Assemblage Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Many small island destinations owe their spatial character to their entanglements with stakeholders involved in the arts. Space is the dynamic outcome of complex relational processes, which makes it impossible to identify a... more

Many small island destinations owe their spatial character to their entanglements with stakeholders involved in the arts. Space is the dynamic outcome of complex relational processes, which makes it impossible to identify a straightforward development path — including when it comes to the arts and tourism. Using assemblage thinking, we scrutinize the different translocal processes influencing art-based tourism activities on Bornholm, Denmark and Naoshima, Japan. On these islands, artists, investors, residents, destination managers, creative individuals, and government officials are all involved in networks and negotiations that form complex translocal assemblages of art and tourism. The craft-artists of Bornholm took advantage of regional development policies aimed at fostering rural tourism development, and subsequently established a destination known for quality professional craft-art. On Naoshima, top-down corporate investments in large-scale art developments have clashed with lo...

This paper draws on school-based ethnographic research in two elementary schools (South Wales, UK and north Finland) to explore the ‘ordinary affects’ (Stewart 2009) of gendered/sexual power in young children's (age 5-6) negotiation of... more

This paper draws on school-based ethnographic research in two elementary schools (South Wales, UK and north Finland) to explore the ‘ordinary affects’ (Stewart 2009) of gendered/sexual power in young children's (age 5-6) negotiation of their own and others’ bodies in playground and classroom spaces. We apply queer and feminist appropriations of Deleuze and Guattari’s key concepts of ‘assemblage’, ‘becomings’ and ‘territorialisations’, not to pin down what a kiss is, but to explore the kiss as always more than itself, and thus what (else) a kiss can do. To explore the affective journey of the kiss as an always-relational social-material event, we sketch a range of kissing assemblages across four vignettes – ‘the kissing hut’, ‘the classroom kiss’, ‘the kissing line’ and ‘the dinosaur kiss’ – mapping the enabling/restriction of a range of gendered and sexual becomings. Each vignette foregrounds the complex, contradictory nature of children’s gendered and sexual cultures which we argue are vital to map in a socio-political terrain where discourses of denial, silence and (over)protection dominate accounts of how young children are doing, being and becoming ‘sexual’.

This essay "Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism" explores the relationship between postmodern architecture in the United States and the politics of the Reagan era. It argues that although... more

This essay "Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism" explores the relationship between postmodern architecture in the United States and the politics of the Reagan era. It argues that although historicist postmodern and deconstructivist architecture are formally distinct and purport to embody distinctly different values, these two tendencies share an abjuration of social and political issues in their assumption that form remains a critical or affirmative tool independent of social and economic processes.

At the dawn of the third decade of the 21st century we face unprecedented ecological, social, technological, and educational challenges. These demand as ever the theoretical and practical tools to help us collectively think, feel, and... more

At the dawn of the third decade of the 21st century we face unprecedented ecological, social, technological, and educational challenges. These demand as ever the theoretical and practical tools to help us collectively think, feel, and enact an evolving critical pedagogy for survival (Kincheloe, 2012). This chapter introduces Deleuze and Guattari as key figures in a (as yet?) becoming critical pedagogy and explores what useful refrains are emitted by bumping the record of critical pedagogy with a deleuzeguattarian elbow. By plugging into the ontological coordinates of their philosophy we are reintroduced to the world that we thought we knew: as one that is strange, relational, complex, and brimming with possibilities. Their concepts of difference were forged in the course of confronting multiple adversaries: including fascism, Capitalism, and inherited images of thought that limit our individual and collective capacities to become otherwise. These concepts invite us to tend to the multiple dimensions (material, nonmaterial: linguistic, affective etc.) of contemporary challenges and push us to reconsider Freirian notions of human becoming and critical consciousness within this complexity. Deleuze and Guattari invite us to experiment with what it feels and looks like to become otherwise to the current plateau of Capitalism, and to discover through practice what it is that one (a person, school, community, movement, species, planet) is capable of.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526486455.n23

This succinct book articulates a clear framework for remixing and drawing at intermediate and advanced levels. It begins by walking through the ideas of copyright and fair use, providing context, examples, and advice. Mueller directs... more

