#antimaterial worlds

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 9, Number 5

Ascended Dead

Hard to believe we’re approaching the halfway point of another year, and yet here we are in May, thinking about the mid-year and how we’re going to fit all the excellent stuff so far into a reasonable length list.  There’s always too much music, a wonderful problem, but a problem all the same.  And so we turn again to Dust to burn off some of the excess.  As usual, the reviews run the gamut, from lucid ambient reveries to blistering industrial mayhem, from joyful death metal (surely a contradiction in terms?) to ragged improvised noise. Contributors this time include Ian Mathers, Andrew Forell, Jonathan Shaw, Tim Clarke, Bill Meyer, Christian Carey Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Jim Marks.  

Aarktica — Paeans (Projekt)

Paeans by Aarktica

One of the most distinct and striking things about Jon DeRosa’s work as Aarktica has always been the way he blends more ‘pure’ ambient material with songs, both his own and others (everyone from Danzig to Peruvian shamanic songwriter Artur Mena). The new Paeans actually marks the first Aarktica LP without DeRosa’s vocals since his debut, 2000’s No Solace for Sleep. Coming on the heels of last year’s magnificent We Will Find the Light, this record could have just felt like a post-banquet digestif, but instead it’s a reminder of the beautiful, clear atmospheres DeRosa can make with just his guitar (here ably assisted by Henrik Meierkord on cello and viola). Whether it’s going Ashra-stratospheric on “Arcturan Transmission” or drifting towards Stars of the Lid on “Golden Hour at Pyramid House,” the result is a reminder of how vital his ambient work is.

Ian Mathers

 Antimaterial Worlds — Double Saturns Last Purification Exercises (Chemical X)

Double Saturns Last Purification Exercises by ANTIMATERIAL WORLDS

Gaura-jīvana Dāsa has a long history of industrial noise making under various names and degrees of success. His latest incarnation, as Antimaterial Worlds, combines the raucous noise of past projects Skull Catalog and Sewn Leather with his learnings from several years of immersion in Vedic religious studies. The results will do little to win converts to either enterprise. Musically, Double Saturns Last Purification Exercises clings to lesser Nine Inch Nails flailing whilst the lyrics swing from masochistic self-abnegation to that peculiar form of So-Cal spiritual sadism that seeks to purge the penitent while scourging the sinner. The “Kill them all and let God sort them out” forgets that hubris is a powerful enemy for the faithful but if you like your prophets wild-eyed, messianic and slinging guitars instead of lightning bolts and locusts, have at it.

Andrew Forell

 Ascended Dead — Evenfall of the Apocalypse (20 Buck Spin)

Evenfall of the Apocalypse by Ascended Dead

Evenfall of the Apocalypse comprises 42 minutes of perversely joyous Metal ov Death. Not much else to tell you, folks. The four San Diego-based musicians in Ascended Dead continue their project of making songs that cleave to the verities of the Old School, which they have come by honestly: drummer C. Koryn and bass player Kevin Schreutelkamp have put in time in the live bands of Blasphemy, Incantation and Morbid Angel, death metal legends, all. In Ascended Dead, that rhythm section is joined by guitarists Ian Lawrence and Jon Reider, and the requisite whirling chaos commences. It’s a lot of fun. Every song is overstuffed with riffs and ideas, all constantly on the verge of collapsing into noisome, rotten goo. Koryn’s drumming keeps them coherent (mostly, anyways) and coaxes them into increasingly wacky shapes, building toward the next semi-blackened guitar break or bout of psychotic shredding. There’s nothing innovative or risk-taking here, but it's nimbly composed, confidently executed and always on the move. The shorter tunes (“Nexus of the Black Flame,” “Bestial Vengeance”) are especially effective. They arrive, they mess up your mind, they’re gone. Come back and do it again, please.

Jonathan Shaw  

 Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean — Obsession Destruction (Redscroll Records)

Obsession Destruction by Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean

There’s not a tremendous amount of range in sludge metal, so it makes sense that Massachusetts band Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean seems to have derived its name by altering the title of a song (“Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean”) from Thou, perhaps the best sludge band to make misery-inducing music since Eyehategod. But’s there’s a line to be drawn between recognition of one’s artistic idols and pastiche, and Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean steps right along it — or crawls, or trudges, as the case may be. Songs like “Summer Comes to Multiply” and “Every Day a Weeping Curse” sound a whole lot like…Thou. This reviewer responds, at a profound gut level, to those tones and rhythmic structures, so he can dig a tune like “Ten Thousand Years of Unending Failure.” Ironically, it succeeds. It’s crushing and thrilling and huge, and it closes with an entertainingly daft lyric couplet: “When obsession takes over I’ll be fine / When destruction takes over I’ll decide.” Is that nihilism? A sort of fist-clenched catharsis? The aggro intensities of the music can accommodate both, creating a pretty good set of emotive qualities for a sludge song. Why decide, dudes? 

