When Matter
Thinks
In conversation with the Theory Fiction seminar
Kodwo Eshun
Ursula Biemann
Thinking the
social
imaginary
How are the entanglements between the inhuman and the
human envisioned and narrated? What kind of sounds,
images, and affects are produced by the multiscalar relations
between the Earth, the world, and the planet? How do the
temporal and spatial demands of planetary matter under conditions of anthropogenic violence modulate, mutate, and melt
the form and the function of essayistic practice?
Today we will be discussing the implications of the human-non-human symbiosis and anthropic
inversion narrated through artistic practices. How do the
scale and temporality of these forces change the form
and functions of the kind of work we make? What happens to artmaking in the age of anthropogenic violence?
Ursula Biemann Climate change is no longer a distant hazard looming on the horizon. It is irrevocably changing the living,
and equally importantly, the thinking conditions on the
planet with a magnitude and velocity we can hardly
grasp. This course into an unknown future forces us to
fundamentally rethink the relationship between humans
and the Earth that has been occluded by the gigantic
technological effort required to draw the societies of
the world together and make them global, albeit in uneven
and inconclusive ways. In this arena, everything is
arranged to facilitate human action, prompting a particular modality of narrating the world. Meanwhile, mobilised coevally by natural sciences and the humanities, an
inspiring new body of art and writing is emerging which
brings the Earth onto the main stage. Global warming
brings turbulences into atmospheric and mental conditions, entwining the two like never before. In the midst of
this undisciplined disturbance we are interpellated to
simultaneously engage artistic and scientific paradigms
and let this conversation infiltrate our imagination and
20
21
Theory Fiction (Kodwo Eshun)
Thinking under Turbulence
When Matter Thinks
Thinking under Turbulence
23
The Otolith Group, The Radiant, still, 2012.
Credit: The Otolith Group
practice. To think with and through art can unravel the
role it might play in this process. The point I seek to
establish here is that this post-human condition, where
humanism is no longer the dominant premise, reconnects us to infinitely larger, untameable forces that animate extra-historical dimensions. This plunges us
humans into deep time, into geological and climatic
timescales. It comes as no surprise that in this endeavour, artists and theorists currently feel an urge to go back
to the moment in history when science split off from
other ways of thinking of the world and went on developing its own methodologies viewed from a distinct subject
position. This bifurcation in the production of knowledge
is presently undergoing a reevaluation. Solution-oriented
thinking that seeks technical answers to human-caused
problems is driving the economy these days. It simply is
the dominant model for human-Earth relationships now.
Through small but rapidly multiplying gestures, artists
insert a range of other motivations and methodologies
into the processes that are shaping conditions on Earth.
In the light of the powerful means and effects afforded
by industry, these efforts may seem irrelevant but they are
profoundly meaningful because such artistic research
exposes operative paradigms and modes of thinking and
acting with the material world that present alternatives to
the economy- and technology-driven prescriptions.
TF (KE) What happens to art-making under the conditions of
what Timothy Morton calls ‘hyperobjectivity’?
UB Art can provide a site of experimentation for forms of
address that offer strategies for visual discoveries that
are not restricted to scientific objectivity. With these
works that I will discuss this morning, I pursue the artistic exploration of elementary resources like oil and water.
I am looking at aesthetic and conceptual tools that allow
us to transform these ideas. The video Deep Weather
speaks of a moment of crisis. We live in a new reality that
we cannot represent to ourselves. At the moment when
we think that we are technically in control of landscape,
energy, and resources it dawns on us that we are less in
command than ever, given the unpredictable and nonlinear climate change that we face in the future. There is no
control. There is only the fluid circulation of what humans
do and how nature responds. And how nature responds
is not always local. Through the intervention in fragile
local ecosystems and biospheres, an imbalance is happening at a long distance from the site affected. We
could say that this is part of the planetary condition. The
times call for a recalibration of our senses that take such
remote causalities into consideration. So we need to
find aesthetic means to communicate these remote causalities in a way that reaches the social imaginary, not
just the rational mind. I don’t think we just need more
data and more transformation of data into visualisation.
We need something that reaches the social imaginary,
so that people grasp the scale of transformation we’re
in for.
TF (KE) The social imaginary is not just a question of visualising data. It involves processes that we have traditionally
22
When Matter Thinks
used science to describe but narrated with affective and
emotional vocabularies. The social imaginary can be
understood as the affective dimension that emerges
from the encounter with new conditions, such as remote
causality, in which a cause in one place has an effect in a
different place out of all proportion to its initial cause.
You can have a scientific explanation for causality but
you also need to have an explanation that speaks to the
confusion that emerges from loss of control and the confounding experiences of non-locality and remote and
field causality. The assembly of a social imaginary speaks
to those conditions.
