Dissonance, Resonance, Objects and Effort
In writing this I hope to make apparent the spectral dynamism of Dissonance and Resonance in relational Ontology. I will point at their seemingly inherent binary and disentangle them, ‘viewing’ them through a Post Cartesian framework. This approach will place the emphasis on movement, the value of which will also be made clear. I will reference theorists, classical and contemporary and explore, and ‘make statues of’, how ‘Looseness’ of understanding underscores and the works of Lindsay Seers, Francis Ponge, Tacita Dean, Mark Leckey and Mohammed Rasalouf. In all I am attempting to argue against reductive and static enlightenment philosophies, generally but especially as a productive and ‘valuable’ mode.
The Inexhaustibility of things
The foundations of western hegemonic philosophy have been, until recently, twofold: to come to a greater understanding of what is, and to do so by reducing all that is perceived and understood. Aether, once posited as the medium through which light and electromagnetic waves traveled, represents an abstraction of the intangible, an initial effort to systematize matter. Atoms, conversely, epitomize the material basis of reductionism: the attempt to break all matter down into indivisible units. However, even the atom, initially conceived as the fundamental building block, has unfolded into an increasingly complex structure involving quarks, leptons, and quantum states. Each layer reveals yet another level of inexhaustibility. Heidiggers’ Tools and Latours’ actors provide an anthropocentric lens to this framework, highlighting humanity's relationship with objects and systems. Tools are defined by their utility and purpose, reducing objects to functions. An axe, for example, is valued and viewed in terms of its ability to chop wood rather than for its material history, its resonance with cultural traditions, or its aesthetic presence. Latours’ ‘actors’, often framed within human contexts, extend this utility-driven paradigm to the social domain, creating hierarchies of importance based on productivity or symbolic value. However, even as tools and actors interact, their relationships point toward broader ontological mysteries: the networks of causation, intention, and truth that cannot be reduced to mere function or identity.
Things, to be understood or thought of, must inevitably be reduced. This is undeniable. The issue lies with the lack of acknowledgement of our own limitations. It is plain to see that objects and concepts are always completely inexhaustible. The carrot I have in my fridge exists as a result of the global markets, agricultural engineering and the social norms of our time, all of which are equally and infinitely expansive in their own right. Here, I believe lies the issue, the thing's existence and our perception of it are infinitely comparable but are not the same. Our aforementioned limitations forbid this, we cannot see the molecules that make up the carrot, nor can we see how the carrot behaves when we are not around. This is reminiscent of Heidegger’s concept of das Ding (the thing) that holds a presence that can never be fully grasped. The "thingness" of an object remains partially hidden, always out of reach. It resonates with us, but never fully reveals itself. This inexhaustibility is not only a flaw in our perception but a fundamental characteristic of things themselves. Together, these elements whether conceptual, material, or social, exemplify the inherent tension within reductive philosophy. They provide glimpses of reality, or at least a functional lens to view it, while simultaneously obscuring the inexhaustible depth and complexity of their true nature.
Things, to be understood or thought of, must inevitably be reduced. This is undeniable. The issue lies with the lack of acknowledgement of our own limitations. It is plain to see that objects and concepts are always completely inexhaustible. The carrot I have in my fridge exists as a result of the global markets, agricultural engineering and the social norms of our time, all of which are equally and infinitely expansive in their own right. Here, I believe lies the issue, the thing's existence and our perception of it are infinitely comparable but are not the same. Our aforementioned limitations forbid this, we cannot see the molecules that make up the carrot, nor can we see how the carrot behaves when we are not around. This is reminiscent of Heidegger’s concept of das Ding (the thing) that holds a presence that can never be fully grasped. The "thingness" of an object remains partially hidden, always out of reach. It resonates with us, but never fully reveals itself. This inexhaustibility is not only a flaw in our perception but a fundamental characteristic of things themselves. Together, these elements whether conceptual, material, or social, exemplify the inherent tension within reductive philosophy. They provide glimpses of reality, or at least a functional lens to view it, while simultaneously obscuring the inexhaustible depth and complexity of their true nature.
