Speculative Aesthetics and Object-Oriented Inquiry

8/20/2019 Speculative Aesthetics and Object-Oriented Inquiry

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Speculate Aesthetcsand Object-Orented Inquiy (OOI)

N. Kaheine Hayles

Duke Universiy

T varied radiion o aesheics, onepremise has always, implicily

or explicily, remained unquesioned: ha aesheics has ais cenre human percepion. Indeed, his idea is embedded

even in he eymology o he erm, which derives rom heGreek aisheikos, meaning “esheic, sensiive, senien,” inurn derived rom aishanomai, meaning “I perceive, eel,sense.” To his premise, speculaive realism issues a srongchallenge. I endorses he idea ha he cenraliy o he hu-man should be displaced in avour o wha Graham Harmancalls an objec-oriened philosophy,1 an approach in whicheveryhing—humans, nonhuman biological creaures, in-animae objecs, imaginary conceps—exiss equally wihou

privileging any viewpoin, especially he human, as he defin-ing perspecive or he ohers.2

1 Harman’s ideas were aken up by Levi Bryan, among ohers, who namedhe field objec-oriened onology (OOO), which designaion Harman hasrerospecively used o describe his work. Hereafer he field will be reerredo as OOO.2 Graham Harman,ool-Being: Heidegge and he Meaphysis of Objes (NewYork: Open Cour, 2002), 2, 16 e passim.

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This posiion immediaely poses problems or aesheicheory. Virually all aesheic heories o dae, wheher heyground he aesheic experience in objecive qualiies, asWilliam Hogarh and Edmund Burke mainained, in cul-ural influences, as André Malraux argued, or as a “couner-environmen” designed o break culural preconcepions, asMarshall McLuhan suggesed, rely on he cenraliy o humansense experience. Even Eli Siegel, he American philosopherwho in 1941 ounded he Aesheic Realism movemen hamainained realiy isel is aesheic, relied on human per-cepion when he argued ha ar, sel and he world are allinerconneced and consiue an aesheic oneness.3 Wha

would i mean, hen, o imagine an aesheics in which hehuman is decenred and inanimae objecs, incapable osense percepions as we undersand hem, are included inaesheic experience?

One approach would be o define speculaive aesheics ashe aesheic echniques employed by speculaive realism,or example, he wildly heerogeneous liss ha populaehe works o Bruno Laour and Graham Harman. In his case,however, speculaive aesheics could saely be relegaed o a

subse o rheorical heory, and much o is explosive poen-ial would be deused. A beter approach would be o engagehe ideas and argumens o speculaive realism and exendhem ino he aesheic regime. This is he sraegy aken

by Graham Harman in “Aesheics as Firs Philosophy,” inwhich he noes commonaliies beween Levinas’s and his ownapproach.4 The essenial move here is o ideniy aesheicswih “enjoymen” (Levinas’s erm) or “allure” (Harman’s) soha he sensual qualiies o objecs in which oher objecs

“bahe” is undersood as an essenially aesheic response.Thus aesheics is generalised so ha i applies no only ohumans bu o all objecs, including inanimae ones.

3 Eli Siegel,Self and Wold: An Explanaion of Aesheic Realism (New York:Definiion Press, 1981).4 Graham Harman, “Aesheics as Firs Philosophy: Levinas and he Non-Human,” Naked Punh (2007), 9,www.nakedpunch.com/aricles/147 (accessed

July 1, 2013).

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A problem wih his approach is ha we have no idea owha his “enjoymen” migh consis; or insance, in Harman’sexample o he coton and he flame, wha is he naure o heaesheic “allure” each experiences in he oher? An aesheics

based on his approach would, excep or humans, be devoido conen, beyond he absrac concepion o an objec’s “al-lure” or anoher. Moreover, his approach ies speculaiveaesheics oo ighly o speculaive realism, consraining isexpansive poenial. My preerred approach, or which I arguehere, is o pu speculaive aesheics ino conversaion wihspeculaive realism bu wihou graning ha speculaiverealis principles can conain all o he possibiliies o which

speculaive aesheics can righully lay claim. To flesh ouhis approach, I propose a concomian mehodology ha Icall objec-oriened inquiry (OOI), which is indebed o OOO

bu also diverges rom i in significan ways.To develop his approach, I ake as my uor exs wo works

ha parially overlap and parially diverge, namely VilémFlusser’s Vampyoeuhis Infenalis, a reaise on he vampiresquid, and Ian Bogos’s Alien Phenomenology: Wha I’s Likeo Be a Ting.5 Whereas Bogos akes Harman’s version o

speculaive realism as his main inspiraion, Flusser, wriinghis reaise in 1981, ollows a mehod ha could never drawassen rom Harman or Bogos, because i involves projec-ing he human imaginaion ino he nonhuman oher andhus, ar rom rying o escape anhropomorphism, revelsin i, alhough in a complex ashion ha boh reinorcesand undermines i simulaneously. Bogos, or his par, riesaihully o ollow speculaive realism’s preceps, bu in heprocess develops a mehodology ha undermines a leas

par o is ideas. These deviaions, however, are consisenwih (and an imporan inspiraion or) OOI.