UB This is distinct from individual imagination: here
there is a feedback loop built in that says: ‘I am proposing something that triggers imagination. But I have to
see how society starts working with it and how they throw
it back at us.’ That’s the beginning of a process.
Doreen Mende It would be helpful to also understand the social
imaginary in its political and spatial dimensions. The
social imaginary is something that, for example, has
been constitutive for movements of self-organisation
vis-à-vis systems of state control. But the social imaginary we are speaking about here is one that is dispersed
geographically and spatially. That also says something
about who we are in this formulation which exceeds the
human understanding or the understanding of subjectivation as a human entity.
UB Brian Holmes wrote about the social imaginary and
how it operates, about social movements and the artistic
side of social movements. Many of these processes are
increasingly abstract. A lot of my work has to do with trying to embody and localise these phenomena. In the
conclusion of Deep Weather when people are drowning
in the waters of Bangladesh, the voiceover declares: ‘It’s
like living in a new condition when water has become the
territory of citizenship.’ Land will be underwater, citizens
24
Thinking under Turbulence
will have lost their relation to the land and we have to figure
out a new legal system to accommodate this part of
humanity.
Theory Fiction (Duke Choi) I’m wondering about this uncertainty of land,
what it’s producing in the bodies of people living in those
environments. In Los Angeles, we have this paranoia
with earthquakes. Also, some people are afraid of
nuclear energy. What do you feel about this uncertainty
of the human? Is our role to direct this or just let it happen? Is there a way we could curate this?
UB It’s part of what it means to be human these days.
There is this illusion humans have of thinking that we can
control all these things. Maybe that is what you need to
let go of. We’re not something on the outside that can
control everything. We are part of it.
Theory Fiction (Mandarava Bricaire) I always have a problem with producing beauty out of something very tragic. It’s the problem
with using critique in art: finding a way to be critical without distracting the viewer with beauty, because we all
know how controversial the idea of beauty and the sublime is.
Thinking the
hyperobject
Art can do something more than just describing the
tragedy of something. I’m using epic images to speak
about the immensity of things. I want to pick up again on
this idea of climate change. Timothy Morton speaks of
global warming as a ‘hyperobject’. Maybe I could read
some lines from the very good introduction of his book
Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of
UB
25
When Matter Thinks
26
the World called ‘A Quake in Being’: ‘Hyperobjects are
things that are massively distributed in time and space,
relative to humans.’ – ‘A hyperobject could be a black
hole, the Lago Agrio oil field in Ecuador, the Florida
Everglades, a biosphere, the solar system, the sum total
of all nuclear materials on Earth, or just plutonium or uranium, or could be the very long-lasting product of direct
human infrastructure such as styrofoam or plastic bags,
or the sum of all machines of capitalism. Hyperobjects
are then hyper in relation to some other entity, whether
they are directly manufactured by humans or not.’
Hyperobjects are very large, diffused objects that are
permanently present but not localised in a material
sense. He says: ‘Heavy rain is simply a local manifestation of some vast entity that I’m unable to see directly.’
We cannot perceive the hyperobject as a whole. All we
ever see are its footprints. Global warming occurs in
much vaster temporalities, out of the shorter human
time frames of perception. And that is how it withdraws
from our ability to see and sense it. From our mortal
earthbound standpoint, the phenomena is partially
eclipsed. They are gaps in our cognition that need to be
bridged. I think they function a bit like what Reza
Negarestani calls ‘plot holes’. Morton states that with
the impact of hyperobjects, Earth ‘demands a geophilosophy that does not think in terms of human events and
human significance only.’ – ‘These entities cause us to
reflect on our very place on Earth and in the cosmos’.
Morton argues: ‘Perhaps this is the most fundamental issue: hyperobjects seem to force something on
us, something that affects some core ideas of what it
means to exist, what Earth is, what society is.’ – ‘Outer
space is a figment of our imagination: we are always
inside an object.’ – ‘Hyperobjects are time-stretched to
such a vast extent that they become almost impossible
to hold in mind.’ There are lots of different temporalities
that are happening simultaneously. Video is a timebased media, so I am muddling some of these different
temporalities to bring them together.
Theory Fiction (Camilla Paolino) A computing system could be a hyperobject. Even though it has been conceived by the human
mind, it can assume the dimensions of an entity that is
not graspable – that escapes human perception. I’m
thinking of the Internet. Among other algorithmic systems, let’s take Google. It could be a hyperobject. Even
if we know how, when, by whom it was created and how
it works, it is hard to envision how it wraps up the world
and the world of communication. I imagine the network
as a sort of outer shell that envelops the world, but it’s
paradoxically matter too complex and huge to think of,
even though conceived by the human mind.