This paper introduces Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming in a system theoretic framework and proposes an alternative ontological foundation to the study of systems and complex systems in particular. A brief critique of systems theory and... more

This paper introduces Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming in a system theoretic framework and proposes an alternative ontological foundation to the study of systems and complex systems in particular. A brief critique of systems theory and the difficulties apparent in it is proposed as an introduction to the discussion. Following is an overview aimed at providing access to the ‘big picture’ of Deleuze’s revolutionary philosophical system with emphasis on a system theoretic approach and terminology. The major concepts of Deleuze’s ontology—difference, virtuality, multiplicity, assemblages, quasi-causation, becoming (individuation), intensity and progressive determination are introduced and discussed. Deleuze’s work is a radical departure from the dogma of western philosophy that guides the foundations of science and systems theory. It replaces identity with difference and being with becoming; in other words, it provides systems theory with an ontological ground based on change, heterogeneity and the inexhaustible novelty-producing process that underlies all phenomena. The conceptual tools made available by this philosophy seem to capture the fundamental aspects of complexity and complex systems much better than the current conceptual system that is based on static transcendent ontological entities.

In this theoretical paper, the author provides a critical review of the Actor-Network Theory concept, while considering the relative under-utilization of Actor-Network Theory in education studies, tracing possible ways in which this... more

In this theoretical paper, the author provides a critical review of the Actor-Network Theory concept, while considering the relative under-utilization of Actor-Network Theory in education studies, tracing possible ways in which this theory can contribute as an analytical framework through its strands of 'actor-network', 'symmetry', 'translation', and their constituents-thus facilitating its international growth. Two concepts this paper gives prominence to are networks and power relations. The author challenges the widespread conception of the 'network' metaphor propagated by globalization discourses, contrasting it in turn with the network conception in Actor-Network Theory, where the main premise is multiplicity. The author explores Actor-Network Theory as a theory of the mechanics of power, concerning itself with the establishment of hegemony. This paper is especially aimed at those researchers of education reform who are as yet unfamiliar with Actor-Network Theory and somewhat sceptical of socio-material approaches, in order for them to realize its unrivalled potential contribution to their work.

Burri’s paintings, with their emphasis upon process, exhibit the effects actions and time have upon matter –the wear and tear of burlap sacks, further stressed in areas by the artist and conspicuously repaired, integrated into the plane... more

Burri’s paintings, with their emphasis upon process, exhibit the effects actions and time have upon matter –the wear and tear of burlap sacks, further stressed in areas by the artist and conspicuously repaired, integrated into the plane in one series of pictures, or the accelerated craquelure of paint in another. Burri embraces the reality -or materiality- of matter, out of which he builds up a painting.

'Out of Order: The Collages of Louise Nevelson' is the first comprehensive study dedicated exclusively to Louise Nevelson’s work in collage. The book, published as a collaboration between Fondazione Marconi and Mousse Publishing, takes as... more

'Out of Order: The Collages of Louise Nevelson' is the first comprehensive study dedicated exclusively to Louise Nevelson’s work in collage. The book, published as a collaboration between Fondazione Marconi and Mousse Publishing, takes as its point of departure a close material and technical examination of this body of work, before setting out to position the role of collage in the artist’s practice more broadly. The book consists of two main essays: the first by curator and art historian Yuval Etgar, who divides Nevelson’s output in collage into six main categories, linking these to parallel tendencies in collage during the 1950s and 1960s as well as to earlier examples in the history of this practice. The second essay, by technical art historian Pia Gottschaller, delves into Nevelson’s complex process of selecting object materials for her collages, and analyses her methods of working and treating these materials. The book includes more than 250 colour plates of collages by Nevelson from various collections worldwide.

