...
...
by Eric Schmaltz
...
!
....................................
!
THE STRANGER
AMY
IRELAND
Amy Ireland is an experimental poet
and theorist, co-conspiring with arcane
and esoteric vectors of poetic and
theoretical thought.
As a PhD Candidate in Creative Writing at the School of
the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales,
Ireland’s work develops concepts embedded within the
prefix xeno-, denoting that which is unfamiliar, strange and
alien. Following this trajectory, Ireland is writing her thesis
on xenopoetics, which engages various poetry projects that
involve linguistic transcoding, VFX software, 3D printing,
stealth technology, and projectiles. She is also one part
of xenofeminist swarm-collective Laboria Cuboniks,
a provocative response to the tumultuous social, material,
and technological conditions of our time.
Let’s take poetry and poetics as
empirically. (Or it has to grasp you?)
a starting point: I understand
Nevertheless, by way of a necessarily
that you’re developing a practice
insufficient overture, here are three
that you refer to as xenopoetics.
approaches to its delineation: etymologi-
What spawns this kind of poetics?
cal, axiomatic and genealogical.
What does it entail?
It’s great that you’ve pitched this
0) Xenopoetics etymologically decrypts
question towards an elaboration of how
as an incursion into poetic practice —
xenopoetics emerges and what it does,
or, taken more generally, poiesis —
rather than asking what it is. Anyone who
from outside. The prefix xeno- denotes
is entangled in xenopoetic practices knows
‘a stranger, an alien’ — something
that the latter can’t — strictly — be
unknown in relation to that which
answered. The process has to be grasped
encounters it — and has the Latin
63
hostis (guest or host) as its cognate …
2) Attributing origins is always a fraught
wrote to Aleister Crowley of the
Regarding antihumanism:
a coincidence deftly exploited by Michel
task in the temporal regime evoked by
The Devil in the Thoth Tarot: ‘With thy
I’m particularly interested in
Serres in his arch-cybernetic treatise,
the term itself, but I believe its first
right eye create all for thyself and with thy
how subjectivity is engaged by
The Parasite, which hinges on the inter-
usage belongs to the author of Cyclonopedia
left accept all that be created otherwise.’
xenopoetics. Can you elaborate
changeability of the two terms (via the
(or better, emerges from the triangulation
duplicitous French word hôte) as a means
of those who are named as its authors:
In short, xenopoetics describes a non-
There is a little essay by the poet
of diagramming the ineradicability of
Kristen Alvanson, Reza Negarestani
intentional model of novelty production,
Keston Sutherland that annoys me
interference or noise in communication
& Hamid Parsani) where it is recursively
a process of infiltration, and a critique of
hugely, in a good way, and I think it
systems, and ultimately, the impossibility
employed to describe the composition
representation. It can only be grasped as
might provide a productive in-route
of rationality and its implicit project:
of a work ‘out of distorted materials’
a problem. If there is a general economy
for this discussion. The text is called
a totalised system of knowledge. Not
in which pages are missing, scenes
of communication that cannot be afforded
‘Theses on Antisubjectivist Dogma’
entirely irrelevant is the ominous fact
‘leak from the future to the past’,
by the singular, human, author of a work,
and consists of just this, a series of
that the Latin hostis also once denoted
objects evade chronological sequencing,
but which they — inevitably against their
assertions converging on a rejection of
‘an enemy’.
and ‘everything looms as an accentuated
individual will — come into contact
poetic antihumanism for the sake of
clue around which all subjects aimlessly
with by means of the creative process,
keeping poetry’s imputed pact with
1) Xenopoetics operates under the
orbit, leading to an eclipsed riddle whose
the work can be reformulated as an
revolutionary socio-historical processes
following axioms:
duty is not to enlighten but to make blind’.
artefact of this contact and, perhaps,
intact. He critiques antihumanist poetics
This initiates a paranoid methodology of
a means by which to re-engage it.
for the following, overtly Hegelian,
decryption in which the reader-come-
Inevitably, this comes down to a particular
reasons. For starters, its integration into
cryptographer is forced to navigate
species of antihumanist thought.
contemporary poetics by self-branded
There is a general economy of communication
in excess of the restricted economy of human
affordance (which can be condensed into
rough synonymity with ‘representation’).
