Costelloe-KuehnMemo44

=Memo 44: Figuring Oneself= This memo should return you to reflection on your own positioning, habits, biases, and talents. Complete a "Mapping Subject Positions" template (also used for Memo 22) for yourself, as researcher, and ask again the questions raised in Memo 2 (see above).

**Memo2: Habits, Neuroses, Talents**
Questions drawn from essays by Evelyn Fox Keller and Roman Jakobson (Jakobson, Roman. 1956.“Two aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances.’” Fundamentals of Language edited by R. Jakobson and M. Halle. The Hague, Switzerland: Mouton.; Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1985. “Dynamic Objectivity: Love, Power and Knowledge,” p115-126. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven: Yale, 1985.):

• Do you have more trouble articulating your frame (social theoretical questions) or object?
 * I think I have more trouble with my object. I have a fairly good idea of what it is, but //naming// it has proven very difficult. It's some kind of "Other" media, but is it alternative? independent? tactical? progressive? community-based? experimental? activist? (and then there are all of D&G's terms that compel me: minor? nomad? rhizomatic? smooth? eccentric?). And it's not just "media" (the object); it's the forms of collectivity, the communities of practice, both the process and the product, the way it is intended to function and the way it is "actually" read but diverse audiences, the challenges of interdisciplinarity, etc. etc.
 * I have no trouble proliferating articulations of my frame (social theoretical questions), but I do have trouble containing this proliferation in advance, or even prioritizing them sometimes.

• Do you tend to project-hop or to stick to a project, and what explains this?
 * I think I hop around a great deal within a "single," very large, project. Everything I have "focused on" thus far (articulating "diversity" and "participation" at community media centers, the political implications of bio art, the scale-ability and design philosophy of permaculture (beyond financially rich countries and beyond agriculture), the "empowerment" of female turntablists, using sci-fi as a pedagogical tool for teaching "critical technoscientific literacy," etc.) touches on power and reistance, marginality and empowerment, and (re-)negotiating dominant discourses... though in very different ways.
 * Ok, so i project-hop. It's not that I get bored with a "single" project, I just always want to make connections to other projects and I have seen the past few years as a fantastic opportunity to immerse myself a bit in many different areas which all inform each other. At my current stage, I see the "commitment" to a single "object" of study as both constraining and enabling. By focusing in some ways, I have the freedom to be expansive, as long as it is tangentially related to my "object." Making these "stretch" connections takes creativity, which will be fun.
 * (The "what explains this" part of the question is hard....... mapping catalysts and corrosions below will be a challenge....)

• Do you tend to be more interested in internal dynamics, or external determinations? In the terms laid out by Keller, do you tend to focus so intently on the object of your concern that context falls away (i.e. are you obsessive compulsive, rather than paranoid)? Is your desire is to name, specify and control your object? Is your desire is for figure, its ground your annoyance? Or are you paranoid, context being your focus and obsession? All is signal. Only begrudgingly will you admit that something is noise, outside the scope of your project? Figure is hard to come by. Its ground has captured your attention.
 * I can't say whether I'm more interested in internal dynamics or external determinations. I am interested in the way they shape each other. And why not internal determinations and external dynamics? Does "internal" mean closer to "micro" scale phenomena and does "external" mean closer to "macro?"
 * In Keller's terms, I am only slightly obsessive compulsive and probably massively paranoid.
 * If this is more about figure/ground, object/context, then I am perhaps more interested, when I read, about the ground-context. In other words I am frustrated by hearing "case-studies" that don't connect up to "god questions." At the same time, I do find "armchair" philosophy that seems removed from "on-the-ground" action and the current historical moment equally annoying.
 * But if I like reading about "big" questions (what should democracy look like? what collective strategies can prevent/reduce the State in socially desirable ways?, etc.) I also love to listen intently to local situations for fodder with which to push back against big theories.
 * I am generally more interested in possibilities than actualities, though I think fine-grained attention to actualities is necessary to see specific and possible potential futures.

• What do you do with unusual or counter examples? Are you drawn to “the deviant,” or rather repulsed by it?
 * I'm fascinated by unusual and counter-examples. If there's a "joke" I don't get, I know that's a good place to look for surprises. Though I certainly have my cherished notions, I am always interested in ways they do not hold. I also try to open myself up to the "good" in what I see as "bad." How can specific elements be deterritorialized for my purposes? Also, if "my purposes" are static, I'm probably not learning much.