Firs le us explore Flusser’s mehod. Here I mus imme-diaely inerjec a qualificaion. A he ime Flusser was wri-

5 Vilém Flusser, Vilém Flusse’s Bazilian Vampyoeuhis Infenalis, rans.Rodrigo Malex Novaes (Dresden: Aropos Press, 2011); Ian Bogos, AlienPhenomenology, o Wha I’s Like o Be a Ting (Minneapolis: Universiy oMinnesoa Press, 2012).


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ing, very litle was known abou he vampire squid, a speciesha lives in he deep ocean a abou 3,000 ee underwaer.Since hen, roboic submarines and ulra-sensiive camerascapable o recording images wih almos no ligh have beendeveloped, and biologiss now can give a much more de-ailed accoun o he organism’s anaomy and behaviours. Iwould be easy o dismiss Flusser because o he assumpionshe makes ha have subsequenly been shown no o be hecase. For example, in correspondence he carried on whilewriing his manuscrip, he describes he organism achiev-ing a diameer up o 20 meers.6 In ac, however, he speciesha biologiss recognise as Vampyoeuhis infenalis is doing

good o achieve a diameer o enimees—a hundred-olddifference in size ha makes Flusser’s descripion o hecreaure as “violen” and “erocious” difficul o credi. I ama a loss o explain his discrepancy, shor o suspecing hahe somehow conused he gian squid (or is close cousin,he Humbold squid), which can grow o ha immense size,wih is much more diminuive cousin. Moreover, many as-pecs o his descripions o he vampire squid’s behavioursare clearly over-deermined by is name—he vampire squid

rom hell—and his lends his inerpreaions an exaggeraedromanicism no jusified by he creaure’s behaviours inhemselves. Whaever misakes Flusser made, however, areor my purposes more or less beside he poin. Wha ineressme here is his mehodology and he claims ha he makes ori. I he mehod has meri—and I believe i does—hen i canmake an imporan conribuion, even i Flusser is misakenabou cerain pariculars.

Working rom wha he hinks he knows abou Vampyro-

euhis, Flusser consrucs a binary relaion wih he human;Vampyroeuhis is he human invered, as in a mirror. Thepurpose is wo-old: o undersand Vampyroeuhis hroughhe ways in which he encouners he world, and o use hesediscoveries o reveal he Vampyroeuhis hidden or repressed

6 Flusser,Bazilian Vampyoeuhis Infenalis, 137.


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wihin human culure.7 Obviously, here is an agenda hereha goes beyond reconsrucing he worldview o he creaure,and his may explain why Flusser wans him o be seen asone o he op predaors in his aqueous environmen, mak-ing him parallel o humans as op erresrial predaors. Heis unapologeic abou drawing hese parallels, wriing hahe sudies,

he zoology o cephalopods no because I am able o assume an objec-

ive poin o view in relaion o hem bu, on he conrary, in order

o consider hem as par o he vial ide ha drags me along wih i.

I inend o undersand hem in order o orien mysel in my world.

Science is ineresing precisely because i relaes o me … an enirelyobjecive science would be unineresing, inhuman … he presen es-

say demands ha we give up he ideal o objeciviy in avour o oher

inersubjecive scienific mehods.8

The vampire squid, like oher molluscs, uses he oo o graspand o suck in waer. The brain is arranged circularly sur-rounding he oo, which is also he mouh. These acs leadFlusser o he ollowing comparison:

When we ereced our body, we reed our eyes or he horizon and our

hands or grasping objecs. When Cephalopods ereced hemselves,

heir percepion, locomoion and atack organs were relocaed oward

he ground, surrounded he mouh, and came ino direc conac wih

he brain ha surrounds he mouh.9

He characerises hese wo posures owards he world asraional and passionae, respecively: “For man, knowing is

a gesure ha advances agains he world, an acive gesure,”while or Vampyroeuhis, “he world or him is an opposiepole ha has o be sucked in passionaely.”10 He is “sexually

7 I ollow Flusser’s usage in reerring o he organism as “he” raher han “i.”8 Flusser,Bazilian Vampyoeuhis Infenalis, 38.9 Ibid., 39.10 Ibid., 74.