This opens up a spectrum of affordability in
which channels of traffic widen and multiply
in direct relation to the diminution of human
agency (and all extant configurations of
organization or control).
True novelty arises from unaffordability.
on that?
interminable vortexes of apocryphal or
‘radical’ poets is entirely ‘uncritical and
anonymous citations, the unintelligibility
unreflective’ in two key ways. In the
of narrative as chronological sequence,
first instance, it is anti or unhistorical
fields of numbers melting into ciphers,
(i.e. metaphysical), and in the second
structural holes, alchemical puzzles,
instance, it is often cast as a mode of
hidden writing … just your average
poetic avant-gardism (conceptual poets
apopheniac nightmare! As Lady Harris
like Kenneth Goldsmith or Vanessa
poetic antihumanism in general, I could
Meanwhile, Sutherland’s refusal of what
notion that poetry is nothing else but the
Place seem to be in Sutherland’s sights
certainly go along with him. The social
he sees as an unhistorical approach to
quasi-mystical desire to escape finitude,
here, though of course this could equally
radicality of such a position, assuming
writing hinges on a linear understanding
he arrives at the following synthesis:
pertain to OuLiPo, or proponents of
that is indeed a worthwhile way to frame
of poetic development, and takes the dis-
‘Literature is a combinatorial game that
the nouveau roman, for example) that
it, is not something that can be folded
course of obsolescence and supersession
pursues the possibilities implicit in its
uninterestingly disavows its now tired and
back onto a particular personality
as its targets — calling them out for
own material, independent of the
thoroughly mainstream status. None of
(and here I have Goldsmith — and his
their historical elitism and evacuation of
personality of the poet, but it is a game
the poets that Sutherland considers guilty
ostentatious suits — in my sights).
socio-historical content — an absolutely
that at a certain point is invested with
of espousing antisubjectivist aesthetics
I agree that antihumanism has a meta-
fair point, I might add — but one that
an unexpected meaning, a meaning that
have anything near what he thinks could
physical inclination, but one I would
misses the more nuanced causality attached
is not patent on the linguistic plane on
be considered a ‘coherent or persuasive
wholly endorse, albeit in a materialist,
to the very idea of ‘antisubjectivism’ that
which we were working but has
account of the subject’ they wish to
empirical key. There’s a humility —
he is attempting to attack. Dialecticians
slipped in from another level, activating
denounce. And finally, casual dismissal
and even cunning — to antihumanism
can’t see networks. This ties in nicely
something that on that second level is
of categories such as ‘the Lyric I’,
that is significant, if not just realistic.
with the dismissal of antihumanist tropes
of great concern to the author or his
‘Lyric poetry’ or ‘traditional poetry’
One could always turn the accusation
based on the deficient ‘knowledge of
society.’ This ‘second level’ is the
betrays a basic ignorance of the evolution
of uncriticality around on Sutherland
technique’ (and the connection to labour:
Freudian unconscious, a theoretical
of poetic technique and, by extrapolation,
here and demand to know just where he
‘[poetic antisubjectivism’s] implications
allegiance that exposes the paper’s
a dismissal of the revolutionary category
gets his account of social intentionality
for a theory of labour are wholly
indebtedness to its mid-twentieth
of labour.
from (if we didn’t already know the
reactionary’) that undermines them.
