More on Hacking

I only have a brief amount of time before I have to run off and teach, but it seems that my post on hacking and allusion has received a few responses. Harman responds here. Robert Jackson responds to both my and Harman’s posts here. And finally Tim Richardson responds to all three of us here.

A few concessions are in order before I get into what I want to say. First, Jackson and Richardson are justified in correcting my mis-authorization of hacking. As Jackson points out:

“…when you are dealing with the reality of things including computer protocols and software objects, the dichotomy of meaningful authorisation / non-authorisation breaks down considerably. Just because a certain proprietary program is encapsulated so that general public access is forbidden, it does not entail a universal relational structure that can be attributed to relationships where HIV ‘hacks’ RNA strands.”

Very true. In fact the problem with hacking is that it is often hard to place blame on the hack, the hacker, or the hacked. When I find a way around authorizing my iDevice, so that I can install third-party apps, who’s at fault? Me…well I just exploited a part of the system that was already there. Apple…well, they designed the original software that allowed me to do this. Or the hack itself…but it’s just a program or code. As David J. Gunkel points out in “Hacking Cyberspace,” “Hackers cannot be praised or blamed in the usual manner for what it is they do or do not do. In other words, hackers do not, in any strict sense of the term, cause the disruptions or general systems failures exhibited in and by the activities of hacking. Hacking only fixates on and manipulates an aporia, bug, or back door that is always and already present within and constitutive of the system as such” (803). Because of this lack of clear intentionality (and perhaps meaningful authorization), Richardson rightly points out that my formulation of hacking as “a faculty for observing all of the available means of perturbation” is at best inexact.

And Harman makes a good point when he argues that, “praxis falls short of the things themselves no less than theory does.” In other words, neither praxis nor theory successfully mines the depths of objects. No relation, for Harman, is ever direct. But, if allure, as Harman points out in Guerilla Metaphysics, is always something that “either occurs or does not occur,” then what of potential? Why assume, since the RO-SO (or real object – sensual object) relation is always the same (structure-wise) that it is untenable that we or another object could work by exploiting this knowledge? What I am talking about here is a sort of operation that works on potentiality and contingency. Such an operation isn’t interested in predicating unitary objects or reducing them to their parts or qualities, but is instead focused on uncovering (in an ontological sense, rather than an epistemological one) the unknown, subterranean object. In other words, an operation whose final cause is allusion. If such an operation could exist, then this is what I’m suggesting hacking (and maybe object-oriented rhetoric) might be considered. Wouldn't this also be in agreement with Jackson’s two points about code: 1) that code is already contingent and 2) the output of code can only be experienced and not known?

The only problem I see here, though, is that it does bring up questions about language. For like code, isn’t language just as contingent and unknowable in its outcome? And if so, is something like deconstruction already a type of language-hacking? This is where I think it's important, like Richardson points out, to move beyond thinking of hacking as directly related to code and see it as possible in other material relations: Ikea Hackers and body hackers are just two examples of such non-code hacking.

Democracy of Objects on Amazon

Levi Bryant's much awaited tome is up for purchase in the US on Amazon. And just in time for a brilliant stocking stuffer.

3 Possible Kinds of OOR

Over at Tim Richardson’s blog objet(a)uthenticity, the question is raised as to whether an object can be designed to be authentic. For Tim, authenticity requires a certain amount of distance between the “mythical” real object and the object that is claiming to be authentic in regards to this real object. For example, Tim relays his experience with the word authentic when:

During one of the [last democratic presidential primary] debates, when the field was still large, one pundit commented that the choice of a nominee would come down to which candidate seemed most authentic to the voter. At that exact moment, I reached for a bag of tortilla chips that was emblazoned with the slogan “Authentic Mexican Taste” and, with that coincidence, realized the problem. “Authentic Mexican Taste” only makes sense outside of (a mythic) Mexico. (Of course, you can see that referenced in the proposal, but this distance may be very much like the distance insisted on by medieval courtly love narratives, too).

Authenticity, according to Tim, requires that there be an ideal object or place that exists apart from the “authentic” object. Authentic Mexican chips can only be authentic to a Mexico that exists outside of the chips themselves. In the end, though, Tim questions the relationship between the “mythical” object of origin and that object claiming to be authentic as being similar to the an object’s substance and its properties. He asks, “But I’m wondering if this idea of difference between the design of a device (even the body) and its potential properties isn’t something like the distance or gap I described far above as a hallmark of the authentic?” (emphasis added)

Now hopefully Tim will build on this question (and I look forward to reading his next post), but it got me thinking about my own project and a note I drew up some time ago about Aristotle’s three kinds of rhetoric.

