, what devoid of natus future that would undermine the recep tivity of beings and thought attached to their corporeality. The nascent artificial with his notion of the human’s relational and cosmic ontology? In both these re cent projects, the artwork threatens a change between artwork and (“The work viewer gets into the human work”) the into gets being human the and being that ofers an aesthetic model coherent to Beuys’s image of the reciprocal ex we’d be out, four in the morning, on the own thing.” corner rolling, doing our could switch up the roles and we could be like that. […] Would you questions like, ask ‘Where are you at?’. them ‘Cos you want to act like they did; put security act like they did; put you want to that so vibrate on or everything, on codes their phones don’t even ring? Wish we not even consider or acknowledge: “Do being.” each thing demands to persevere in its It is also the necessary precondition for lifeforms of abstraction technological the tendency, by tendency, which life as an abstract value to be invested or disinvested according to its political qualifications. Biopower’s double-edged the culmination of modernity’s biopoliti cal sequence (at the point of life’s mass datafication), which has apprehended ited capacity to form adequate any to semblance the replicative powers capitalist of technologies. This could rep resent a terminus of art coincident with that only adds to their uncertainty, these works register the horror of the human’s simulacral inauthenticity and art’s lim get into, and what has the artwork be come? Albeit with a heavy dose of irony provides the blueprint for the posthuman re-evaluation of enlightenment discovery of ‘life itself’. Disconcertingly perhaps, this abstrac tion of ‘life’ as autonomous value also THE LARGE GLASS No. 27 / 28, 2019 18 Josephine Berry:Howto ExplainPicturesto aDyingHuman:On ArtinExpanded Ontologies Way: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of of Entanglement the and Physics Quantum Way: Euro Kohn, Eduardo 5 tube.com/watch?v=JZ7GnwelrM0&t=3262s https://www.you 2017, January 25 University, Durham Series, Lecture Castle Durham man’, Hu too All ‘Posthuman, Braidotti, Rosi See 4 sity Press,2007). Matter and Meaning and Matter that being model e Krn Barad, Karen see matter, of nature ‘intra-active’ the of discovery the and physics quantum of implications litical po and philosophical the of account an For 3 Press, 2015),pp.21-22. sations” in Katherine McKittrick, ed., McKittrick, Katherine in sations” Conver Future: Diferent a Humanness ToGive Or,Species? Our for Catastrophe “Unparalleled McKittrick, Katherine and Wynter Sylvia der.” or world-systemic el-of-a-natural-organism the-mod on based homogenizing are that the structures global into drawn are cultures, religions/ their whatever world, the of peoples the All superstructural. merely being religions/ cultures their with basis, organic scientific natural ostensibly their have societies human all is, That religions/cultures. their and cieties Human as Praxis as Human transumptively liberal transumptively also itself therefore, monohumanist, post-civic an Anthropology Beyond the Human the Beyond Anthropology an ists monic brought the has years, hundred five last the over West, the ieenh etr, n the on century, nineteenth the since redefined, been now has human the fined within species, environment or the paths the or environment species, within fined de be cannot that power vital a life, of power the becomes power resistance bio-power, When becomes “[…] continues: quote The 16 15 Kohn,op.cit.,p.34. 14 Ibid.,p.103. 13 Ibid.,p.102. 12 Adorno,op.cit.,p.103. cial production. so other all of unfreedom radical the by is it as underpinned art autonomous of exceptionalism or privilege the to quo, status the with art tiful beau of acquiescence the to art, harmonious or illusionistic of ‘mendaciousness’ the from 11 This problem is conceived in numerous ways, 10 Ibid,p.107 9 Adorno,op.cit.,p.102. 8 Ibid.,p.34. 7 Ibid.,pp.15-16. 6 Ibid. University ofCaliforniaPress,2013),p.16. with — all the models of other human so human other of models the all — with supposedly human of a of (post-monotheistic, secular purely now , natural whole . This is the version in whose terms preexists — rather than rather — preexists (Durham, NC: Duke University Duke NC: (Durham, human species into its How Forests Think: Toward Toward Think: Forests How organism. This is the model the is This organism. Meeting the Universe Half Half Universe the Meeting (Durham, NC: Duke Univer monohumanist natural scientific scientific natural (Berkeley: ) model of model ) On Being Being On hege coex ------ridvda is preindividual this describe to has Simondon that term only The reality. prevital is it for individuality, vital indetermined is thus not synonymous with synonymous not thus is indetermined potentials; with charged is nonstructured, still ue, in ture’, 24 Martin Heidegger, ‘ Iowa. in home long-term a found they attempts, tering Castro power.fos Fidel to unsuccessful came several After after children as Cuba from ica Amer to sent were sister her and Mendieta 23 access to it by it to gain access only can beings living but beings, living in deposited has individuation biological thing some is individuation collective in work to put nature preindividual of share the unchanged; preindividual the leave not do being of ations “ nation: expla Combes’s and Muriel In Individuation transindivduation. of concepts Simondon’s interrelated Gilbert to referring am I Here 18 ory, Literature, and the Failures of Afrmation”, of Failures the and Literature, ory, min Noys, “The Recirculation of Negativity: The Benja see question: Noys’ Benjamin is This 17 2006), p.77. erentiated f di Stasis cault and Notes’, Statements of Selection ‘A Mendieta, Ana 22 21 Beuys,op.cit.Author’s translation. 