Benjamin Waite > Recent Status Updates

‘Excommunication’ was a great introduction to the purpose of Lacan’s lecture series on his Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, linking together his own exile from the mainstream and the desire of the analyst. Will definitely need a reread at some point !

Singleton’s ‘Speculative Design’ discusses similar themes seen in Beech’s chapter. The links he makes between ‘design’ and ‘manipulation’ (of nature, people etc.) are incredibly interesting. Lastly, Singleton depicts his ‘speculative design’ as kind of an inverse to the ‘forensic’ view of the world; constructing ‘plots’ rather than reconstructing them. Love it so far!

Not even made it to page 1 and the preface has already got me. Lacan’s winding style of writing is so interesting (but also annoyingly frustrating to understand at times lol). The copy I’m reading has annotations from 2 different people, one in pencil and one in pen. Their insight is genuinely so so cool even if just a few words and makes the book feel more like a discussion!

I found Amanda Beech’s chapter, Art and it’s ‘Science’, to be an amazing introduction to whats often pejoratively called ‘modern’ art. Beech provides a solid critique of some preconceptions about stable, solid identity that are commonly found within contemporary practice of art and finishes with a call to understand ‘the image’ as a critical-political project. Would definitely recommend!

Mackay’s introduction to Speculative Aesthetics provides a very solid explanation of the intersection between Speculative Realism, aesthetics and the sociopolitical. The description out of an accelerationist project of ‘reconfigured aesthetics’ at the end of the chapter sets the stage for the first ‘session’ of the text. Very good so far!

Interesting critique of postmodernism in the introduction. Discusses the similarities between the postmodern view of humans as ‘desiring-machines’ (à la Deleuze-Guattari) and how this belief comfortably conforms with consumer capitalist ideology.