Die Puppe findet sich im Werk der Künstlerin Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) als Objet trouvé bis in die 1980er-Jahre und wird hier erstmals untersucht-auch in Abgrenzung zur bekannten ‚Nana'-Figur. Anders als in den Großprojekten und... more

Die Puppe findet sich im Werk der Künstlerin Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) als Objet trouvé bis in die 1980er-Jahre und wird hier erstmals untersucht-auch in Abgrenzung zur bekannten ‚Nana'-Figur. Anders als in den Großprojekten und den großformatigen Arbeiten, in denen sie zum Teil verarbeitet wurde, wird die Puppe zu einem Diminutiv der Idee von Kindheit und Kind-Sein und zu einem Attribut der kritisch bewerteten Rolle der Frau. Die Puppe ist hier weder ein sich perpetuierendes Bildkürzel noch Teil einer eigenen künstlerischen Bildsprache, sondern erweist sich als ein Werkstoff, der in diesem ganzen Sprachsystem (Pierre Restany) des Werkes als ein plastisches Addendum fungiert. Zusammen mit anderen Objekten offenbart die auf den Werkflächen arrangierte Puppe eine private ebenso wie politische Lesart im Kontext ihrer Zeit. Dieser Artikel ist eine erweiterte Fassung des in "de:do-denkste: puppe. Multidisziplinäre Zeitschrift für Mensch-Puppen-Diskurs. Ausgabe 1/2019: Puppen als Miniaturen – mehr als klein“ (Hg. Insa Fooken, Jana Mikota, Philipp Schmerheim, vgl. https://denkste-puppe.info/ausgaben/) unter dem Titel „Zwischen Miniatur und Monumentalität: Grundlegendes zur Puppe und ihrer Bedeutung im Spannungsfeld von Material, Statement und Aktion im Werk von Niki de Saint Phalle“ erschienenen Aufsatzes.

El presente texto parte del principio collage como iniciador de una revuelta representacional e institucional en el arte de la que el assemblage forma parte. Con ello se pretende profundizar en la teorización de las revistas ensambladas... more

El presente texto parte del principio collage como iniciador de una revuelta representacional e institucional en el arte de la que el assemblage forma parte. Con ello se pretende profundizar en la teorización de las revistas ensambladas como medio de expresión, donde la experimentación artística por medio de la edición se formaliza a través del ensamblaje como estrategia que le otorga sentido. De este modo, llegar a vislumbrar no sólo la determinación del ensamblar como lógica y modus operandi idóneo para la concreción de estas publicaciones periódicas, sino también para la cimentación de sus tácticas de democratización artística en su crear colaborativo.

In short, this essay does for the concept of the assemblage what Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben did for Foucault in their essays on the dispositif: it extracts from a large body of work the core formal features of its operative methodology... more

In short, this essay does for the concept of the assemblage what Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben did for Foucault in their essays on the dispositif: it extracts from a large body of work the core formal features of its operative methodology or logic.

Taking as a starting point the disruption of illusion in art after 1960, this dissertation discusses the transition of action and meaning from the illusory pictorial space, which is the space of solid meanings and representations, to the... more

Taking as a starting point the disruption of illusion in art after 1960, this dissertation discusses the transition of action and meaning from the illusory pictorial space, which is the space of solid meanings and representations, to the real physical and social space. This spatioplastic dialectic informs both the generation of objects, either works of art or everyday products, and also the conditions of spatial production and experience. From the non-representational expression of
early-conceptual art to the augmented-space environments and relational practices after the 1990's, space becomes the center of reference, interaction and recognition of productive meanings.The basic hypothesis involves the idea of a generalized field for theory and
intervention, concepts and materials, objects and social processes. The configuration of objects and the production of space lie beyond conventional materiality and concrete programs and identities. The form and meaning of contemporary objects and spaces is related to a new
negotiation: the alteration between local and global, identity and «generic». As the perception of space changes, from static it tends to include networks of physical places and their immaterial
links, its description involves the expansion of the scope: from the limits of a particular context to a changing network of contexts. Contemporary spatial experience is associated with the reinvention of a new narrative composed through processes of identification and rendering
meaning in relation to an original event. Conversely, designing forms, objects and spaces becomes the organized handling of associations, inter-subjective events, individual and collective experiences, through the strategic parameterization of the physical and interactive
features of products

This chapter engages critically with some emerging issues of mapping through an analysis of the Aadhar identification programme in India. This programme of biometric mapping, increasingly prevalent in governance systems across the world,... more

