[Scrap] Control and Accident: Images of Thought in the Age of Cybernetics by Jussi Parikka

Mar 30 2011 8:56 pm
Foot note [5] ; The abstract machine is a diagrammatic plane of piloting that according to Deleuze and Guattari is not a representation of the real, but constructs the real. Yet, it is not an infrastructure nor a transcendental idea (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p.142). It is immanent to its actualizations.


Mar 30 2011 9:06 pm
"(Deleuzian) Control societies as highways : you can drive freely on the highways as much as you like and experience the liberty of it, but still you are continuously following the routes and plans of organization that keep you on the road."


Mar 30 2011 11:15 pm
각주놀이 2 ; ADHD… for Adults not for children

Foot note [4] ;
Perhaps we are approaching the question of why such neural disorders are a crucial issue on the biopolitical agenda. Shannon E. Lowe (2002) has analyzed attention deficit disorders as inherently connected to issues of contemporary culture. According to her, the diagnosis of AD/HD (Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder) as such a key cultural problem is telling of the new ways of conceptualizing the subjectivity and the body of the human. AD/HD is often seen as a lacking capability to focus on tasks that are defined as boring and repetitious. Most often the focus is on children, who are able to stand still and who have something that is referred to as “lack of self-control.” The syndrome is understood as a lack of organization in the patient’s brain, where the “lack” has also been visualized and localized to the right pre-frontal cortex. Lowe analyses this diagnosis of lack and problematization of hyperactivity as a product of the novel machines of subjectification of contemporary culture, which aim not merely to control the body (as in disciplinary societies analyzed by Foucault) but also the mind/brain. Aptly Lowe writes about the externalization of the brain with medicaments. For example, Ritalin is one such medicine that is used to slow down the excessive movement within the brain. In addition, stimulants are used to accelerate the brain.


Mar 30 2011 11:19 pm
각주놀이 3 ; the essence of technology is to break-down: machines are defined “by their failure to fulfill their tasks"

Foot note [13] ;This is furthermore emphasized by Trond Lundemo (2003, p.13) who argues that the essence of technology is to break-down: machines are defined “by their failure to fulfill their tasks.” Time-based media, namely computers and cinema, are haunted by the accident of erasure of information. With computers this is made visible by computer viruses and the effects they impose. In this sense they are the “general accidents”, demonstrating the inherent Turing principle of also modern day computers. In addition, also cinema is an art of breaking-up, not just in the form of film cans decomposing over the years, but by its very essence, demonstrating the technological ontology of accidents we live by. Films are by definition cut-ups, dedecompositions and recompositions: “The movement of the film image is frozen, speeded up, has amendments added to it and departs from the realm of the analogue. The image does not just store and transmit objects, but render things subject to interaction and manipulation at will.” (Ibid., p.26)