There's a great argument here for a kind of ‘magic’ and mischief, in ‘balance’ with, and as a part of the sciences. We can only try to know so much and there is so much space between things. Increasingly, consensus (at least within large scale systems) is moving away from this room for change and difference, and towards rigid binaries. The history of why itself is too long to surmise here but has to do with the rise in ‘evaluation’ and as such ‘evaluative ideologies’. By this I mean fixed evaluations, ones that reduce a thing against another in the name of production and ‘productivity’. Labour is one such example; the value of labour has been precisely defined and plotted against profit motives. Labour as a concept is abstract, why should a retail worker even be compared to a train driver in terms of ‘value’, and how do the arts fit under these systems?
Cont.
Labour exists simultaneously as an economic construct and a metaphysical condition. Economically, labour is measured in time and monetary value, which are calculated at odds with each other to figure productivity. This quantification is a product of industrial and capitalist frameworks, where labour becomes a commodity subject to market forces. Yet, beneath this surface, labour is abstract, representing the expenditure of energy, time, and intention. A retail worker restocking shelves is performing an action that is no less ontologically significant than the train driver navigating complex systems or the artist creating a painting. The distinction arises not from the intrinsic value of their actions, as such evaluative epistemologies cannot be reified to a truth, but from the social constructs that dictate their worth.
In this abstraction, labour becomes a thing or site of resonance and dissonance. It resonates within social systems, amplifying its presence and significance through collective effort and recognition. Yet it also generates dissonance, as the experience of labour is often at odds with the systems that seek to quantify it. For example, the emotional and physical toll of caregiving cannot be fully captured by metrics of output or efficiency.
Labour, then, is a phenomenon that cannot be reduced to simple equations or hierarchies. It is perfectly exemplary of the kind of ontological plotting I will speak of, it functions through cutting and organising but in its existence it highlights its own inefficacies. Its abstraction lies in its potential to create, connect, and disrupt. A dynamic interplay that reflects broader ontological concerns about the nature of being and value.
Value in this sense is a social construct, outside of the human world, argentinian rocks are not weighed against grey seals. It is useful to have a term for this kind of ideology, one that I will use to encompass others that fit within a similar framework or function similarly. Cartesian dualism is fitting, its historical influence on Cybernetics makes it probably the most relevant ‘Stem-philosophy’. My aim is to prove the value of a contemporary ‘Post-cartesian’ ideal. To note, this may seem reactionary. It is not. Distinctly because its premise is to dismantle and resolve ‘value’ systems that are based in and perpetuate reactionary ideals. Reactionaryisms are inherently reductive and deny the thing it’s whole self. The purpose of such framing is referential and to be used as such, my aim is not to provide a comprehensive critique of historical western ideologies but to highlight and make the case for a progressive, contemporary ones. Especially as a case for ambiguity and difference as a structure. I will use art as a reference for this, taking its role as information dissemination and highlighting artists that use these ideas.
In this framework, objects are not inert; they possess a kind of metaphysical depth that resists complete or continuous understanding. As a result, metaphysical inquiry into objects becomes an ongoing effort of engagement rather than a quest for definitive, and notably quantitative, knowledge. The resolve recognises belief as opposed to binaries. Beliefs can be adapted and should not be thought of as absolutes, and it should be recognised that they are not much more than a vehicle for growth or ‘movement’. I will explain the concept and value of movement later on.
In this abstraction, labour becomes a thing or site of resonance and dissonance. It resonates within social systems, amplifying its presence and significance through collective effort and recognition. Yet it also generates dissonance, as the experience of labour is often at odds with the systems that seek to quantify it. For example, the emotional and physical toll of caregiving cannot be fully captured by metrics of output or efficiency.
Labour, then, is a phenomenon that cannot be reduced to simple equations or hierarchies. It is perfectly exemplary of the kind of ontological plotting I will speak of, it functions through cutting and organising but in its existence it highlights its own inefficacies. Its abstraction lies in its potential to create, connect, and disrupt. A dynamic interplay that reflects broader ontological concerns about the nature of being and value.
Value in this sense is a social construct, outside of the human world, argentinian rocks are not weighed against grey seals. It is useful to have a term for this kind of ideology, one that I will use to encompass others that fit within a similar framework or function similarly. Cartesian dualism is fitting, its historical influence on Cybernetics makes it probably the most relevant ‘Stem-philosophy’. My aim is to prove the value of a contemporary ‘Post-cartesian’ ideal. To note, this may seem reactionary. It is not. Distinctly because its premise is to dismantle and resolve ‘value’ systems that are based in and perpetuate reactionary ideals. Reactionaryisms are inherently reductive and deny the thing it’s whole self. The purpose of such framing is referential and to be used as such, my aim is not to provide a comprehensive critique of historical western ideologies but to highlight and make the case for a progressive, contemporary ones. Especially as a case for ambiguity and difference as a structure. I will use art as a reference for this, taking its role as information dissemination and highlighting artists that use these ideas.