Jonathan Shaw 

 Clark — Sus Dog (Throttle)

Sus Dog by Clark

Clark’s most recent releases have been dominated by soundtracks and neo-classical work (2021’s Playground In A Lake and 2019’s Kiri Variations are especially beautiful). On his new album, Sus Dog, he returns to an electronically dominated palette, introduces his own voice as a key element, and even gets Thom Yorke on board as executive producer. Yorke’s involvement is obviously a drawcard for anyone interested in the Radiohead frontman’s oeuvre, with the overall sound of Sus Dog largely in the vein of Yorke’s last solo album, Anima. Clark’s voice is similar to Caribou’s Dan Snaith in its timbre and the way it sits in the mix, while squiggly synthesizer lines and pounding drum breaks carry the music forward with aplomb. However, it’s Sus Dog’s down-tempo moments that really shine, such as the title track, featuring guest vocals from Anika; “Medicine,” featuring Yorke on bass and vocals; and the piano-driven closer, “Ladder,” which repeats the striking vocal refrain, “Living on a ladder, stuck between two floors.”  

Tim Clarke

 The Electric Nature — Old World Die Must (Feeding Tube / NULL|ZØNE)

Old World Die Must by The Electric Nature

The Electric Nature is a free noise trio which is based in Athens, GA. Improvisation is baked into their methodology, but that doesn’t mean that they serve up raw jams. This album, which is a rare vinyl outing in their mostly cassette/digital discography, contains just two, side-long tracks, but includes sounds made between 2015 and 2022. Given the density of their sound, one suspects that Michael Potter, Michael Piece and Thom Strickland, who are jointly credited with guitars, synths, drums and recordings, add tapes of earlier performances to the one at hand. But don’t get the idea that these guys are snakes swallowing their collective tail; they’re decidedly open to outside input. “Enter Chapel Perilous” opens with the croaks of some swamp denizens, and then turns the spotlight over to Sunwatchers saxophonist Jeff Tobias, whose long, furry tones clear the path for the eventual battering assault. The trio is likewise augmented on the flip side’s titular performance by John Kiran Fernandes, whose clarinet adds a Morricone-esque dimension to the late-night squall. Times are tough nowadays — sometimes it takes a village to whip up some solar wind. 

Bill Meyer

Feather Beds — Softer Measures (Strange Brew)

Softer Measures by Feather Beds

Feather Beds is the experimental pop project of Irish musician Michael Orange, and on his new album, Softer Measures, he pushes things to perverse extremes. The album title seems to allude to the music’s raw materials being endlessly pliable, able to be squashed and stretched into new forms. There are identifiably pop-leaning tunes here, but often buried beneath effects and refracted through a funhouse mirror. Predictably it’s the two singles, “Really Disney” and “Sport of Boxing,” that offer the most immediate gratification, but even then, things get weird, a la early Animal Collective or Ronald Jones-era Flaming Lips. “Sport of Boxing,” for example, is a jangly lo-fi pop tune that hurtles along at an addictive clip, only to be swallowed up by chittering digital loops. Indeed, there’s something decidedly nightmarish about the way the songs refuse to follow the path you might imagine. Rhythms stutter and stumble, guitar tones warp in and out of tune, voices circle eerily and overlap one another. All the chaos renders moments of calm, such as the end of “We Safari,” uncannily beautiful.