This chapter engages critically with some emerging issues of mapping through an analysis of the Aadhar identification programme in India. This programme of biometric mapping, increasingly prevalent in governance systems across the world, raises fundamental questions about what is at stake for the body of the human and the body of the nation in these developments. The Aadhar Programme, run under the auspices of the Unique Identification Authority of India, frames a techno-political set of ‘terms and conditions’, transforming traditional ideas of politics and citizenship. These are discussed in terms of four conceptual framings that seek to draw out the intended and unintended dynamics of the regime and the speculative alternatives inherent to it: triage, providing mapping with an indefinite ground of extension; the glitch, providing a more distributed and contingent framing for the intensification of the regime; the platform, the interface between regime and population; and finally, subtraction, a speculative call for imagining possibilities otherwise, already mapped by the Aadhar project.

I explore links between the phenomenology-inspired philosophy of emotion, especially discussions of affective intentionality and situated affectivity, and those strands of work in the field cultural affect studies that take their... more

I explore links between the phenomenology-inspired philosophy of emotion, especially discussions of affective intentionality and situated affectivity, and those strands of work in the field cultural affect studies that take their inspiration from Spinoza and Deleuze. As bridges between these fields I propose the concepts 'disclosive posture' and 'affective arrangement'. 'Disclosive posture' condenses insights from phenomenological work on affectivity, especially those pertaining to what Heidegger calls Befindlichkeit. 'Affective arrangement' is a descendant of Deleuze and Guattari's term agencement. It refers to heterogeneous ensembles of elements coalescing into a sphere of heightened affective intensity in a local setting. I develop this notion into a tool for analyzing situated affectivity. As it does not yet figure within debates in the philosophy of emotion, I will outline what is meant by 'affective arrangement' in some detail. Throughout, I discuss a productive tension between these two conceptual strands.

Laos has long been recognized as a country with a high level of ethnic diversity. At present, the government of Laos recognizes 49 ethnic groups and over 160 sub-groups. Over the last couple of decades the modern concept of “indigenous... more

Laos has long been recognized as a country with a high level of ethnic diversity. At present, the government of Laos recognizes 49 ethnic groups and over 160 sub-groups. Over the last couple of decades the modern concept of “indigenous peoples” has been introduced in Laos, albeit unevenly, partially, and in a quite limited way. The three broadly defined groups that have played important roles in variously promoting the concept of indigenous peoples (xon phao pheun meuang) in Laos are non-governmental organizations (NGOs), multilateral banks (the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank), and United Nations organizations. In this article I employ the analytic of translocal assemblages to examine the ways that the concept of indigeneity is circulating in Laos, and drawing on international and local influences. I briefly examine two issues frequently linked to the indigenous politics: communal land titling and bilingual education, and assess the extent to which new indigenous identities are being adopted in Laos. I present an example of how a Hmong group in the USA with links to Laos is constructing translocal assemblages through an indigenous peoples framework in order to resist the government in Laos. Unlike some other countries in Southeast Asia, which have increasingly embraced the concept, the government of Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has not, preferring instead to acknowledge ethnic diversity, but within a framework that recognizes all ethnic groups as equal.

In this paper we propose the conceptual framework of the assemblage of practice as an effective middle-range heuristic tool that bridges deep theory and the data available to archaeologists. Our framework foregrounds vibrant things as... more

In this paper we propose the conceptual framework of the assemblage of practice as an effective middle-range heuristic tool that bridges deep theory and the data available to archaeologists. Our framework foregrounds vibrant things as opposed to static objects, and sympathetically articulates the current concepts of entanglement, correspondence and assemblage.To us an assemblage of practice is a dynamic gathering of corresponding things entangled through situated daily and eventful human practice. Once reassembled by comprehensively and critically marshalling all the evidentiary lines available to archaeologists today, the assemblage of practice becomes a powerful analytical tool that illuminates changes, continuities and transformations in human-thing entanglements, and not only their impacts on local and short-term sociocul-tural developments, but also their repercussions on phenomena of much larger spatiotemporal scale. Our goal is to present archaeologists with a pluralistic, integrative and evolving middle-range framework that pays close attention to terminological precision and theoretical clarity and is conceptually accessible and widely applicable.

