Today I was thinking on the power of the tools...

You know hoe they say you better give fish away than fishing nets...

And also I have been thinking as to why I am so annoyed by capitalism, when so many corporations have been so large and successful, it makes me think there must be something good about them, or perhaps very intelligent at least.

I have been thinking about the relationship between capital and ignorance, and how much of its collection/accumulation is based on a relationship of knowledge/ignorance, where the capitalist capitalise on its customers ignorance, and how its played about in problem solving.

Ikea.

The compound of these sticks or ideas: problem solving, knowledge and success has lead me to rethink the good in contemporary paradigms of success, and how design has played a role in this achievement. Obviously I have not been thinking about this because I care or because I have so much spare time that I like to think of the unthinkable, but because nowadays and probably trough history, there's always a struggle between who is dominated and who dominates. Still I wouldn't like to produce a unilateral tale, but I would like to talk about the idea the domination occurs throughout our daily life, in different situations, with different implications/consequences. For so lets not talk about the idea of becoming a dominatrix nor a submissive, but at identifying and possibly playing with these different roles. Now you might think: what a detour! But really, my point is that there are design strategies to produce change within these dynamics, albeit not simple ones.

Why is there Ikea so successful when it produces such a huge mobilization of resources in the middle of a huge environmental crisis? Or why is the World Bank such a powerful institution when it has produced so much harm? (obviously I can argue these two here, find your own literature)

Well the truth is that they provide solutions to problems. And I can't be here hypercritical since I can't actually explain to you what is a solution or what is a problem, or whether we should care about these two concepts, which I know is problematic, but hey, I am sorry, I need to simplify. So my point is that they allow for life processes to continue, thus they eliminate a barrier whether this is physical or physiological or a combination of the two.
Oblivious to this problematic too, I want to claim the value of expertise in the democratic/democratization of society, for it eradicates ignorance. I am not claiming that knowledge is the panacea (hell no), but it expands our knowledge. Tools that provide knowledge in our contemporary society are varied and super, highly traded, like books, magazines, pamphlets, computers, etc. List is long, but they have the power to distribute ideas but not actions, they are a bit like a brain without a body, and they easily buy into the Kantian combo (mind body separation). For so we need something more substantial, we need a tool or better, a net. This is not only the creation of objects out of the accumulation of knowledge, but the compounded value of added objects, agencies, territories, subjectivities and synergies. I like for so the power of the map, as they make reality understandable (not comprehensible) and by their very nature they tell so much about aesthetics as they do about politics. But still they remain provocations and by no means they necessarily can be called democratic, which for me is synonym of equality.

The achievement of a more democratic society mean we cannot ditch capitalism as we cannot ditch inequality, since we can't, but we have to strive for change, for life is not about life or death but about the changes of substance from one state to another, hence becoming something else. It is democracy in relation with capitalism that quite successfully allows the play of these forces, but please, by no means we can affirm there is no misery, as there is plenty, and not only there is, but we are entangled in it production/reproduction most likely without being aware. It is also worthy to note that I am speaking from a position of privilege, as I am a man, white, middle-class fully recognized citizen, but I have had the luck of turning out to be gay, which has given me a different point of view on things, different from the straight gaze, which by no means is exclusively been informed by my sexuality, but it has been a defining factor (please lets no simplify or move into the realm of labels for they do no good in the endeavor of elucidating).

Moreover if we aspire to equality we need to be able to map our condition, to learn about difference an put it into play. This act will make us aware and it will also allow us put at our disposition a set of tools, i.e. mapping seasons would allow us to grow the food we wanted on the suitable periods, so the map to an extent enables the instrumentalization of reality to produce a certain set of predicted, desired results. The mapping of realities and the identification of situations allows us to identify what is that we want to act upon, for which we need an action plan or better put; a manual.

Manuals can be of great value if they posses a diagnostic value, this is, they present you with the information in relation to your problem and they present you with a series of solution which can be applied. Once this identification is done, this handled expertise can be implemented. Think of Ikea. They let you flick trough their entire catalog (I need storage) and they let you choose by providing range (you feel empowered by choice, since you can evaluate and choose, have the power to select). After that, in exchange of currency, they send you the goods (the cheapest available), which are no fancy, but they follow the (darkest) highest modernist claim, form follows function. When the goods arrive you can put them together by following a manual, which empowers you to build, with the tools provided (you are the own creator and perpetrator of your own prefabricated reality). This might sound very much like despotism, but it is as close is it gets to the idea of availability trough (un)free-market logics/logistics (low price, high volume of production, availability, accessibility). It is this depletion of the individualization of  resources that achieve this miracle of affordability, by the depreciation of labor and the creation of clear cut parts that can be assembled by the very consumers of the neighborhood. I know it sounds depressing, but I wanted to exalt the manual rather than decimate it.

The manual is a tool that allows for the performance of knowledge, or transferred expertise in the set-by-step illustration of concepts/ideas. It is a democratization of knowledge-action, in which tools as well as processes lay naked for the hand in need. It also provide a false illusion of autonomy, which explodes the object into parts and reveals it intimate engineered parts (structural porn).

Yo might think that this makes no sense, or that its out of touch with reality, but I believe that the manual has the potential to generate equality, awareness and diagnosis. Whether the ill needs to be cured, is a question that I dare not to ask.


xoxox

PUBLIC PURPOSE AND PRIVATE SERVICE: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY CULTURE OF CONTRACTING OUT AND THE EVOLVING LAW OF DIFFUSED SOVEREIGNTY

All I have been doing is listening to twigs, I hope you enjoy as it is all that I can enjoy for now.