Tim Clarke

 The High Strung — Address Unknown (Paper Thin)

The High Strung makes a kind of trebly, warbly, high energy garage pop pioneered by the Seeds and the Flaming Groovies and rediscovered during the aughts “rock is back” era by the Cynics, the Gripweeds and the Insomniacs. It’s not quite bubblegum, but it’s got a fair lacing of sweetness, and it’s hard to do well without slipping into saccharine cliché. Address Unknown is the band’s 11th album, following several decades together, through multiple line-ups and one major breakthrough: a song in opening credits of the Showtime series Shameless. It is everything you’d expect from a band of lifers—tight and relaxed at the same time, sure of itself but not particularly concerned about reception, and utterly charming. I like “Different Animal” the best, with its pounding beat and fluttering tunefulness, its clever rhymes and loopy harmonies. It’s the single and the video, and you can see why they focused on it, but there’s plenty of other good stuff as well. “Overcoat and Skis” with its Beatles-esque tootling keyboard and its wistful upward lilting melody, seems loose and casual until you recognize the sharpness of the ski-themed writing. (“It’s all downhill from here.”) “Run It Back” rocks harder, in a one-two punching way, but never abandons its tipsy whimsy, like XTC but rougher. Here’s a band neither torqued too tight nor slouched too low, but just a little high strung.

Jennifer Kelly

 Joseph Jarman-Don Moye feat. Craig Harris & Rafael Garrett — Earth Passage-Density (Eargong) 

By the early 1980s, when this album was recorded, the Art Ensemble Of Chicago spent a lot of their time playing music in other settings. On Earth Passage-Density, percussionist Don Moye and woodwinds multi-threat Joseph Jarman joined forces with Craig Harris, a trombone and digeridoo player who was active on several New York scenes, and Rafael Garrett, a bass and winds player who one worked with John Coltrane on the mind-melter, Om. Originally released by Black Saint and recently re-pressed by Eargong, this session shows the same breadth of reach as the AEC without shortchanging the creativity of Garrett and Harris. Patient development balances jump-cut transitional strategies and Brownian rhythmic urgency as they work their way through ceremonial dirges, angular bop, and gleefully chaotic funk. If you have any appreciation for the Art Ensemble’s pre-ECM recordings and haven’t heard this record yet, well, why are you being so hard on yourself?

Bill Meyer  

Rob Mazurek and Exploding Star Orchestra – Lightning Dreamers (Rogue Art)

Rob Mazurek enlists a formidable lineup for Lightning Dreamers, Exploding Star Orchestra’s latest recording, including instrumentalists Jeff Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Craig Taborn, Gerald Cleaver, and Angelica Sanchez. Damon Locks provides futurist lyrics and intoned vocals, taking the lead on “Future Shaman.” Mazurek’s cornet solo on the spacy “Dream Sleeper” is a standout, mellifluous and melodically inventive. The supple groove and doubled melodies on “Shape Shifter” demonstrate the groups allied affinities to fusion and modern jazz. Add in hat tips to the Arkestra, as on the paired pieces “Black River” and “White River,” and a fulsome brew is concocted.

Christian Carey

 Miranda and the Beat — S-T (Ernest Jennings)

Miranda And The Beat by Miranda and The Beat

“Sweat!” shouts Miranda Zipse in the opening salvo to this very strong album, as a soul-powered guitar snakes through surges of 1960s organs. She sounds like a long-lost Bond opening credit singer, from the Connery era no less, but she formed her band only a few years ago with her childhood friend Kim Sollecito, after dropping out of high school at 15. Now, she wields an astonishing belt, a swaggering style and a crack band of retro-maximalists. She’s caught the attention of another 1960s soul vamper, King Khan, who enthused, “I never thought I would see someone be able to play guitar with the ferocity of Link Wray, and sing like Lydia Lunch had a nuclear meltdown and morphed into Etta James and Yma Sumac.” Too much? Maybe, but “I’m Not Your Baby” swells and roars, surf guitar cascading through a Spector-esque wall of sound. “Concrete” cranks the tension with stuttering high-hat and drum—and blasts out of the blocks with a battering bass line. “Listen to the sound of the kids that are hanging out on the street,” she spits against the rough beat, and who knew that the kids would sound like this?

Jennifer Kelly

 Olololop, Arakawa Atsushi And Zea — Soyokaze (Makkum) 

Soyokaze by Olololop, Arakawa Atsushi and Zea

The Japanese trio Olololop plays electronic and acoustic percussion, and their compatriot Arakawa Atsushi manages electronics; one of them also plays a credible saxophone. They encountered Zea, the nom-du-rock of singer-guitarist Arnold de Boer (also of the Ex), at a Dutch music festival. Impelled by mutual appreciation, they flipped on some microphones and improvised a session which doesn’t fit easily into anyone’s pigeonhole, and is better off for it. Beats sputter, reeds and synth sputter, and at one point a poem drifts through the proceedings like a half-remembered dream. This music is a thing unto itself, beholden to no genre, but infused with the delight of jumping right in and finding out that you can swim. 

