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Category Archives: academia

Berlin pics

05-Feb-12

I only managed to take three. But the first one is of a panel I attended on anonymous and viral modes of political engagement. As you can imagine, the Q&A of that session was, well, slightly weird. The second is the main building where Transmediale usually takes place, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt; a [...]

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“Why would you want to end your career like this?”

03-Feb-12

That’s what someone said to me earlier today, when I talked about the importance of Greenberg. Not unexpected of course – but it makes no sense to be ignorant about him. When I asked for the reason behind this opinion, the smug self-satisfaction of ‘you don’t understand’ and ‘we’re past this’ comes to the fore; [...]

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Transmediale stuff

02-Feb-12

Ok – it’s time that I updated everyone on the last two days. So transmediale is going well. There’s a nice vibe going on, as I expected everyone is in good sprits and enjoying the festival events. There are A LOT of people here, pretty much 1000 maybe even 2000+ are expected over the course [...]

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Fire in the lobby

31-Jan-12

Not sure if I’m staying in the same Hotel Graham’s staying in – (well it’s the same chain for sure) – but yes the fire is nice in the lobby and very welcome in my room. Especially as it’s minus 7 outside.

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Aesthetics in the 21st Century updated

28-Jan-12

HERE. Plus Bios and Abstracts. But what I didn’t realise is that there would be a Speculations and continent. editors: The Aesthetics of Academic Practice session. Echoing Michael Austin’s recent post, I can’t wait to meet both him and Thomas Gokey for the first time ( I met Paul last year at Nottingham). Four Fifth’s of the Speculation team together [...]

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A better name for withdrawal.

21-Jan-12

At the Goldsmiths event yesterday Graham mentioned that he wished he could find a better name for the term ‘withdrawal’ in OOO – because it always-already has loaded connotations from Heideggerian human tool-use, despite Harman’s reading. Bizarrely enough Tim Morton wrote a similar passage identifying the precariousness of the term. “I like to think that withdrawal means [...]

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Busy day

21-Jan-12

So yeah – what a day. Left from Devon at roughly 4.30a.m (yeah I’m a bit tired), and visited Graham Harman’s seminar at Goldsmiths with the Centre for Research Architecture. It was really weird to see Graham cover his metaphysical position in depth at the morning seminar and then for the afternoon session – give [...]

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Currently reading

19-Jan-12

… Noah Horowitz’s Reality in the Name of God, now published in book form and PDF form (reading it online). Probably not going to have a decent session with it until after London. On my last post regarding SR, computation and information, he wrote a long comment in response which I haven’t got back to [...]

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Signal:Noise Presentation

15-Jan-12

It’s a risky move, but I’ve decided not to use powerpoint presentation software for next week’s talk in London. The main reason being that unless you have all the time in the world, its tremendously hard to import internet material onto a presentation. The other reason is that the type of talk I’m doing is [...]

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Presentation abstract for Signal:Noise

06-Jan-12

Here’s what I’ll be talking about at MUTE’s Signal:Noise II event, Showroom Gallery, London 20th January. It’s serving as an introduction into the panel debates. Simon Jr’s Every Icon and Conway’s Game of Life: Comparing Two Modes of Aesthetic Orientation. This presentation will offer a comparison between John F Simon Jr’s artwork Every Icon (1997) and John Conway’s [...]

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