In this framework, objects are not inert; they possess a kind of metaphysical depth that resists complete or continuous understanding. As a result, metaphysical inquiry into objects becomes an ongoing effort of engagement rather than a quest for definitive, and notably quantitative, knowledge. The resolve recognises belief as opposed to binaries. Beliefs can be adapted and should not be thought of as absolutes, and it should be recognised that they are not much more than a vehicle for growth or ‘movement’. I will explain the concept and value of movement later on.
Resonance, Things and Perception
Resonance is effectively when the alignment of some ‘things’ amplifies them. Materials and objects all have resonant frequencies. A wavelength that becomes amplified because of the material properties, these can be sound or light wavelengths. Tuning forks resonate when struck because one prong vibrates a sound out and the other identical prong makes an identical sound, the sound then becomes amplified. Emotive resonance implies a ‘third’, grown out of two. The viewer, and the thing resonating with them create another thing, usually an emotion or a reference to a memory. I use ‘third’ loosely as it isn't confined to being a single growth. The growth is a thing in itself and so should not be viewed down and reduced to a single object or concept. Importantly, resonance is not a passive occurrence, nor is it mere harmony in a traditional sense. It is an active engagement, an interaction between things that allows more to emerge through layers of interconnection and correspondence. In metaphysical terms, resonance can be understood as the process by which objects and ideas gain depth and meaning through their interactions with one another.
In this I will begin to make the case for a kind of ‘magic amorphism’ as an alternative (centering it around the aforementioned definition of a ‘growth innate to resonance’. This growth will be referred to as a kind of magic, for the sake of its ability to encompass ‘beyond reality’). There is an interesting play between these versions of resonance, and their mirror being creation calls upon a broader view. How should we talk about creation?
Tacita dean ‘The green ray’ - belief and perception
“When the Sun sets into a clear crisp horizon and when there is no land in front of you for a few hundred miles and no distant moisture that could become at the final moment a backlit cloud that obscures the opportunity, you stand a very good chance of seeing the green ray. The last ray of the dying Sun to refract and bend beneath the horizon is the green ray, which is just slower than the red or the yellow ring. I believed, but was never sure I saw it. Two others with a video camera pointed at the Sun didn't see it that night, and their video documentation was watched as evidence to prove that I hadn't seen it either. But where my film fragment was later produced there, unmistakably defying solid representation on a single frame of celluloid, but existent in the fleeting movement of film frames, was the green ray, having proved itself too elusive for the pixelation of the digital world,”
Tacita Dean’s The Green Ray provides a compelling case study for this dynamic. The green ray’s elusive nature challenges the binary of existence and nonexistence. Whether it is "real" or a trick of perception, Dean makes an adamant case for its existence. Either within its bounds of myth and storytelling from the sailors or as a physically elusive phenomena, the ray exists. The boundary here is whether or not the ray is a ‘subject’ or object in itself and Dean seems to highlight the imprecision of even these boundaries. That it is not truly possible to accurately measure or record the existence of the green ray and its existence becomes a matter of belief. This belief itself becomes a form of creation, as it shapes the observer's reality and understanding. Had she not heard of the story of the sailors prior, she may not have seen it. She may not have looked either, this too isn't measurable. The act of filming the green ray, and the subsequent discovery of its presence in motion but not in digital video nor the physical celluloid, underscores the relational and material dimensions of creation. The ray is not simply a phenomenon to be captured; it is a participant in a network of interactions involving the observer, the medium, and the environment. Its creation is not a singular event but a continuous process of becoming. It emerges through the interplay of objects, ideas, and observers, each contributing to the formation of something new. Creation, in this sense, is inherently tied to belief and perception. It is not an absolute or knowable act but a dynamic process. The "third" that arises from resonance exemplifies this: it is neither wholly of one origin nor another but exists as a product of their interaction. Again, the dynamics at play here point to an uncertain or unplacable ‘binary’, that questions its own duality and the truth of which lies somewhere in both, between and neither.
Noise of Dissonance
Within a metaphysical context, dissonance is not simply conflict or contradiction, but an essential state of tension that propels movement. In Heidegger's exploration of Being, dissonance takes the form of angst, a discomfort that signals the gap between our understanding of the world and our participation within it. This gap is not something to be eliminated, but rather it is an integral part of human existence, a form of productive dissonance that drives us forward in our inquiries.
