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August 25, 2007
Errata for Collapse Volume I
p76 Note 12 should continue as follows:
…The project’s objective was to construct a soft climate (klima: zone) or a zone of hydraulic conductivity (corresponding to the State’s Hydropolitics) which would autonomously accommodate nomads, making them move through itself, and thereby ease the whole process of monitoring, domesticating and tracking nomads. This climate being finally transformed into a tremendously dynamic network of anti-nomadic movements, would employ its hydraulic head to configure nomadic dynamism according to the State’s geo-politics, economic convergence and military dynamism (an accessible space for the State’s military entities especially during insurgencies); the State was seeking to breed its own territorializing (rather than territorialized) nomadologic lines. This climate was actually to consist of ‘artificial rivers’ which were supposed to be distributed over the country. The work of construction of these rivers was to be undertaken over a period of years, in a country that has always suffered from a lack of water in its central and eastern regions. Such fluid, rich and dynamic zones or hydraulic lines (for instance rivers and their tributaries) spread over the country would gradually attract (on the pattern of gravity) nomads, rendering a preferable but precisely mapped climate for their migration; a climate which would actually be an autarkic monitoring machine rendering its inhabitants predictable and expanding a fluid domesticating sphere for the Iranian nomads.
p162 Note 7 should read http://hyperstition.abstractdynamics.org/archives/005047.html
August 18, 2007
Urbanomic
[Version Français]
URBANOMIC proposes to pursue fundamental research and development in logical ontological and abstract matters, outside any institutional framework, with no thematic disciplinary or methodological constraints.
We seek to support a renewal of philosophy through a vigorous repudiation of its insidious contemporary enemies. Firstly, a theorism which reaches from magazine columns to the exalted heights of 'culturally-engaged' academia, the two being distinguished only by the level of indulgence afforded to the authors' interminable interpretative speculation (magazine readers at least having the sincerity of their attention spans). Secondly the fatal overspecialisation and delimitation of philosophy in its academic setting.
Certainly the sphere of popular culture acts as the unconstrained experimental testing ground for deterritorialised symbolic discourses and new sensations. Equally - despite the depredations of the imperatives of business and management - the university is not yet entirely stripped of its ability to provide, under cover of its nominal traditional purposes, a support for independent thought. However in general in the latter, the productive capacity of abstract thought finds itself asphyxiated by supposed disciplinary self-sufficiency, reinforced by the socialisation apparatus of academic propriety. Whereas in the former a superficial relation of 'thought-provoking' relevance demands the novel application of generalised 'theories' to popular topics, destining thought to become exactly as reactive and inconsequential as its 'objects'.
We propose that philosophy can indeed break away from these malign attractors and reclaim a certain autonomy of purpose, but that the potency required for this escape can only be generated by philosophy's maintaining porous boundaries with other disciplines: art, music, science, mathematics...
Not in a relation of application, where philosophy would theorise external 'subjects' by employing its historical resources; but by enriching and expanding these latter through the rigorous and selective analysis and interrogation of local ontologies and vernacular logics.
Given that we oppose equally the wholesale appropriation of abstract thought by the allied postmodern pseudo-theorisms of therapy, capitalist apologetics and management 'science', why do we borrow a trope from industry to describe our activity? By 'Research and Development' we mean to affirm that we do not believe that philosophy in the present must necessarily limit itself to a mere exegetical and scholarly status. Philosophy - as methodical investigation into abstract matter(s) - enhances its pertinence, and highlights its problematic relation to the sciences, by free recourse to abstract-empirical experimentation, supported by suitable technologies. Philosophy would thus conduct materialised 'thought experiments' outside of the methodological presuppositions which circumscribe scientific disciplines. Even if we mean to problematise and question the nature of such an experimental practice, we do not propose to postpone experimentation indefinitely in lieu of supposedly grounding principles, but rather, in addition to ongoing theoretical work, to conduct open-ended experiments the form of whose outcome is not presupposed (amongst which we count the journal COLLAPSE and the URBANOMIC project itself).
However soberly and prudently it may be necessary to proceed, the involuntary passion for thought that is philosophy is always delirious in so far as at every turn it flees from the forces that prescribe (whether in the name of history or contemporaneity, of personal or institutional authenticity, of romantic passion or academic hard-labour) the path it must take.
