SPECIAL ISSUE 15 MARTIN DAILY BOARD

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

Overview



To do



Links





Hotlines



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Keywords



_ making of worlds. language, science, technology : these forces produce worlds. world doesn't exist w/o language, language is an active part of the world

  • The poetic of relations (Eduard Glissant)
  • Entanglement (Karen Barad)

_ entanglement assumes that we have different things that are being knotted together _ state of being knotted together Denise Ferreira Da Silva: introduces "implicancies" things be co-response-able for each other starting point is particles

  • Response-ability (Barad + Haraway)
  • Implicancies (Denise Ferreira Da Silva)

_ The term "implicancies" brings together: entanglement, response-ability & relations. That is why this SI is called Radio Implicancies

  • Techno-epistomologies:

_ Technological knowledge systems [metadata etc how algorithms produce data]

  • Techno-ontology: How social media puts a filter on the world. We know a lot about bodies through scanning technologie. In line with that: algorithms are part of the world, while structuring the world. So when it is claimed to work on "fair AI" or "fair algorithms", algorithms are placed outside the worlding forces.

_ Donna Haraway's frames of references: biology, US based, 75 year old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2DcAf16zeI _ 2nd person that is important in thinking through relations: Eduart Glissant in French context.

Broadcasts



Broadcast 1



.DNF

Broadcast 2 with Louisa



Louisa and I created a musical dialogue between Microsoft and Mac operating sound systems. In order to create this soundtrack, we first used Musiclab, a Google song maker allowing to make simple songs with visual patterns. In a second step, we tryed to remake our song with Earsketch, a sound editor working with Python language. By refering to Musicalab visual pattern, we could quiet easily understand how to reconstruct our track in Python. Some screenshots bellow will eventually even show so visual links between the two things! 

#		python code
#		script_name:
#
#		author:
#		description:
#

from earsketch import *

init()
setTempo(115)

# Add Sounds
fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_STARTUP_CUSTOM , 15, 1, 3)
fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_START_UP_WINDOWS2, 16, 1.5, 4)
fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_STARTUP20, 15, 19, 26)
fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_EVERY_WINDOWS_STARTUP_SHUTDOWN_SOUND_TRIM, 16, 19, 20)
#fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_LOOPE, 5, 20, 30)
#fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_LOOPF, 6, 25, 35)
#fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_LOOPG, 7, 30, 40)
#fitMedia(MARTINFOUCAUT_LOOPH, 8, 35, 45)
#fitMedia(YG_RNB_TAMBOURINE_1, 10, 1, 5)
#fitMedia(YG_FUNK_CONGAS_3, 11, 1, 5)
#fitMedia(YG_FUNK_HIHAT_2, 12, 5, 9)
#fitMedia(RD_POP_TB303LEAD_3, 13, 5, 9)

 
# Effects fade in
#setEffect(1, VOLUME,GAIN, -20, 5, 1, 10)

# Fills
fillA = "----0-------0-------0-------0---"
fillB = "0-00------0---0-0-00------0---0-"
fillN = "0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-"


fillC = "--------------0---0---0---0-----"
fillD = "--0--0--0--0----0---0-----0-0-0-"
fillE = "-0--0--0--0---0---0---0---------"
fillF = "0--0--0--0------0---0-----0-0-0-"

fillG = "----------------------0-------0-"
fillH = "---0--0--0--0-------------------"
fillI = "-------------0--------0---------"
fillJ = "--------------0------0------0---"
fillK = "------------0---0---0--------0--"
fillL = "------------------------------0-"
fillM = "------------0---0---0--00---0---"