Dissonance is often treated as an error, a noise to be corrected. Systems, of production and regulation, are built with the intention of minimising such "errors" to reach an ideal state of harmony or efficiency. However, this approach is problematic when applied to metaphysical questions. Just as in complex ecological systems, reducing the world to an idealised set of inputs and outputs oversimplifies the messiness of existence. You must embrace dissonance as an inherent characteristic of reality. Alfred North Whitehead, for example, argued that the universe is not a collection of static objects but a process of becoming, where tension and conflict are necessary for change and growth. Dissonance, in this view, is not a problem to be solved but a condition to be engaged with. In this outline Dissonance is integral to resonance. Together they function as the elements of the ‘magic amorphism’ I have mentioned.
Resonance is a ‘solution’ for emergence and dissonance is the reality of nullified precision.
For example, the stock market works through resonant theories and outcomes. A ‘bet’ is placed, based on whatever calculations, that resonates with the market and the outcome is growth. Without dissonance the system is calculable entirely and can be controlled as such. This is often neglected. The dissonance is everything and everywhere else. Such things cannot be truly precisely calculated, broadly at least. You can bet that Google stocks will rise based on market conditions, expected returns and so on but the system is not truly abstract. It deals too much with reality to be plotted as a graph. This is not to say that mapping and graphing is itself null and useless but rather to highlight the dynamic at play here, reality dictates a dance of dissonance and resonance that cannot be placed. The dance being my ‘magic’ and the aversion to precise graphing, measuring and cutting being the ‘amorphism’.
Cont.
In ‘Noise Matters: towards an ontology of noise’, Greg Hainge posits Noise as the dissonant undercurrent, acting as a plate for emergence.
“But why stop here, why let matter have all the fun? Do ideas and concepts not also move and vibrate, resonate with and impact upon each other, vibrate in and beyond the time into which they are released? Everything, then, is expressive, not only embodying a form but for ever forming an embodiment. Or rather, for this will be our contention, everything is in noise, and noise is in everything.”
He writes in parallel to my idea of dissonance and the subject of noise will be useful to concretise and make whole these ideas. Initially he highlights how all matter, at a subatomic level, vibrates and resonates, creating sound waves. He then takes this structure and points to its applicability to ideas, concepts and all of the ‘non object’ things in an ontology.
“White noise is the sound of the virtual as it constitutes the plane upon which every possible sound is contracted, so sound must both arise from white noise yet always be immanent to it as well. In this respect, noise is the virtual aspect of sound's actualization and will thus always be contained in everything we hear.”
Hainge specifies the Noise function to white noise, exemplifying the emergent potential for things, based on their constituting excitement and energy. White Noise is literally the basis for Digital noise. All digital sound is derived from it. Either through manipulation, addition or subtraction. In doing this, after introducing the function as one that applies to ideas and concepts, Hainge suggests a cross-applicability of it. In implying that things and their being exist through a system of a ‘baseline’ of a kind of ‘quantum’ movement from which potentiality arises, he makes the case against an atomic or aether-esque ontology. This may seem counter intuitive as it seems as though they are similar, a baseline from which others can become. The difference is that the baseline itself is ambiguity. There is no fixed object or state. Or any other unifying matter, beyond an ambiguous nebula of potential and movements.
Back to questions of truth
“Art, allegory and Iran” - The white meadows and gaussian noise
The white meadows is an Iranian film by Mohammed Rasalouf. It follows the story of a tear collector as he travels a salt lake, stopping to collect the tears of people at ‘vingettes’ of stories centring around Persian myths and Folklore.
