content to be different
Why should theoretically informed or even philosophical writing be inaccessible? Why should it be unclear? As a journalist and editor, clarity was the most important thing. It was what got readers to buy the paper. When I began teaching I always used to tell my students that if their writing wasn’t clear, chances were it …
Continue reading “The sensual and real objects and qualities… once more with feeling”
Harman’s fourfold structure allows us to understand a number of aspects of objects and their relations which are relevant not just for a comprehensive metaphysics, but also for our understanding of and work with JPEG. He argues that the two poles and their two qualities allows an understanding of time, space, essence and edios as …
Continue reading “The JPEG object in theory… part 5 – tensions”
As I have noted, Harman’s framework of autonomous, actual objects does not preclude the sort of actant networks that Latour talks about, and the sort of techno-social assemblages addressed by software studies. In fact the power of Harman’s quadruple object is that it offers a powerful way of addressing the relations between human and unhuman …
Continue reading “The JPEG object in theory… part 4 – connections”
At the core of Harman’s conception of a unified, autonomous object is actually the idea of two objects: the sensual and the real objects (Harman 2009, p. 190). He looks to bring together Husserl’s framework of intentional objects, the objects present to consciousness with Heidegger’s account of real objects that withdraw from access. Husserl, whom …
Continue reading “The JPEG object in theory… part 3 – the sensual and real JPEG objects”
As I have sought to show in The JPEG Object in The Literature, a view of the digital object built around ideas of relationality, processuality and potentiality has been a pervasive and, in many way, positive theme running through the development of software and critical code studies. This project’s practice and research takes a different …
Continue reading “The JPEG object in theory… part 2 – overmining and undermining”
After a week thinking about JPEG, time to take a protocol turtle for a walk. A walk in the liminal spaces around 2012 imaging the photons that jumped backwards and forwards across the fence, right under the gaze of the security cameras. Using my digital pinhole camera I scooped up the photons and let the …