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 3, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 3, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 2, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 4, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 6, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 8, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 10, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 12, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 14, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 16, fillN)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_SPEECH_MISRECOGNITION, 14, 18, fillN)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 4, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 4, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 6, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 6, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 8, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 8, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 10, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 10, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 12, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 12, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 14, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 14, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_RECYCLE2, 12 , 16, fillA)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_BASSO, 13, 16, fillB)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING4, 1, 6, fillC)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING3, 2, 6, fillD)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING2, 3, 6, fillE)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING1, 4, 6, fillF)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING4, 1, 8, fillC)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING3, 2, 8, fillD)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING2, 3, 8, fillE)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING1, 4, 8, fillF)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING4, 1, 12, fillC)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING3, 2, 12, fillD)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING2, 3, 12, fillE)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING1, 4, 12, fillF)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING4, 1, 16, fillC)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING3, 2, 16, fillD)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING2, 3, 16, fillE)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_WINDOWS_DING1, 4, 16, fillF)


makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS5, 5, 10, fillG)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS, 6, 10, fillH)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS2, 7, 10, fillI)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS3, 8, 10, fillJ)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS4, 9, 10, fillK)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS7, 10, 10, fillL)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS6, 11, 10, fillM)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS5, 5, 12, fillG)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS, 6, 12, fillH)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS2, 7, 12, fillI)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS3, 8, 12, fillJ)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS4, 9, 12, fillK)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS7, 10, 12, fillL)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS6, 11, 12, fillM)

makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS5, 5, 14, fillG)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS, 6, 14, fillH)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS2, 7, 14, fillI)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS3, 8, 14, fillJ)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS4, 9, 14, fillK)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS7, 10, 14, fillL)
makeBeat(MARTINFOUCAUT_GLASS6, 11, 14, fillM)

finish()


LT_MF_EarchsetchCapture_01
LTMF_MusicLab_Song01























Eachsketch_Pattern_01























Working with audio interpolations



What did I do?

Transforming a text into a question/answer text, make it read by a computer Interpolating the readen text with Who wants to be a billionaire ambiant soundtrack with THX intro and I Feel Love (acapela) from Donna Summer

Original 

"Barry Popper’s cruel step-parents make him live in a skip in the driveway of their house. Barry’s stepsister is spoiled and fed cake and ice cream while Barry eats cold spaghetti and licks empty crisp bags. One day a fox delivers a telegram which informs Barry that he has a place in Stinkwort’s Academy. Barry is instructed to go to departure gate 27-and-a-half at Local Airport at such-and-such a time. On arrival he is escorted on to a helicopter by the crew of friendly badgers.  On the plane he sits next to fellow Stinkworter, Ginger Boozy. 'Hello, you must be Barry" says Ging...'



Retelling a Story



Question 1
A”Barry Popper’s" cruel step-parents make him live in a skip in the driveway, of?
Answer C
their house.

Question 2
Barry’s stepsister is?
Answer A
spoiled and fed cake and ice cream while
Question 3
Barry eats?
Answer A.
cold spaghetti and licks empty crisp bags.

Question 4
One day a fox delivers a telegram which informs Barry that?
Answer D.
he has a place in Stinkwort’s Academy.

Question 5
Barry is instructed to go to departure gate 27-and-a-half at?
Answer B.
Local Airport at such-and-such a time.

Question 6
On arrival he is escorted on to a helicopter by?
Answer B.
the crew of friendly badgers.

Question 7
On the plane he sits next to?
Answer A.
fellow Stinkworter, Ginger Boozy

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/martinfoucaut_interpolation

Streching audio space/time perception (with sample interpolation, overlap, looping and echoing)

With Sonic Pi and as part of the team with Naami and Jacopro, I am working on time perception, by looping, overlapping and sketching a single track more and more untils it becomes a single constant note.
For what I am doing I could take as a reference this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnAE5go9dI&list=LLfu-Fy4NjlpiIYJyE447UDA&index=27&t=2743s "the recordings consist of tape loops that gradually deteriorated each time they passed the tape head, the unexpected result of Basinski's attempt to transfer his earlier recordings to digital format."

Here it is more about a media deterioration than streching the audio space perception, but the process is pretty much the same, so I found relevant to keep this in mind.