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euhis “seeks his immoraliy in he oher,” he seducionand camouflage ha enables him o atrac maes. “In sum,”Flusser concludes, “i effecively comes down o wo differ-en ypes o ar.”17 The comparison suggess ha OOO mayharbour an unrecognised anhropomorphic bias a is cenre,namely he ascinaion wih objecs ha is, i no a uniquelyhuman rai, neverheless ar more prominen in humanshan in any oher species.

The human sruggle o “inorm” objecs, ha is, o imprinhem wih inormaion, has gone on or millennia and hassrongly influenced every field o human endeavour. ToFlusser, his sruggle is essenially aesheic:

Human ar is no, as he well-meaning bourgeoisie would have us believe,

he abricaion o ‘beauiul’ objecs. Human ar is he gesure hrough

which man imprins his experience upon he objec o his vocaion in

order o realize himsel in i, o immoralize himsel in i. Every objec

ha is inormed is hereore a ‘work o ar,’ be i a mahemaical equa-

ion, poliical insiuion, or symphony.18

For Vampyroeuhis, ar is no he creaion o objecs bu he

seducion o he oher: “Tha is why when he creaes, Vampy-roeuhis does no experience he resisance o he objec buhe resisance o he oher.”19 Since he species someimesatacks and eas is mae, i is necessary o seduce he oherhrough “deliberae decepion, arifice and lies.” “He seekshis immoraliy by means o violence exered on he oher.To him, science and poliics are nohing bu sraagems,nohing bu raps.”20

In Flusser’s view, he “communicaion revoluion” (by

which he means primarily elevision, bu which is even ruero he Web)

17 Flusser,Bazilian Vampyoeuhis Infenalis, 106.18 Ibid., 108.19 Ibid., 109.20 Ibid., 111.


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consiss o a diversion o he exisenial ineres sagnaing in objecs

back oward he oher. Our communicaional srucures are being

undamenally ransormed, in he sense o becoming consiued by

ephemeral and ransien media ha allow he oher o be inormed

wihou he need o objecs. I is as i humaniy, afer a muli-millennial

urn hrough he objecive world, has now reencounered he vampy-

roeuhian pah.21

Even as he wo species come closer ino alignmen, however,he long sruggle wih objecs has lef a permanen markon human culure and biology. We can never become likeVampyroeuhis, Flusser mainains, bu we can recognise ha

he lurks in he dephs o he human, even as he human ishe repressed side o his culure and ar.Mediaing on he evoluion o communicaion echnolo-

gies, Flusser suggess ha he “inorming” process has movedrom objecs o ools as hey become more sophisicaed. “Thewrier becomes oolmaker,” he remarks, a proposiion hanow seems prescien given conemporary works o elecroniclieraure generaed by algorihmic processes in which hewrier creaes he code (ha is, makes he ool) and hen he

ool creaes he exual oupu.22 A case in poin is Mark Ma-rino’s essay “Reading exquisie_ode: Criical Code Sudies oLieraure,” in which he virually ignores he “finished” noveland concenraes almos exclusively on he live coding sessionsand algorihmic processes ha creaed i.23 In Flusser’s view,

“his inflaionary ide o devalued objecs leads o a disineresin objecs ... Sociey’s ineres is increasingly divered romobjecs owards inormaion, which however is inaccessible

21 Flusser,Bazilian Vampyoeuhis Infenalis, 114. For an excellen reamen oFlusser’s view o media in his ex, see Melody Jue, “Reraming Phoographyhrough he Vampire Squid in Vilém Flusser’s Vampyroeuhis Inernalis,”unpublished ms.22 Ibid., 113.23 Mark Marino, “Readingexquisie_ode: Criical Code Sudies o Lieraure,”in Compaaive exual Media: ansfoming he Humaniies in he Pospin Ea,ed. N. Kaherine Hayles and Jessica Pressman (Minneapolis: Universiy oMinnesoa Press, 2013), 283-310.