For Aristotle, there existed three kinds or species of rhetoric: deliberative (argues that we should take a certain action or that a certain action should not be taken), forensic ( or judicial rhetoric, accuses or defends someone according to some event), and epideictic (offers praise of blame determining if someone is honorable or shameful). But, as Eugene Garver points out in his essay “Aristotle on the Kinds of Rhetoric,” these three kinds at times seem trivial since “[e]ven in Aristotle’s time, most rhetorical speeches did not fall under one of the three kinds of rhetoric. Today, the proportion of rhetoric that is deliberative, judicial, or epideictic is even smaller” (17). Now ultimately for Garver, Aristotle’s three kinds of rhetoric act as guides that “tell us what rhetoric should and can be” by “show[ing] us rhetoric’s possibilities” (18). And while I don’t disagree with Garver’s point one hundred percent, I would argue that in order to develop a true faculty to discover all available means of persuasion, we also need to take into account the temporal dimension of deliberative, forensic, and epideictic rhetoric.

For Aristotle these three kinds of rhetoric were also tied to respective times. As he states in Book I chapter 3 of his Rhetoric:

Further, to each of these a special time is appropriate: to the deliberative the future, for the speaker, whether he exhorts or dissuades, always advises about things to come; to the forensic the past, for it is always in reference to things done that one party accuses and the other defends; to the epideictic most appropriately the present, for it is the existing condition of things that all those who praise or blame have in view. It is not uncommon, however, for epideictic speakers to avail themselves of other times, of the past by way of recalling it, or of the future by way of anticipating it. (135b12-20)

So we can see that apart from purpose, there is also a temporal distance between each of these types of rhetoric. Therefore, any interaction, if it is dependent upon a certain amount of opportunity or kairos is subject to a temporal characteristic as much as a motivating one. In other words, it makes sense (especially if we agree with Garver that Aristotle’s three kinds of rhetoric are often irrelevant to the extent that rarely do rhetorical acts fall under one of these categories) that we can reduce rhetoric to a temporal structure. So that if we were to develop any new categories, they would not have to accommodate or acquiesce to the purpose of Aristotle’s kinds, but simply the temporal format of future, past, and present.

And it is with this temporal understanding of rhetoric that I wish to put forth my own three kinds of object-oriented rhetoric: architectural, practical, and aesthetic. With architectural rhetoric, the focus is on the object’s future design, for the object stands as something to be improved upon, developed, and planned for, whether that object exists or not. Architectural rhetoric relies on the future much like deliberative rhetoric does, by attempting to determine future models and manifestations. Practical rhetoric focuses solely on use, for objects in use are either in reference to objects that have worked before or to the withdrawn substance of the broken tool. Therefore, practical rhetoric relies on the past in order for objects to be put to use, constantly oscillating between tool and broken tool, real and sensual. Finally, aesthetic rhetoric focuses on objects as they appear or present themselves to us and to other objects, for it is in the object’s existence as something pleasing or perturbing that creates networks of relations. However, like epideictic rhetoric, it is not uncommon for aesthetic rhetoric “to avail themselves of other times,” of the past by way of recalling an object’s use, or of the future by way of anticipating the potential of new local manifestations.

Hacking and Allusion

Over at Tim Richardson’s new blog Objet(a)uthenticity, he questions the idea of authenticity as it relates to both the prosthetic and the hack. He posits that like rhetoric, as dunamis, hacking seems to be a way of getting the object to reveal itself while a prosthetic is merely a replacement part:

What seems to differentiate the hack from the prosthetic (that talk I linked to last note) is that the latter is a replacement in kind, a surrogate that may or may not live up to the standards or utility of the original (and may or may not appear authentic). The hack, though, is all about new functionality. So it might be that all hacks are prosthetic (though maybe they address a lack, not a loss?) but not all prosthetics are hacks?

I’m going to get back to this in just a bit, but I want to bring up something that’s always bothered me about Harman’s OOO—allusion. In Prince of Networks, Harman states:

When the hammer surprises us with its breakdown, the exact character of this surprise can admittedly be described by various predicates. But note that ‘surprise’ is only the phenomenal result of the previously concealed hammer. The veiled, underground hammer cannot be identified with the surprises it generates, since these merely allude to its existence. (Allusion and allure are legitimate forms of knowledge, but irreducible to specific predicates.) (225)

Therefore, even when the object seems to offer us a glimpse into its withdrawn nature, these are just allusions to the real object that lies beneath. Now I used to think that this “allusion” (whether on our part or the object’s) was just a weasel word—a way to get around not having to talk about a seemingly important point. But what Tim’s post seems to get at is that perhaps a better way of understanding the relationship between the real object and the sensual one, or when the hammer breaks, is by way of hacking. Hacking allows users to get at parts of their objects that were meant to remain hidden, tucked away in code or purposefully disabled. What the hacker does, then, is never a physical modification but an action that allows the excess or withdrawn “reality” of the object to come forth. A recent example is when iOS hackers found that there was a panorama setting in iOS 5.0 that wasn’t turned on by Apple. Hacking, therefore, is a sort of non-linguistic way of alluding to a real object. And humans aren't the only objects that hack. For example, HIV works by hacking a host cell to replicate its RNA strand. HIV, in its hacking, makes the allusion to the host cell's hidden functionality extremely clear. Hacking in this sense is a faculty for observing all of the available means of perturbation. And as Tim reminds us, rhetoric (and maybe more specifically for us, OOR), too, is a faculty for discovering an object’s hidden functionality or local manifestations.

