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The Snake, the Goat and the
L adder (A board game for
playing chimera)
Reza Negarestani
A topological hymn to the abyss: The schematic map of the modern abyss1—namely, the
post-Copernican account of nature—can be geometrically laid out as the simple board
game Snakes and Ladders:
Just as the ladder of nature (scala naturae) was finally toppled;
And the serpent of genesis responsible for the descent of Man from heavens
to the Earth appeared to be a rope unanchored and loose at both ends, bearing
the gnaw marks of Copernicus, Darwin and Freud;
Snake
So must the classic board game undergo some changes, its moral message
erased, its geometry modernized and its players renegotiated.
Snake
In favor of “cutting loose the natural history of mankind from the Bible”2;
Ladder
And flushing out and away the patent symbolism of Snakes and Ladders;
Snake and Ladder
We modernize the ludic interface of the game.
Snake
It is imperative to rediscover the figure of the player;
Ladder
And its voice, its status and its expression;
Snake and Ladder
Strictly according to modern geometric schemata of the game.
Ladder
If the modern and scientifically disenthralled image of Man is a transitive local
reflection of the abyss;
Snake
And the player also reflects the rules, interfaces, implicit properties and the
overall dynamics of the game;
Snake and Ladder
Then, we can say that not only the new game must reflect in its
players as its own local dynamic profiles but also, the player must
be entirely perceived in terms of the self-reflective world of the
game.
Ladder
Since Snakes and Ladders is a geometric schema of the abyss;
Snakes
Then the evolution of Man as a potential player of this game must be thought
not in terms of:
Ladder
Ascending a transcendentally-bound lattice
Snake
Or descending from a transcendentally-positioned firmament
Snake and Ladder
But in terms of staring back into the modern abyss from a geo
metrical point of view. That is to say, from our point of view in the
absence of any lattice to which we can be bound.
Snake
Our view;
Ladder
That is a geometrical point of view;
Snake
Is constituted of a general space where properties of the abyss are expressed
in terms of all manners of transit;
Ladder
Change of base and transfer of structure;
Snake
Alternative passages and tones;
Ladder
Pointers and Arrows;
Snake
Suspended ladders;
Ladder
And disenchanted snakes.
Snake
Ladder
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2
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“[An] opening in which everything is gulped down, the Abyss refuses to hold
anything grounded” (Martin Heidegger) “because it is in itself absolved from all
[transcendental] bounds” (Gabriel Catren) and regional obstructions by which
its experience or its absolute relation to itself can be privatized in the name of man,
earth or matter. It is an immanently public outdoor where expropriation without
compensation is the law.
Josiah Clark Nott, Two Lectures on the Connection between the Biblical and
Physical History of Man.
ChimerizationS
chimerization
The Snake, the Goat and the
L adder (A board game for
playing chimera)
Reza Negarestani
Snakes and Ladder
All brought about by the continuous and unbound relation of the
abyss/nature to itself.
We call this modern player that reflects the geometric schema
of the abyss in the ostensibly distinct voice of Man in nature
and re-navigates the local horizon of Man and its voice in terms
of a geometric perspective into the abyss, chimera.
Snake
As that which belongs,
Ladder
To no “personal suppositio”,
Snake
“chimera is a man” (◊¬p),
Ladder
And “chimera is not a man” (◊p),
Snake and Ladder
At the same time.3
(It is a non-local profile of the modern abyss’s unbound relation
to itself—a ‘geometrical germ’ from which various procedures of
chimerization (musico-acoustical, philosophical, ludulogical, …) and
teratomodal ramifications can grow and pullulate.)
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The Snake, the Goat and the
L adder (A board game for
playing chimera)
Reza Negarestani
Modes of environments of the abyss/real which osmotically pass the
self-relationship of nature.
Fuzzy sites surrounding actual marks where synthetically-potent and fusible
points—infinitesimal deformation points or fleeting possibilia—are
accumulated.
Local profiles of the gamespace (i.e. players) which are interwoven together
by means of the continuity or the universal relation of the gamespace to itself.
