BAD GATEWAY

 

ab + trahere
      draw
away


[keep near]



… in his De Anima1, the work of abstraction retains a key role within knowledge formation. Intellect abstracts form from matter, moving from surface to interface and transforming any given multiplicity into a relational appendix. Abstraction is, evidently, an essential behavior within any economy of survival.

[abstraction at work]



We may work only by a drive to end



end

Old English ende "end, conclusion, boundary, district, species, class," from Proto-Germanic *andiaz (source also of Old Frisian enda, Old Dutch ende, Dutch einde, Old Norse endir "end;" Old High German enti "top, forehead, end," German Ende, Gothic andeis "end"), originally "the opposite side," from PIE *antjo "end, boundary," from root *ant- "front, forehead," with derivatives meaning "in front of, before."

things abandon us


Matter transcends itself in a system of signifiers (language) 2

in the perfect harmony of a circle

that favors speed

may we lead

to a bad gateway

may we see the end
as edge

[afraid to jump]


[jump] … [which] stands for the activity of self-transcendence of an [unclaimable] anatomy into libidinal economy, which imposes its own destiny onto the body and the subject — a destiny of the drive, Triebschicksal. 4


Politics is the unconscious 3


Tuesday night’s playlist: Reya Guts, Endless (Night)———Cindy Lee, If You Hear Me Crying———MyLiC, &HAY———yuu, ++44———John Cage, Souvenir———your breathing slowing down as we fall asleep…

… when property gained hegemony, as it became more and more abstract. The most common example of property is, of course, money. The way money has transformed over time—from goods (livestock and raw resources) to commodity (precious metals) to representatives (paper) to fiat (agreements) to digital (numbers)—is a perfect example of this abstraction. Control diminishes with abstraction, or better reverses; all control you may perceive to have is purely granted, susceptible to be taken away any second.

In face of the free will, the thing does not retain any distinct property for itself, even if possession, as an external relationship, still retains an external aspect. The empty abstraction of a matter without attributes which, in the case of property, is supposed to remain external to me and the prop­erty of the thing itself, [may be] in the end something which thought must get the better of. 5

[Relax]
Refrain

… in any X sense, the surface is abstraction of the halted body; but the surface also signifies conditions of error, end, and potential. While being held on surface suffering from some contingency, the activity of being on a surface (or rather the inactivity) puts tension on systems of capture by locating, and waiting. If you are unable to move on because the surface is yet another place of capture, hanging unworried within this failure may free your consciousness from mental demands that have become too overwhelming. Practice begins

she’s wearing the same clothes she dropped on the floor after arriving last night. 6

It was a game. Money meant nothing. Money was an abstraction. [The] guiding belief is in chance, process, and flux. Once set in motion, the game played itself. And it worked. 6

So why, in the dead of night, once our brains finally slowed down, are we so troubled?

— exhibition text by Clemente Ciarrocca

[1] see Aristotle, De Anima, Book III
[2] Tomšič, Enjoying Substance, p.105, in Counter-Signals 4: Identity is the Crisis
[3] Lacan, Le Séminaire, livre XIV, La logique du fantasme, 10 May 1967
[4] Tomšič, Enjoying Substance, p.106, in Counter-Signals 4: Identity is the Crisis
[5] Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §52
[6] Kraus, Summer of Hate
​​​

​