Rhetoric of the Uncanny in OOO

Okay, so it’s been kind of hectic around here with the newborn and all (so excuse the messiness and rambling of this post), but I’ve been working through the chapter of my dissertation on OOO, and in my writing came up with this fourfold.

Let me explain. Originally, I was planning on writing my dissertation over the uncanny as a rhetorical structure and device. So I ran across my notes on Mladen Dolar’s article “‘I Shall Be with You on Your Wedding Night’: Lacan and the Uncanny,” and decided to reread the entire article. What struck me was Dolar’s reading of ETA Hoffmann’s story, "The Sandman"—the same one that appears in Freud’s famous 1919 essay over the uncanny. Dolar, however, develops a fourfold out of the characters, arguing that the four poles represent two pairs of uncanny doubles in the story. But what I saw was a way of discussing the difference between Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology and Levi Bryant’s Onticology.

I’m still working through the specifics, but this is the basic argument:

It’s been argued that OOO deals with that which is uncanny. So, when I started trying to differentiate between these two philosophers, I decided to see in what way their respective object-oriented ontologies dealt with the uncanny.

When we look at Nathaniel (a human) and Olimpia* (an automaton) in Hoffmann's tale (and our first pole), there is a moment when the two blur the boundary between human and nonhuman. Dolar argues:

There is a strange reversal in this situation: the problem is not simply that Olympia turns out to be an automaton (contrived by the Sand-Man figure Coppola, who contributed the eyes, and Spalanzani, who took care of the mechanism) and is thus in the uncanny area between the living and the dead; it is that Nathaniel strangely reacts in a mechanical way. His love for an automaton is itself automatic; his fiery feelings are mechanically produced… (9)

In this way, there is a tension between Nathaniel and Olimpia whereby what was meant to remain hidden or withdrawn (i.e., the automatic response of human emotions or Olimpia’s true nature as an automaton) has come into the open (or appeared), and in doing so become uncanny.

The Freudian uncanny comes close, then, to Harman's ontology. Harman’s OOO, developed out of Heidegger’s tool analysis, says that all objects oscillate between a tool-state and a broken-tool state; or in Quadruple Object terms, between their apparent sensual side and their subterranean real side. This polarization, then, functions much in the same way Freud saw the uncanny working. For in the first part of his essay, Freud finds that there is a moment when what was defined as homely suddenly becomes unhomely—where the familiar and the strange oscillate much like the tool and broken tool. In this way, Harman's ontology is seemingly wrapped up in the rhetoric of the Freudian uncanny.

The poles of the Father and the Sandman, however, are slightly more complicated. If we read the father as external (perhaps as a Lacanian “name-of-the-father,” and thus as the symbolic legislative and limiting function over Nathaniel), the Sandman can be read as a frightening bit of the real in this symbolic function. For not only is Nathaniel mentally (or intimately) haunted by the Sandman, but the Sandman is also responsible for the father’s death and seemingly defies being signified—he is at times called the Sandman, at others Coppelius, and still at others Coppola. In this way, these two poles point to the blurring of the exterior/interior.

Similarly, Bryant’s Onticology favors a split object in which an object is seen as both a retreating virtual proper being and its local manifestations. Instead of reading either sides of this split as specifically internal or external, Bryant seems to favor the extimate—Lacan’s formulation of the uncanny—by which a thing is intimately exterior. As Dolar argues:

[The extimate] points neither to the interior nor to the exterior, but is located there where the most intimate interiority coincides with the exterior and becomes threatening, provoking horror and anxiety. The extimate is simultaneously the intimate kernel and the foreign body… (6)

Here the uncanny does not point to a level of access but to a level of proximity. What becomes frightening is the closeness or intimacy of this foreign object. Or, as Lacan states, the Other is “something strange to me, although it is at the heart of me” (The Ethics 71). For Bryant, the object is precisely a moment of extimacy—caught up not in relations between sensual and real objects or qualities; but, instead between endo- and exo-relations. Even the split in Bryant’s object seems to point to the way in which the object is extimate or uncanny unto itself.

Therefore, what’s important to see is that although both Harman and Bryant at times seem to share a view of objects, rhetorically they each approach the object in different terms of the uncanny—Freud for Harman and Lacan for Bryant.