Broadcast 3

Personal track description

For my sound piece I worked on a 20 seconds looped sample of the track called Beat Box (Diversion One) from Art of Noise (1984) that I recorded some years ago and more recently transformed to 1 Beat per second. With the help of SonicPI, I am questioning how musical or/and sound echo, overlap and reverberation can affect the listener's mental perception of the space where the music/sounds are being played.




For my sound piece I worked on a 20 seconds looped sample of the track called Beat Box (Diversion One) from Art of Noise (1984) that I recorded some years ago and more recently transformed to 1 Beat per second. With the help of SonicPI, I am questioning how musical or/and sound echo, overlap and reverberation can affect the listener's mental perception of the space where the music/sounds are being played.





















#PLAY THE TRACK ONCE IN NORMAL MODE, NO ECHO, NO REVERB, NO TIME-STRECHING TO GIVE TO THE LISTENER AN IDEA OF WHAT MATERIAL I AM WORKING WITH
with_fx :reverb do
  sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 1, attack: 1
  sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/1.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
  sleep 20.05
end

#PLAY THE TRACK ONCE (WITH DECAY AND RELEASE) AND OVERLAP IT WITH THE SAME TRACK PLAYED AT 50% SPEED, DECAY AND RELEASE ONE SECOND AFTER 

with_fx :reverb do
  with_fx :echo, phase: 1, decay: 16 do
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 1, release: 16, amp: 1
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/1.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
    sleep 1
  end
end

with_fx :reverb do
  with_fx :echo, phase: 2, decay: 8 do
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 0.5, release: 8, amp: 0.75
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/2.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
    sleep 20
  end
end

#PLAY THE TRACK ONCE (WITH DECAY AND RELEASE) AND OVERLAP IT WITH THE SAME TRACK PLAYED AT 50% SPEED, DECAY AND RELEASE ONE SECOND AFTER AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON (X5)

with_fx :echo, phase: 1, decay: 16 do
  sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 1, release: 16, amp: 1
  sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/1.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
  sleep 1
end

with_fx :reverb do
  with_fx :echo, phase: 2, decay: 8 do
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 0.5, release: 8, amp: 0.75
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/2.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
    sleep 1
  end
end

with_fx :reverb do
  with_fx :echo, phase: 4, decay: 4 do
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 0.25, release: 4, amp: 0.5
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/3.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
    sleep 1
  end
end

with_fx :reverb do
  with_fx :echo, phase: 8, decay: 2 do
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 0.125, release: 2, amp: 0.25
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/4.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
    sleep 1
  end
end

with_fx :reverb do
  with_fx :echo, phase: 16, decay: 1 do
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/LoopA.aiff", rate: 0.1, release: 8, amp: 0.1
    sample "/Users/martin/Desktop/5.aif", rate: 1, amp: 10
    sleep 40
  end
end

Nami/Pongie/Martin Description

0916653+1005344+1007629 In a system dominated by measures, demanding an ever increasing synchronization between individuals and their environments, we propose "Spacing in Time" as a way to escape per-determined variables. Through these audio experiments, we encounter a new moment of experiencing different time flows. The radio turns into a time's perception box where various tools for time measurement and orientation are being de-fragmented and re-boot. While creating audio environments with sound repetitions, reverbs and echoes, the experiments lead to a sense of physicality which allows the full immersion into a broadcasted, time travelling. Shut down the clocks and de-synchronize yourself from the established recognition of time, while un-practicing your common perceptions.

Broadcast 4 with Aymeric



During this week with Aymeric, we have been working on an Audio Adaptation of Ursula K Le Guin's A Word of Unbinding.
In a first step, we all gave our throughs about the text it self, and how it resonate inside each of us https://pad.xpub.nl/p/15.4.unbinding
Then we made two teams, one dedicated to the sound making and another dedicated to the text modification and recording.
I've been part of the second team with Euna, Louia and Kendal. Instead of reading the text as it was, or adding more to the original text, we decided first to seperate it in 3 acts, then to modify a few specific words in order to situate the sotry in some kind of cyberpunk context, and without being to specific. You can find here our work on the text. The reading was made by Kendal!

