Tristam V Adams | Goldsmiths, University of London (original) (raw)

Drafts by Tristam V Adams

Draft piece musing over Keith Floyd, Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay - drawing out awk... more Draft piece musing over Keith Floyd, Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay - drawing out awkwardness and laddishness.

Outlining why empathy should not be the go-to solution for political change or social injustice.

Voice and the stone seem to be opposite. Voice stands on the side of all that is vital, fleeting,... more Voice and the stone seem to be opposite. Voice stands on the side of all that is vital, fleeting, precious and spirited. Voice is vital, immaterial, sonic and energetic, whereas stone is dead, material, silent and still. But they share a similarity; it is an ineradicable extimacy, the horror of which shall be explored here.

Piece written as a blog for the ICA website as part of the ICA Friday Salon: 'Sounding Dark' Sept... more Piece written as a blog for the ICA website as part of the ICA Friday Salon: 'Sounding Dark' Sept 9th 2016, curated by ICA Associate Curator - Education, Carey Robinson.

What is it to ‘sound dark’? What is it to ‘sound black’? Such terms highlight the unhelpful assumptions about race at the core of how many talk about voice. These questions also betray a shortcoming of language and a prejudice of audition. To be clear, calling a voice ‘dark’ or ‘black’ makes no categorical sense. Voices cannot be judged in visual terms, yet ways of talking about voice and sound make this categorical slip all the time. This is part of a continuum of ways we project our assumptions about ethnicity, gender, sexuality, texture and appearance into the voice.

Voice is a partial register not just of who we are but how we are. It reflects, in part, our expe... more Voice is a partial register not just of who we are but how we are. It reflects, in part, our experience, our trauma, the environment we live in and how we engage – or are required to engage. The accelerating demands of semiocapitalism that exploit our communicative and cognitive capabilities is reflected in our voices: in syllabic speed.

Books by Tristam V Adams

Vox-Exo: Horrors of a Voice, 2024

This book reframes the Lacanian object a voice as a horrific register of alterity. The object gaz... more This book reframes the Lacanian object a voice as a horrific register of alterity. The object gaze has received, as it does in Jacques Lacan’s work, more commentary than voice. Yet recently voice has garnered interest from multiple disciplines. The book intervenes in the Slovenian school’s commentary of the ‘object voice’ in terms of two questions: audition and corporeality. This intervention synthesizes psychoanalysis with recent theorizing of the horror of philosophy. In this intervention the object a voice is argued to resonate in lacunae – epistemological voids that evoke horror in the subject. Biological and evolutionary perspectives on voice, genre horror film and literature, music videos, close readings of Freudian and Lacanian case studies and textual analysis of ancient philosophy texts all contribute to an elucidation of the horrors of the object a voice: Vox-Exo.

The Repeater Book of the Occult, 2021

Introductory text for Mark Twain's 'Punch, Brothers, Punch'. Exploring Horror, INMI, Earworms, ... more Introductory text for Mark Twain's 'Punch, Brothers, Punch'.

Exploring Horror, INMI, Earworms, Parasites, Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis, Viruses, Contagion, Jingles, Text, Lyrics and Song.

Psychopaths seem to be everywhere. They are on the news and at the movies. People who lack empath... more Psychopaths seem to be everywhere. They are on the news and at the movies. People who lack empathy, be they ruthless entrepreneurs or crazed ‘spree killers’ are frequently labeled psychopathic; the charming socializer is just as suspect as the awkward anti-social loner. The conception of what defines a psychopath seems to be a morass of contradictions, the only consistency being the supposition of a lack of empathy.

The Psychopath Factory: How Capitalism Organizes Empathy examines how the requirements, stimuli, affects and environments of work condition our empathy. In some cases work calls for no empathy – characters who don’t blink or flinch in the face of danger nor crack under pressure. In other cases capitalism requires empathy in spades – charming, friendly, sensitive and listening managers, customer service agents and carers.

When workers are required to either ignore their empathy to do a job, or dial it up to increase productivity, they are entering a psychopathic modality. The affective blitz of work, flickering screens, emotive content, vibrating alerts and sounding alarms erode our sensitivities whilst we are modulated with attention stimulants, social lubricants and so called anti-anxiety drugs. This is amidst a virulent and exacerbating climate of competition and frenzied quantification. Capitalism pressures us to feign empathy and leverage social relationships on one hand, whilst being cold and pragmatic on the other. We are passionate and enthusiastic whilst keeping a professional distance.