Bill Meyer

 Joakim Rainer Trio — Light Sentence (Sonic Transmissions) 

Light.Sentence by Joakim Rainer Trio

It must be daunting for any young musician to pick a point of entry into jazz these days. Joakim Rainer Petersen, the leader of this Norwegian piano trio, has chosen wisely. While he may not be as distinctive a composer as Kris Davis or Andrew Hill, his interest in their music helps to steer his own towards expressions of formal logic that are open to improvisational reassessment at any moment. He and bassist Alexander Risis sound like they’re completing each other’s ideas, but not by adding one guy’s statements to the other’s; no, their ideas cohere like two people saying parts of the same sentence. Drummer Rino Sivathas keeps things moving with a nicely splashy attack that keeps the moments of reflection from bogging down. Word has it that this combo tours, at least in Europe; keep your eyes and ears peeled. 

Bill Meyer

 Roser Monforte Trio — Landscape Songs (Self-Release)

LANDSCAPE SONGS, RM TRIO by RM TRIO

This slightly unusual trio lineup delivers jazz with a prog twist. Monforte has a big sound but gives drummer Jordi Pallarés and guitarist Pau Mainé plenty of space to realize her highly polished but uncluttered compositions.

The first two tracks, “Once upon a Time” and “Horses,” blend together into a suite that shows the group at its best. It begins with over a minute of unaccompanied guitar, which, as throughout the album, Mainé plays clean and with restraint. Pallarés is boisterous once he gets going, producing a wide range of sounds out of what looks like a fairly standard jazz kit, though well appointed with cymbals, in online videos. The leader eases into the tune around the minute-and-a-half mark with a catchy descending lick, and they’re off. Pallarés takes a solo at the transition between the tunes that is followed by the introduction of a new, serpentine theme and a neat shift in tempo, and the suite draws to a close with a funky vamp and a revisitation of the serpentine theme.

The rest of the tunes are nearly as memorable and fairly concise, most running three to five minutes. There’s plenty of variation, with “Cosmic Dancer” and “Orixa” straying into exotica and fusion territory, the lovely ballads “Absence” and “Baraka” slowing things down, and the rousing “anTANAnarivo” and “Atzutac” sure to set toes tapping.

Jim Marks

 Tomten — Artichoke (Plume)

Artichoke by Tomten

Tomten’s songs billow and swell in that frictionless, effortless way that often indicates great care and craft. The Seattle-based band makes heavy use of keyboards—organs and synthesizers for instance—for lulling sustained tones that envelop and soften rock song architectures. The surf rock swagger of “Lizard in the Grass” comes wrapped in a dream pop shimmer. “Grapefruit Sea” the opener and early single, has the rolling gait and spiraling psychedelic expansiveness of a Grand Archive cut (it reminds me of “Sleepdriving,” always a good thing). The lyrics are better than they need to be, with precise and evocative natural imagery scattered across the disc, poppies and wild heather and mallow weeds. The whole thing feels like a pleasant dream, radiant but fuzzy at the edges.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Volcano the Bear — Amateur Shakes (Volucan)

Amateur Shakes by Volcano The Bear

A new Volcano the Bear album is cause for celebration among fans of strange sounds. Unfortunately, even though it arrived this year, Amateur Shakes doesn’t comprise recent music. The Leicester-based Dadaists laid these songs to tape at the tail end of the 2000s, prior to the release their final official album, Golden Rhythm / Ink Music in 2012. Timeline aside, this is a notable release for the band. Recorded with Andreas Schmid at Faust Studios and with Hans-Joachim Irmler producing, this is some of their best-sounding and most surreal music. Like in a Burroughs novel, thematic elements explored on past records reappear in these songs’ lyrics, which are sung, croaked and howled. The group have dialed back their signature avant-jazz and polka leanings, leaving room for their less-frequented outré rock tendencies to shine through. The lengthier, multi-part songs “Amateurs Blind” and “Classic Clarence Fusion” somehow come across as the most accessible, with the other tracks absorbing the experimentalist influences of the studio. There’s an uncanny symbiosis going on here, but can it really be a coincidence that a proximity to Faust has intensified the band’s already kooky demeanor? This writer thinks not. 

