Page 86 - META

86
ISSN 2309-0103 www.archidoct.net
Vol. 7 (2) / February 2020
derstandings of life and of our future coexistence with other kinds of materials and intelligences that blur the boundaries between humans, non-humans and technology.
3.2 The otherness
Today’s manifold information and data streams, “the colonisation of everyday life by information processing,” tend to become meaningless, to the point where we are losing ourselves and where manifoldness has begun creating an isolated perception of the world (Greenfield, 2017; 113). In this colonial, Biedermeierish view on technology, people focus on domestic, “panoptic” (Fou- cault, 1976) isolation. Consequently, representations and simulations of things come to replace those things themselfes and active engagement is reduced to clicking a “Like” button (Gordon & Mihailidis, 2016; 38). These constitutive effects of massed media and simulations have created a hyperreality. Therein, we only experience doctored realities such as edited war footage or reality TV, just as the distinction between the “real” and simulations has collapsed.
The concepts of “otherness” (Baudrillard, 1994) or becoming “otherwise other” (Guattari, 2010) discuss the aspect of the“other”— similar to how they describe nature, technology and digitality. The concept of “otherwise”(i.Bid.) or “otherness” (i.Bid.) overcomes the dualism of subject and ob- ject and thus enables the alterity of the non-human or supernatural to appear (Braidotti, 2019). Today’s hyperreality is by no means a new phenomenon. In Ancient Greece, hybrids in form of supernatural creatures were the Gods of Olympus, an eminent example of how the familiar self and otherness were merged into a single complex being. These hybrids combined the savagery of nature with the intelligence of humans, making them powerful allies. Today, “otherness”(i.Bid.) has begun appearing in different forms of digital cyber cultures, avatars, cyborgs, the quantified self, artificial intelligence (AI), where the digital merges with the physical as a constituting effect of technological mediations.
The Renaissance glorified the human conquest and domination of the world. Ever since, human universality has occupied centre stage, as best displayed by paintings or artificial garden concepts (Kristeller, 1990; 108). In following Deleuze`s (2008) thinking, we might instead imagine a world without axes, yet with different sources of intelligence and a multiplicity of centres (Deleuze, 2008). By embracing complexity and the processes occurring between different sources of intel- ligence (organisms), this line of thought creates a void that allows for movement and establishes “an intermediate or transitional place or state” (Jardine, 1984; 46). Trusting in multiple mediating natures — “otherness” (i.Bid.) — brings forth different contextual galaxies, each with different fla- vours, moods, atmospheres or tempers. Objective navigation through data once again becomes possible and makes us digital literates, yet from a personal point of perspective.
3.3 New materialism
In the digital age, with materiality becoming superfluous, materials seem to have lost their rele- vance. “Dematerialized informatization” (Folkers, 2015; 7), i.e., the “ratio” process that ever since Descartes (1641) has placed the rational mind above sensual perception, the body and nature, alienates and abstracts modern humans from materiality. The current material turn, discussed in the heterogeneous discourse of new materialism, is aware of a new material sensitivity and is shifting the focus back to the meaningful role of materiality and the interactive relationships between technology, humans and non-humans, which together form a holistic experience of re- ality. Materials bring information into the social fold, where the constitutive, spatial quality of the
//
Inbetween – A Post-digital Turn – Craftmaking 4.0
Verena Ziegler