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Movement, Affect, Sensation Brian Massumi

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Movement, Affect, Sensation Brian Massumi l'HI LOSOPH y/,cu cw RA L sr.uDI ESj,sc I ENC E In Parablesfor 1/11: Virtual Brian Massumi views the body and media such as tclevision, film, and the Internet as proces.�� that operate on multiple registcrs of sensation beyond the reach of the reading techniques founded on the standard rhetorical and semiocic models. Rcnewing and assessing Wil­ liam James 's radical empiricism and Henri Berbrson's philosophy of perccption rhrough the filter of thc post war French philosophy ofDeleuze, Guattari, and Foucault, Massumi links a cultural logie of variati on to questions of movcment, affect, and sensation. lf such concepts are as fundamental as signs and significations, he ar6>ues, thcn a new ser of theoretical issues appear, and with them potential new paths for the wt:dding of scientific and cultural theory. "This is <lll extraordinary work of scholarship and thought, the most thorough going critique ami reformul.ition of the culture doctrine that l have read in years. Massumi 's prose has a dazzling and sometimes cutting clarity, and yet he bites into very big issues. People will be reading and talking about Pamblesfor thc Virtual for a loog time to come." -MEAGHAN MORRIS, L�11a11 U11i11ersity, I Ton)! Ko11g "Haw you been disappointed by books that promise to bring 'the body' or 'corporeality' back into nùture? Well, your luck i� about to changc. In this remarkabk book Bri:in Massumi transports us from the dicey intersection of movement and sens:ition,through insightful expJorations ofatTect and body image, to a creative reconfiguration of the 'nature-culture continuum.'The writing is cxperi­ mental and adventurous, a� one might expect from a writer who finds inventiveness to be the most distinctiw attribute of thinking. The perspectivc Mam1mi unfolds will have a major effect on cul­ tura! theory for year; to come."-WILLIAM CONNOLLY,Jol111s Jfopki11s U11i11ersity ''le is not enough to describe Massumi's book as a brilliant achievement. Scldom do wc see a policical chmker develop his or hcr ideas with such scrupulous attention to evcryday human exis­ cence, creating a marvelously fluid architecture of thought a round thc fundamencal qucstion of what che fact ofhuman embodiment does co che activity ofthinking. Massumi's vigorous critique ofboth social-conscructionist and essentialist theorizations of embodied practices renews thc Deleuzian tradition ofphilosophy fo r our times."-DIPESH CHAKRABARTY, U11iversity of Chica,l!o "After Berg.;on,Wh itehcad, Deleuze, and Guattari, thc great radical-empiricist protcst against na'ive objcctivism and na'ive subjectivism re sonares again, bringing wondcr back into the most common­ day experiences. Afrer readmg Brian Massumi you will nevcr listen to S111:1tra or watch a soccer game the samc way again."-ISABELLE STENGERS, Free U11i11ersity of Brnssels Brian Massumi is Associate Professor of Communications at the Université de Montréal. He is the author of A Uscr's Guide ro Capitalism m1d Sc/1izophrenia: Devilltio11sfro111 Dcle11zc a11d Guattari and First ami Last Emperors:'T11e Absc1/11te State aml thc Body t?f tlic Despot. POST·CONTEMPORARY INTERVENTJONS A Series Edited by Stmiley Fish & Fredric)a111eso11 ISBN i't7& O �223 2a-,7 l Box 90660, D11rha111, I C 27708-0660 911� ��� ��llljl!lltlllJll PARABLES FOR THE VIRTUAL POST-CONTEMPORARY INTERVENTIONS SeriesEditors: Stan/ey Fish and Fredric Jameson Brian Massumi PARABLES FOR THE VIRTUAL Movement, Affect, Sensation Dukc Univcrsity Prcss Durham & London 2002 © 2002 Duke University Press Ali rights reserved Printcd in the United States of America on acid-free paper x Designed by C. H. We stmoreland Ty peset in Plantin Light with Frutiger display by Kcystonc Typesetting, lnc. Library of Congress Ca1a/og;,,g- it1-/>11blicatio11 Data Massumi, Brian Parablesfor the virtual: movement, affect, sensation I Brian Massumi. p. cm.-(Post-contemporary intervcntions) lncludcs bibliographical refcrcnces and indcx. ISBN 0-8223-2882-8 (cloth : alk. paper)- ISBN 0-8223-2897-6 (pbk. : alk. papcr) 1. Movemcnt (Philosophy) 2. Scnscs and sensation. 3. Affcct (Psychology) I. Title. Il. Scries. B 105.M65 M37 2002 128/.6 21 200 1058211 CONTENTS Acknowledgmcnts vii lntroduction: Concrete ls as Concrete Doesn 't 1 The Autonomy of Atfect 23 2 The Blccd: Whcrc Body Meets lmage 46 3 Thc Political Economy of Belonging and the Logie of Rclation 68 4 Thc Evolutionary Alchemy of Rcason: Stelarc 89 5 On thc Supcriority ofthe Analog 133 6 Chaos in thc "'fotal Field" ofVision 144 7 Thc Brightncss Confound 162 8 Strangc Horizon: Buildings, Biograms, and the Body 'lhpologic 177 9 'Iòo-Blue: Color-Patch foran Expanded Empiricism 208 Notes 257 Wo rks Citcd 30 1 lndcx 31 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the Australian Rescarch Council (ARC) for its most gcncrous support. The research and writing of this book was largely carricd out undcr a fcllowship from the ARC that provided me the most prccious commodity a writcr can have: time to think. My gratitude also goes to the Humanities Rcscarch Centreof the