#dust #dusted magazine #aartika #ian mathers #antimaterial worlds #andrew forell #ascended death #jonathan shaw #chained to the bottom of the ocean #clark #the electric nature #bill meyer #feather beds #the high strung #jennifer kelly #Joseph Jarman #miranda and the beat #Olololop #joakim rainer #Roser Monforte Trio #jim marks #tomten #volcano the bear #bryon hayes #Rob Mazurek and Exploding Star Orchestra #christian carey

[maquina-semiotica]

Antimaterial Worlds, "Grip The Release" #NowPlaying

#Antimaterial Worlds #Spotify

[unprocione]

𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝟓 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒    [     87.5%    ]  

openness describes a person’s tendency to think in abstract, complex ways. high scorers tend to be creative, adventurous, and intellectual. they enjoy playing with ideas and discovering novel experiences. low scorers tend to be practical, conventional, and focused on the concrete. they tend to avoid the unknown and follow traditional ways.  

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒    [     92%    ]

conscientiousness  describes  a  person’s  ability  to  exercise  self-discipline  and  control  in  order  to  pursue  their  goals.  high  scorers  are  organized  and  determined,  and  are  able  to  forego  immediate  gratification  for  the  sake  of  long-term  achievement.  low  scorers  are  impulsive  and  easily  sidetracked.

𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍    [     67%    ]

extraversion  describes  a  person’s  inclination  to  seek  stimulation  from  the  outside  world,  especially  in  the  form  of  attention  from  other  people.  extraverts  engage  actively  with  others  to  earn  friendship,  admiration,  power,  status,  excitement,  and  romance.  introverts,  on  the  other  hand, conserve  their  energy,  and  do  not  work  as  hard  to  earn  these  social  rewards.

𝐀𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒    [     50%    ]

agreeableness  describes  a  person’s  tendency  to  put  others’  needs  ahead  of  their  own,  and  to  cooperate  rather  than  compete  with  others.  people  who  are  high  in  agreeableness  experience  a  great  deal  of  empathy  and  tend  to  get  pleasure  out  of  serving  and  taking  care  of  others.  they  are  usually  trusting  and  forgiving.  people  who  are  low  in  agreeableness  tend  to  experience  less  empathy  and  put  their  own  concerns  ahead  of  others.

𝐍𝐄𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐌    [     100%    ]           (   HM! YIKES!  )

neuroticism  describes  a  person’s  tendency  to  experience  negative  emotions,  including  fear,  sadness,  anxiety,  guilt,  and  shame.  while  everyone  experiences  these  emotions  from  time  to  time,  some  people  are  more  prone  to  them  than  others.  high  neuroticism  scorers  are  more  likely  to  react  to  a  situation  with  fear,  anger, sadness,  and  the  like.  low  neuroticism  scorers  are  more  likely  to  brush  off  their  misfortune  and  move  on.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐔𝐄?

You value personal accomplishment and advancement, and want to get ahead. You do not expect help from anyone, and instead put the onus on yourself to attain what you want in life. Because you feel people are responsible for their own needs, you are usually unwilling to spend time or energy helping others. You value competence, self-sufficiency, and a ruthless pursuit of one’s own interests.  You have a genuine love of ideas, and value originality, creativity, and imagination. It is important to you to have consistent opportunities to learn new things and improve your mind. You value intellectual challenge, depth of thought, and insight. Because of your interest in enlightenment and novel ideas, you place great value on artistic and cultural endeavors. You believe that the improvement of the mind is an important and worthy goal.

tagged by: saw it on the dash from @greenherb ! tagging: @blitzkriegers @destallo @sailento @sinfection @shinylugers @soloexe @antimaterial​

#hmmm. i don't know about the 'what do you value' one for sure... #but WOOPS at the neuroticism being at 100%!!!! #mr kennedy pls... #» 🦝 ﹕ why can’t it be sudoku for once? (dash games.) ❧

[n-i-cooper]

Vibrant Matter notes

25/05

Jane Bennet, “The Force of Things,” in Vibrant Matter (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 1-19.