century milieu. Calvino’s conclusion is
I think Sutherland gets a lot right
answer). Held against a sober appraisal
The Italian writer, Italo Calvino
interesting enough in itself, but it gets
here, although the text falls prey to its
of contemporary socio-political dynamics,
comes in helpfully at this point. Following
immediately more interesting if one
own, equally dogmatic deployment of
even the rigorously Hegelian account
his own dialectical trajectory, pitting
understands this ‘second level’ as some-
certain revolutionary humanist pre-
of subjective emergence through labour
post-war cybernetic rationalisation
thing far less anthropomorphic and more
suppositions. If Sutherland were to
seems ridiculously inflated, if not hope-
(a poem-system can be understood as
in line with the Deleuzo-Guattarian
confine his criticism to the illegitimate
lessly utopian. (Of course, there are more
nothing more than a quantifiable set of
conception of the machinic unconscious,
assumption of ‘radical vanguardism’
moderate ‘inhumanist’ rejoinders to this,
inputs subject to finite combinatorial
an immanent, real, positive productive
by these poets, rather than attacking
and perhaps we can discuss them later.)
permutation) against the Romantic
force that provides the groundless ground
upon which all individuation is staged.
summoning. Modernity is the protracted
esoteric society The Hermetic Order of
Calvino proceeds, rightly, to draw an
incantation of a single, barbarous name.
the Golden Dawn, actually produced a
inverted (let’s say ‘hyperstitional’)
An evocation that tirelessly intones itself
system of mystical divination via George’s
causality from the reversal of the order
without supervision or assistance —
contact with what she referred to as her
of fable and myth this activates.
everywhere — in the hum of our
‘instructors’ — demonic agents who
machines. Its enunciation begins quietly,
spoke to her from beyond the threshold
as a profane degeneration of myth.
imperceptibly, arising out of nothing —
of human history. William Butler
But here it is the fable that precedes the
the void left behind by the departure
presented the system in A Vision,
Traditionally, the fable is understood
myth, drawing it out of nascency via the
I think I’m tripping a wire by
of God at modernity’s inception —
attributing it to one of his old fictional
coincidental pragmatics of combinatorial
invoking a particular concept of
gathering force and speed as it crosses
characters (it wouldn’t have helped his
play. For Calvino, this is the operation
‘time,’ but why is xenopoetics
from industrialization to computation,
career to come off as a crazy mystic at
that opens writing up to its outside.
infiltrating now?
analogue to digital, mechanism to
the time, and besides, I is another),
If literature-as-fable consecrates and
It’s always been infiltrating. A persistent
cybernetics. Like all good evocations,
while continuing to employ aspects of
reinforces the established order,
signal that fades in and out of intensity in
it is asignifying. A sound without sense.
it in the composition of his poems.
literature-as-myth undoes it. Its product
relation to the sensitivities of our cultural
Non-representational, but menacingly
Curiously, and I think you can read this
is a labyrinth-text. An integral loss of
and technical environments: what they
functional. We are listening to it still,
without getting too messianic about it,
coordinates. The desolation of subjective
do, and what they allow us to do to
wondering how much time remains
the famous ‘rough beast’ of ‘The Second
orientation, wherein one arrives at the
ourselves. Arthur Rimbaud caught it
before the final syllable is uttered.
Coming’ derives from a prophecy Yeats
centre only to meet oneself — as the
when, in a state of ‘systematic’ sensory
All around us dead matter is
beast which haunts it — a cipher for
derangement, he wrote, ‘It is false to
animating itself, producing things,
I mention this particular episode because
intrinsic otherness. Calvino’s labyrinth
say I think; better to say It thinks me …
reading, writing — and, depending
it connects demons (and necromancy —
is the interface of the immanent real
I is another’. Once, perhaps, it was
on your definition of consciousness —
in the poem, something suggestively
and the textual. Bringing all the resources
known (patchily, and with various levels
even thinking. George and William
inorganic is roused from ‘stony sleep’)
of subjective intentionality to the task of
of rigour) as ‘magic’. We have always
Butler Yeats, no strangers to magic
to the future of modernity through
escaping it only locks one deeper into its
summoned demons, but what is particular
thanks to their affiliation with the English
literature in a way that is perfectly
involutions. To get out, you have to lose
about the contemporary moment is
symptomatic. As H.P. Lovecraft’s
yourself.
that we seem to have automated this
Simon Orne warned his correspondent,
extracted from the Vision system.