164. p. 1994), Press, University York:Columbia (New Burchell, Graham and Tomlinson Hugh trans. , and the Philosophy of the Transindividual the of Philosophy the and produced”.” Muriel Combes, Muriel produced”.” be may individuation new which from ground nonstructured of sort a have thus individuals all “together that means which being, collective a already is nature, unefectuated of share a by any subject, to the extent that it harbors such as it is a matter of referring to something where But it is possible to resolve this difculty insofar collective. as structured reality as existence of mode its as well as individuation, subsequent vital individuation insisting in them, available for through subjects in deposited preindividual the designates it that extent the to confusion some n Ohr Essays Other and scribe the sensations objectified and therefore and objectified sensations the scribe de to term Guattari’s https://www.youtube.com/ and Deleuze is This 20 1983, watch?v=Mo47lqk_QH0 Jan 27 3sat, 2am, uary Club Beuys, Joseph 19 England: MITPress,2013),p.49. London, Mass; (Cambridge, LaMarre, Thomas c, n Cnet” in “Percept, Concept,” and Guattari, Afect, Félix and Deleuze Gilles See, artwork. the in and by autonomised also f priua darm” ils Deleuze, Gilles diagram.” particular a of tas Sa Hn (odn Continuum, (London: Hand Séan trans. , 1,no.1(2013)pp.140-155. Apeiron The Question Concerning Technology Technology Concerning Question The Sulfur Mroe, ucsie individu successive Moreover, . resubmersion transindividual , nature indetermined because indetermined nature , 22(1988),p.70. tas Wlim oit (New Lovitt William trans. , The Age of the World Pic What Is Philosophy? Philosophy? Is What deeper than their than deeper Gilbert Simondon Simondon Gilbert wih creates which , , trans. Fou un ------inclusive exclusion, whereby the whereby exclusion, inclusive an into reversed is situation the modernity In inclusion’. ‘exclusive its through politicised life biological for term Agamben’s is life’ ‘Bare 25 York: HarperRow, 1977),p.129. the beginning as a vindication and liberation of liberation and vindication a as beginning the from itself presents democracy modern that is it then, democracy, classical to opposed as cy democra modern characterizes anything “If 33 32 SeeAgamben,op.cit.,p.171. ans-made-with-minds https://www.nowness.com/story/cecile-b-ev habits and uses of the body, and body, the of uses and habits form inwhichneitherisfixed. self-afecting thinking living one as united are Life in Contemporary Fiction’, tal Texts andBareLife:TheUsesAbusesof 29 Claire Colebrook, cited in Benjamin Noys, ‘Vi 28 Ibid.,p.210. 27 Ibid.,p.213. 31 See Cécile B. Evans, B. Cécile See 31 www.joeyholder.com/ophiux, 2016. https:// webpage, project Ophiux the From 30 (2015), pp.165-185,p.181. (London:Verso, 1999),p.229. a reconciled state of life in which in life of state reconciled a 206), (p. form’ its from indivisible ‘life ticulate ar to ‘form-of-life’, term, hyphenated third this er: Sovereign Power and Bare Life Bare and Power Sovereign er: Minima Moralia Minima of bios the speak, to so find, to and life of way a into life bare own its ē zo oeeg Pwr n Br Life Bare and Power Sovereign 26 In 26 ty Press,1998),p.4. Universi Stanford Heller-RoazenCA: (Stanford, modernity.” See Giorgio Agamben, Giorgio See modernity.” of event decisive the constitutes - such as life duction to bare life: “The entry of entry “The life: bare to duction re their of basis the on ‘included’ are they as decision political of object central the becomes 5 hoo Aon, Nvsim rau’ in Organum’ ‘Novissium Adorno, Theodor 35 34 Noys,op.cit.,p.171. ty Press,1998),pp.9-10. Universi Stanford Heller-RoazenCA: (Stanford, Agamben, Giorgio subjection.” the very place — ‘bare life’ — that marked their in play into men of happiness and freedom the democracy’sern put to wants it aporia: specific pee f the of sphere , and that it is constantly trying to transform to trying constantly is it that and , The Use of Bodies of Use The polis , trans.EdmundJephcott te oiiiain f bare of politicization the - Made with Minds with Made , Agamben introduces Agamben , ē zo . Hence, too, mod too, Hence, . CounterText CounterText tas Daniel trans. , zoë zoë Homo Sacer: Sacer: Homo , trans. Daniel zoë bios Homo Sac Homo of citizens of , the flesh, the , into the into , or the or , , 2013: , 1 no.2 ------