Michelle Kasprzak (ed.): Blowup: Speculative Realities (2013)

“This eBook ex­plores the sig­nif­icance of the recent philo­soph­ic move­ments known as ob­ject-​ori­ent­ed on­tol­ogy and spec­ula­tive re­al­ism for the vi­su­al and me­dia arts. It was edited in connection to the Speculative Realities exhibition.

Two artists and one col­lab­ora­tive duo were com­mis­sioned to make new art­works re­flect­ing broad­ly on con­cepts with­in ob­ject-​ori­ent­ed on­tol­ogy and spec­ula­tive re­al­ism. The artists were Tu­ur van Balen & Re­vi­tal Co­hen, Cheryl Field, and Karoli­na Sobec­ka.

To sup­ple­ment the de­scrip­tions of the works and brief in­ter­views with the artists in this eBook, three new in­ter­views were com­mis­sioned. Sven Lüttick­en was in­ter­viewed by Rachel O’Reil­ly, Jus­si Parik­ka was in­ter­viewed by Michael Di­eter, and Rick Dol­phi­jn was in­ter­viewed by Michelle Kasprzak.

The ex­hi­bi­tion took place from De­cem­ber 8, 2012 un­til Jan­uary 11, 2013 at Rood­kap­je, Meent 133, Rot­ter­dam.”

Publisher V2_, Rotterdam, January 2013
Blowup Read­ers series, Vol. 6
55 pages

Exhibition
Publisher

PDF
EPUB
MOBI

Ben Woodard: On an Ungrounded Earth: Towards a New Geophilosophy (2013)

“For too long, the Earth has been used to ground thought instead of bending it; such grounding leaves the planet as nothing but a stage for phenomenology, deconstruction, or other forms of anthropocentric philosophy. In far too much continental philosophy, the Earth is a cold, dead place enlivened only by human thought—either as a thing to be exploited, or as an object of nostalgia. Geophilosophy seeks instead to question the ground of thinking itself, the relation of the inorganic to the capacities and limits of thought. This book constructs an eclectic variant of geophilosophy through engagements with digging machines, nuclear waste, cyclones and volcanoes, giant worms, secret vessels, decay, subterranean cities, hell, demon souls, black suns, and xenoarcheaology, via continental theory (Nietzsche, Schelling, Deleuze, et alia) and various cultural objects such as horror films, videogames, and weird Lovecraftian fictions, with special attention to Speculative Realism and the work of Reza Negarestani. In a time where the earth as a whole is threatened by ecological collapse, On an Ungrounded Earth generates a perversely realist account of the earth as a dynamic engine materially invading and upsetting our attempts to reduce it to merely the ground beneath our feet.”

Publisher punctum books, Brooklyn, NY, 2013
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License
ISBN 9780615785387
118 pages

Reviews: David Peak (Heavy Feather Review, 2013), Kai Bosworth, Harlan Morehouse, Rory Rowan (Society & Space, 2014), Christopher Vitale (2015).

Publisher

PDF

Graham Harman: The Quadruple Object (2011)

The book uses a pack of playing cards to present Harman’s metaphysical system of fourfold objects, including human access, Heidegger’s indirect causation, panpsychism and ontography.

In this book the metaphysical system of Graham Harman is presented in lucid form, aided by helpful diagrams.

In Chapter 1, Harman gives his most forceful critique to date of philosophies that reject objects as a primary reality. All such rejections are tainted by either an undermining or overmining approach to objects. In Chapters 2 and 3, he reviews his concepts of sensual and real objects. In the process, he attacks the prestige normally granted to philosophies of human access, which Harman links for the first time to the already discredited Menos Paradox. In Chapters 4 through 7, Harman brings the reader up to speed on his interpretation of Heidegger, which culminates in a fourfold structure of objects linked by indirect causation. In Chapter 8, he speculates on the implications of this theory for the debate over panpsychism, which Harman both embraces and rejects. In Chapters 9 and 10, he introduces the term ontography as the study of the different possible permutations of objects and qualities, which he simplifies with easily remembered terminology drawn from standard playing cards.

Publisher Zero Books, 2011
ISBN 1846947006, 9781846947001
148 pages

review (Adam Robbert, Knolwedge Ecology)
review (Christopher Kullenberg)

publisher
google books

PDF (no OCR)