TF (DC) What about Lake Baikal, in Russia, which is the deepest lake in the world?
UB But it’s localised; it’s not diffused.
Theory Fiction (Raphaëlle Mueller) So that means that an artwork could
not be a hyperobject?
Theory Fiction (Tina Wetchy) We could maybe think of hyperobjects as
objects that are not vulnerable to destruction. The complexity is something that has been constructed. But for
those who operate in such areas it’s easy to destroy
because it’s material, not just clouds.
UB Hyperobjects are agents, and that sort of agency
cannot be controlled. Of course, you can say that the
financial market is material and infrastructural, but it
also has an enormous impact on the moods of the economy and it enters all kinds of invisible dynamics.
TF (CP) If you think of trade markets, capitalism, any ideological, political, socio-economical system, when they kick
in, even though they have been generated by someone,
they eventually escape control. This is because they
enter social structures in such a deep and pervasive way
that challenging them would be like shaking the very
Thinking under Turbulence
27
When Matter Thinks
Well, the hyperobject is not simply a system. The
hyperobject I’m speaking about is the atmospheric
chemistry or global warming. If I had chosen to say that
the planet is a hyperobject, which is definitely the case, I
would think and talk about it very differently. I would not
approach it as a closed system. Here I’m speaking about
the atmospheric chemistry as a hyperobject that connects these moments. We need to start grasping these
causal relations, and that is the specific assignment I
gave myself for this video.
Ursula Biemann, Subatlantic, still, 2015.
Credit: Ursula Biemann
UB
foundations of existence. For a generation that has been
growing up in a world like this, it is almost impossible to
imagine something else.
TF (DC) Could we reverse the perspective that the hyperobject is in relation to humans? What if we actually consider that humans are hyperobjects?
UB For worms, we probably are. A hyperobject is never
an absolute entity, hyperobjects are always understood
in relation to something else. I think that it is important
for artists to make hyperobjects somewhat accessible,
to think of some entry point into the hyperobject rather
than trying to basically describe it, which is impossible.
What I propose with Deep Weather is to bring these
opposite sides of the planet that are cosmos-related
onto the same visual plane. Through the voiceover, we
enter the atmosphere, because the atmosphere is where
the disaster is living. I’m looking at the world as a closed
system. Everything happens within.
DM The way I understand you is that there is no more distinction between an outside and an inside. There is an
unimaginably and endlessly open system.
28
Thinking under Turbulence
Thinking
theoretical
fiction
In Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia: Complicity with
Anonymous Materials, the concept of the ‘narration lube’
is proposed by Negarestani to understand oil as a substance that mobilises narratives that move by way of
scales and materials in motion. Oil is what connects one
narration to another. All the narrations of the Earth can
be grasped through this one material. The fictional relic
of the Cross of Akht discovered by the fictional archaeologist Hamid Parsani deploys this capacity for narration in the form of numerical diagrams.
Theory Fiction (Diego Orihuela) This kind of device is actually common
in many cultures, from an anthropological, sociological
or archaeological viewpoint. Here is a device which
works with symbolism, which every culture has. Here
is an activator, which in this case is organic and is
TF (KE)
29
When Matter Thinks
petroleum. In other cultures, it could be blood, at least
for the Incas.
DM If there is some kind of ceremony to activate this
device, a space and time that are specific to it, if people
are designated to manipulate it, how do concepts of private and public come into play?
TF (KE) Cyclonopedia develops an elaborate ceremony
through which this device and this matter speak and
take on agencies without being subjects. We can find
these kinds of symbolisms and archaeologies in every
culture and every religion. What if this symbolism works
at a planetary level? Let’s take Incan symbolism: what if
it functions for the planet regardless of whether you
have any knowledge of Incan symbolism? In Ursula and
Paulo Tavares’ video Forest Law, the voiceover states:
‘The forest lives and thinks. We humans are not the only
ones who interpret the world; all living beings do. They
continuously interpret and represent the world around
them. Life is semiotic.’ This text is inspired by the writings of the anthropologist Eduardo Kohn who explores
the semiotic dynamics of the Runa world in the
Amazonian cloud forest in How Forests Think: Toward
an Anthropology Beyond the Human. In a related but
distinct way, Cyclonopedia explores the semiotic and
numerical dynamics of an ancient Persian relic whose
implications are planetary in their scale.
TF (DO) The Mayans were not saying that the world would
end just for Mexico or Central America. When ancient
cultures create a device, they have a completely selfcentred view of their culture. If they are isolated they
represent themselves as humankind and coin their own
language as ‘the language of humans’ because they
believe themselves to be the only humans.
UB The Mayans were not saying that the world is coming
to an end. Rather, the end of their calendar coincides
with the end of a certain concept of the measuring of time.