Highlighting the active role of nonhuman materials in public life

Trying to give voice to a thing-power

Objects are the ways things appear to a subject

The moment when the object becomes the Other

Bodies have a peculiar vitality

Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to preserve in its own being

An active impulsion or trending tendency to persist

Distinguishes the human body from other bodies by noting that its “virtue” consists in “nothing other than to live by the guidance of reason”

“Even a falling stone is endeavouring…to continue in its motion”

Continually stressing this continuity between human and other beings

Seeking to acknowledge that which refuses to dissolve completely into the milieu of human knowledge

Humans as knowing bodies tend to overlook things and what they can do

Trying to name the moment of independence (from subjectivity) possessed by things, a moment that must be there since things do affect other bodies, enhancing or weakening their power

Give a voice to a vitality intrinsic to materiality

Absolving matter from its history of attachment to automatism or mechanism

Highlight the extent to which human being and thing hood overlap

We are also nonhuman and things are vital players in the world

Generate a more subtle awareness of the complicated web of dissonant connections between bodies, and enable wiser interventions into that ecology

Glove, pollen, rat, cap, stick: Shimmied back and forth between debris and thing, between stuff to be ignored (except as a token of human activity) and stuff that commanded attention in its own right They provoked effects: repulsion at the rat, dismayed by the litter But also provoked something else: the impossible singularity of that rat, that configuration of pollen, that otherwise utterly banal, mass produced plastic water-bottle cap “excruciating complexity and intractability of nonhuman bodies”

Not restricted to a passive “intractability,” included the ability to make things happen, to produce effects

When the materiality of these objects started to shimmer and spark, it was because of the contingent tableau that they formed with “each other, with the street, with the weather that morning, with me.”

"For had the sun not glinted on the black glove, I might not have seen the rat; had the rat not been there, I might not have noticed the bottle cap, and so on."

They were all there just as they were, caught a glimpse of an energetic vitality inside each of these things

Objects appeared as vivid entities not entirely reducible to the contexts in which (human) subjects set them, never entirely exhausted by their semiotics

Glimpsed a culture of things irreducible to the culture of objects, “to be surprised by what we see”

The window onto an eccentric out-side was made possible by the fortuity of that particular assemblage, “but also by a certain anticipatory readiness on my in-side,” a perceptual style open to the appearance of thing-power

“the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen”

all things are “animate, albeit in different degrees”

“our gaze, prompted by the experience of our own body, will discover in all other ‘objects’ the miracle of expression”

American materialism, which requires buying ever-increasing numbers of products purchased in ever-shorter cycles, is antimateriality

the sheer volume of commodities, and the hyper consumptive necessity of junking them to make room for new ones, conceals the vitality of matter

a vital materiality can never really be thrown “away”

it continues its activities even as a discarded or unwanted commodity

inorganic matter can “self-organise”

when things come alive, is it because of the stuff or the people?

is it a function of the subjective and intersubjective connotations, memories, and affects that accumulate around ideas of these items?

was the real agent temporary immobilisation on the street humanity, the cultural meanings of things in conjunction with idiosyncratic biography?

what if the swarming activity inside the mind was itself an instance of the vital materiality that also constituted the trash?

presenting these powers as evidence of our own constitution as vital materiality

human power is itself a kind of thing-power

it is easy to acknowledge that humans are composed of various material parts (the minerality of our bones, or the metal of our blood, or the electricity of our neurons)

"it is more challenging to conceive of these materials as lively and self-organising rather than passive or mechanical means under the direction of something nonmaterial, that is, an active soul or mind"

vitality intrinsic to matter itself becomes more plausible if one takes a long view of time

if you look at time as evolutionary rather than biographical, mineral efficacy becomes visible

we are walking, talking minerals

therefore, human power is thing-power

there is no necessity to describe these differences in a way that places humans at the ontological centre or hierarchical apex

humanity can be distinguished as a particularly rich and complex collection of materials

the fear of failing to affirm human uniqueness = authorises the treatment of people as mere things

aka a strong distinction between subjects and objects is needed to prevent the instrumentalization of humans

the ontological divide between persons and things must remain lest one have no moral grounds for privileging man over germ or for condemning pernicious forms of human-on-human instrumentalization

A very in depth analysis on thing power. At times this reading was very challenging to understand, but there were a few chunks with great explanations on the dynamics between humans + objects and their vibrancy.

Really interested in whether the moments things become alive is because of me or them, (or both): it could be ever shifting thing rather than just one. Also the fears around breaking down the similarities between us and objects wasn't one I hadn't considered before. The reflection of our consumption as well as somehow diminishing the "specialness" of humans wasn't something I was concerned with when finding objects until now. I guess I am more fascinated by this break down rather than afraid. I think it's nice having more things to relate to besides other humans, but again it could come down to that anticipatory readiness that Bennet was explaining.. Love the idea that we are also things in a sense, "walking talking minerals"; definitely matches up with my interest in what the human body organically produces, acknowledging the minerality/objectness of the self.