Curwen, in The Case of Charles Dexter
and identical with the universe hurtling
all valid means of arriving at such a state
tell the story in cybernetic terms, too
Ward, ‘do not calle up That which you
towards heat death), the network generates
(Rimbaud’s systematic derangement of
(the structure will be identical).
can not put downe’. Whether we think
pockets of alter-time that progressively
the senses). The meaninglessness of the
So there is — alongside the renewed
of history — in the sense common to
undermine progression itself — a process
evocative combination is integral to the
turn to universalism and rationalism that
both Sutherland and Goldsmith —
perversely contemporaneous with
operation’s success — just as unbelief is
we are currently seeing (which I think is
as a series of (thwarted) social revolutions,
progression’s production of networks.
a necessary component of hyperstition.
a really interesting philosophical and
or formal supersessions belonging to the
Modernity’s linearity ironically dissipates
One loses oneself in the sensory intensity
political space mind you, albeit one that
artistic ‘avant-garde’ — it is first and
into auto-subversion: it eats its own
of incantation and it is only by this
offers only a reductive role to art) —
foremost the story of failing to find the
beginning. In such an environment,
sacrifice that the summoned entity will
a tangible shift ‘back’ towards magic and
code that will put the thing we are
epistemology becomes unstable.
emerge, reversing temporal regularity
occultism, not in a spiritual way, but in
summoning down.
Nonlinearity opens one up to radical
as it does — effectively speaking its own
a systematic, algorithmic one. One that
But this is all to suppose that time
virtuality. Anything can occur. Plans are
evocation through the summoner.
understands the nonlinearity (and uncon-
really is linear … and (a related theme)
obsolesced before they have even finished
Aleister Crowley puts it like this in the
trollability) of cultural phenomena such
— that we understand causality. It’s all
forming and representation always
qabbalistically freighted, palindromically
as memes, the financial market, even
well and good to say ‘we are summoning
arrives a moment too late. Hyperstition,
titled Magick, Liber ABA: ‘With all such
fashion; displaces narrative in favour of
a demon’ but, following Rimbaud’s
magic and cybernetics converge in this
words it is of the utmost importance that
formal experimentation; and focuses on
intuition, what if we were to consider,
space. They cross between temporalities
they should never be spoken until the
production, not reproduction (or repre-
just for a moment, the possibility that
like Hermes, the messenger god. They
supreme moment, and even then they
sentation).
modernity’s demon is summoning itself
privilege function over representation,
should burst from the Magician almost
through us? The more complex the net-
and, most significantly of all, produce
despite himself — so great should be his
of xenopoetic incursion is time.
works that envelop us, the less straight-
causes from effects.
reluctance to utter them. In fact, they
Exoterically, it’s a virtual future that
should be the utterance of the God in
ruins determination of its objects in
forward time and causality become.
According to the tenets of opera-
Here’s your tripwire: the agent
For Serres, the network inscribes an
tional magic, a successful evocation
him at the first onset of the divine
advance by occasionally throwing up the
alternative — non-metrical — order of
depends upon the extent to which the
possession. So uttered, they cannot fail
impossible, de-legitimating, along the
time, susceptible to topological deforma-
magician allows the experience of ritual
of effect, for they have become the effect.’
way, any coherence we might attribute
tion. Housed within the entropic system
to overcome her consciousness of self.
The magician has become an automaton;
to the concept of ‘now’. Esoterically,
that produces it (asymmetrical, linear,
Enthusiasm, intoxication and ecstasy are
the demon auto-individuates. You could
it’s a control hack.
