Wall-Smith - Masumi

Stubborn Relationality

In Parables for the Virtual, Brian Massumi argues for a human thought and subject that are fundamentally folded in with the pre-conscious and autonomic modulation of perception. Massumi's theory is extrapolated from a number of perceptual phenomena that undermine the dominant assumption that the mechanics of perception can be distinguished from the processes of thought out deduction. These phenomena suggest that there is no level of thought removed from the vagaries and determinations of the mechanics of perception. The theory presented in Parablesamounts to a refiguring of the mechanics of perception as cognition. At the least, Massumi's argument erodes the possibility of a hard distinction between perception and thought. In the process he threatens the perceived autonomy of the subject by providing an empirical basis for the suggestion that the subject emerges and finds their continuity in the relation between body and world. Indeed, even the autonomous body is threatened. If the thinking subject is conceived as emerging in the codetermination between body and world then our understanding of the mechanisms of thought cannot be reduced to the body alone. Our conception of thought and subject begins to leak out into the world and our struggle to understand the genesis and continuity of both becomes ecological rather that simply biological - it becomes stubbornly relational.

Toward An Ontology of Mutual Recursion: Models, Mind and Media

Mat Wall-Smith
English, Media and Performing Arts, University of New South Wales