Sympathy, care, compassion and altruism are important; The Psychopath Factory: How Capitalism Organizes Empathy argues that it is a mistake to presuppose that empathy can achieve these. Rather than being subject to the late capitalist organization of our empathy, psychopathy could be a means of escape.

Papers by Tristam V Adams

Vox-Exo: Horrors of a Voice reframes the Lacanian object a voice as a horrific register of alteri... more Vox-Exo: Horrors of a Voice reframes the Lacanian object a voice as a horrific register of alterity. The object gaze has received, as it does in Jacques Lacan's work, more commentary than voice. Yet recently voice has garnered interest from multiple disciplines. The thesis intervenes in the Slovenian school's commentary of the 'object voice' in terms of two questions: audition and corporeality. This intervention synthesizes psychoanalysis with recent theorizing of the horror of philosophy. In this intervention the object a voice is argued to resonate in lacunae-epistemological voids that evoke horror in the subject. Biological and evolutionary perspectives on voice, genre horror film and literature, music videos, close readings of Freudian and Lacanian case studies and textual analysis of ancient philosophy texts all contribute to an elucidation of the horrors of the object a voice: Vox-Exo. The impetus to address the body stems from a critical intervention in one of the most recent and cited works on voice in Lacan's work; A Voice and Nothing More, by Mladen Dolar. Dolar's trajectory to pursue the 'object voice' is to move from meaning, to aesthetics, to psychoanalysis. Such a move, the expedited turn to Lacanian psychoanalysis, is recalcitrant to tackling the body. This thesis responds to the book's avidity to omit the body from the question of voice. Vox-Exo: Horrors of a Voice, contra the Slovenian School's credo, rearticulates the object a voice in terms of corporeality and audition. The significance the a, that designates other, autre, stated in Lacan's works, and numerous commentaries such as Jacques-Alain Miller's and Stijn Vanheule's, is impressed. With a sustained consideration of corporeality and audition, the unknowability and alterity of a is demonstrated to be a locus of horror. Object a voice is argued to resonate in lacunae, evoking legion, indefinite, horror-a horror. If it was successfully murdered, why does it recur? Does it not know that it is dead?-Dolar 2 This aside of Eugene Thacker's in In The Dust of this Planet: Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1 is one prompt for this thesis, for in it there is an implicit recognition of the question of voice in terms of horror. Voice, in this sense, can be taken up to announce the horror of the subject: a confrontation with a lacuna, an epistemological-or ontological-crisis. A second spark of this thesis, and the most referenced text within, is Mladen Dolar's A Voice and Nothing More. This small book, which emerged from the Slovenian School in 2006, brought the question of voice attention after gaze had been a focus for so long. In explicating the concept of the object voice Dolar, amongst others, make frequent recourse to a horror vocabulary. These two books have little in common. Firstly, Lacan is not mentioned in Thacker's book, whereas Dolar's book came from the school that re-ignited interest in the flamboyant Frenchman who seated himself-did he knot?-on the throne as heir to Freud. In The Dust of this Planet: Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1 turns to a nihilist philosophy to de-center human experience and its Sisyphean thought. A Voice and Nothing More is a psychoanalytical engagement with voice in relation to the signifier wrapped up in a treatise that explicates what Dolar calls 'the object voice'. This thesis takes up Thacker's opening gambit in the horror of philosophy but utilizes it along the way of staging an intervention. The intervention contests Dolar's posit of 'the object voice'. This text seeks to not only explore the gnomic line of Thacker's to elucidate horrors in voice but crucially departs from Dolar's conceptualization of

Journal of interdisciplinary voice studies, Apr 1, 2018

This article examines how exposure to capitalist environments accelerates speech. Voice is propos... more This article examines how exposure to capitalist environments accelerates speech. Voice is proposed as a partial register of how we are as bodied subjects within affective environments with semiotic and communicative pressures. Voice is a locus of trauma, a sonic scar that sounds out the semiotic pressures of capitalism. Accelerated speech is posited as symptomatic of semiocapitalism. Mirroring, vocal convergence, psychotropic stimulation and exposure to accelerated speech in television and Internet are proposed as key factors that influence our speech rate. The trend of compressing increasing amounts of dialogue into television shows is argued to be a dramatic microcosm of how semiocapitalism conditions us to communicate faster. Finally, manifestations of our speed limit are explored. Vocal stalls or hesitations, the deceleration or pause of the semiotic flows we voice, are posited as symptomatic of the disjunct between the accelerating demands of semiocapitalism and the human cognitive and corporeal limit. The shift from speech to voice is symptomatic of trauma. The human buffering of the vocal fry is the sound of the human, subjected to the accelerating demands of semiocapitalism, reaching its limit.

Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, 2018

Voice reflects corporeal transformation. In horror voice often reflects a change from human to no... more Voice reflects corporeal transformation. In horror voice often reflects a change from human to non-human. It signals shift into the supernatural. We examine a particular moment in Michael Jackson's Thriller video and consider why such a moment is horrifying. We also contextualise the scene as being a precursor for Jackson's future voice and persona.

The normalisation of psychopathy.

Throughout the writing of The Psychopath Factory: How Capitalism Organizes Empathy a certain real... more Throughout the writing of The Psychopath Factory: How Capitalism Organizes Empathy a certain real-life character haunted me. Jimmy Savile. Savile never quite fitted into my scheme of categorization. On one hand, he knew how to behave socially and could manipulate others. But on the other hand, he was not exactly a conformist. Nor was he an extrovert either. He seemed paradoxical, chimerical: at once reclusive and secretive whilst also showing off and craving attention, power and control.

I make a distinction between psychopathy and sociopathy. The two terms are commonly used in an in... more I make a distinction between psychopathy and sociopathy. The two terms are commonly used in an interchangeable way, as if they are one and the same, but in my view there is an important difference. I argue that sociopathy ought to refer to behaviour whereas psychopathy ought to refer to internal psychology. More precisely, sociopathy ought to refer to behaviour that fails to meet our expectations and psychopathy to a psychology that does not align with how we expect others to feel and think.

Talks by Tristam V Adams

Empathy and outrage in a “tungsten-carbide stomach" . An echo-chamber sans space "that eats your ... more Empathy and outrage in a “tungsten-carbide stomach" . An echo-chamber sans space "that eats your words your images, critique, even hate are incorporated”.

http://londoncritical.org/

Presented at SOAS event 'Trading Places? Empathy in Material Culture and Critical Methodologies',... more Presented at SOAS event 'Trading Places? Empathy in Material Culture and Critical Methodologies', Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS).
18-19th June 2018

https://empathysoas.wixsite.com/2018

The dominant form of human-based production in the West is no longer based on physical or land-ba... more The dominant form of human-based production in the West is no longer based on physical or land-based modes of labour – cyberspace is the terrain. We live in an attention economy. Labour, be it cognitive, emotive or both is primarily attention based. Nothing exploits and harvests this post-industrial mode of labour as insidiously and on such a large scale as the oxymoronically titled smart phone and its ‘social’ platforms: Facebook, Twitter etc. These larger-than-state and state supported companies are the contemporary economic reincarnations of the East India Company.

‘Social media’ qua casino. Compulsive gamblers: we increasingly share and check in the trap of diminishing returns for the dopamine-phantom. We spend our attention in this casino, not a glittery neon behemoth squatting in the amber sodium outskirts of town, but a small glowing attention leech. These vampiric networks and devices exploit addiction and the human requirement for ‘social’ interactions (or a cyber-surrogate) – simultaneously monetizing loneliness and relationships. The casino always wins. We are addicted to our exploitation.

Adam Alter cites the Moment App that monitors screen-gaze times. For 8000 users the average daily screen-time was three hours. How much is three hours worth? (£21.60 at UK minimum wage?) Is a service that shares disingenuous holiday snaps, political hot-takes, snide moral one-upmanship and avocado fetishisms worth that? Social media is never about the content; it’s about the user. Just like gambling is not about the money.

It is time to question the glib re-tweets of gesture politics #JeSuisCharlie #ICantBreathe #Westminster #Solidarity, the hot-takes and 60 character put-downs. The academic left’s engagement in passive-aggressive social entrepreneurialism is indiscernible from political action or altruism.

The din of self-promotion veiled as outrage, moral high-ground taking or pithy gesture politics replete with Patreon account linked in profile – is this altruism? Or is the use of the atrocity-hot hashtag the social media user’s jump for a fix? Addiction manifests as selfishness whilst the silicon technocrats get paid.

Withdrawal is the politics of regression, goes the counter argument. Does it not sound like the gambling addict’s refusal to step back from the roulette table? Can withdrawal be weaponised?

Exploring how psychopathy and sociopathy are gendered and culturally conservative concepts. First... more Exploring how psychopathy and sociopathy are gendered and culturally conservative concepts. Firstly through the intrinsic sexism of fictional portrayals and secondly by examining how politicised sciences take the liberties of narrative to engender such 'personality disorders'.

Talk given at Goldsmiths, University of London on 23/03/2017