Although largely discredited in biology, the idea that "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" has been re-used in other areas; for example, in art criticism it has been reformulated by Richard Taruskin as "ontogeny recapitulates ontology." Roughly speaking, this suggests that contextual effects can change the "meaning" of a work.
What I'm interested in here is the micro-developmental version of the phatic (and especially φωτιά-centric) history from Vitruvius. Sloterdijk is certainly interested in micro-development and most of Spheres I is focused on this topic. However, he looks primarily at prenatal life, whereas I think there is an interesting parallel to be found in Winnicott's perspectives on early childhood.
(Also, entirely as an aside, it also occurs to me when writing the above that photo- is part of the phatic complex, so "phatic image" may be just as redundant as "phatic speech".)
Looking into the Winnicott's "Playing and Reality", here's how he describes the transitional object.
This "intermediate area" seems to parallel the "envorganism" discussed by Paul Kockleman and Tim Ingold (and as I understand it they are reformulating ideas from Bateson).
To come back to my thesis -- and insofar as one exists, it's a doozy -- it seems to me that the "intermediate area" or "intermediate state" that Winnicott refers to is the primary locus of contextual effects that allow the living being to "make meaning" (in Ingold's terms). In other words, the "first posession" -- which is perhaps also "the channel" -- is what makes possible the "adoption" (Stiegler's term) of the world.
Ingold refers straightforwardly to "perception" -- and I think with the reflections on "phatic speech" and "phatic images", we can agree that perception is related. But perhaps the phatic is more accurately in an intermediate state between perception and apperception. It carries with it a bit of the magic of fire, or of music, or of cinema. If I wanted to be poetic I might say "an illusion that is more real than the real".
What I'm interested in here is the micro-developmental version of the phatic (and especially φωτιά-centric) history from Vitruvius. Sloterdijk is certainly interested in micro-development and most of Spheres I is focused on this topic. However, he looks primarily at prenatal life, whereas I think there is an interesting parallel to be found in Winnicott's perspectives on early childhood.
(Also, entirely as an aside, it also occurs to me when writing the above that photo- is part of the phatic complex, so "phatic image" may be just as redundant as "phatic speech".)
Looking into the Winnicott's "Playing and Reality", here's how he describes the transitional object.
Of every individual who has reached the stage of being a unit with a limiting membrane and an outside and an inside, it can be said that there is an inner reality to that individual, an inner world which can be rich or poor and can be at peace or in a state of war. [...] My claim is that if there is a need for this double statement, there is also need for a triple one: the third part of the life of a human being, a part that we cannot ignore, is an intermediate area of experiencing, to which inner reality and external life both contribute. It is an area that is not challenged, because no claim is made on its behalf except that it shall exist as a resting-place for the individual engaged in the perpetual human task of keeping inner and outer reality separate yet interrelated. It is usual to refer to 'reality-testing', and to make a clear distinction between apperception and perception. I am here staking a claim for an intermediate state between a baby's inability and his growing ability to recognize and accept reality. (p. 3, Routledge 2006)Or, much more succinctly:
I am concerned with the first possession, and with the intermediate area between the subjective and that which is objectively perceived. (p. 4)It seems to me that the fire in Vitruvius is the first posession of human societies, and that the supposed macro-history he gives is directly parallel to the micro-history of each (healthy) infant with respect to "the breast" (in quotes, because in psychoanalytic terms the breast is often a symbol of more than the literal breast) and the transitional object.
This "intermediate area" seems to parallel the "envorganism" discussed by Paul Kockleman and Tim Ingold (and as I understand it they are reformulating ideas from Bateson).
To come back to my thesis -- and insofar as one exists, it's a doozy -- it seems to me that the "intermediate area" or "intermediate state" that Winnicott refers to is the primary locus of contextual effects that allow the living being to "make meaning" (in Ingold's terms). In other words, the "first posession" -- which is perhaps also "the channel" -- is what makes possible the "adoption" (Stiegler's term) of the world.
Ingold refers straightforwardly to "perception" -- and I think with the reflections on "phatic speech" and "phatic images", we can agree that perception is related. But perhaps the phatic is more accurately in an intermediate state between perception and apperception. It carries with it a bit of the magic of fire, or of music, or of cinema. If I wanted to be poetic I might say "an illusion that is more real than the real".
"(Also, entirely as an aside, it also occurs to me when writing the above that photo- is part of the phatic complex, so "phatic image" may be just as redundant as "phatic speech".)"
ReplyDelete- That made me laugh.
"the third part of the life of a human being, a part that we cannot ignore, is an intermediate area of experiencing, to which inner reality and external life both contribute."
- Although on a different level, the "intermediate area of experiencing" reminds me of this: "Take away our books, and what little do we know about history, biography, even something so "down to earth" as the relative position of seas and continents? What is our "reality" for today (beyond the paper-thin line of our own particular lives) but all this clutter of symbols about the past combined, with whatever things we know mainly through maps, magazines, newspapers, and the like about the present?" (Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action, 1966: 5)
This quote from Bruce Sterling, sent to me today by a friend in NYC, resonates with the quote from Kenneth Burke above.
Delete``Favela chic takes the logic of software and networks and applies them to institutions no matter what they are. It’s like taking a mac laptop and using it to hammer in nails. It represents the promise of change, instead of making do with overused stuff. It makes sense to young people and idealists. It’s consistent and easy to grasp. The problem is that over time, it tends to be squalid. It is user centric rather than planned. It’s made of small pieces joined: beta, open source rather than refined by competition. It pastes over institutional failngs with utopian rhetoric. Time reveals its slipshod cheesiness and cheapness, its poor engineering. Electronic democracy is about blogs, spam, flame wars, rather than the responsible participation in society. Sharing music means destroying the music industry. Digital artisanship means precarious employment. Dot com starts ups means existing monopolies on the ground and occupational forces that can’t establish functional governments. E-banking means financial panics. It’s endearing but flawed. It can’t take yes for an answer, which would imply building something solid instead of the next favela. It can’t acknowledge downsides. The universal forces of time and entropy apply to their labor. Revolutionaries are allergic to continuity. Digital culture will need critical reassessment in about five or seven years from now." — Bruce Sterling, 2009
https://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/blog/2009/12/21/bruce-sterling-gothic-chic-in-the-future-favela/