DELIVER+ENCOURAGE

You might think of Tarkovsky as a Realist… I was thinking of Free Cinema in Britain and how it was classified as realism for portraying reality "as it was". It would be interesting to map Realism in the realms of politics and art, but I am no academic.

The idea that Reality is a given is very accomplice of the idea of Nature, both as Given…but by who? This is to me the evidence that what we are discussing here is religion, because all of these concepts rely on an external shaper, or force that shapes this reality of nature.

It is difficult not to think of Nature as predefined and therefore extraneous to human nature..or as the cocoon where we are born, and I might argue an impenetrable cocoon. For so it seems difficult to challenge that something else didn't precede us and consequently that there is something else apart from us or our individual existence.

Reality conversely is a more complex idea and to me it has a set of implications that correlate to the idea of Nature. Reality as lived might be challenged as a psychological exercise that changes continuously as much as the looking glass changes, or that of our own very psychological state. Divorcing these elements: the looking subject (with its physical support), the looking glass (or its subjectivity) and the matter or contemplation (nature), seems to given rise again to a at least tripartite reality. Te difference between what is mentioned as preexisting Nature, now the body inhabits this environment and as far as its agency goes, it has the ability of changing its surroundings with fewer or greater, known or unknown, consequences. Reality, unlike Nature, becomes more elastic, and engages in a feedbackarian relationship, not necessarily of action/reaction, but of action=effect/affect.

It seems inevitable therefore, to feel a sense of responsibility when the ecosystem suffers due to a pilling up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere…and equally, to feel a sense of contingency and uncontrollability when natural disaster strikes. They show respectably and respectively traces both of a fervent humanism (man/woman to its own will and figure) and of a fervent religious devotion (man to God's will). Obviously the first attitude stems from Science and the idea of Logic, and the second one from the idea of Nature, as clearly divided from human will or action (artificial).

I have always argued that we shouldn't argue for one or the other, but that we should always embrace complexity (Venturi and Brown). Meaning that we can delve on this tripartite nature but still, understand its implications. First is that we can definitely acknowledge human substance as substantial and therefore with agency and the capacity to alter. On the same level we need to understand that as humans we are product of Nature (whether you wish to distinguish between God and Nature is up to you…) and we are independent as much as dependent (the woman who gave us birth). For so if we are willing to change the surfaces we dwell, we need to understand them… so that we produce change with the wisdom of nature (talking here on a societal change level or playing field). The problem here though is that we are presupposing the existence of a social contract (a political consensus or moralistic technocracy) and that humans have the ability and potential of comprehending Nature. All of this also rely on our ability to perceive and conceive (Lefebvre) Reality, not only objectively but on a subjective-objective combo, which also relies on a humanist conception (Reality for Us) and a homogeneity in this very own mode of perception (say all men and woman perceive the same way).

It is obvious to see, and not spotless, but rather stainfull, that this argument is as idealist and abstract as it is flawed, but I believe it has some ideas of relevance in relation to the tripartite nature of our environment, which is always perceptual instead of only-objective.

To close I am hoping to say that Reality cannot be conceived in those terms, those of upper-middle class conformism or security, but that they have to bee seek on a truly genuine level, which defies a classist reading of reality per se. This is a critical mind. It is the job of this mind to understand and to act in a plane of contingency, disruption and imperfection, as well as the abundance of oppositions and even contradictions…these should be seen as part of Nature and inherent to the structure of God. I am hoping that you yourself, grapples with the potency of a holistic inter-subjectivity, and that sees its everyday as an expansive practice, which constantly acknowledges and learns about its very own set of boundaries.

With no further delay, xoxo.

Cognitive architecture : from bio-politics to noo-politics ; architecture & mind in the age of communication and information / editors, Deborah Hauptmann, Warren Neidich.

Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. As if we could recognize what is off-limits of our own perception of the world. An is therefore scary just for that, for our inability to recognize that which we can't conceive or comprehend.

I know. I am a misery...And it is relieving to see that someone has put into words that which you feel, as if you could recognize them, a shadow that becomes familiar...with its own face.


I have been tired of thinking of otherness and all this terms that apparently stem from feminist theory, but I had some moments of surprise when going deeper into Marxist concepts, specially relating to labor.

Running is this act which relieves you, when you expel yourself mentally and physically, diminishing your very own substance, whilst giving it psychological weight, that of awareness. Reading, conversely, is an act of addition instead of relief, it adds all that is timely into an isolating moment, which allows you to penetrate the page onto something otherworldly, say an abstract order, or a world of ideas, something pure. This practice of addition, an this is where I have been hoping to get to, is a practice that furthers the feeling of self-estrangement and isolation. I feel very ambivalent towards any mention of alienation, since it feels way to walled to communicate the image I am hoping to.

Needless to say that anyone reading (hi robot audience) should note that my academic rigor goes as far as taking philosophical concepts from Wikipedia and recontextualising them into my texts as long as they make sense with their accompanying description. Tough world.

Virno says we need to find a new vocabulary for the multitude, and that this very nomenclature already has a certain set of implications. Surprisingly dense and light at the same time, I feel I would like to gain a better understanding of his arguments. Its a very cacophonic discourse, since it slaps you from every side, as his scheme of references its huge, all over the place; the conceptual purity allows for a discursive logic to run along the book, but here and there they get contextualized, which helps in gaining a better understanding. I do obviously think this is no serious review please.


I am finalizing with the idea of self-estrangement again, which is difficult to replanteate, I mean I am lonely on a projective plane, and feel that the direction I had when younger can't be recovered. Hopelesnnesssss