URBANOMIC propose de poursuivre des recherches et développements fondamentaux dans des domaines logiques, ontologiques et abstraits, en dehors de tout cadre institutionel, et sans contraintes thématiques, disciplinaires, ou méthodologiques.
Il s'agit de soutenir un renouvellement de la philosophie en répudiant de façon vigoureuse ses ennemis contemporains les plus insidieux. Premièrement, un travail théorique qui s'étend des chroniques journalistiques jusqu'aux cîmes exaltées de ces universitaires qui prétendent à un 'engagement avec la culture' ; la seule chose distinguant ceux-ci de ceux-la étant le niveau d'indulgence qu'on accorde aux interminables spéculations interprétative de leurs auteurs (les lecteurs de magazines ayant au moins la sincérité propre a leur impatience). Deuxièmement, l'hyperspécialisation et la délimitation néfaste de la philosophie universitaire.
Il est certain que le domaine de la culture populaire fournit un terrain d'épreuves débridé pour des discours symboliques et des nouvelles sensations déterritorialisées. Au même titre, et en dépit des déprédations des impératifs des affaires et du management - l'université n'est pas encore complètement dénuée de sa capacité de fournir, sous couvert de ses buts traditionnels, un support à la pensée indépendante. Mais en général, dans celle-ci, la capacité productive de la pensée abstraite est asphyxiée par la présomption d'une suffisance disciplinaire, qui est renforcée par les dispositifs de socialisation propre à la correction universitaire. Tandis que dans la culture populaire, un rapport superficiel de pertinence 'provocatrice' requiert l'application nouvelle de théories généralisées à des thèmes populaires, rendant ainsi la pensée tout aussi réactive et inconséquente que ses 'objets'.
Notre propos est que la philosophie reste tout à fait capable de s'échapper de ces attracteurs nuisibles et de récupérer son autonomie, mais que la puissance nécessaire pour cette libération ne sera disponible que si la philosophie maintient des frontières qui ne sont pas étanches aux autres disciplines: l'art, la musique, les sciences, les mathématiques...
Non pas à travers une relation d'application, selon laquelle la philosophie théoriserait des domaines externes en déployant ses ressources historiques, mais plutôt en enrichissant et en développant ceux-là à travers l'analyse et l'interrogation rigoureuse et sélective des ontologies locales et des logiques vernaculaires.
Étant donné que nous opposons également l'appropriation en gros de la pensée abstraite par les pseudo-théorismes postmodernes du thérapeutique, de l'apologie capitaliste, et de la 'science' de la gestion, pourquoi adoptons-nous un trope de l'industrie pour décrire notre activité? Par 'Recherche et développement', nous voulons dire que nous ne croyons pas que la philosophie au présent doit nécessairement se limiter à un statut simplement scholastique et exégétique. La philosophie - en tant qu'enquête sur des matière(s) abstraites - fait valoir sa pertinence et souligne son rapport problématique aux sciences en ayant recours à une expérimentation abstraite-empirique soutenu par des technologies spécifiques. Ainsi, la philosophie conduirait des 'experiences de pensée' matérialisées indépendamment des présuppositions méthodologiques qui circonscrivent les disciplines scientifiques. Même si nous voulons problématiser la nature d'une telle pratique expérimentale, nous ne proposons pas d'ajourner l'expérimentation indéfiniment dans l'attente de soi-disant 'fondements' théoriques, mais plutôt de conduire, en plus de notre travail théorique, des expériences sans parti pris, dont la forme des résultats n'est pas présupposée d'emblée (nous comptons parmi ces expériences la revue COLLAPSE et le projet URBANOMIC lui-même).
En dépit de la nécessité d'une démarche prudente et sobre, cette passion involontaire pour la pensée qu'est la philosophie est toujours délirante pour autant qu'elle fuit à chaque étape les forces qui prescrivent le chemin à prendre - que ce soit au nom de l'histoire ou de la contemporanéité, de l'authenticité personnelle ou institutionnelle, de la passion romantique ou du sévère travail scholastique.