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o consumers. I is sored in he memory o apparaus and isransmited, dilued, no only by gadges, bu also and aboveall else by he ephemeral channels o mass communicaion.”24

Alhough Flusser (or anyone else) migh have arrived ahese insighs wihou knowing anyhing abou Vampyoeuhisinfenalis, he pah hrough he comparison has resuled inde-nauralising human presupposiions, enabling a criicalsance owards assumpions abou aesheics, along wih muchelse. In summary, he mehod here has been o exrapolaerom a base o scienific evidence (Flusser says ha “hepresen able is more or less inormed by biology”),25 usinghuman imaginaive projecions o undersand he alien

creaure no only in biological erms bu in erms o is ownphenomenological experience o he world. Moreover, orFlusser, i is precisely because o he mirror relaion beweenhe human and he Vampyroeuhis ha hese projecions cansucceed. This implies a double gesure o using he biologis’sknowledge bu also going beyond i ino wha can be knownonly because o he deeply shared relaionship: hus “hepresen able hopes o be able o exorcise Vampyroeuhis,and o make him emerge alive.”26

On some poins, Ian Bogos would agree wih Flusser. Forexample, Flusser wries ha “we mus liberae ourselves aboveall rom a model according o which exisence is he meeingo a ‘ranscendenal’ subjec (a mind) wih objecs; o a ‘sel’wih a ‘world.’ According o his model, or example, knowl-edge would be he meeing beween he one-who-knows wihwha-is-o-be known.”27 This srongly resonaes wih Bogos’spronouncemen ha “The philosophical subjec mus ceaseo be limied o humans and hings ha influence humans.

Insead i mus become everhing, ull sop.”28 Ye Bogoswould cerainly be uneasy wih Flusser’s “inersubjecive

24 Flusser,Bazilian Vampyoeuhis Infenalis, 114.25 Ibid., 123.26 Ibid., 124.27 Ibid., 71.28 Bogos, Alien Phenomenology, 10, original emphasis.


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scienific mehods,” especially his deerminaion o consruche Vampyroeuhis as he romanicised mirror “oher” ohe human, because i sill leaves inac he human as an es-senial reerence poin.

Bogos’s rejecion o a human-cenric posiion is evidenin his commens on Thomas Nagel’s amous essay, “Wha IsI Like o be a Ba?”29 He emphaically endorses he disinc-ion Nagel draws beween experiencing one’s species-hoodrom he inside and inerring i rom scienific evidenceabou a creaure’s sense percepions and behaviours. Herewe migh hink o a similar disincion ha Pierre Bourdieudraws beween a ribal people’s habius, he srucures ha

organise heir way o being in he world, and he inerencesha an anhropologis may draw rom observing heir behav-iours.30 For he people, he paterns ha inorm he layou oheir villages, he archiecure o heir buildings, and heir

behaviours as hey enac radiional ways o doing hings, areno necessarily ever consciously considered; raher, hey areabsorbed unconsciously as he righ and proper ways o live.Once absraced ino an anhropologis’s calendar, diagrams,and myhic srucures, he habius ceases o be a way o liv-

ing and insead becomes an absracion, a differen kind oknowledge alogeher. Similarly, wha i is like o know aboua ba is alogeher differen han wha i is like o be a ba.

The quesion o wha kinds o knowledge are accessible ous is cenral boh o Bogos’s argumen and Harman’s OOO.Following Harman, Bogos acceps ha “all objecs recedeinerminably ino hemselves,” which implies ha putinghings “a he cener o a new meaphysics also requires uso admi ha hey do no exis jus or us.”31 Deermined o

avoid an anhropomorphic perspecive and graning ha wecan never know objecs in hemselves, Bogos is neverhelesspowerully drawn o say somehing abou objecs in hem-

29 Thomas Nagel, “Wha Is I Like o Be a Ba?”Te Philosophical Review (1974), 83:4, 435-50.30 Pierre Bourdieu,Ouline of a Teor of Pacice (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversiy Press, 1977).31 Bogos, Alien Phenomenology, 10.


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selves. Bu how is his possible i objecs always wihdraw?Harman solves his problem by disinguishing beween anobjec’s sensual qualiies (is “allure”) and is essence; simi-larly, Bogos’s soluion is o emphasise ha anyhing we cansay abou objecs rom an evideniary basis is a “caricaure,” arepresenaion “in which he one is drawn ino he disoredimpressions o he oher.”32 Quoing Harman, he idenifiessuch a represenaion as a meaphor: “I’s a move ha solvesNagel’s puzzle: we never undersand he alien experience, weonly ever reach or i meaphorically.”33 From here he goes ono develop “meaphorism” as his mehod o choice, deploying

meaphor isel as a way o grasp alien objecs’ percepions o one anoher.Meaphorism offers a mehod or alien phenomenology ha grasps a

he way objecs bask meaphorically in each ohers’ ‘noes’ [Harman’s

name or he sensual atribues o an objec] by means o meaphor

isel, raher han describing he effecs o such ineracions on he

objecs. I offers a criical process or characerizing objec percepions.34

Where I begin o depar rom Bogos and Harman is on he issueo how objecs manies hemselves. Whereas hey emphasise

an objec’s allure, he atracion i emanaes or oher objecs,more imporan in my experience is he resisance objecsoffer o human manipulaion and undersanding. During mydays as a scienis, my experiences included such resisanceson an everyday basis, rom using specrum analysis o ideniyan elemen o deermining he composiion o chemicalsin a soluion. Andrew Pickering wries eloquenly abou heimporance o resisance in Te Mangle of Paie, where he