Prototyping and Annotating





Pads





Tools





Individual Research



An Instument based on Web responsiveness



Web Inter-subjectivity / Producing and reshaping sound with Web responsiveness


"The Internet browser has several affinities with the device of the painting, playing both the role of a frame and that of an "open window" on the representation" (ref).

My desire is to emphasize the diffracted point of views offered by the Web user interface by diffracting each possible Web frame size in a continuous range of musical notes. There is no fixed space, no fixed time, no fixed frame, a continuous note is being played, directly responsiding to width and high of the user interface. As such, resizing this window in any direction will allow the user to modulate the pitch of that continous note.

By doing so, I wish to transform the user's Web window interface as an analog inspired instrument that we could compare to analog wind or stringed instrument (such as bagpipes, or a violin). In that idea the smaller is the frame (instrument) the higher is the musical octave.

I take some inspiration from Jonas Lund Net Artwork about the user interface What you see is What you get; Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art which compared colors shades to musical instruments or Point and Line to Plane theorizing tensions create by basic shapes (such as point and a line) within a square format (plane).

I consider the Web window interface as a diffracted frame whose responsive mecanics tries to set in different sets of averages values, themselves depending on the evolution of digital interfaces.

Step 1 - Programming the prototype

" Each bit of matter, each moment of time, each position in space is a multiplicity, a superposition/entanglement of (seemingly) disparate parts." (Diffracting Diffraction Cutting Together - Karen Barad). To make this happen, I could eventually work with SonicPi or javascript + sound.js. First I must create a synth pitch range going from the lowest to the highest (X value, widowheight), and from the minimum to the maximum release (Y value, windowwidth), these becomes two variables affected either by windw height or window width. Then I need to find a way to link sonic pi with css @mediascreen query or with javascript: prerably Javascript as it will later be useful to correlate the window size with visual elements. (As in special issue launcher prototype I develloped earlier)

Step 2 - Tuning multiple web window interfaces sounds together

Once the sound system working, the idea would then be to set a group of various computers (preferably different kind of computers) together pretty much as a musical orchetra. Each user deals with a single continous note that never can stop but which pitch and echo always can be altered. Each (by default) window dimension release a continuous sound . The performative exercice would then be to tune them together, exactly as would do a philarmonic orchesta before performing all together a musical composition. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfSH1ezevjM.

As a side note, not only electronic instruments can play a continuous sound, the bagpipes for example play continuously a "bourdon" simutaneously to the melody, by constantly filling in and spreading out air from the bag.

First shema of a incoming prototype attemting to corellate sound pitch and release with window heihgt and weight. This shema is base on conventional musical notation before being translated into a second more analog musical notation.
In this second sketch, I make a step from analog to a more digital musical interface.
























Questions from Femke:

What is the agency of the different elements in a responsive design?

How do they intra-act?

What is supposed to be flexible, and what is actually fixed?

What can change beyond preset boundaries?

Looking at Cascade from Raphael Bastide



https://peertube.social/videos/watch/efe70f04-c7a4-4656-8c46-8372991e99fd
https://raphaelbastide.com/cascade/
Cascade from Raphael Bastide is quiet interesting, it suggests a instantaneous/live reaction between sounds and visual web design. Here, you can to play with any kind of values from the CSS, and also obviously create new objects and values in order to create and alterate the sound. It is a soundkit that requires to right click on the page and inspect, and change the css values in live.
<br<

Broadcast 5 - Caretaking with Euna

21/05/2020:
Early Conception of the Web page for futher modifications. Link here https://hub.xpub.nl/sandbot/SI15/Radio_5/
Euna and I plan to work together and get inspired from the workshop with Angeliki Diakrousi in order to host the next radio broadcast.