#term 2 #studio theory

[vexwerewolf]

Dear Vex,

I was wondering if you could help me. I am going to be in my first RPG campaign, which will be Lancer. I need to choose a mech and was hoping you could help me. Our GM ask us to theme our little outfit around the idea of a planetary defense force gone off world.

So I thinking of something like an Urbanmech from the Battletech series, a small cheaply made, eternally underestimated and mocked incessantly but oddly hard hitting little sniper mech.

It would be a great help to me if you could help. As it would mean I can stop bothering my GM all the time.

Warmest Regards

Word Bearer.

If you like sniping and "underestimated mechs," you might consider building a Raleigh that wields an Antimaterial Rifle.

[third-nature]

"Because money is convertible into all other things, it infects them with the same feature, turning them into commodities—objects that, as long as they meet certain criteria, are seen as identical. All that matters is how many or how much. Money, says Seaford, 'promotes a sense of homogeneity among things in general.' All things are equal, because they can be sold for money, which can in turn be used to buy any other thing. In the commodity world, things are equal to the money that can replace them. Their primary attribute is their 'value'—an abstraction. I feel a distancing, a letdown, in the phrase, 'You can always buy another one.' Can you see how this promotes an antimaterialism, a detachment from the physical world in which each person, place, and thing is special, unique? No wonder Greek philosophers of this era [when modern money originated] began elevating the abstract over the real, culminating in Plato's invention of a world of perfect forms more real than the world of the senses. No wonder to this day we treat the physical world so cavalierly. No wonder, after two thousand years' immersion in the mentality of money, we have become so used to the replaceability of all things that we behave as if we could, if we wrecked the planet, simply buy a new one."

#charles eisenstein #quote #anti capitalism #consumerism #ecosocialism #commodification #money #quantity vs quality #exchangability #materialism #abstraction

[junkyardlynx]

Sweat poured down Ritsuka's bare torso and stoic face as he went through the motions of combat alone. Countless hours of combat drills under Leonidas had made it so he required no real opponent to practice with, though it certainly helped. In his mind’s eye, he saw the thrust of a spear, the arc of an axe and a sharp kick aimed at the back of his knee. Reflexively, his right shoulder jerked back and the arm attached to it curled tight, capturing the imaginary thrust even as his left palm snaked out to connect with the axeman’s temple, throwing the blow off. At the same time, his right leg bounced up, avoiding the crippling kick and stomping down hard on the assailant’s leg. This dance of illusion continued behind Ritsuka's closed eyes as his body moved to disarm, destroy and disable the perceived attacks.

He clicked his tongue in mild dissatisfaction as his breathing grew rougher and the sweat soaked into his loose black pants. His body was reaching it’s limit. As he wound down the exercises, he finished the fake bout with a stomp of his right foot followed by a discharge of magical energy. Breathing in for a moment, he collected himself before bowing to the training room. Opening his placid blue eyes, he confirmed that he was alone before rolling his shoulders and running a hand through his sweat-slicked hair, wiping it on his pants afterwards. A white cloth towel and a basin of water sat upon a wooden bench, and he made liberal use of them to cleanse himself.

His mind wandered as satisfaction crept up the spine of his soul. This world, like every other, operated on rules of power. The power to defend, to take, to protect, to plunder. The power to save something. He felt powerless, though he had certainly saved many lives in his journeys. The root of the issue was far simpler. He himself was not classically “strong” and thus relied on the strength of others. This made him what he saw as a liability.

This not entirely true. In the modern day, Ritsuka might actually be one of the most capable mage combatants, disregarding his special circumstances. He received tutelage in the arts of war from Leonidas II and Scáthach, studied magecraft with Medea and Circe, and sharpened his mind with the likes of Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty. No flesh and blood human reasonably expect to best him without thorough preparation, no matter their weaponry or Mystic Codes. He took his middling magical energy and his average talent and honed them with the one thing available - effort. After all, even the sharpest blade starts out as an unassuming lump of iron. Only through determination, persistence and strife could that iron be formed into something beautiful.

The real issue was the fact that his opponents were never flesh and blood. They wore a simulacra of flesh and carried the idea of blood, but they were far removed from baseline humans. They were Heroic Spirits, the figures of ages past that made their mark on humanity. That mark…that mark was usually a bloodstain. If Ritsuka was, say, an antimaterial sniper rifle, than even the lowest Heroic Spirit was a nuclear bomb. A force of destruction you simply cannot hope to stop. Something to weather out.