What Readers Say / Ce que les lecteurs disent
Some Responses from Readers of Collapse:
"I'm blown away by it...The space of thought that is shaped by all the eccentric thinkers inside Collapse makes the world seem insane in the most rational way"..."Really refreshing - higher thinking without academic propriety"..."it's hard to imagine a more coherent & more timely set of articles"..."I think the first copy was seized by customs thinking it was a terrorist training manual, but thanks for sending the second, it got through and it was fantastic"..."vital, exciting and connected - No publication has ever been quite so tangential and at the same time so concentratory"..."a marvellous object"..."It harks back to a much earlier age of the printed word"..."Both materially and ideologically, it's a very unique product"..."Très beau !"..."a good nickname for it would be 'The Pocket Necronomicon'"..."haven't been able to put it down all day"..."exquisitely unique"..."I can honestly say that I've not come across a more interesting publication in years"..."For a veritable book-fetishist like me, receiving this in the post was a quasi-religious experience"..."C'est un très bel objet"..."permeated throughout with the aura of the limitless possibilities of literary and conceptual innovation"..."The result could well have been a brain-curdling abomination, but for the most part the contributors are disquietingly lucid"...
Downloads / Téléchargements
[Version Français]
Flyers
A4-size Collapse Volume IV Flyer 1(PDF, 1.2 MB)
A4-size Collapse Volume IV Flyer 2(PDF, 628 KB)
Collapse Volume III Flyer (PDF, 1.5MB)
Collapse Volume III Flyer, French (PDF, 1.5MB)
Collapse 1 & 2 Flyer 2 x A5 Size (PDF, 196kb)
Collapse 1 & 2 Flyer A4 Size (PDF, 196kb)
Collapse 2 Flyer A4 Size (French) (PDF, 375kb)
Previews/Extracts
Robin Mackay - Introduction to Collapse IV (PDF, 344kb)
Robin Mackay - Introduction to Collapse III (PDF, 600kb)
Robin Mackay - Introduction to Collapse II (PDF, 80kb)
Robin Mackay - Introduction to Collapse I (PDF, 57kb)
For Contributors
Collapse Style Guide (PDF, 104kb)
Pub
Collapse IV Affiche A4 Français (1) (PDF, 1.01MB)
Collapse IV Affiche A4 Français (2) (PDF, 628k)
Collapse III Affiche A4 Français (PDF, 1.5MB)
Collapse III Affiche A4 Anglais (PDF, 1.15MB)
Collapse 2 Affiche A4 Français (PDF, 375kb)
Collapse 1 & 2 Affiche 2 x A5 Anglais (PDF, 196kb)
Collapse 1 & 2 Affiche A4 Anglais (PDF, 196kb)
Extraits
Robin Mackay - Introduction à Collapse IV (PDF, 344kb)
Robin Mackay - Introduction à Collapse I (PDF, 57kb)
Robin Mackay - Introduction à Collapse II (PDF, 80kb)
Robin Mackay - Introduction à Collapse III (PDF, 600kb)
Pour les contribuants
Collapse Style Guide (PDF, 104kb)
Links / Liens
Contributors to Collapse:
Number Theory & Physics Archive (M. Watkins)
Roberto Trotta
Gregory Chaitin
Cold Me (Reza Negarestani)
Future of Humanity Institute (Nick Bostrom)
Metastable Equilibrium (K. Tilford)
Haswell & Hecker
Mehrdad Iravanian
Eliminative Culinarism (R. Negarestani)(Review of Collapse#4)
Anaximandrake (T. Duzer)(Review of Collapse#2)
Kristen Alvanson
Thomas Ligotti
Todosch
Other Friends:
Divus / Umelec
re.press
iRes
MONU Magazine on Urbanism
Athenaeum Press
London Consortium
VJ Theory
Journals:
Parrhesia(Review of COLLAPSE)
pli
Identities
Inventory
Ironie
Multitudes
Radical Philosophy
Naked Punch
De Philosophia
Parallax
The Stranger
Blogs:
Philotrope
Deleuze at Greenwich
Goblin Mercantile Exchange
Continental-philosophy.org
Poetix (Review of COLLAPSE#1 and #2)
Infinite Thought (Review of COLLAPSE#1)
Sweet Effay (Review of COLLAPSE#1)
Readings and Thoughts (Review of COLLAPSE#1)
The Weblog (Review of COLLAPSE#1)
Transversality(Reviews [1, 2] of COLLAPSE#1)
Hyperstition (on COLLAPSE)
Je Est Un Autre (on COLLAPSE)
The Accursed Share (on COLLAPSE)
Differences & Repetitions(on COLLAPSE)
ViLT(on COLLAPSE)
Au und fur sich
Notebookeleven
Carceraglio
Daily Humiliation
Fractal Ontology
Contact
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