Chimera’s Lemma: Unlike the latticed terrain of Snakes and Ladders where navigation
(ascension and descent) is predicated upon the correlation between axiomatically bound
regions of space and statistical probability implicated in the dice throw, the chimeric
landscape loosens the lattice and opens up counterintuitive transit passages through and
between topological neighborhoods or environments of the real, giving rise to chimera
as its projection:
(proof of the lemma)
The Snake, the Goat and the Ladder
(A board game for playing chimera)
How to Start the Game
“The zero is an eternal act. [And] the eternal is the nothing of nature [which is]
not an absolute nothing [but] an act devoid of substratum.”4 The game begins with navigation from 0 qua the indivisible nature as the first act—an act without substratum.
It consists of ‘being posited’ according to the contingency of the eternal, or an introverted
universal dice.
Platform and Interfaces
Chimera’s den—the board—is a rubber sheet. Its geometry is that of the
geometry of a rubber sheet capable of bending, twisting and continuous transformation or
deformation without its essential properties being changed or disturbed. Upon entering
chimera’s den, an inscription reads: Adopt “topological reasoning”5, all you who enter here.
The modernly customized platform of Snakes and Ladders is a topological
space. It is identified by its profound continuity and its protean relation to itself. Within this
topological space, no local relation, no discrete entity, point, concept, individual or player
can retain its identity without a recursive descent into the proto-relation—that is to say,
the continuity—of the space to itself.
Whereas in the pre-modern version of Snakes and Ladders, the stepwise
distribution of numbered or axiomatized cells determined the navigational space of the
player, in its new form the distribution of axiomatic cells and numbers is on the basis
of topological permissibility and the relation or continuity of the space to itself that precedes axioms and numbers.
The chimeric landscape of the topological gamespace can no longer be mapped
on to a grid. Rather than transcendentally and axiomatically bound cells through which the
player (i.e. a particular profile of the gamespace itself) ascends or descends, the chimeric
landscape is comprised of topological neighborhoods, or:
3 William of Ockham, Philosophical writings: a selection.
4 Lorenz Oken, Elements of Physiophilosophy.
5 Guerino Mazzola, The Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory,
and Performance.
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Following any navigational path in the chimeric landscape entails passing
through the landscape’s topological neighborhoods where possibilia and deformation points
can fuse, merge, shift, intermix through various local surgery methods (embedding, immersion, transplantation, …) and thus bringing about all manners of continuous deformation,
twisting, contamination and non-trivial combinatorial passages between neighborhoods or
different local profiles of the gamespace/abyss.
As the non-essential/expendable player G follows a particular
path/address (@) on the chimeric landscape of the topological gamespace,
its navigational approach to the gamespace or the modern abyss can be
formalized as G°@ (G composed with @).
Since G°@ is a given concrete composition within the
chimeric landscape which is comprised of different local profiles
or topological neighborhoods of the gamespace and since these
neighborhoods can be counterintuitively deformed, decomposed,
twisted, transplanted and immersed into and within one another,
then G°@ must be defined in terms of alternative passages between various topological neighborhoods or compositions.
By traversing a particular path, the expendable player
G becomes a concrete composition over the chimeric
landscape. The concrete composition G°@—or less
formally, Goat (G°At)—can be produced by different
commutative passages composed of local profiles of
the gamespace (i.e. players or objects) and alternative
paths (morphisms, or abstract snakes and ladders)
opened up and potentiated by the fusions and transplantations of topological neighborhoods. In other
words, Goat becomes a concrete composition for all
manners of topological deformation from one structure
to another, cobordisms or shared boundaries between
heterogeneous manifolds, teratomodal surgeries between actuality, possibility and generality, non-trivial
passages, fusions of incommensurabilities and transgender syntheses.
