Wordhole

Back to base: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Wed-11-Oct23

This page contains a glossary created in the XPUB 2023-2024 Special Issue 'Protocols for an Active Archive'.

Control Societies

Steve's notes the difference between disciplinary and control societies: "In Foucault disciplinary society is governed by ‘precepts’ (“texts” establishing protocols of behavior, discipline and social organization) which govern spaces. Society organized through capsularity (sic?): in which specific spaces have specific functions amd specific "means of correct training". “In the disciplinary societies one was always starting again (from school to the barracks, from the barracks to the factory)” Each space has its own discourse (specialist language) which regulates them. In Foucault’s discipline society the subject internalizes discipline (becomes subject to the discourse of a given space) in which case Re-form is the model (the subject under discipline is re-formed). By contrast: societies of control are governed by code- which give access or bar individuals from flows of information (at "informational intersections"). The subject flows “in a continuous network.”

See also: Postscript on the Societies of Control Gilles Deleuze (1992) https://cidadeinseguranca.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/deleuze_control.pdf Collective Annotation of Postscript on the Societies of Control: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/PostscriptControlSocieties Subgroup Annotation of Postscript on the Societies of Control: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Deleuze_Control_Group

Death of the author

Text by Roland Barthes, published in 1967. Barthes claims here that the meaning of a text is given not by the author but by the reader. It belongs to a school of literary theory criticism called reader-response criticism with applications not only in literature but in fields such as psychology and philosophy.

Citations: The text has been extensively citated and not always in a good way, as eg. in Jacques Derrida's ironic essay "The Deaths of Roland Barthes".

In context: One of the most well-known applications of this text is critical pedagogy, advocating dialogic learning (letting students arrive to their own conclusions, rather than being fed the meaning of a text).

Discipline

See also: Control Societies

Georges Perec

Writer, filmmaker and documentalist (French, 1936-1982). Member of the Oulipo group, a group of writers seeking for patterns and structures that could be used for practicing constrained writing. One of his major projects was in effect producing and working with a writing algorithm, (also using flowcharts [link]).

In context: An example of his practice can be seen in "The Machine". For the full experience, it can be best accompanied by its reading.

Gilles Deleuze

Marxist philosopher (French, 1925-1995), engaged in metaphysics and epistemology, specifically in issues of identity and difference. He uses the term "virtual" to describe ideas as the conditions of the actual experience. He criticizes the notion of the individual (as he accepts difference as fundamental in all experience). One of his major works (together with Felix Guattari) is Capitalism and Schizophrenia (the title is pretty much self-explanatory).

In context: In his essay "Postscript on the Societies of Control" (1990) Deleuze marks the change in the structure of society and senses the importance of code in the new order.