“The film is very allegorical, very ritualistic and very much in the tradition of cinematic manipulations of local traditions and mythology. It is extremely important that the film is not to be reduced backwards to any anthropological speculation about Iran or about the region in which this film is made. This is a work of art. Muhammed Rasalouf has worked with certain materials so from this film you will not deduce anything anthropological, political or anything of that sort”
Hamid Dabashi speaks on the film at a showing through the asia society. He strongly makes the case for the film to be viewed away from a certain political framing, arguing that the inevitable discussions of political intentions or motivations would be inaccurate. This is not to say there is no politics within any or all of the film. Neither that the politics should be wholly or partially separated from the film, but rather that the film is not to be reduced to an anthropocentric perspective. This also suggests that the desired perspective is one that focusses on filmmaking itself, in relation to dissemination and especially the local traditions. This forces an abstraction of the story and characters that the film on its own achieves. The characters and actions are not to be taken as events and people. They are myths and allegories. The same is to be said about the conditions and functions within the film. An anthropocentric reading might suggest that the near submission of the artist character to the whim and torture of the concensus and belief is a political statement. However, the character holds strong, rejecting the ideology but submitting to the torture, even when it is not entirely necessary. This is not something that can be analysed purely politically as the character represents something beyond itself. It is not really real. This is reinforced throughout the film, each vignette showcasing an ever present ‘illogic’. I mean this in the sense of mystery or unknowableness, at least in the sense that it hints to something greater than what it could be reduced to, not that the myth or allegory has no meaning. There aren't motivations in the film for the most part, things are to be taken as given and in the end, the reappearance of the art, sandals and young girl realises the total unreality.
Cont.
Chad Kia speaks of a similar function of other Iranian artworks that Rasalouf has most likely drawn from. I will speak only to this function as I am not nearly versed enough on Iranian art, history or culture and my intention is not to draw parallels with the meaning or subtexts of either works or cultures, especially as that would be an explicitly anthropocentric view.
“It is immediately clear here that the depiction of a man mounting a camel in the ‘Depraved Man Commits Bestiality’ does not represent a narrative that literally describes a man with a loud trumpet searching for a mascara-stand. Whether a word like ‘inkwell’ in this context conjures up its literal or figurative meaning in the mind of a reader, the general idea of the ‘figural’ and the inescapable figurativeness of language is palpable. The verses by Jami show that, as with much in poetry, ‘literal’ meaning is an evasive notion. The axiom that images always come before words often frees the poet from the bonds that may be imposed by the lexical meaning of words. In this case, understanding ‘verbal imagery’ as a metaphor for metaphor itself may be one way of describing the status of these ambiguous figures”
Kia responds to and comments on the ‘Depraved Man commits Beastiality’, in a way that highlights a similar unreality. Positing the purpose as being far more outward, ‘A metaphor for Metaphors’, this points not only to the references and symbolism of the work but to the formulation of art and things. In this there is a resonance. The unreality and the thing itself allow for more. And more by the way of non-specificity. This exactly mirrors our ‘formulation’ of dissonance acting as a noise-plate for resonance and therefore emergence. To realise, or make a useful image of this we can imagine the base of ambiguous unreality as a gaussian noise.
Firstly, Gaussian noise is a random noise function. If you were to generate it as an image, say 1000 by 1000 pixels, and look at any 5 by 5 pixel chunk of the image, each pixel would be randomly coloured, with no distinguishable pattern. This is because they are entirely randomly generated. If you were to zoom out, and view the entire image, it would seem to be completely grey. All the contrasting, random pixels form no pattern and so nullify themselves. The whites, blacks, reds and blues dull each other as they ‘blend’. Gaussian noise, as white noise, is used additively still, as a base for imagery to emerge, and with its indistinct unpredictableness becomes an apt metaphor for a ‘metaphor for metaphors’.
“Truths are contingent on the shape of many things”
Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of perception presents the case for resonance as the core of how we experience the world. I am distinguishing perception from reality when talking about this, what is perceived is not entirely what is real. He rejects the Cartesian dualism between mind and body, suggesting instead that perception itself is an act of resonance: a constant, dynamic process through which the body and the world mutually shape and mirror each other. In this way, resonance is not a passive reflection of external reality, but an active participation in its creation. A ‘third’ is spawned. We perceive objects not as fixed entities, but as constantly revealing themselves through our embodied interaction with them. The world, according to Merleau-Ponty, is not something we observe from a distance but something with which we are always resonating. Again, as a thing, this dynamic is not fixed or accurate and is dependent, but not exclusively, on the apparatus.
The work of Lindsay Seers is useful in this discussion, particularly in relation to the role of fiction, as well as a way of introducing ‘the apparatus’. She introduces fiction as an imperfect dichotomy to belief. Her works use imperfect apparatus’ as part of truth-fictioning exercises. It seems to point to the same ontological magic amorphism, specifically around truth and perception.