AustralianNational Uni­ versity (HRC) which as my host institution provided something just as rare: a conducivc cnvironmcnt in which to think. lò findan institutional homc truly fostcringof scholarship is a privilege too few academics expe­ rience. I would like to thank julic Gorrell, Ian McCalman, Caroline Tu rner, Leena Messina, judy Buchanan, and the rest of the directorship and staffof the H RC for making the Centre such a piace, and also for ali thcir help and hard work. I would also like to thank the English Depart­ ment of thc Univcrsity of Quccnsland, in particular Graeme Tu rner, john Frow, and David Marshall, for theirhospitality and generous assistance in providing mc my firstinstitutional home in Australia. Additional support, also much apprcciated, was providcd by thc Center for Cultura! Studies of thc Univcrsity of California-Santa Cruz, the Canadian Centre forAr­ chitccture in Montreal, and the Sodai Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Those who contributcd to this project through their persona! and in­ tellectual generosity and thc stimulation of their ideas, reactions, and intcractions are too numcrous to citc. A partial list would include Gordon Bull, Chris Connery, William Connolly, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Kuan­ Hsing Chen, Kcvin Dahl, Penelope Deutscher, Lorne Falk, Heidi Gilpin, Lawrencc Grossberg, Freda Guttman, Gail Hcrshatter, Alice jardine, Michacl jaspcr, Michael Hardt, Thomas Lamarre, Greg Lynn, Tim Murphy, 'Iòni Negri, Paul Patton, Naoki Sakai, Sue Sargent, Steven Shaviro, Shanc Wilcox, and my past and now far-flung students from McGill Univcrsity. Special thanks to Kcn Dean, To ni Dove, Meaghan Morris, and Isabcllc Stengers for their friendship, patience, and inspira- tion. Most special thanks forthese same things and much, much more to Sandra Buckley, unwavering. And to jesse Aravaipa for a ten-ycar (and counting) crash course (literally) in qualitative transformation. Spinach and Protector have contributed many seasons of fu r to thc cracks in my keyboard in a testament to their companionship and their undying love of CRTs. I won't mention Spike. But I will mention Glenn Hcndlcr. Portions of this book have appeared, partially and/or in earlicr drafts, in the journals C11l111ral Critique (chapter 1); Arc/1 itec111ralDesi gn (chaptcr 8); C11l111ral Smdies (chapter 9); the Wexner Ccnter catalog Body Méca­ niq11e: Artistic Explorations o/ Digitai Rcalms, ed. Sarah Rodgers (chaptcr 7); and in the following edited volumes: Anybody, ed. Cynthia Davidson (MIT Press) (chapter 3); Rcthinking Borders, ed. john We lchman (Uni­ versicy of Minnesota Press) (chapter 2); Dele11ze: A Criticai Rcader, ed. Paul Patton (Blackwcll) (reprint of chapter I); and Obscrving Complcxity: Sy stems T/1cory and J>ostmodemism, cd. William Rasch and Cary Wo lfc (Universit)' of Minnesota Prcss) (reprint of chaptcr I). Pinally, my grati­ tude goes to Ken Wissokcr, my editor at Dukc University Prcss, for his faith in this project. viii INTRODUCTION Concrete ls as Concrete Doesn't When I think of my body and ask what it does to earn that name, two things stand out. It mavcs. ltfeels. In fact, it does both at the same time. It moves as it feels, and it feels itself moving. Can we think a body without this: an intrinsic connection between movement and sensation whereby each immediately summons the other? If you start from an intrinsic conncction betwecn movement and scn­ sation, the slightcst, most !iterai displacement convokes a qualitative dif­ ference, because as directly as it conducts itself it beckons a feeling, and feclings have a way of folding into each other, resonating together, inter­ fering with each other, mutually intensifying, all in unquantifiable ways apt to unfold again in action, often unpredictably. Qualitative difference: immediately the issue is change. Felt and unforeseen. The projcct of this book is to explore the implications for cultura! theory ofthissimplc conccptual displacement: body-(movement/sensa­ tion) -change. Cultura! theory of the past two decades has tended to bracket the middle terms and their unmediated connection. lt can be argued that in doing so it has significantly missed the two outside tcrms, even though they have been of consistent concern-perhaps the centrai concerns in thc humanitics. Attention to the literality of movement was deftected by fe ars of falling into a "naive realism," a reductive empiricism that would dissolve thc specificity of the cultura! domain in the plain, seemingly unproblematic, "presence" of dumb maner. The slightness of ongoing qualitative change palcd in comparison to the grandness of peri­ odic "rupture." Against that possibility, the everyday was the piace where nothing ever happens. Culture occupied the gap between maner and systemic changc, in the opcration of mechanisms of "mediation." These were ideologica! apparatuses that structured the dumb materiai intcr­ actions of things and rendercd them legible according to a dominant signifying scheme into which human subjects in the making were "inter­ pellated." Mediation, although inseparable from power, restored a kind of movement to the everyday.
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