“mangle” is he cyclic process o a human prodding and prob-

ing a nonhuman objec o answer some quesion.35 The objecresponds by resising he human’s inquiry, in a coninuing

32 Bogos, Alien Phenomenology, 64.33 Ibid., 66.34 Ibid., 67. Wheher his ploy saisacorily resolves he issue is a mooquesion, as he ollowing discussion makes clear.35 Andrew Pickering,Te Mangle of Paie: ime, Agenc, and Siene (Chicago:Universiy o Chicago Press, 1995).


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dialecic in which he resisance orces he quesions o bemodified, and he modified quesions uncover new ormso resisance. One could see his as he creaive complemeno Heidegger’s presen-o-hand versus ready-o-hand. Herei is no he momen he hammer breaks ha brings i inoour awareness, bu raher he coninually ransorming andmorphing resisance ha leads o expanding and deepeningknowledge. Resisance is crucial because, alhough objecscanno ell us wha hey are, hey can ell us wha hey areno. Resisance enables us o disinguish a rock rom a ree, aHiggs boson rom a quark. The difference beween resisanceand acquiescence is ha acquiescence is always meaphoric,

whereas resisance is decisive: “Whaever I am, I’m no ha,”an objec can respond o human probing. This disincion beween posiive and negaive knowledge suggess ha our

knowledge o objecs is always relaive o oher objecs raherhan o an objec’s essence in isel, alhough negaive answersdo allow or increasingly fine disincions. Tha his processhas no necessary end coincides wih Harman’s conenion haan objec’s reserve can never be exhaused. A imes, Harmanseems o recognise he imporance o an objec’s resisance,

as in his passage rom Te Quaduple Objec:

A real objec has no closer link wih is own real qualiies han wih

he sensual qualiies ha one would never dream o ascribing o i …

a real objec is real and has a definie characer, bu is essence is firs

produced rom he ouside hrough causal ineracions.36

“From he ouside” here can be inerpreed o mean preciselyhe kind o probing ha is par o he mangle o pracice.

Ye a significan difference emerges here as well, or Harmanreuses o quaniy he exen o which a real objec wihdraws,mainaining ha i wihdraws infiniely. According o him,hen, here can never be an increase in knowledge; we cannever know more or less abou a given objec. This seemso me conradiced by scienific, echnical, and engineer-

36 Graham Harman,Te Quaduple Objec (Wincheser: Zero, 2011), 106.


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ing knowledge, as well as by everyday experience. Moreover,Harman also resiss wha he calls “scienific nauralism,”mainaining ha i seeks o “undermine” objecs by reducinghem o heir elemenary componens, such as sub-aomicparicles.37 I hink his ear is grealy exaggeraed, as mosscieniss recognise here are emergen effecs ha appear adifferen levels o organisaion. Effecs no noiceable a hemolecular level, or example, may appear a he cellular level;effecs no noiceable a he cellular level may appear a helevel o he organism, and so on. Few scieniss believe hareducionis sraegies can succeed in explaining everyhing.

Like Harman, Bogos also argues ha “scienific naural-

ism,” which he maches up wih social relaivism, is deeplyflawed. The case agains social relaivism is sraighorward:i is rejeced because i explains evens “hrough he machi-naions o human sociey—paricularly he complex, evo-luionary orms o culure and language.”38 Wih “scienificnauralism,” however, he case is ar rom clear, and indeedis seemingly conradiced in Bogos’s wonderul accoun ohe Foveon-equipped Sigma DP digial image sensor, whichdraws deeply on scienific and engineering knowledge. Bogos

is ineresed in he differences beween how he human eyeperceives in siuaions o low ligh inensiy and how hedigial image sensor perceives. In exploring hese differences,he imporanly opens he possibiliy ha an objec-orienedapproach can be fleshed ou hrough meiculous accouns ohow nonhuman objecs experience he world—or o pu iin more general erms, he ways nonhuman objecs have o

being in he world.As menioned earlier, Bogos is careul o say ha his accoun

is a caricaure raher han an accurae represenaion, whichis orbidden by he idea ha objecs wihdraw infiniely romone anoher.39 The choice o erms, which he akes over romHarman, is significan: a caricaure differs rom a porrai or