“I'm looking for the truth within the person they might not be telling a true story in the way in which stories can function as deeper truths. When I'm accessing an artwork I feel like I am accessing the consciousness of someone who has put that sign there for me to read”
The work of Lindsay Seers serves as a significant point of engagement in this discussion of fiction, reality and the nature of truth. Its focus on the interplay of narrative and apparatus, emphasizes the fallibility and fluidity of perception in a way not dissimilar to the green ray. Her approach brings forward the dynamic relationship between the observer and the observed, questioning the reliability of the apparatus that mediates this engagement. Through Seers’ work, we see an exploration of how these systems, whether mechanical, perceptual, or conceptual, are not just tools for representation, but active participants in shaping the truth of an experience, serving potentially as a secondary plate for emergence.
To start it will be important to introduce the apparatus. In both science and psychology, the apparatus refers to the medium in which something can be experienced or measured. The lens, film or print of an image. With this, it is suggested that for a phenomena or thing to be experienced there must be an intermediary. For the anthropocentric perspective that is the eyes, nerves, mouth, nose, ears and mind. It is important again to note that the phenomena or thing, in its ontological existence is tied, but not inexorably, to the apparatus. The apparatus measures the thing, changing its context but the thing is not reliant on being measured, it will exist nonetheless, only under a different context. This draws forth the obvious example of quantum states and the double slit experiment. Particles are shot through two slits and depending on the apparatus, they will have a different path, in the case of being or not being measured the particles still exist, their state is just changed. Herein is an impossibility similar to that of the green ray and is an indicator of the same argument against a fixed truth or reality. This dynamic is entirely contingent on what distinguishes it as being anthropocentric, the calculation and rationalisation of the thing. That is the part that the mind plays in this and has often been the centre of western ontologies. However, as discussed the apparatus can not justify itself as the focus. It claims to measure the truth of a thing but could never accurately represent it, at least in full. Here again appears an amorphism within.
Cont.
Seers’ Optomagrams, for instance, are an example of this dynamic. These works combine the role of the eye-apparatus, and the system of memory to destabilize the boundary between fiction and reality. The images they produce are not merely visual representations; they engage in a process of ‘truth-fictioning’, where the apparatus becomes an imperfect mediator that offers a glimpse into a reality that is always partially obscured. Seers both reframes the mouth as a visual apparatus and, in doing so, distorts the created imagery. Seers suggests a pliability to broader visual mechanisms through reframing. Then there is a composed narrative, of what is expected and what is true. The mouth should not see, and what is seen should not be what is captured. The eye then, for Seers', does not just see, it actively constructs, reinforces, and distorts the very things it attempts to graph and plot. The Optomagram is both a visual document and a call to question the nature of perception itself. How we see is shaped as much by the tools at our disposal as by the narratives we create around them. This interplay speaks directly to the idea of resonance as it applies to perception: the world is not a static object to be understood in fixed terms, but something immovably abstract, with any attempt at representation being shaped by the tools we use and the stories we tell.
“Extramission (black maria)” also contributes to this tension between fiction and belief. The work explores the limits of optical technology and its inherent unreliability in conveying truth. In this piece, light and shadow serve not only as tools of visual representation but also as metaphors for the relationship between perception and reality. What is illuminated, what is cast in shadow, and what remains unseen or untold all operate within a system that is never fully transparent, offering an engagement with truth that is as much about what is absent as it is about what is present. She speaks on it here, explaining the impetus and inspiration from an ancient Egyptian ontology.
“(They believed) that what we see is projected out of our eyes and onto the world, the idea that the world isn't a given, that we shape it”
The film is framed to be autobiographical, a story of her upbringing in Mauritius, with documentary style filmmaking and structuring. A large part of the film revolves around Lindsay's attraction to photography from a young age, and the role it played in her overcoming mutism. Whether or not the story is true is unclear. She is attempting here, to remember and in doing so may have not been truthful. She admits as much and so gives up on attempting to remember, the projection itself symbolises for her, movement outwards, and in this case away from memory or mind or however you might call it.
‘Extramission’ itself is the idea that perception extends beyond the limits of the individual and into the realm of shared and constructed realities. The eye, as conceived in the philosophy of extramission, does not just receive information from the world. It projects and engages with that world in active and unpredictable ways. In this it underscores the notion of dissonance, a gap between the world as it is perceived and the world as it is, inherently unresolvable, and yet generative of meaning. The extramission of perception is not a passive reception but an active process of engagement, resonating with both the external world and the internal landscape of the observer.
