Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Multiple realities; Philosophising with Deleuze and Latour

Deleuze (1993) suggests origami as a model for the sciences of matter.

"Microperceptions or representatives of the world are those little folds that unravel in every direction, folds in folds, over folds, following folds… and these are minute, obscure, confused perceptions that make up our macroperceptions. " (p.86).

A humbling perceptual (re)alteration to my thinking occurs; Sherry Turkle's current views of texting are not so much wrong, as caught in a fold, and I in a different one. I might as well be in a different universe, our realities being worlds apart, our worlds being folded differently.

Subjectivity might then be understood as a topology of the folds.

Deleuze's concept of the fold not only allows me to think creatively about the production of subjectivity, but also about the possibilities for, and production of, ‘non-human’ forms of ‘subjectivity’.

An approach also seen within Latour's actor-network theory. In the ANT literature this is also to be taken as more than a perceptual consideration, it is the reality acted upon, and realities are multiple.

The mobile phone, the young person using it, myself as researcher, the counsellors providing a texting service, the ips providers... all facets of the same cloth, variable seen, variably made visible, variably acted on.

Ref
Deleuze, G. (1993). The fold: Liebniz and the baroque (T. Conley, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

An exercise in world making; ontological politics at play :)

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