37 Harman,Te Quaduple Objec, 13-18.38 Bogos, Alien Phenomenology, 13.39 Ibid., 13, 65-66.


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phoograph precisely because i exaggeraes seleced eaures,in his way making clear ha he objec is represened in adisored ashion, and ha embodied in his disorion is acerain perspecive. As noed earlier, he also reers o suchaccouns as “meaphors.” To his credi, he recognises haanhropocenrism may be unavoidable:

we can find evidence or our speculaions on percepion … even i we

are only ever able o characerize he resuling experiences as mea-

phors bound o human correlaes … he answer o correlaionism is

no he rejecion o any correlae bu he acknowledgemen o endless

ones, all sel-absorbed, observed by givenness raher han urpiude.40

Expanding on his idea, I noe ha wha is ofen called he“human perspecive” is no singular bu muliple, no only because o differences in language and culures, bu even

more imporanly, because he devices humans have invenedo expand heir sensory and percepual ranges creae a widevariey o differen perspecives, rom opical microscopeso paricle acceleraors, radiocarbon daing o seismic de-ecors. I we accep Bogos’s proposiion ha “he answer

o correlaionism is no he rejecion o any correlae buhe acknowledgemen o endless ones,” hen humans as aspecies have developed ways o access ar more perspeciveshan any oher species.

Nowihsanding his allegiance o OOO, Bogos shows ha anobjec-oriened accoun can be developed rom an evideniary

basis. Oherwise, wha possibiliies are here or he develop-men o OOO, assuming ha one is no a philosopher? Onecan imagine ha philosophers will coninue o argue abou

wha consiues OOO, modiying or conesing he ramework, bu or robus developmen and disseminaion beyond he

relaively narrow boundaries o speculaive philosophy, herehave o be ways o apply OOO ha move beyond onologicalquesions o episemological, social, culural and poliical is-sues. I is precisely his ask ha OOI underakes by building

40 Bogos, Alien Phenomenology, 78.


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bridges beween evideniary accouns o objecs ha emergerom he resisances and engagemens hey offer o humaninquiry, and imaginaive projecions ino wha hese implyor a given objec’s way o being in he world.

How migh his mehodology work? Firs, one needs asubsanial body o knowledge, usually gained rom scienific,echnical, or engineering sources. Then one exrapolaesino percepions or world views, speculaing abou how haobjec encouners he world. Implici in his procedure is anassumpion ha scieniss, echnicians and engineers akeso deeply or graned ha i is no an assumpion so muchas a presupposiion. To exis in he world, every objec ha

does so mus have a cerain inernal coherence; oherwise, icould no endure or even a nanosecond. This is obvious inhe case o biological organisms, winnowed hrough evolu-ionary dynamics. Bu i is also rue o all real objecs, romhe ensile srengh o heir componens o he sabilisaionso he aomic orbis ha hold hem ogeher. Because o hiscoherence, i is possible o develop accouns ha have causaland predicive efficacy. This does no mean, however, hasuch accouns have exhaused (or can ever exhaus) all o an

objec’s way o being in he world.Indeed, par o my atracion o speculaive realism is is

insisence ha objecs resis us knowing hem compleely,wihdrawing heir essence in an infinie regress while sillsending ou heir “alluring” sensual qualiies. I made a nounrelaed disincion when I wroe abou he difference

beween physicaliy and maerialiy.41 Physicaliy in myundersanding is similar o an objec’s essence; poeniallyinfinie, i is unknowable in is oaliy. Wha we can know,

however, are he physical qualiies ha presen hemselveso us, which I designaed as maerialiy. Wha disinguishesmy posiion rom ha o Harman and Bogos, however, isha or me objecs do no passively presen heir qualiies;raher, humans atend o cerain qualiies in specific conexs

41 N. Kaherine Hayles, My Mohe Was a Compue: Digial Subjes and Liearexs (Chicago: Universiy o Chicago Press, 2005), 103-04.


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or moivaed reasons. The same is rue o a lion huning agazelle or an insrumen perceiving he number encoded inan RFID (Radio Frequency Idenificaion) ag.42 Qualiies areneve perceived in heir oaliy bu only wihin he rameworksand conexs ha define he relaion o one objec o anoher.This is why I am sympaheic o Jane Bennet’s argumen inViban Mate: A Poliical Ecology of Tings ha relaionaliyhas o be par o he picure, or i is hrough relaions haone objec senses he specific pars o anoher objec’s “allure”germane or he firs objec’s purposes and conexs.43

Does his mean ha relaions are confined o human per-cepions, or even more narrowly o human consciousness?