In Seers' exploration of the apparatus as a mediator of truth, we see a direct reflection of the "magic amorphism" I have discussed earlier. Her exploration of imperfect apparatuses and the tenuous boundary between fiction and belief aligns with the broader critique of reductive systems.
Amorphous relationalisms
In North Whitehead’s process philosophy, objects are not static; they are events within a web of relations. Every object, phenomena or thing is in essence, a process, though not ever a linear or binary one. An unfolding of potentialities that interact with other processes. Thus, understanding an object involves recognising its relations to other objects and its place within a broader network. These relations are dynamic and shifting, never fully determinable, which means that an object is always more than what it seems at any given moment. For example the aforementioned apparatus because of its influence on the thing while not becoming a contingency for the thing's existence. They relate and resonate with each other in ways that are not fixed or calculable.
Whitehead places this theory as a rebuke to Essentialism, which he sees as being reductive. It is. To know something as its essential, to understand things as concepts rather than events reduces them from events. To do the opposite does the same, to a less fundamental degree. Events are still definable, this only makes the thing temporal, it does not yet fully admit the greyness of understanding. Things are both conceptual and temporal and physical, which is also not acknowledged. Despite this, Whiteheads Networks of events are useful to think of as a potential part of ‘things’. Tangling mazes of relations. The carrot to the climate to the contemporary.
According to Whitehead, the world is made up not of static objects but of events "occasions of experience" that arise out of interactions. Each event resonates with the next, producing a continuous flow of becoming. Thus, resonance is not a static harmony but requires ongoing interaction, it is innately temporal and expansively relational. The webs of understanding and experience described and exemplified in the bridge series are not and cannot be fixed. They can use, but not be based in signifiers and symbols. Mark Leckey's Bridge series exemplifies the importance of (and illustrates) these networks and webs in these terms.
Leckey speaks often on what he describes as a “white heat”, a quote taken from and clearly referencing the ideas of Harold Wilson. He means a kind of movement, progressive and blisteringly fast. He works with this idea both systematically and politically, in a kind of contrast. In an interview on the bridge itself he starts by describing it with this white heat, a vision of the future from the 60s progressive government. This is the start of the framing of the work around historical networks, to which he described as a kind of internet. He frames the political history of the bridge alongside his personal history and culture, amplifying both of them beyond the bridge itself. The video work alongside it: “the exorcism of the bridge at eastham rake”, exemplifies this dynamic and its amplification. Leckey draws from the historical context of new labour, the rise of technology in the midcentury and the introduction of neoliberalism in Britain, interweaving this with references from ancient British folklore and contemporary British culture.
The bridge becomes a monolith for Britain, referencing and documenting rises and falls, modern and ancient history in a way that not only ignores chronology but also doesn't try to place them against each other. Allowing the ancient folklore to take massive influence on a group of scouse teenagers.
The exhibit reflects its function, with a massive bridge-monolith structure and interweaving and related works strewn around the space. In this each work is framed next to each other, references to northern soul culture are echoed and twisted in the modern setting, and twisted back again towards folklore. The works themselves are perpetually referential but so is the exhibit, the dynamic is placed physically in the room but clearly addresses the ontological implacability. The function and structure of the work is a kind of network of histories, though they never seem static. He has continued with this historical dynamism, broadly working around what he has coined “new medievalism".
Though it may seem directly inspired by Neo-medievalist theories, Leckey's ideas do not directly concern a literal power structure, whereby the state becomes nonsecular and his concern is also not directly related to or oppositional of globalism. In conversation with him he described it as a shift towards a kind of nonsecularism with technology, again re-referencing the white heat, ‘deifying’ it. It is not so much literal but a shift in attitude and power structures, relating to the rise of the internet and its immense and mysterious dissemination capabilities. In this he both brings calls to question the fluid webbed structure of the internet and reinforces an almost ‘post-temporal’ ordering of things. The idea that our world now has begun to move away from the cybernetic binaries and back to one of perverse ambiguity. There is here, a dissonance: of understanding and of temporality. Perhaps my magic amorphism, or gaussian plate makes an image of this structure. The focus on historical or phenomenological things and their true inability to be placed along a single line of chronology (in the sense of things relating to and resonating with each other) further dismantles the placing of things, rebuking whiteheads event ontology and reinforcing the inevitable amorphism of things.
