Speculative Realism: A One-Day Workshop took place on 27 April 2007 at Goldsmiths, University of London, under the auspices of the Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process, co-sponsored by Collapse. Rather than announcing the advent of a new theoretical ‘doctrine’ or ‘school’, the event conjoined four ambitious philosophical projects – all of which boldly problematise the subjectivistic and anthropocentric foundations of much of ‘continental philosophy’ while differing significantly in their respective strategies for superseding them.

"Turning to space, one thing we know is that space cannot be located entirely within the sensual realm. John Locke noted that our experience of space is in some way an illusion. Everything in experience itself is flat and equidistant, as seen from the fact that babies reach with equal confidence for nearby toys, distant doorways, and the moon. Space is not directly accessible to our senses, but inferred, and this skill must be acquired at a specific point in child development. Despite what Leibniz claims, space is not the realm of relation, but of both relation and non-relation.

"Bruno Latour and Manuel DeLanda are not entirely unknown to contemporary philosophy. [...] Both authors have large international followings and can safely be described as “famous,” though I have sometimes had to explain their identities to friends otherwise familiar with the latest philosophical trends. Yet even for those who do know their books, Latour and DeLanda are usually regarded as interesting figures who lie somewhere near the fringes of current debate. Neither of them currently leads anything like a school of international philosophy, though others of their generation already do.

"Although the concept of “projection” is ubiquitous in psychology, political theory, anthropology, sociology, and, thanks to the popularization of psychoanalysis, in colloquial conversation, it is not an obvious choice for a historian of science like myself. Yet I hope to show that the concept of “projection” cannot be fully understood – neither its history nor its hold on modern thought – without recourse to the history of science. This claim has both a specific and a general aspect.

Among the many astonishing claims that Barack Obama made in his recent speech opposing the Palestinian bid for statehood was that ‘peace will not come through statements and resolutions.’ This is, at best, an odd thing to say for a president whose ascendancy to power itself depended on the compelling use of rhetoric. Indeed, his argument against the power of statements and resolutions at the United Nations to achieve peace was a rhetorical ploy that sought to minimise the power of rhetorical ploys.

Christoph Keller will elaborate on some of his works in the context of the relation of art, research and sciences and present a kitchen table analysis of a German science film on Hypnosis from 1936 that reemerged from from a lake bed in Berlin after lying there since 1945.
Attached are:
- a short bio;
- "Archives as objects...", text-image montage;
- "Cloudbuster project", text with Sharon Ben-Joseph;
- "Aether" exhibition at centre pompidou poster and reader.

Friedrich (2002/2006) elects to begin his account of the air war on the ground in Germany, but I hope these last pages have shown that it is also necessary to take the measure of the ground in Britain—in its conventional, geographical sense and in the sense of a conceptual order—where German cities were busily being transformed into targets. The bomber stream was the advancing edge of a process of abstraction that reached right back to that exhibition of a Lancaster and its payload in Trafalgar Square, which represented bombing as a domain of pure objects (aircraft and bombs).

"The systematic connections between neo-liberalism and late modern war have become something of a critical orthodoxy.

Much of the discussion of 9/11 has debated its historical significance, but it is equally important to explore the geographical dimensions of the wars that have been conducted in its shadows. Subsequent transformations in the American way of war have played a major role in the increased militarisation of the planet. Most attention has been focused on Afghanistan and Iraq as the principal theatres of the ‘war on terror’, but one of the characteristics of late modern war is the emergent, ‘event-ful’ quality of military, paramilitary and terrorist violence that can, in principle, occur anywhere.

Since the end of the Cold War two modes of ‘new war’ have been distinguished. One, the Revolution in Military Affairs, transforms advanced state militaries (particularly in the global North) through an emphasis on stripped-down, highly specialised forces deploying cutting-edge technology with unprecedented precision. The other is waged by non-state militias and guerrilla forces (particularly in the global South) and relies on light, even improvised weapons, focuses its violence on civilians and is implicated in the criminal circuits of a shadow globalisation.

The Exchanges Seminar Series provide a common forum of discussion between PhD and MA level members of the Centre for Research Architecture. It is designed to enable material and theoretical crossovers and to promote the development of horizontal, autonomous, p2p-based forms of critical pedagogy.

crosspost from: http://www.mara-stream.org

In June 2011, following the death of over 2000 migrants trying to reach Italian coasts from North Africa, the migrants rights organisation GISTI and Migreurop decided to file a lawsuit against NATO-EU-Frontex for non-assistance to migrants in the Mediterranean sea. The Centre for Research Architecture (CRA) has offered to produce, within the frame of the European Research Council (ERC) funded research project “Forensic Architecture” (FA), a detailed map of the central section of the Mediterranean and other forms of spatial evidence for the above mentioned legal case.

1. The situation of migrants and asylum-seekers fleeing recent events in North Africa (Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights)
2. The Guardian - Aircraft carrier left us to die, migrants say
3. “Rescuing ‘Boat People’ in the Mediterranean Sea: The Responsibility of States under the Law of the Sea” by Efthymios Papastavridis