Definiely no! Seven Shaviro, in a 2011 conerence papereniled “Panpsychism and/or Eliminaivism,” argues ha “iwe accep ha hough (or eeling or experience) need no beconscious, hen we migh well be led o abandon he demar-caion beween mind and mater alogeher ... I propose ha[panpsychism] gives us a good way o avoid he problemaic

baggage boh o consciousness and o phenomenologicalinenionaliy.”44 He goes on o clariy ha even i “everyhingis mindul, or has a mind ... his does no necessarily enail

ha everyhing is ‘given’ or ‘maniesed’ o a mind.”45 Rela-ions beween objecs need no and cerainly do no imply haconscious hough is necessary or relaionaliy. Conscioushough or humans represens only a small par o heirprocessing o inormaion rom he environmen, and ornonhuman objecs such as he exper sysems and RFID agsmenioned above, conscious hough does no operae a all.46

42 For a discussion o how RFID ags work and heir culural implicaions,

see my “RFID: Human Agency and Meaning in Inormaion-InensiveEnvironmens,” Teor, Culue and Societ (2009), 26:2-3, 1-24.43 Jane Bennet,Viban Mae: A Poliical Ecology of Tings (Durham: DukeUniversiy Press, 2010).44 Seven Shaviro, “Panpsychism and/or Eliminaivism,” The PinocchioTheory, www.shaviro.com/Blog/p=1012 (accessed July 1, 2013).45 Shaviro, “Panpsychism and/or Eliminaivism,” 7.46 This argumen is developed more ully in my bookHow We Tink: Digial Media and Conempoar ehnogenesis (Chicago: Universiy o Chicago Press,2012), 85-122.

http://www.shaviro.com/Bloghttp://www.shaviro.com/Blog


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Neverheless, hese objecs ener ino relaions wih oherobjecs and have heir own ways o parsing anoher objec’squaliies, encounering hem (and someimes acing uponhem) wihin heir own conexs and rameworks.

Wha speculaive realism can learn rom hese accouns isan awareness ha, despie an objecs’ wihdrawal, i is possibleo say a grea deal abou a real objec’s real qualiies. Whai can each is ha hese accouns are always parial repre-senaions o an objec’s maerialiy raher han an accuraerepresenaion o he objec in isel, and or enirely differenreasons ha a correlaionis accoun would give. Over andabove hese lessons o and rom speculaive realism, here

are oher conribuions ha speculaive aesheics can make.Here Flusser is useul, or he is very clear on his issue: his“inersubjecive scienific mehods,” alhough originaingin a biological basis o ac, go ar beyond hem by using hishuman imaginaion o projec wha ar, culure, and languageanalogues would be or he Vampyroeuhis. I he someimes

blurs he line beween meaphor (or analogy) and biologi-cal ac, and i he also has a srong bias oward consrucingVampyroeuhis as he romanicised “oher” o he human, he

neverheless achieves provocaive inerpreaions ha reveal by conras assumpions ha would oherwise remain opaque,such as our ascinaion wih objecs as durable subsraes hacan be “inormed” by humans and hereby serve as a kind oimmoraliy. By imaginaively projecing Vampyroeuhis’sar and culure, he enables us o see our own more clearly.

In Viban Mae, Bennet explicily connecs he humancapaciy o projec imaginaively ino oher eniies wihaesheics: she wans o use “argumens and oher rheori-

cal means o induce in human bodies an aesheic-affeciveopenness o maerial vialiy.”47 No surprisingly, in her recenessay “Sysems and Things: A Response o Graham Harmanand Timohy Moron,” she argues or a sronger role orrelaionaliy, poining ou ha here may be “no need” ochoose objecs or heir relaions. “The projec, hen, would

47 Bennet,Viban Mae , x.


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essay appears, we would, according o Whiehead, concludeha i has “negligible relevance.”

My own view is ha relaions exis wihin sysems, andhe organisaion o componens wihin a sysem deermineswha relaions i will have. O course, he boundaries osysems are ofen uzzy; hey overlap and ransorm, no omenion ha human perspecives deermine wha couns asa sysem boundary. Neverheless, he dynamics o sysemsare clearly o differen kinds. The effec o encapsulaingrelaions wihin objecs, as Harman does, is o mask hesysem’s dynamics and make i difficul o hink abou hedynamics a all. The black boxing o relaions oblieraes he

specificiy o how complex sysems work. In chaoic, complex,and complex adapive sysems, muliple recursive eedbackloops make such sysems exraordinarily sensiive o smallperurbaions; somehing as small as he proverbial flappingo a buterfly’s wing can have cascading large-scale rippleeffecs. Change does no require, as Harman seems o hink,he emergence o new kinds o relaions; all i requires aresysemic organisaions ha end oward insabiliy raherhan sabiliy. The more inerconneced such a sysem is, he

more liable i is o consan change, raher han an absenceo change. A clear disincion beween objecs and relaionswould help o make complex dynamics visible and ensureha he reserves inrinsic o objecs are srongly correlaedo he kinds o relaions in which hey engage.