Early step in the making of the Radio broadcast n°5 web page.
Broadcast5 Responsiveness test





















Get inspired from the reading of from Exercices de Style from Raymond Queneau + Workshop.

Work on the idea of point of view, and transcoding:
translate from a translator to another, translate from a format to another, translate from a medium to another, translate from a student group to another.

Interesting example of translation affecting the original content: In France we call the "arabic phone" (le téléphone arabe), a little game that is about forming a circle of people, a first person whispers a sentence to its neighbour ears, and this one has to do the same to its own neighbour, etc. At the end of the loop the original maker of this sentence is supposed to hear back what it said first, but most of the time will hear something radically different.

Links





References

Reading and Listening



"explores the tension between conventional, segregated channels of media distribution and the black imagination."



Reading



Manthia Diawara, Edouard Glissant (2009)

, Edouard Glissant in Conversation with Manthia Diawara

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (2018), Queerying Homophily



Orit Halperin (2014), Beautiful Data, A History of Vision and Reason since 1945



Middle Men - The aesthetics of the mediocre -Eva Geulen https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/15/geulen.php



While there are plenty of exhibits (and markets) dedicated to failed or ‘bad’ art, to Kitsch and Camp, forgeries and Nazi art, a museum for mediocre art is missing. Which is not to say that modern art has no room for the mediocre as subject matter. On the contrary, modern art has cultivated the average and the quotidian in many forms and shapes: from Duchamp’s ready-mades to Warhol’s Brillo boxes, from the heroes of distinguished mediocrity in the German Bildungsroman between Goethe and Thomas Mann, to contemporary Pop Literature, art seems to have entertained a veritable love affair with a certain kind of mediocrity, the very kind that was largely foreclosed to art when it was still governed by tradition, which is to say, when the topics were limited, the canon was restricted, and the mediocre was determined as meeting (and maintaining) a standard.

Hope A. Olson (1998), Mapping Beyond Dewey’s Boundaries: Constructing Classificatory Space for’ Marginalized Knowledge Domains



100,000 Average Joes / Defining the middle ground / Paul Fleming https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/15/fleming.php



" Alexis de Tocqueville already diagnosed this particular psychosis of America: we suffer from two conflicting pathologies—the cult of equality (“I’m an average guy”) and the cult of individualism (“I’m different from everyone else”). Unfortunately, the desire to be normal runs counter to the fear of being nothing to write home about. "

The extremes are not fixed mathematical points or objective standards applicable to all, but intensities relative to only oneself.

Remember this as an important truth; there are some things in which mediocrity is allowable and even esteemed. A lawyer or pleader may fall short of the eloquence of Messala and yet be much valued; but neither Gods, men, nor the pillars of the booksellers will allow mediocrity in poetry.3Horace, Ars Poetica, in The Works of Horace, trans. David Watson (London: T. Longman Press, 1792), ll., pp. 369–373.

In the art world, the labels “average” and “mediocre” are trump cards: one doesn’t waste them on some run-of the-mill, garden variety drivel penned by an average Joe. Rather, average and mediocre are the only words that remain when one is confronted with art that has a resonance, is popular, and belongs in some way to the canon. The judgment “mediocre” says: yes, it is successful, precisely because it appeals to base, popular standards. Mediocre art is the art of the politician: made to please.

Dahlia S. Cambers, Mary Coffey, Måns Wrange / OMBUD (2014), The Law of Averages 1, 2 + 3



Questions averages, the “average citizen profile”, the average "Mr and Ms America", and the average "man". 1: Normman and Norma
Looking for Mr. and Mrs. America
Dahlia S. Cambers

1. How much an average by trying to fit with or repesent the most of a so-called category, can paradoxaly fit to no one in perticular.