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The Snake, the Goat and the
L adder (A board game for
playing chimera)
Reza Negarestani
Once the goat gazed into the vast unbroken blue
pasture, it beheld a modal monster—no longer a mere
impossibility—engendered by “invariants beyond the
flux of transformations”6 and twisted by countless
non-trivial passages each “carrying its space with it
like a snail carries its shell”.7 A voice rang in its ears,
“For if you attempt [seeking chimera], nature will assist
you, and make good your endeavours, and the work
will much delight you: for you shall see such things
effected, as you would not think of.”8 All of a sudden,
the descent into the abyss became irresistible.
Chimera then understood that it was true after all
that from a geometric point of view, the abyss cannot
tell the difference between a goat, a lioness and a
disenchanted snake.
(A historical digression: It is said that the mythological chimera, the she-goat of Lycia, was
an offspring of Echidna and Typhon who had combined, in the most eccentric manner,
three distinct composites within itself. Rather than being a monster by the virtue of being
“a hybrid of different body parts”9, it was a global composition of three particular com
posites—a goat, a lioness and a snake each carrying its own respective space within the
beast. Chimera was accordingly considered a non-monster that posed a threat to the
metric reasoning of the composer in the clothing of a teratologist. For the priest in the
clothing of a logician, on the other hand, chimera was a relational and modal conundrum
for it bore a series of relationships between different heterogeneous or incommensurable
objects (or particular compositions such as G°@) which appeared impossible insofar as the
discrete modality of each animal was intruded by the multi-modal continuity of chimera.10
But above all, the compositional eccentricity of chimera sublimated in its voice, a synthesis
between the voiceless alveolar ‘hissing’ sibilants of its mother—the she-viper Echidna—
and the plosive oppression of its father typhoon. Chimera’s voice was a composition of
various animal vocalizations glued together according to their internal consistencies,
continuities between manners of articulation, their relations to their ambient space and
various swaps and transfers between them—a universal composition at the same time
irreducible to discrete voices and transcending their cacophonic conjunction.)
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Fernando Zalamea, Peirce and Latin American “Razonabilidad”: Forerunners
of Transmodernity.
7 Guerino Mazzola, The Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory,
and Performance.
8 Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick.
9 Ambroise Paré, Des Monstres
10 See John Buridan, John Buridan on Self-Reference: Chapter Eight of Buridan’s
Sophismata.
11 Guerino Mazzola, The Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory,
and Performance.
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Reza Negarestani
Chimera is simply the reflection of G°@ in the protean continuity of nature or
the unbound relation of the abyss to itself. This reflection is, accordingly, the translation
of G°@ (G on a particular address or path) into various alternative passages and profiles
all provided by the unbound and generic relation of nature/gamespace to itself.
From a geometrical point of view, chimera is a bundle of different addresses
or profiles for G°@ or a particular composition within the topological space.
If snakes and ladders are merely self-addressed arrows and pointers highlighting passages
in the continuous and self-relational environment of the gamespace/nature, then chimera
can be defined as a non-trivial bundle of snakes and ladders. Or more precisely, chimera is a
non-trivial bundle of snakes and ladders in which the reflection of the Goat into the abyss
does not project, from a global perspective, the manifest image of the Goat but the
topologically twisted chimera which is endowed with a canonical projection of the abyss
over the Goat.
From a geometrical and topological perspective, chimera can therefore be
denoted as:
Snakes and Ladders
Nature/Abbyss/Gamespace
Chimera
Goat
Within the geometric schema of the modern abyss, climbing any ladder or sliding over any
snake toward or away from the Goat (by definition, a local composition) leads to a chimera,
i.e. a Goat with a global twist.
As a post-pandemonic composition, chimera is already a musico-acoustical
operator of vast analytico-synthetic powers capable of
i.
Through decomposition techniques, functorial analyses and “modal
ramifications”12, unbinding the alternative profiles of a given composition (for
example, topological equivalents, alternative functorial maps, modal variations,
etc.) in a continuous environment and thereby, expanding its encyclopedic
space.
ii.
Subsequently, deforming, twisting and interweaving the aforesaid
alternative profiles together in the most counterintuitively refined global
structures which possess a limitless capacity for internal perturbations and
further syntheses without succumbing to confusion.
iii.
