- I paraphrase D ’ Arcy Thompson ’ s dictum, “ Form is a diagram of forces. ” See Thompson, On Growth and Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917).
- Typical of this perspective is Jean-Luc Nancy, The Creation of the World, or Globalization (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002).
- A particularly egregious example is Franco “ Bifo ” Berardi ’ s missive, Neuro-Totalitarianism in Technomaya Goog-Colonization of the Experience and Neuro-Plastic Alternative (Los Angeles: Semtiotext(e), and New York: Whitney Museum, 2014). His target is Google Glass, a piece of hardware that takes on black magic powers in his estimation. In the Interfaces chapter, I will discuss the dangers of augmented reality-based interfacial totalities to engender forms of cognitive totalitarianism, but this is not because they train attention on artificial images, negating our natural faculties of reason and experience (see also the Phaedrus, and Socrates ’ admonitions against the written word, 370 B.C., or the whole history of experimental cinema). Rather it is that augmented reality could mediate so well the sort of mythopoetic political Messianism that is the lifeblood of any lunatic fundamentalism: a stunted flame that he (and Tiqqun for that matter) tend with duly incoherent melancholia.
- For examples of that perplexed melancholy see the works of Franco “ Bifo ” Berardi.
- After having presented this research at the Winchester School of the Arts at University of Southampton in 2013, I have also had the pleasure of an ongoing discussion with Ryan Bishop about the uses and abuses of the term nomos. His own work on this, linking nomos to automation — as in “ auto nomous” — as another way that the policing of the inside and outside takes place, should be an key referent for those interested in the future of the concept.
- I paraphrase my lecture and op-ed “ We Need to Talk about TED, ” 2013, http://www .theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/30/we-need-to-talk-about-ted.
Platform and Stack, Model and Machine
- Boris Groys, “ Form, ” Metahaven, Uncorporate Identity (Baden: Lars M ü ller, 2010), 262.
- Quoted in http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/osi-the-internet-that-wasnt?utm \_source=feedburner & utm\_medium=feed & utm\_campaign=Feed%3A+IeeeSpectrum+%28IEEE +Spectrum%29.
- The contradictions between private ownership of platforms and how they do or do not make good on and public service or public interests is the focus of much Martin Kenney ’ s work. What he calls “ Platform Capitalism ” presents several challenges to conventional political science and organizational theory. See http://hcd.ucdavis.edu/faculty/webpages/kenney/writings/writings .html By contrast, David Theo Goldberg considers platforms as kind of world-projection and world-making. See his “ World as Platform ” essay at https://medium.com/genres-of-scholarly -knowledge-production/world-as-platform-da7f8a1f042e.
- There are other available definitions, but far fewer that the ubiquity of the word platform would suggest. Annabelle Gower and Michael Cusumano write, “ In this paper we use the platform definition of Gawer and Cusumano: ‘ A foundation technology or set of components used beyond a single firm and that brings multiple parties together for a common purpose or to solve a common problem. ’ ” They also state that the value of the platform increases exponentially with more complementary products and services and more users. See their “ Defining Software Ecosystems: A Survey of Software Platforms and Business Network Governance, ” 2004, http:// slingerjansen.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/definingsecos.pdf.
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