Romi Ron Morrison (2019), Gaps between the digits. On the fleshy unknowns of the HUMAN



Oulimata Gueye (2019), No Congo, no technologies



Martine Syms (2013), The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto



Ramon Amaro (2019), Artificial intelligence: Warped, colorful forms and their unclear geometries



Donna Haraway (2019), A Giant Bumptious Litter: Donna Haraway on Truth, Technology, and Resisting Extinction



Denise Fereira Da Silva (2016), On difference without separability



Katherine Mckittrick, Mathematics Black Life



Donna Harraway (1988), Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective



Karen Barad, Adam Kleinmann (2012), Intra-actions



Karen Barad (2016), Diffracting diffraction + Diffraction vs Reflection (in: Meeting the Universe Halfway)



Katherine Mckittrick (2021), /Dear%20Science%20and%20Other%20Stories%20-%20Katherine%20McKittrick.epub Dear Science (in: Dear Science and Other Stories)



Zach Blas & Micha Carde (2015), Imaginary computational systems: queer technologies and transreal aesthetics



Noah Tsika (2016), CompuQueer: Protocological Constraints, Algorithmic Streamlining, and the Search for Queer Methods Online



Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (2009), Race and/as Technology; or, How to Do Things to Race (introduction)



Syed Mustafa Ali (2016), A brief introduction to decolonial computing



Michael Murtaugh (2020), Eventual consistency



Saidiya Hartman (2020), The Plot of Her Undoing



Diffraction vs Reflection - Karen Barad (2016)





  • Indeed, the quantum understanding of diffraction troubles the very notion of dicho-tomy – cutting into two – as a singular

act of absolute differentiation, fracturing this from that, now from then.

  • As such, there is no moving beyond, no leaving the ‘old’ behind. There is no absolute boundary between here-now and there-then. There is nothing that is new; there is nothing that is not new.6 Matter itself is diffracted, dispersed, threaded through with materializing and sedimented effects of iterative reconfigurings of spacetimemattering, traces of what might yet (have) happen(ed).



  • Diffraction is not a singular event that happens in space and time; rather, it is a dynamism that is integral to spacetimemattering. Diffractions are untimely. Time is out of joint; it is diffracted, broken apart in different directions, noncontemporaneous with itself. Each moment is an infinite multiplicity.



  • Many of us still hold on to the concept of difference not as a tool of creativity to question multiple forms of repression and dominance, but as a tool of segregation, to exert power on the basis of racial and sexual essences. The apartheid type of difference. [ . . . ] [But] [d]ifference as understood in many feminist and non-Western contexts [ . . . ] is not opposed to sameness, nor synonymous with separateness. [ . . . ] There are differences as well as similarities within the concept of difference.” (8 Trinh T. Minh-ha, ‘Not You/Like You: Post- Colonial Women and the Interlocking Question of Identity and Difference’, Inscriptions, special issues)



  • Identity, thus understood, supposes that a clear dividing line can be made between I and not-I, he and she; between depth and surface, or vertical and horizontal identity; between us here and them over there.10 (10 Trinh T. Minh-ha, ‘Not You/Like You’.)



  • Divide and conquer has for centuries been his creed, his formula of success. But a different terrain of consciousness has been explored for some time now, a terrain in which clear cut divisions and dualistic oppositions such as science vs. subjectivity, masculine vs. feminine, may serve as departure points for analytical purpose but are no longer satisfactory if not entirely untenable to the critical mind.11



  • There is no sharp boundary separating the light from the darkness: light appears within the darkness within the light within . . .



  • Darkness can be produced by ‘adding new light’ to existing light – ‘to that which it has already received’. Darkness is not mere absence, but rather an abundance. Indeed, darkness is not light’s expelledother, for it haunts its own interior. Diffraction queers binaries and calls out for a rethinking of the notions of identity and difference.



  • Diffraction does not produce ‘the same’ displaced, as reflection and refraction do. Diffraction is a mapping of interference, not of replication, reflection, or reproduction. A diffraction pattern does not map where differences appear, but rather maps where the effects of difference appear.19 (Donna Haraway, ‘The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others’, in Cultural Studies, eds Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, Paula A. Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992), p.300.)



