Symposium and Workshop: Posthumanism and Worldbuilding
Updated: Aug 1, 2022
FOREIGN OBJEKT POSTHUMAN LAB PRESENTS:
https://www.foreignobjekt.com/posthuman-lab
This symposium is part of Foreign Objekt's Psthuman Lab, which began last year. The Lab includes workshops and study groups taught by David Roden, Francesca Ferrando, and Ray Brassier, along with participation and contributions from many artists and researchers.
Events:
● Workshops and Conversations:
● David Roden
October 10th-- 10 am PST
Webinar Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84400560424
𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬
The philosopher Nelson Goodman makes two controversial philosophical claims. Firstly, Pluriworldism: There is not one true world but many worlds, each answering to different and often conflicting ‘world versions’ (e.g., Newton’s vs Aristotle’s Physics, Phenomenalism (or sense-data theory) vs Realism about middle sized objects of sensory experience, Cezanne vs the World of 19th Century Academic Painting.) Different world versions are true of different worlds, but there is no one shared world according to Pluriworldism. Secondly, Worldmaking: the claim that these worlds are constituted, in some way, by our world-making practices. In this talk, I have two goals. Firstly, to set out both the Pluriworldism and the Worldmaking thesis clearly and systematically. Second to consider whether either is supportable by examining a range of objections leveled against Goodman by authors ranging from Donald Davison to Tim Button. Does the very idea of worldmaking presuppose a world-behind-the-scenes that belongs to no world? Does the production of worlds (world making) presuppose a kind of identity or repetition that is non-world dependent in a way that violates pluriworldism, as I have argued. Can we make sense of comparisons or translations between worlds and world versions without a single common world as a background condition? Is pluriworldism vulnerable to anti-correlationist arguments in the work of speculative realists like Ray Brassier or Quentin Meillassoux? I hope this critical engagement will increase our understanding of Goodman’s epistemology and aesthetics.
●Reading Group and Workshop: "Ways of Worldmaking" by Nelson Goodman (past event)
Webinar Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82974304854
●𝐒𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟏. Reading Group: September 25-- 10 am PST
●𝐒𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟐 Workshop: September 26-- 10 am PST
Instructors for the workshop: Cássia Siqueira and Sepideh
Readings and Chapters:
𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
Main Reading:
“Words, Works, Worlds”. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, Ch. 1
𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐲𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬
Main Reading:
“On Rightness of Rendering”. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, Ch. 7
Goodman_Nelson_Ways_of_Worldmaking_Harvester(3)
.pdf
Download PDF • 15.87MB
𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐛 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤.
𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Text: Cássia Siqueira
What do worlds consist of? In precisely what sense can we make worlds and what kinds of worlds can be made? Where do the motivations which drive the realization of the task of building new worlds arise from? These are some of the problems approached by Nelson Goodman in his most known work 'Ways of Worldmaking'.
In this book, Goodman describes the foundations of what he calls "a radical relativism under rigorous restraints". We can understand this claim as the expression of an attitude towards what we usually call 'the world': conceived here as an untotalizable whole that comprises the multiplicity of worlds and world-versions we make. In other words, Goodman’s irrealist philosophy can be interpreted as a means to map and describe the structure of exogenous and endogenous transformations that occur in our use of the conceptual schemata, frames of reference, and points of view upon which we depend in order to have experience of things. But this is only achieved once we can devise rigorous and systematic ways of assessment to the symbols and symbol systems – whether in art, science, perception, and any field of experience constituted through language – that figure as the very infrastructure of the worlds we make, inherit and inhabit.
In our meetings we will therefore investigate, following Goodman, the intrinsic and constitutive relations between perception, cognition and recognition, and the dynamics established by the coexistent multiplicity of worlds, as well as its central symbolic character.More...
● Artist Presentation/Performance Series and Panels:
Link to join Webinar
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89290316471
October 2nd | 9am - 4pm PST
https://www.foreignobjekt.com/posthuman-lab
𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐣𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐥𝐚: Ants – more than human languages
𝐌𝐚𝐠𝐝𝐚 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐢: The time fragmentation/unification/relativization
𝐌𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐈𝐳𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐞: Hybrid Spiritual Systems: Self-Hacking and Cognitive Alteration.
𝐀𝐧𝐚 𝐑𝐮𝐢𝐳 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚: Sounding the continuum
𝐃. 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐚: Book of Lainika @blue print of reality
𝐑𝐨𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐨 𝐆𝐮𝐭𝐢é𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐳: Agents of Multisensory Experience
𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐠𝐞 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐲: Ritual for the Fluidity of Endurance
𝐒𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐨 𝐑𝐨𝐲: The Creator in the Creation: Fractured Selves in a Liminal Space, Seen Through a Meta-textual Lens of World-building
𝐁𝐮𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐘𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐠𝐚𝐧: Experience as Post-Dualistic World-ing
𝐒𝐦𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐳𝐚𝐫𝐏𝐨𝐮𝐫: Composer and the World
𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨: Sanctum Cyborgia
𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐲 𝐃𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐬: Hybrid Togetherness: Reconnecting With the Living and the Mineral
𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐌𝐮𝐤𝐮𝐧𝐝: -
● Francesca Ferrando
October 9th -- 10 am PST
Webinar Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87298487940
𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠
In the first series of workshops Francesca Ferrando discussed with us, 'The Art of Posthuman Existence', consisting of "The Composite Landscape of the Posthuman", "From the Anthropocene to Human Enhancement", and "Posthuman Healing".
In the upcoming workshop, She is looking into Posthumanism and Worldbuilding.
Francesca will also open up a dialogue around topics such as:
- ethical food
- climate change-aware ways of living
- self-sustainability
- post-consumerism
The workshop participants are welcome to write a short response to these topics.
Symposium and Workshop: Posthumanism and Worldbuilding:
More Details about the program and workshops
The idea of Posthumanism and Worldbuilding has at least three facets:
Renegotiation of our positions with regard to future intelligence, and looking at the critical and ethical concerns of posthumanism and methods of world building.
The ability to make a different world than the one that has already been given to us, and in which we already live.
An understanding of the posthuman location and its function in the context of a broader environment, or world.
Here we are starting with a forensic approach to our world-building: How should we build this world? This is ultimately predicated on the kind of detective work we do in regards to the fabric that surrounds us within the context--it might be scientific, political, or it might be social, etc. But here, for us, the context is simply our world. How can we talk about the world coherently without relapsing back onto the Anthropocentric image?
Here we need models--computational models, mathematical models, etc. However, when we get into scientific theorization we notice that things get messier as we move forward. As we explicate our concepts, we are refining the ways in which we distinguish an aspect of reality. We move toward more fine-grain snapshots of reality, but not only do they get more refined, they actually change their shape.
Our notions by which we organize our perception of reality can also be changed--space and time, forms of intuitions. We can no longer see space and time as psychological, rather we see them in the physical sense, in the history of science or ..., So this project is a kind of reframing of a narrative of what enlightenment is about.
We are starting by looking into the world. How can we do it? Looking into the world is not by any means an easy task.
In the workshop we can go through a series of studies, combined with some writings--optional--but at the same time, this can be in conjunction with the presentation and further development of your personal project, through the lens of world-building.
Ref:
Nelson Goodman: Ways of Worldmaking
Reza Negarestani: Future of Intelligence in the Age of Intellectual Scarcity
Programmer and Organizer:
Sepideh Majidi
.