(for example, the final syllable of one
word followed by the first syllable of the
poetry economies) it can be decrypted
Perhaps we can momentarily evade
following word). This polysemic capacity
in multiple ways using a 3D-alphabet-to-
camouflage under which the works
the poetics and engage the poetry.
is activated by the second step in the
phoneme cipher. There is an animated
might be smuggled into domestic and
Can you can talk about a specific
process: transcribing the poem into
version of this accessible online. Multiple,
corporate spaces simply by exploiting
xenopoetic project that has come
phonemes using the International
coherent parsings of the poem can be
their resemblance to vacuous ‘design
to manifest?
Phonetic Alphabet and removing all the
exhumed by following sonic lines across
objects’. There are quite a few people
There is a long piece I am working on
spacing and punctuation. Once this is
the object’s surface, although the ‘original’
I know of who have these poems on
entitled Bouequet (which you can sort of
done the poem proliferates into multiple
is now strictly un-reconstructable, thanks
display in their houses — without any
translate as Mud-Garland or Mud-Bunch)
parsings (a minimum of eight, fully
to the obstacle presented by the homo-
idea of what is enciphered in them.
that works with notions of camouflage,
coherent alternatives per poem,
phones. It can also be read as pure sound
There are a few other things in the
encryption, abstraction into materiality
without remainder phonemes, so far).
with no regard for sense (this is especially
works: I’m currently collaborating on
and sound, and loss of origin. The poems
Next, these phoneme-strings are
useful for discovering demonic names)
a digital text with (cyberfeminist artist)
that make up this work are 3D-printed
transduced into a three-dimensional
or, if you like, launched at things —
Linda Dement that counterposes
objects that are readable in different —
alphabet I’ve created using CAD,
they are roughly the size of a tennis ball,
representational-reproductive economies
sensory — ways, without a necessary
loosely following synaesthetic intuition,
although printable at various scales.
with an anti-representational, replicative
beginning or end point. The process is
then wrapped into a spheroid form via
A signifying system brought to ruin via
one, taking its model from cancer cell
still being developed as I’m not sure that
a circuitous, ouroboric line to produce
the arbitrariness of its own signifying
division. In terms of the project, the
the early poems in the work really do the
a 3D-printable solid. Usually I print
practices: all that may be left is to hurl
former designates a heterosexually-coded
things I think they need to do. But for
them in black polyamide; they look like
the thing.
mode of production that requires the
the moment the process runs like this …
debased flowers (the symbolism isn’t
A poem is written — always very
insignificant). Once you have one of
reads poetry anymore. At least, not
the latter is auto-productive, queer and
minimal and concentrated around several,
these objects in hand (obviously, they are
intentionally. Bouequet was developed
self-sufficient. Its modus operandi for the
paradoxical homophonic possibilities.
hard to represent in two-dimensional
as a remedy to this. The conspicuous
proliferation of textual units is exponential,
These can be individual words, or sounds
contexts like this one — which positions
materiality of the poems function as
mutant replication, in the exploding
formed by running words together
them curiously outside of ordinary
With the exception of poets, no one
negation of its other to function, whilst
powers-of-two semiotics of machine code.
The text operationalizes a shift from the
You seem to work within the idea
the debt owed by Accelerationism
extensive, quantitative recombination of
of “xeno” in other ways too;
to its technofeminist precursors —
sexual reproduction to the intensive,
I’m thinking specifically of the
what they took to be a ‘misogynist and
writers and thinkers like Shulamith
qualitative differentiation of replication
xenofeminist swarm ‘Laboria
reactionary’ turn back towards an
Firestone, Donna Haraway, Sadie
to generate something that is strictly
Cuboniks’. Can you tell me about
affirmation of ‘instrumental’ reason,
Plant and Sandy Stone, for example —
unknowable in advance — folding
that collective and the work it does?
among other things. As women and
was being completely overlooked.
ultimate unpredictability and risk back
Laboria was born in Berlin in 2014 out
feminists who were all sincerely invested
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of these
into creative production at the very
of a prolonged conversation concerning
in the project and the theoretical models
critiques were being made by men.