*I've chosen to go with the Olimpia spelling here, although it appears in different translations as Olympia.

Back to Blogging

So I know I've been neglecting this blog for a while but rest assured, I have an excuse (two to be precise):

  

I'm also at a point in my own work that I need this space to work out a few thoughts, so in the next few posts I'll be doing just that.

Just in case you missed it, though, make sure you check out:

Jim Brown's blog developing an OOR around Richard Lanham, Graham Harman, and Ian Bogost.

Levi Bryant's book, The Democracy of Objects, has been made available online with print and PDF versions forthcoming.

And Timothy Morton has just released videos of the OOOIII conference in case you weren't able to make the live broadcasts:

1) Graham Harman, Steven Shaviro and Aaron Pedinotti

2) Timothy Morton w/ intro by Eugene Thacker

3) Levi Bryant

4) MacKenzie Wark

5) Roundtable with Harman, Byrant, Shaviro, Shannon Mattern, Morton, and Wark.

Expanding Agency by Expanding Time

In How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, inventor/designer Stewart Brand argues that buildings and architecture must be thought of in terms of time and not simply in terms of space. For Brand, buildings consist of six layers, each with its own temporal lifespan:

• SITE – This is the geographical setting, the urban location, and the legally defined lot, whose boundaries and context outlast generations of ephemeral buildings.
• STRUCTURE – The foundation and load-bearing elements are perilous and expensive to change, so people don’t. These are the building. Structural life ranges from 30 to 300 years (but few buildings make it past 60, for other reasons).
• SKIN – Exterior surfaces now change every 20 years or so, to keep up with fashion or technology, or for wholesale repair. Recent focus on energy costs has led to re-egineered Skins that are air-tight and better-insulated.
• SERVICES – These are the working guts of a building: communications wiring, electrical wiring, plumbing, sprinkler system, HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning), and moving parts like elevators and escalators. They wear out or obsolesce every 7 to 15 years. Many buildings are demolished early if their outdated systems are too deeply embedded to replace easily.
• SPACE PLAN – The interior layout – where walls, ceilings, floors, and doors go. Turbulent commercial space can change every 3 years or so; exceptionally quiet homes might wait 30 years.
• STUFF – Chairs, desks, phones, pictures; kitchen appliances, lamps, hair brushes; all the things that twitch around daily to monthly. Furniture is called mobilia in Italian for a good reason. (13)

Breaking a building up into these layers allows Brand to describe how these objects appear at once static things – “that church has always been there” – but at the same time, an object that is always “tearing itself apart” and becoming something new (13).

These layers are important for designers and architects, because humans interact with them at different levels:

The building interacts with individuals at the level of Stuff; with the tenant organization (or family) at the Space plan level; with the landlord via the Services (and slower levels) which must be maintained; with the public via the Skin and entry; and with the whole community through city or county decisions about the footprint and volume of the Structure and restrictions of the Site. The community does not tell you where to put your desk or your bed; you do not tell the community where the building will go on the Site (unless you’re way out in the country). (17)

Therefore, the Skin and Stuff of a building might undergo a quicker degree of change (every 3-30 years), while the Structure and the Site might change a lot slower (every 200+ years). Services, on the other hand, might undergo change depending upon the Skin and the Stuff – do I need a T1 connection if I do not own a computer? The point Brand is making is that buildings act much like an ecosystem, in that “the lethargic slow parts are in charge, not the dazzling rapid ones. Site dominates the Structure, which dominates the Skin, which dominates the Services, which dominate the Space plan, which dominates the Stuff. How a room is heated depends on how it relates to the heating and cooling Services, which depend on the constraints of the Structure. […] The quick processes provide originality and challenge, the slow provide continuity and constraint” (17). Each independent layer relies on and influences the other layers – though again, the results might not be immediate.

What reminded me of Brand’s evolutionary understanding of buildings was Jane Bennett’s position in Vibrant Matter - that the claim to vibrant matter (or a vital force located in all objects) becomes “more plausible if one takes a long view of time” (10). For Bennett, this type of evolutionary (temporal) view allows us to recognize the object specifically as an actant. So that, following De Landa, she finds that, “Mineralization names the creative agency by which bone was produced, and bones then ‘made new forms of movement control possible among animals, freeing them form many constraints and literally setting them into motion to conquer every available niche in the air, in the water, and on land” In the long and slow time of evolution, then, mineral material appears as the mover and shaker, the active power, and the human beings, with their much-lauded capacity for self-directed action, appear as its product" (11). By simply extending our view of time we find that agency is not necessarily a human property. This lesson seems to be similar to that found in Brand, that time becomes a hindrance to understanding an object’s agency when it is not allowed to regress (or progress?) beyond a certain point. Objects act, but only on their own time. A lesson needed for OOO.