  • There is something compelling about being both male and female, about having an entry into both worlds. Contrary to some psychiatric tenets, half and halfs are not suffering from confusion of sexual identity, or even from a confusion of gender. What we are suffering from is an absolute despot duality that says we are able to be only one or the other.24(24 Gloria Anzaldu´ a, Borderlands, p.19)



  • Bohr suggested a (proto)performative approach to the so-called ‘wave-particle duality problem’ – rethinking mattering – what it means to matter, what matter means – in a rethinking of the nature of difference. Bohr understood difference in its materiality. Meaning is not an ideality; meaning is material. And matter isn’t what exists separately from meaning. Mattering is a matter of what comes to matter and what doesn’t. Difference isn’t given. It isn’t fixed. Subject and object, wave and particle, position and momentum do not exist outside of specific intra-actions that enact cuts that make separations – not absolute separations, but only contingent separations – within phenomena.



  • The self is itself a multiplicity, a superposition of beings, becomings, here and there’s, now and then’s. Superpositions, not oppositions.



  • Difference is not some universal concept for all places and times, but is itself a multiplicity within/of itself. Difference itself is diffracted. Diffraction is a matter of differences at every scale, or rather in the making and remaking of scale (spacetimematterings). Each bit of matter, each moment of time, each position in space is a multiplicity, a superposition/entanglement of (seemingly) disparate parts.



  • [N]ot only that we live in many worlds at the same time, but also that these worlds are, in fact, all in the same place – the place each one of

us is here and now.40(40 Trinh T. Minh-ha, Elsewhere, Within Here, p.56.)

  • Quantum physics radically queers the classical physics understanding of diffraction. Differences within (dark within light within dark . . . ) move to a deeper level of meaning-mattering (differentiating-entangling). (‘Move to’ means without ever leaving classical understandings behind; rather they are always already threaded through.) From ‘breaking apart’ to ‘cutting together-apart,’ from ‘light within dark within light’ to ‘agential separability’.41



  • Quantum physics radically queers the classical physics understanding of diffraction. Differences within (dark within light within dark . . . ) move to a deeper level of meaning-mattering (differentiating-entangling). (‘Move to’ means without ever leaving classical understandings behind; rather they are always already threaded through.) From ‘breaking apart’ to ‘cutting together-apart,’ from ‘light within dark within light’ to ‘agential separability’.41((41 A key concept of agential realism. See chapter 7 of Meeting the Universe Halfway for some of its political implications (even though it may look to some like a chapter on physics as a pure discipline, rather than a hybridity that is and has been always

already political).

  • The existence of indeterminacies does not mean that there are no facts, no histories, no bleeding – on the contrary, indeterminacies are constitutive of the very materiality of being, and some of us live our with pain, pleasure, and also political courage . . .



  • There is no absolute outside; the outside is always already inside. In/determinacy is an always already opening up-to-come. In/determinacy is

the surprise, the interruption, by the stranger (within) re-turning unannounced.

  • A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary.



  • But since this paper is in effect performing a diffraction experiment of diffraction, it’s important that any ‘I’ that might have seemed to give a sense of narration be interrupted, since this positioning is counter to diffracting. There is no ‘I’ that exists outside of the diffraction pattern, observing it, telling its story.



  • The past is not present. ‘Past’ and ‘future’ are iteratively reconfigured and enfolded through the world’s ongoing intra-activity. [ . . . ] Phenomena are not located in space and time; rather, phenomena are material entanglements enfolded and threaded through the spacetimemattering of the universe . [Barad]69(69 Karen Barad, ‘Quantum Entanglements’,p.261.)



  • What if we were to recognize that differentiating is a material act that is not about radical separation, but on the contrary, about making connections and commitments? [Barad]79((79 Karen Barad, ‘Quantum Entanglements’,

p.266.)

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