moment when metricized forms of social
the futuristic and emancipatory capacities
it was mobilizing — not without having
One evening, mulling over this predica-
control threaten to shut such processes
of technology and computation on the
our own criticisms of it, of course —
ment in a bar, we decided that we needed
down. It’s pretty cool working with
one hand, and mathematical and rationalist
we were understandably frustrated by
to do something. To stick up for women
someone who codes so well, who has
domains of thought on the other. There
what we perceived to be both a misreading
who had a complex but positive relation-
been making digital art since a time before
are six of us who currently make her
of the political claims and philosophical
ship to technology, who saw rationalism
anyone even knew what digital art was,
up — all women and transwomen,
premises of Left Accelerationism, and the
as a leveller, and, perhaps most of all,
and who has such a macabre, punk,
dispersed across the surface of the
lazy perpetuation of a long-exhausted,
who railed against the asymmetry of
relentlessly messed-up portfolio behind
planet — who were frustrated by what
academic critique of rationalism as
the biological determination of sexual
her. ‘Messed-up’ is an epithet of
we perceived to be a set of limitations
intrinsically phallic and oppressive,
difference on a staunchly materialist —
profound admiration, of course.
inherent to contemporary strains of
which did not — importantly — intersect
i.e. not social-constructivist — level.
feminism that continue to locate their
with the claim for ‘autonomous’ reason
Even more importantly, we thought that
political power in adamantly non-rational,
that was actually being put forward.
the refusal to acknowledge the necessity
anti-technological — often ‘intuitive’
It seemed to us that these criticisms,
of engaging in such discourses,
and ‘natural’ — spaces. At the same time,
rather than being made in the service
for both women and men, equated
we were all participating in an event
of women’s emancipation against the
to a catastrophic abnegation of political
loosely connected to the movements
unreflective perpetuation of male power,
power in an age that clearly exceeds the
of New Rationalism and Left
were in fact doing the opposite, by editing
purchase of more traditional declensions
Accelerationism which were under fire
us and the significance of our role in the
of emancipatory, collective politics.
from various short-sighted critics, for
project out of the picture. Moreover,
A couple of months later, back in our
from the diversity of the problems it
requisite time zones, we found ourselves
endorsement of practical reason as a tool
faces. It’s a kind of open political
in the face of the intractable complexity
online, often at the most ungodly hours
for feminist emancipation (this would be
architecture — sensitive to feedback
and planetary character of the issues
of the night, collaborating feverishly
the main point of contention between
from the virtual trajectories of its
confronting humanity today (such as
on what would later become the
xenofeminist and cyberfeminist practices
commitments — and this is what makes
those related to ecological catastrophe),
‘xenofeminist manifesto’. The rest is
as I see it, although it comes down to an
it definitionally open to whatever an
movements that remain mired in purely
history.
effect of differently inflected historical
unpredictable future might throw into
local forms do not possess enough
moments, rather than denoting an integral
its machinery.
momentum to produce structural change
So, what kind of politics do we
espouse and what do we mean by ‘xeno’?