A new form of sensing, thinking, and speaking about
time is needed. What this calendar is proposing is the
agency that it is generating through that artefact. It is
occurring now and we’re implicated in it. There is a similarity with the Cross of Akht.
TF (KE) The Cross of Akht is an archaic device that is intervening in a contemporary condition. Part of the fiction of
Cyclonopedia is that this ancient device can be interpreted as a narrative device that operates in a present
that exceeds its excavation site in Northern Iran.
TF (DO) In the case of an element such as oil, I understand
the fiction of the device working with this narrative lubricant, and it’s important now because everybody in the
world is affected in some way. But if we do some genealogy, oil is a source of energy coming from the 19th century. Before, the narration could have been the same,
but using gold. It depends on the epoch.
TF (KE) As we proceed into Cyclonopedia we will see that
not only oil speaks. Gas speaks. Wind speaks. Dust
speaks in languages that require translation and interpretation. These materials are entities that have the
capacity to make things happen in the world. This capacity is envisioned as a type of sentience. It is this capacity
that numbers enact. Cyclonopedia is an encyclopedia
for enumerating different types of sentience and agency
that operate without being subjects.
DM This is about figuring out a possibility to really grasp
the complexity of how the figure of oil, this kind of earthly
substance, can be thought of as a point of departure. I
think Cyclonopedia is proposing a possible way into the
complexity. To politicise oil. To historicise oil from a contemporary perspective. To find a way to articulate the
relationship between the human and the non-human.
TF (TW) Mankind is not able to understand by itself what is
happening. It always imagines that there will be a magical device that will give it the answer. I think there is a
30
31
Thinking under Turbulence
When Matter Thinks
strong post-colonial context to this book. Because, as a
matter of fact, the answer to the plot holes of the planet
emerge from a cross, from a device hidden in the Middle
East, in Iran, which, when the book was written, was still
under embargo from Western countries. As a matter of
fact, oil, which is plentiful in Iranian oil fields, is the very
material that conveys the information of the world.
Cyclonopedia is a kind of counter-attack. It’s like saying:
‘You guys don’t know anything; we hold the answer, the
power is us.’
TF (KE) In 2008, when Cyclonopedia was published, the
sanctions enforced against Iran by the USA and other
countries included blocking Iran’s trade in oil in order to
freeze its financial liquidity. Oil functions economically
and militarily; this is what the news tells us. Cyclonopedia
invents several other kinds of liquidity. Negarestani
mobilises oil as a theoretical fiction that anticipates the
moment we are living through now in which oil and other
economic assets are about to be unfrozen. This moment
is the era of the forthcoming Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action in which Iran agrees to halt and dismantle its
nuclear programme in return for the termination of the
United States sanctions programme. At that point, the
world in which Cyclonopedia intervenes will change.
Could we say that the freezing of Iran’s oil entailed the
freezing of oil as a medium of the social imaginary? In
Cyclonopedia, oil lubricates the divide between theory
and fiction, political theory and pulp horror. We know
that economic sanctions have effects whose implications exceed the global finance market. This lubrication
seeps from theory into fiction and dissolves literature. It
includes the book that we are reading. To read
Cyclonopedia is to find oneself in a relation of complicity
with its contents and its concepts. Oil, numbers, and
gases are sentient entities. So is writing. And reading.
The contribution is a result of the Theory Fiction seminar by Kodwo Eshun
on September 28-30, 2015 with Ursula Biemann. Editing by Tina Wetchy.
32
33
Thinking under Turbulence
CONTEXTUAL MATERIAL
Biemann, Ursula. Deep Weather. Video essay,
9 minutes, 2013
Butler, Octavia. Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis
Trilogy: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago).
New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2000
Caillois, Roger. La lecture des pierres. Paris:
Editions Xavier Barral, 2016
Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble:
Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham:
Duke University Press, 2016
Kohn, Eduardo. How Forest Think: Toward an
Anthropology Beyond the Human. Oakland:
University of California Press, 2013
Lovecraft, H.P. At the Mountains of Madness.
New York: Penguin Random House, 2005
When Matter Thinks
Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and
Ecology after the End of the World. Minneapolis:
University Of Minnesota Press, 2013
Negarestani, Reza. Cyclonopedia: Complicity
with Anonymous Materials. Victoria: re.press,
2008
The Otolith Group. The Radiant. HD Video,
64 minutes, 2012
Tarde, Gabriel. Fragment d’histoire future. Paris:
V. Giard et E. Brière, 1896Thacker, Eugene. In
the Dust of this Planet: Horror and Philosophy
Volume 1. Winchester: Zero Books, 2011
VanderMeer, Jeff. Southern Reach Trilogy.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014