In this research project, I conceive agency as an attribute of medial operations rather than of individuals. Certain combinations of operations produce an agent, which may or may not coincide with an actual person. Consequently, I argue that the term “intellectual” invokes an outdated practice. Not the intellectual is an endangered species, but his text-based and text-biased medial operations. As an alternative, I have looked at sound and music engineering as a practice of knowledge production.
Tag Archives: félix guattari
about time tracks
The monograph Time Tracks constructs anachronistic and eclectic constellations of philosophical concepts, biographical narratives and popular music. It stages unexpected encounters between Gilles Deleuze, Prince, Walter Benjamin, Franz Kafka, Vilém Flusser, Marvin Gaye, Michel Foucault, Camille and Marshall McLuhan. What brings this wide range of philosophers, media theorists, authors, and artists together is a shared concern; they all struggle with time.
out of time
Invisible Man, the title of Ralph Ellison’s seminal 1952 novel refers to the lack of opacity of its main protagonist. Rather than reading this book as the exemplary story of a concrete, situated individual – an African-American intellectual before and during the so-called Harlem Renaissance – this article-in-progress will concentrate on the figure of thought that this central character expresses.