Incorporating, indexing and fusing with ‘extraneous’ entities through
underlying continuities between various local fields (by means of different
modes of descent into deep layers of the continuity of nature/abyss to itself),
non-local modes of synthesis between incommensurable elements, tracing
shared boundaries between different compositions, drawing topological equivalences, etc.
The Chimeric Player
Chimera is a post-pandemonic composition. Rather than purely conforming to
the transformational and compositional paradigm of metric reasoning, chimera is produced
according to a topological paradigm where the composition is “somewhere in the middle
between intractable monsters and insignificant atomized data”11, the trivial combination of
discrete voices and non-local continuities capable of unfurling counter-intuitive variations of
each and every voice.
6
The Snake, the Goat and the
L adder (A board game for
playing chimera)
As the goat began frolicking around, climbing down and scrambling up vertiginous precipices, the chimera appeared less of a reflection and more of an opening, a concrete
approach—composed of alternative paths, transits, knotted snakes and free-falling ladders
12 For modalization of a sign to its different local semiotic variations or sheaves see,
Fernando Zalamea, Signos Triádicos. Lógica, Literatura, Artes. Nueve Cruces
Latinoamericanos; and for diversifying a denotator (type) into alternative types
and varying denotators by means of modal ramification see, Guerino Mazzola,
The Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory, and Performance.
203
ChimerizationS
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The Snake, the Goat and the
L adder (A board game for
playing chimera)
Reza Negarestani
ChimerizationS
chimerization
interwoven like a double-helix codifying the reflexivity of the chasm—toward nature’s
unbound relation to itself, one that could not be drawn unless the goat was first broken
down and then reforged once again from the geometric and continuous perspective of
the abyss staring into itself. ‘To chimerize’ now meant ‘to turn—analytico-synthetically—
a goat (a particular composition or local horizon such as that of Man) into a non-trivial
perspective into the abyss, a new voice worthy of singing the “hymn to cliffs”13—
that is, a post-pandemonic composition wherein ascension and descent of profound
continuities bring out the most chimeric landscapes.
The Snake, the Goat and the
L adder (A board game for
playing chimera)
Reza Negarestani
How to Play
A thesis on playing chimera: Since chimera unbinds a particular composition
(G°@) in terms of various compositions comprised of different objects and different paths
opened through the continuous chimeric landscape and its topological neighborhoods,
we can say:
–
The deeper the reflection of the Goat into the abyss, the broader the unfolding
of alternative passages and compositional variations of the Goat.
–
The broader alternative passages and compositional variations, the deeper
and more detailed associations between them.
–
The deeper and more detailed associations and connective maps between
passages and compositions, the more opportunities for topological operations, gluings,
deformations, transplantations and transfers of heterogeneous qualities … and the more
twisted the chimera.
In short, the greater the unbinding of a particular composition in terms of its continuous
variations and alternative compositional addresses, the more freedom of choice and the
more improvisational flexibility, i.e. a greater chimeric plasticity.
Figure 1. Chimerization (or the Goat’s hymn to cliffs)
The goat’s hymn to cliffs is comprised of (1) The ramification of the goat or a particular
composition according to a layer of universal continuity (i.e. according to modal variations,
different addresses and representational contexts that a particular layer of continuity
provides); (2) broadening the goat’s synthetic horizon by means of bringing into focus
its alternative passages, different profiles, compositional variations and shifting boundaries
(i.e. expanding the encyclopedic space of the goat); (3) re-bundling and synthesizing
these alternatives and variations according to a more profound / universal layer of
continuity which undergirds them. Therefore, the transition from goat to chimera—
as an approach to nature’s unbound relation to itself—involves climbing up and down
between various edges, depths and borders of the modern abyss, simultaneously drawing
borders of epistemic sheaves and deepening the ontological horizon.
(A) G°@
(B) Non-Goat
(C) A Disenchanted
Snake
(D) Different Layers of
Continuity
(E) Chimera
13 Fernando Zalamea, América—Una Trama Integral: Transversalidad, Bordes
y Abismos en la Cultura Americana.
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