Assemblage approaches are increasingly being used to understand new socio-natural formations arising in relation to the multiple crises of capitalism, climate change and environmental degradation. The valuation of nature is key to these... more

Assemblage approaches are increasingly being used to understand new socio-natural formations arising in relation to the multiple crises of capitalism, climate change and environmental degradation. The valuation of nature is key to these new formations, which the creation of new 'valued entities', through calculative practices, that can be accounted for, costed and circulated in monetised and financialised forms in order to ostensibly 'fix' certain environmental outcomes in relation to contemporary global crisis. This paper uses an assemblage approach in relation to the global' transnational project of carbon forestry offsetting and REDD+ in a particular place, Uganda, arguing that it has utility in this respect. While Uganda has been named by Lang and Byakola (2005) as a 'funny place to store carbon' due to its contested land politics and history of violence its weak governance context paradoxically re-enforces the imperative for intervention. The paper argues that carbon forestry assemblages are inherently ephemeral and fundamentally contested in three ways: exhibiting a speculative virtuality, faltering materiality and disputed territoriality. Such analysis has the ability to go beyond technical and managerial, or solely pollical economic critiques of carbon forestry, to point at openings for alternatives.

In this article, I apply an analysis of affects to results from my fieldwork of companies working in Algorithmic Trading and High-Frequency Trading (HFT), also known as “automated trading”. In order to delineate the affective specificity... more

In this article, I apply an analysis of affects to results from my fieldwork of companies working in Algorithmic Trading and High-Frequency Trading (HFT), also known as “automated trading”. In order to delineate the affective specificity and singularity of the socio-technical ecology (affectif) in algorithmic finance, I use affect analysis to capture the multidimensional nature of human-machine relations. A historical comparison with previous affective relations in financial markets, such as attraction to the stock market ticker and syntheses with screens in manual trading, renders visible multiplied and intensified complex multi-frequential bonds – material, electrical, visual, acoustic, cognitive and bodily – between humans and machines. This is somewhat counterintuitive, because it means that automation in fact intensifies complex human-machine relations. Moreover, it is the intensity of these affective relations that underpins the coherence of HFT socio-technical systems. In order to account for the distinctiveness of affective relations in algorithmic finance I suggest the concept of affective symbiosis.
In the following section, I will give a short introduction to automated trading. This introduction will be of a rather general nature and focus selectively on those aspects that are relevant for the topic of this book chapter.

Matthew Leibowitz (1918 - 1974) was a modernist graphic designer and painter based in Philadelphia.

This paper analyzes the distinction between Western and post-socialist biological citizenship, formulated by Rose and Novas in terms of “active” versus “passive” biological citizenship projects, in order to propose a refinement of the... more

This paper analyzes the distinction between Western and post-socialist biological citizenship, formulated by Rose and Novas in terms of “active” versus “passive” biological citizenship projects, in order to propose a refinement of the conceptualization of biological citizenship as a global assemblage.

Ecological ensembles and assemblages-a reply to Monge-Nájera. Critical evaluation of terminology use in ecology is important to avoid using jargon that helps little to facilitate communication. Here we reply to Monge-Najera's comment on... more

Ecological ensembles and assemblages-a reply to Monge-Nájera. Critical evaluation of terminology use in ecology is important to avoid using jargon that helps little to facilitate communication. Here we reply to Monge-Najera's comment on the use of the terms ensemble and assemblage, we argue for the use of the words ensamble and ensamblaje in Spanish. In addition, both terms have a proper place in ecology and we provide a case for their use in proper ecological context. Rev. Biol. Trop. 64 (2): 817-819. Epub 2016 June 01.

Most major stakeholders in Jordan are of the view that irrigated agriculture in the highlands in not sustainable. What is less well known is how the highland agriculture is intertwined with the nature of the Jordanian state and its... more

Most major stakeholders in Jordan are of the view that irrigated agriculture in the highlands in not sustainable. What is less well known is how the highland agriculture is intertwined with the nature of the Jordanian state and its territorializing impulses. We argue that Jordanian state's placation of the elites by condoning their illegal water extraction and use practices, is an enterprise in hydro-social territorialisation in a topographical register. But territory is not just topography, and the vast assemblages of human and non-human actors, e.g., international donors, markets, urban water users, along with water and energy infrastructure, also spawn a topological territory, where networks of power bridge the gaps between here and there, and make distant relationships, beyond the presumed sovereign boundaries, urgently present in local waterscapes. The topological register of Jordanian territorialisation through water, is quite resentfully experienced and noted by the smaller Jordanian farmers. The regional geopolitics and state's territorial impulses intersect with water and land use practices to produce the deeply fissured politics of, and through water in Jordan.