Effort as metaphysical movement
Why must things move? - Ponge
Francis Ponge’s poetic philosophy offers profound insights into the inexhaustibility of objects and the role of effort as valuable metaphysical movement. Ponge’s writing, characterized by meticulous attention to the “raw quality” of objects, exemplifies the kind of dynamic engagement with the world that this essay seeks to advocate.
“From now on, may nothing ever cause me to go back on my resolve: never sacrifice the object of my study in order to enhance some verbal turn discovered on the subject, nor piece together any such discoveries in a poem. Always go back to the object itself, to its raw quality, its difference: particularly its difference from what I’ve written about it. May my work be one of continual rectification of expression on behalf of the raw object. Therefore, writing about the Loire from a place along the banks of the river, I must constantly immerse my eyes and mind in it. Any time they dry up over an expression, dip them back into the waters of the river.”
In this, Ponge highlights the inexhaustibility inherent to things, subjects, objects, systems and phenomena. There he focuses on the futility of attempting to capture them whole, simultaneously emphasising the importance of actively engaging with them. Objects and subjects, in Ponge's view, 'function', when being attempted to be seen or understood, as fractals. They reveal intricate details, resembling the self-replicating, infinite patterns of fractals with how ever-expansive and simultaneously shapely and unshapely they are. However, He notes the inherent paradox: a cohesive, full understanding necessitates an infinite scale, yet at such an unreachable magnitude, the holistic view becomes elusive and entirely impossible. Herein my reference to the challenge of examining the details of a fractal becomes clear, as it requires infinite expansion, resulting in the eventual loss of the whole. Ponge's poetic methodology, in its perpetual rectification of expression and the intentional immersion in the raw essence of objects, unfolds as a kind of solution to our generalised ontological ambiguity. Through experiential engagement, he highlights the potential for such an ideology, beyond theoretical boundaries and, and allows space for personal, interpersonal and un-anthropocentric systems to be valued. After all, it would be all too easy for pessimism to creep in.
Cont.
Effort, within this expanded ontology, is the metaphysical movement that bridges resonance and dissonance, at least in terms of ‘value’. It is not merely the application of energy to achieve a goal but the ongoing engagement with the inexhaustible. Like Ponge’s poetic immersion in the raw quality of objects, effort involves a continual process of reengagement, rectification, and discovery. Resonance amplifies effort, creating moments of alignment and clarity. These moments are not endpoints but stepping stones, offering glimpses of deeper truths that remain out of reach. Dissonance, conversely, disrupts and challenges effort, introducing tension and uncertainty. Yet it is precisely this tension that propels movement, preventing stasis and fostering a kind of ‘growth'. The distance between what is, resonates with the potential for growth. It is the dance between what is perceived and what remains hidden, an interplay of understanding and mystery. And it is and will be, Fruitless.
I have mentioned its weight in terms of value and in this i do not mean the kinds of value that can be measured and cut for markets and systems. It is a value that prescribes a positive solution to ontological problems. Often value and subjectivity are placed at odds with each other but this makes no sense. What is beautiful is subjective after all. The function of a subjective value is what i mean, it is not of a specific beautiful form or function but more the acknowledgement of music and family and so on. The ontological problem itself is the desire to categorise and understand things and the absolute inability to do so. Effort is attempting to do so anyway, so long as above all the imprecision is acknowledged and treated as immovable and sacred. Ponge writes until he believes that he has finished. He then immerses himself into the mess of reality that he has clearly been incapable of capturing to remind himself of the futility. The movement between the two is what is valuable, in the same way relationships, families stories and so on are valuable for a similar movement. People, parts and systems come together and come apart, pulsing and flowing; back, forth and in between and possibly outside. To use Hainge's terminology; Noise, as the undercurrent of existence, provides the backdrop against which effort unfolds. At least in terms of these omnipresent pulses and vibrations.
In writing this I hope to have made apparent a kind of ontological attitude, focussed not on fixed answers but movement, abstraction and fluidity. The works of Tacita Dean, Mohammed Rasalouf, Lindsay Seers, Mark Leckey and Francis Ponge have all pointed to the same fundamental ambiguity. The ambiguities of truth and belief, representation and reality, the apparatus and fiction, relativity and temporality and the purpose of such a framing (respectively) have all been proposed. I hope to have not only explored these works and the themes thereof, but made clear these ambiguities and their relevant theoretical basis, as well as provide verbal maps of them. Whether that be ‘Magic amorphism’, the functions of resonance and dissonance or a gaussian plate, it all suggests the same thing.
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