• Do you tend to over-impose logics on the world, or to resist the construction of coherent narratives?
 * I do sometimes over-impose logics on the world: i.e. capitalism is evil. the State is repressive. difference is great.
 * But I also try to resist coherent narratives, possibly to a fault? It depends on what you mean by coherent. It's important to speak "articulately." But also to open windows to new articulations. I like lots of loose ends, because they can be plugged into other assemblages. But as a researcher and writer, I also see the value of saving some loose ends for future projects if they are just too loose.

• Do you tend to over-generalize, or to hold back from overarching argument?
 * I'm not sure of the difference from the above question. I probably tend to hold back from overarching argument, in favor of holding together multiple possibly conflicting arguments, that are all pointing towards "figuring out" some God question in some way... even if that question is as big as "how does the world (not) work?"

• Do you like to read interpretations different than your own, or do you tend to feel scooped or intimidated by them?
 * I love to read different interpretations. I don't think I feel "scooped" much, but I am certainly intimidated. Becoming a scholar involves the constant anxiety that I am not reading enough, that if I just read one more piece of difficult theory I'll "get it," that I'll be able to "hold my own" with whoever I am intimidated with... But I find solace in the idea that I am learning "recursively." Going over different interpretations is a process of slowly sedimenting - and disrupting the sedimentization - of my own world-view, knowledge-base, and ethical standpoint.

• Do you tend to change an argument as you flesh it out, or do you tend to make the argument work, no matter what?
 * Change. Although I have to admit that at times, when a paper is due in a few hours, I'll leave out counter-examples for the sake of simplicity and "coherence" in my narrative. This question, and my response, makes me think about the double-bind faced by Michael Ruse when he testified about the evolution vs. creationism in schools debate. He decided to "simplify" (lie? or partial truth?) for "political" reasons.

• Do you tend to think in terms of “this is kind of like” (metaphorically)? Do you hold to examples that “say it all,” leveraging metonymic thinking?
 * I think in terms of "this is kind of like" alllllll the time. I tend to be far more interested in texts that inspire thought-connections to other texts than ones that don't. That said, my favorite texts connect with themselves in many different implicit ways.

• Do you like gaming understanding in this way? Does it frustrate you that your answers often don’t fit easily on either side of the binaries set up by the questions? (Jakobson suggests that over attachment to a simple binary scheme is a “continuity disorder.”)
 * Blowing up binaries is fun and productive. Getting to play the role of the "undecidable" is a blast, although I hadn't thought in these terms until reaching this question, but I get to be like "//Indra, the warrior god, [who] is in opposition to Varuna no less than to Mitra//. He can no more be reduced to one or the other than he can constitute a third of their kind. Rather, he is like a pure and immeasurable multiplicity, the pack, an irruption of the ephemeral and the power of metamorphosis... He brings a //furor// to bear against sovereignty, a celerity against gravity..." (D&G, 1G Plateaus). What kind of psychosis (neurosis) is it when you actually believe you are (like) Indra?!?!?!

= =

mapping subject positions:
Catalysts are what drives subjects to say what they say. Corrosions are forces that keep statements from legitimacy and material realization.


 * catalysts || statements || corrosions ||
 * in relation to the groups i'll be working with in india i am both an insider and outsider. i'm an insider partially because i share many of the same goals and aspirations for alternative futures. to the extent that i see my "critique" as productively contributing to a shared, collaborative project, i think i'm o.k. with it. as talal asad writes, all good critique is "internal" critique. || "this group in India is doing X 'wrong'" (or "right") || i'm an outsider because i'm not from India and have spent little time there, in some ways i'm more of an "academic" than an "artist" (although many of my "informants" may also be academics). i don't want to go around passing judgement on what counts as "good" or "experimental" media. i'd rather collect statements from others on what they think these terms mean and how they put it into practice. ||
 * hopefully i'll be able to bring a certain expertise to the table, namely my knowledge about how the politics of information circulation, especially in environmental arenas. but i think mostly this project will be a big learning process and i'll go in with all of my preconceptions as "open" as possible to refutation or improvement in light of what i see going on. || this group in the U.S. is doing X wrong or right || as a "participant-observer" in/of art collectives in the U.S., i'll still be an outsider in many ways. my goal is not to "pass judgment" on communities that i am not really a part of. at the same time i do want to have "policy recommendatoins" of some nature... i'm intrigued by foucault's conceptualization of providing "tools," and not "answers" to people in movements. ||