So he relied on his bond, his ability as the Master of Chaldea. He cultivated those bonds with the Spirits of ages long dead, and he opened his heart to friend and foe alike. This was a type of strength, and one far more meaningful and potent than mere martial prowess.

However.

That sort of strength didn’t always allow him to save those in front of him.

Too many times to count, innocents died in front of him. Heads shorn from bodies, limbs ripped off, hearts pulled out. Sometimes at the hands of monsters. Sometimes at the hands of monsters calling themselves men. Sometimes at the hands of those all-too-human Heroic Spirits. Cold logic told him that intervention would have meant death, and that not even a true hero could save everyone. Cold logic was cruel like that. By following his instinct and that path of logic, Ritsuka saved himself time and time again, and in doing so, saved humanity from a ghastly Incineration with that human strength of his.

But who would save those people? If he was stronger, could they have been saved? If he could have saved them, could he grow stronger through the experience? Could that strength lend itself to more people saved?

Could he have saved the people of Uruk? Could he have saved Ushiwakamaru? Could he have saved that Leonidas? Could he have saved Siduri?

Could he have saved anyone at all with his own two hands?

There was only one way to find out.

“Kotarou.”

A redheaded ninja slipped out from between the shadows, giving a small nod and a smile.

“Yes, my Master?”

“Wanna spar with me?”

“I’m not sure how useful you’ll find fighting with me, as we shinobi tend to stray from fair fights, but it would be my honor!”

“Even better! Just uh, let me borrow a sword or something. Lady Kiyohime was nice enough to let me train here, so I’m sure one of her retainers will let me nab a bokuto.”

“No need, Master! Catch!”

Reflexes acted faster than thought, and Ritsuka’s right hand rose to catch an unexpected weapon - a quarterstaff. He had spent the most amount of time training with this due to his choice in teachers, and it felt at home in his hands, but he had to wonder exactly why Kotarou had it with him. Personally, he’d always felt an attraction to things like Musashi’s dual blade style, but he couldn’t deny that this was what he was best with.

Perhaps Kotarou had noticed his inner turmoil.

His doubts, his fears, his struggles.

His desire to grow.

His need to save someone, anyone.

“You’re a mage, Master! Mages use staves. And…I think you look coolest with a staff.”

Kotarou truly was the ideal shinobi.

The two shared a heartfelt smile as Ritsuka spun the oaken staff, twirling it around his wrist before gripping the midsection and flicking his wrist fast enough to crack the air. Master and Servant bowed to each other. A moment later, Kotarou disappeared from sight, a set of lethal strikes aimed at Ritsuka’s spleen and neck.

Wooden daggers cut thin air as oak met spiritual flesh, a sweeping motion knocking both blows away. Kotarou’s eyes went wide beneath his shaggy red hair, and he smiled wide, laughing in mirth before redoubling his efforts.

The two men danced into the night, playfully attempting to kill each something in each other. Kotarou aimed to kill his Master’s doubts and Ritsuka aimed to kill the worry in Kotarou’s too-big heart. Bruises and scrapes accumulated, droplets blood and sweat soaking into the floor beneath them, but there was only love, camaraderie and loyalty in those blows.

Tomorrow may bring new joys and tragedies, but tonight?

Tonight belonged to a world of two.

#fate series #fate grand order #fgo #fanfiction #fuuma kotarou #kotarou fuuma #i love kotarou he's a good boy #gudao #ritsuka fujimaru #fujimaru ritsuka #writing #my writing

[superconsciousness]

TTS Easy Journey to Other Planets 1972 - 1 - Antimaterial Worlds

[mysticalblizzardcolor]

TTS Easy Journey to Other Planets 1972 - 1 - Antimaterial Worlds

#ISKCON #HARE KRISHNA

[firestonsworld-blog]

Hey! Thanks for read...but realy:I am NOt an expert in any wise..only a woman with many interests and lots of half KnowHow..So sorry@ Can only give a tipp: go everytime in direction alchimie you will never unterstand world in Quant and Quarks when you looks NOt in the same time in the world in Big. Micro without Macro is like Materie without Antimaterie. And my 2. Sorrow: I'm German, my English is horrible and my Autokorrektur Programm on handy kills me! Tooks time like sitting in a dentists Chaos.....mmm .But wish you good luck for your future.!@@

[maquina-semiotica]

Antimaterial Worlds, "Grip The Release"

#Antimaterial Worlds #Spotify