In playing videogames, players often create avatars as extensions of agency into those spaces, where the player-avatar relationship (PAR) both shapes gameplay and is the product of gameplay experiences. Avatars are generally understood as... more

In playing videogames, players often create avatars as extensions of agency into those spaces, where the player-avatar relationship (PAR) both shapes gameplay and is the product of gameplay experiences. Avatars are generally understood as singular bodies; however, we argue they are functional and phenomenological assemblages-networks of social and technological components that are internalized by players as networks of knowledge about the avatar. Different PARs are based on different internalizations (i.e., mental models) for what an avatar is and why it matters. Toward illuminating nuances in PARs, we examine the content and structure of players' internalizations of avatars as evidenced by descriptions of those digital bodies. Secondary analysis of N = 1,201 avatar descriptions parceled them by PAR type (avatars as asocial Objects, psychologically merged extensions of Me, hybrid me/other Symbiotes, and authentically social Other). Aggregated descriptions for each PAR type were subjected to semantic network analysis to identify patterns in salient avatar components, and then qualitatively compared across the four PARs. Results indicate component clusters that are universal to PARs (demographics and body features), common to three of four PARs (time, appearance, clothing, and player agency), and idiosyncratic to specific PARs (significance, character narratives, game dynamics, liminality, and gratifications). Findings signal the importance of theoretically engaging avatars as assemblages both (a) influenced by player-avatar sociality and (b) that contribute (in part and whole) to antecedents, processes, and effects of gameplay.

The study aims to understand how assemblage and humour come to be created, circulated and perceived in the age of the social media; in doing so, it specifically looks at poster art as a form of assemblage and humour and undertakes a case... more

The study aims to understand how assemblage and humour come to be created, circulated and perceived in the age of the social media; in doing so, it specifically looks at poster art as a form of assemblage and humour and undertakes a case study of a set of Bhojpuri posters of Hollywood productions titled 'Bhaujiwood Posters'.

Building on Deleuze and Guattari's assemblage theories, this paper offers an ethnography of work focused on a professional ice hockey team in Finland, where hockey is the leading sport in terms of popularity and economic investment. It is... more

Building on Deleuze and Guattari's assemblage theories, this paper offers an ethnography of work focused on a professional ice hockey team in Finland, where hockey is the leading sport in terms of popularity and economic investment. It is an analysis of the everyday investments in developing individual players' skills and in building teams capable of high levels of cooperation under conditions of unpredictability. By looking at team formation as an emergent set of practices, materialities, discourses, and affects, we are better able to account for how corporations of this kind mitigate the deterritorializing effects of player mobility through processes of reterritorialization. As such, the analysis offers insights into modalities of value creation in a corporate model that relies not only on the constant improvement of worker performance in ways that can be easily measured but also on intangible facets of worker collaboration that manifest as collective desire.

La exhibición Basura, del artista Nick Quijano, abrió sus puertas en el Museo de Las Américas, San Juan, el 6 de diciembre de 2012. Esta contiene más de cien obras, entre ellas ensamblaje, instalación, pintura y fotografía realizadas a lo... more

La exhibición Basura, del artista Nick Quijano, abrió sus puertas en el Museo de Las Américas, San Juan, el 6 de diciembre de 2012. Esta contiene más de cien obras, entre ellas ensamblaje, instalación, pintura y fotografía realizadas a lo largo de tres décadas de la carrera del artista, en su mayoría utilizando desperdicios encontrados en la Playa Cascajo de La Perla.
Abstract: Basura [Trash], an exhibition by artist Nick Quijano, opened doors in The Museo de Las Américas (Museum of The Americas), San Juan, on December 6, 2012. Basura shows more than one hundred artworks, including assemblage, painting and photography, made over three decades of the artist's career, using, in most cases, waste material found in Cascajo Beach, in La Perla.