Puting relaions back ino he picure empowers he OOImehodology o imaginaive projecion ino nonhuman oh-ers as a heoreical possibiliy or speculaive aesheics hais eiher orbidden (in Harman’s case) or under-heorised

(in Bogos’s argumen). This leads o a srong paradox: hu-man imaginaion is he bes way, and perhaps he only way,o move beyond anhropocenrism ino a more nuancedundersanding o he world as comprised o a muliude oworld views, including hose o oher biological organisms,human-made areacs, and inanimae objecs. Bennet makesa similar poin:


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Maybe i’s worh running he risks associaed wih anhropomorphiz-

ing (supersiion, he divinizaion o naure, romanicism) because

i, oddly enough, works agains anhropocenrism: a chord is sruck

beween a person and hinking, and I am no longer above or ouside

a nonhuman ‘environmen.’52

Empowering he role ha human imaginaion plays in al-lowing us o go beyond anhropocenrism poses anoherchallenge o OOO. Even i his is heresy wihin he rame-work o speculaive realism, one could argue ha humans,among all he objecs and species ha exis on earh, canimaginaively projec hemselves ino he worldviews o

oher objecs along a greaer specrum o qualiies han mosoher objecs can do. We know ha many oher species arecapable o consrucing menal models o how ohers hinkand perceive. The evidence is especially srong in he caseo oher primaes, bu one could also include such compuerprograms as exper sysems and inerence engines, includ-ing hose consruced o creae narraives. Neverheless, onecould concede ha humans exceed all hese in he scope andvariey o imaginaive projecions. Does his hen mean ha

human specialness mus be reinsaed afer all? Along wihhe speculaive realiss and ellow ravellers such as Timo-hy Moron, I agree ha humans need o be more humbleabou heir abiliies and more recepive oward he abiliieso wha Bennet calls “lively mater” o ac in he world. Theconundrum can be resolved by recognising ha humansneed his abiliy more han mos objecs because hey aremore inclined o hink o hemselves as special. In effec, heabiliy o humans o imaginaively projec hemselves ino

oher objecs’ experience o he world is necessar o combahe anhropocenrism and narcissism or which he humanspecies is noorious. Wihou i, we would be in worse sraishan we are; i is he silver lining ha enables us o overcomehe biases o specialness and reach ou o undersand oherobjecs by analogy, alhough never (as Nagel, Harman and

52 Bennet,Viban Mae , 120.


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Bogos poin ou) in he erms ha he objecs hemselvesexperience. Perhaps his is wha Bogos means by his enig-maic pronouncemen, ialicised or emphasis: “all hingsequally exis, ye hey do no exis equally.”53

Wha does all his mean or speculaive aesheics? I saredwih he observaion ha human percepion has always beencenral o aesheics and noed he srong challenge haspeculaive realism poses o ha assumpion. I ended byarguing ha he way o escape anhropocenrism is preciselyhrough an imaginaive projecion ino he worldviews ooher objecs and beings, based on evidence abou heir wayso being in he world, alhough wih he imporan cavea

ha hese are analogies and should no be misaken or anobjec’s own experience.I speculaive realism is modified in hese argumens, so

is aesheics. The radiional division in aesheics beweenhose who hold ha aesheics is grounded in he objec’s ownqualiies, and hose who locae i in human percepion, is in acerain sense used ino a single approach which holds ha heobjec’s own qualiies are expressed hrough he evideniary

bases, and ha hese are apprehended by human imaginaion

and percepion o creae analogue projecions o an objec’sworld view. A he same ime, aesheics is separaed rom isradiional basis in beauy and re-locaed in he endeavouro recognise ha every real objec possesses—or even moresrongly, has a igh o—is own experience o he world, in-cluding biological, animae, and inanimae objecs.

This approach, I conclude, has a srong claim o be calledspeculaive aesheics. Influenced by speculaive realism, idoes no slavishly ollow is preceps bu uses speculaive

realism’s bes insighs o re-define he aesheic mission. WhaI have saged in his essay is a kind o Zen ennis mach be-ween speculaive realism and speculaive aesheics, in whichhe wo are posiioned less as anagoniss han as parners,each helping he oher o perorm a a higher level. Seen inhis ligh, speculaive aesheics is no so much a derivaive

53 Bogos, Alien Phenomenology, 11.


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Speculative Aesthetics and Object-Oriented Inquiry