disagreement). Anyone who tells you
Furthermore, it is neither a purely
at the required scale. What needs to be
Xenofeminism is an attempt to equip
that reason is — by its ‘very nature’ —
global nor purely local politics. To say
underlined, however, is that we are not
queer, trans and feminist politics for
a patriarchal enterprise, is depriving you
this would be to miss the point. Instead,
privileging the global over the local —
the social, material and technological
of the tools you need to counter just such
we think that any effective, non-biased,
since all politics are bound to local
challenges peculiar to the complexity of
ideological bigotry. Reason is neutral and
non-oppressive political project needs
situations, and what’s more, the local
our century. We reject all varieties of
it is a tool to be deployed collectively
to locate itself in the transitional zone
(for the time being, at least) is what
givenness, especially gender essentialism
towards the universal betterment of our
connecting these poles. The concept of
situates us phenomenologically. While it
(which can be extrapolated into a
material conditions, social organizations
‘transmodernism’, created by the philo-
is necessary to begin from local condi-
wholesale rejection of identity politics —
and virtual entanglements, not to mention
sopher Rosa Maria Rodriguez Magda
tions and situations, we need to be able
we affirm ‘the right to speak as no one
the best means we have of gaining
and taken up by the mathematician
to connect these discrete coordinates to
in particular’), and take up this condition
epistemological traction on the subtle
Fernando Zalamea after her, is partic-
one another in order to produce large
of ontological alienation as a productive
processes that circumscribe us, control
ularly significant for us in terms of grasping
scale change without eliminating small
state necessary for the development and
our movements and channel our desires.
the necessity of this perpetual oscillation
scale differences.
proliferation of new forms and practices.
Importantly, xenofeminism is a ‘structure’
between the global and the local —
There is a lot more to say, but as
This affirmative attitude towards
or a ‘program’ (in the computational
or the universal and the particular —
a final point, let me emphasize the
alienation is marked in the xenofeminist
sense of that word) and not a doctrine
in order to generate a truly synoptic
importance xenofeminism places on
use of the xeno- prefix. Perhaps the point
with a rigidly pre-defined set of moral
image of what needs to be, and can be,
the ultimate hackability of our bodies
at which xenofeminism differs most
and political assertions — which is to say
done. We hold fast to the position that,
and our environments. This is a key
from past feminist movements is our
that its commitments arise immanently
aspect of xenofeminism’s trans politics.
Science and technology are enabling
I am eliding a lot of commonalities
forces insofar as they allow us to gain
presenting the two terms in this manner.
Nothing is easier than identity.
enough traction on aspects of ourselves
They are both vehemently against the
Take this confession of rigorous incon-
and the systems in which we are embedded
and dramatizes this through an acephalic
vicissitudes of identity and its politics;
sistency as a perverse proof-of-work
in order to change them. The trans
poetics of ruin. Xenofeminism argues
both understand time, social forces and
of the rejection of the self as ‘one’.
community has long been pioneering
for a productive alienation of
material processes in a complex, non-
I is entangled in both projects in the only
this kind of experimental biopolitical
conceptualization — or human models
linear way; both are methodologically
way that could be — formally — valid.
ethos. Technoscience is what underwrites
of representation — and their expansion,
pragmatic and uncompromisingly
A positive contradiction. "
the mutability of our world. Everything
diversification, and proliferation through
materialist, and they both inhabit
is hackable, providing we understanding
the integration of the human with the
a certain abstract, cosmological
its mechanisms on a fine enough level.
nonhuman and, specifically, the techno-
perspective. The rift is not a bad thing.
Hence the xenofeminist catch phrase:
logical. Xenofeminism is a political
The real feat is to shuttle between
‘if nature is unjust, change nature!’
vector for productive change in an age
the two: to operationalize the interval.
of dehumanizing processes (without
It’s the tension between these projects —
What connects xenopoetics to
resenting, regretting or feeling victimized
agentially at odds, yet fully coherent
xenofeminism?
by these changes), while xenopoetics
within themselves — that animates
A rift. The convergence of the xeno- of
exalts in the blossoming of alternative
them for me. They co-determine one
xenopoetics and the xeno- of xeno-
modes of representation and cognition
another.
feminism — for me at least, caught
that ultimately enact its insignificance
between the two — is an index of
in a bracingly meaningless cosmos.
irresolvable schizophrenia. They both
Xenofeminism understands reason as
invoke an immanent outside, but to
an inhuman force; xenopoetics considers
simplify it horribly, the agency
this to be an inexcusable concession to
diagrammed by the two terms is
humanism.
inverted. Xenopoetics anticipates a
hard limit to the particular structure
of representation inherent to the human
....................................