Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 4: From Sign to Signal (2012)

24 August 2016, dusan

“Since the 1990s there has been intensified focus on the concepts of performativity, the relational, and affect in the humanities. Scholars from different fields have in a variety of ways embraced these notions in their accounts of contemporary culture, and as such they also form the backdrop of this thematic collection of articles entitled From Sign to Signal. It seems, however, as if today’s media situation–the globally evident usage of media technologies–requires a new theoretical approach in order to deal with the intersections of technology and aesthetics, since in these cases the sign often falls short. It has therefore been the ambition of this collection to invite scholars within the humanities to take part in a discussion on the implications of a gradual shift from a (linguistically framed) paradigm of the sign to a new paradigm connected with media augmented environments.

As the term for this new paradigm we have chosen the ‘signaletic material’, coined by Gilles Deleuze in his book Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Deleuze developed this notion in order to stress that film in his view of contemporary or modern cinema had altogether eliminated classical (literary) thoughts of plot and narration. Toward the end of Cinema 2 it becomes clear that the notion of the ‘signaletic material’ might be developed to cover all kinds of filmic and electronic material as well as the emerging new media technologies.” (from Foreword)

Edited by Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen, John Sundholm and Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen
Publisher Co-Action Publishing, Järfälla, Sweden, 2012
Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 License
eISSN 2000-4214
134 pages

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François Cheng: Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese Painting (1979–) [ES, EN]

8 July 2016, dusan

“Chinese painting might be called ‘philosophy in action,’ for it is one of the highest expressions of Chinese spirituality. Both a medium for contemplation leading to self-transcendence and a microcosm embodying universal principles and primal forces, it is a means for making manifest the Chinese worldview. At the heart of this worldview is the notion of emptiness, the dynamic principle of transformation. Only through emptiness can things attain their full measure and human beings approach the universe at the level of totality. Focusing on the principle of emptiness, François Cheng uses semiotic analysis and textual explication to reveal the key themes and structures of Chinese aesthetics in the practice of pictorial art. Among the many Chinese writers, poets, and artists whose writings are quoted, he gives special emphasis to a great Ch’ing dynasty theoretician and painter, Shih-t’ao. Twenty-seven reproductions of the words of Shih-t’ao and other masters illustrate the interpretive commentary.”

First published as Vide et plein: le langage pictural chinois, Seuil, Paris, 1979.

Translated by Michael H. Kohn
Publisher Shambhala, Boston and London, 1994
ISBN 0877739560, 9780877739562
ix+158 pages
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Vacío y plenitud (Spanish, trans. Amelia Hernandez and Juan Luis Delmont, 1985/93, 13 MB, via Amir Brito)
Empty and Full (English, trans. Michael H. Kohn, 1994, 8 MB)

Rocco Gangle: Diagrammatic Immanence: Category Theory and Philosophy (2015)

21 February 2016, dusan

“A renewal of immanent metaphysics through diagrammatic methods and the tools of category theory.

Spinoza, Peirce and Deleuze are, in different ways, philosophers of immanence. Rocco Gangle addresses the methodological questions raised by a commitment to immanence in terms of how diagrams may be used both as tools and as objects of philosophical investigation. He integrates insights from Spinozist metaphysics, Peircean semiotics and Deleuze’s philosophy of difference in conjunction with the formal operations of category theory.

Category theory reveals deep structural connections among logic, topology and a variety of different areas of mathematics, and it provides constructive and rigorous concepts for investigating how diagrams work. Gangle introduces the methods of category theory from a philosophical and diagrammatic perspective, allowing philosophers with little or no mathematical training to come to grips with this important field.

This coordination of immanent metaphysics, diagrammatic method and category theoretical mathematics opens a new horizon for contemporary thought.”

Publisher Edinburgh University Press, 2015
ISBN 1474404170, 9781474404174
256 pages
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