Drafts by Bronislaw Szerszynski
springerin
In this article I explain the provocative title – I argue that experiments in art and culture can... more In this article I explain the provocative title – I argue that experiments in art and culture can, by ‘breaking’ in creative ways our unthought, taken-for-granted embedding in our world, make us sensitive to the role we are playing – and could come to play – in the ongoing evolution of our planet.
Colloids are substances such as sols, foams, powders, granular flows, gels, doughs and pastes tha... more Colloids are substances such as sols, foams, powders, granular flows, gels, doughs and pastes that exhibit complex physical properties that do not conform to standard conceptions of solid, liquid or gas. In this paper, I will suggest that we should see colloids not simply as exotic oddities but as crucial for understanding the emergence of complexity in inorganic, organic and social life. Colloids point to the importance of the mesoscale: a middle scale of phenomena between the large and the small, where domains of phenomena that are normally insulated from each other touch and interact, generating unpredictability and novelty. They also require us to rethink dualistic oppositions such as those between solid and fluid, pure and hybrid, individual and collective, active and passive. Through a detailed exploration of a range of colloidal substances, and drawing on the social theory of Gilles Deleuze and Gabriel Tarde, I will sketch out a programme for a 'colloidal sociology', which approaches human society as a topologically complex, dynamic colloid within a wider understanding of the liveliness and generativity of matter.
Planetary Social Thought - part 1
This is an unpublished first draft of the first half of a book by Nigel Clark and Bronislaw Szers... more This is an unpublished first draft of the first half of a book by Nigel Clark and Bronislaw Szerszynski, due to be published by Polity Press in 2020. It has now been superseded by the full manuscript, also available on Academia.
Papers by Bronislaw Szerszynski
Routledge eBooks, Apr 5, 2023
Routledge eBooks, Jul 26, 2022
Dialogues in Human Geography
In this short response, we engage with four generous and stimulating commentaries on our Planetar... more In this short response, we engage with four generous and stimulating commentaries on our Planetary Social Thought (2021). We endorse Cecilia Åsberg's suggestion that the boundary between the environmental humanities and social sciences is dissolving – but also call for more inventive relations between these disciplines and the natural sciences. We discuss László Cseke's account of the rise of factory-farmed ‘broiler’ chickens as a reversal of many of the achievements of the Earth over the last half-billion years. We agree with Franklin Ginn's suggestion that vegetality is a crucial vector of planetary self-exploration and invention – and one that can give us clues as to what life might become on other worlds. We reflect on Simon Dalby's observations about the lack of reference to planetary governance in the book, suggesting that we need a way of thinking about the politics of the earth that goes beyond conflict and agonism – in Åsberg's words, that we need to learn not just to survive but to thrive.
Narratives of Scale in the Anthropocene, 2021
Theory, Culture & Society, 2021
In our discussions around the theme of solid fluids, we often resort to everyday words, many of t... more In our discussions around the theme of solid fluids, we often resort to everyday words, many of them of ancient derivation and rich in association. We have decided to make a list of some of the words that come up most often – barring those that already figure as the principal characters of individual contributions – and to distribute among ourselves the task of writing a sort of mini-biography for each. The resulting lexicon with 19 entries, ranging from ‘cloud’ and ‘concrete’ to ‘wave’ and ‘wood’, serves as a conclusion to the collection as a whole.
Spectral Futures, 2025
Iridescence is a chromatic phenomenon in which the perceived color of a substance or object depen... more Iridescence is a chromatic phenomenon in which the perceived color of a substance or object depends on the angle of incident light or angle of viewing. In my chapter I use a short story to explore what it might mean to think of the future as iridescent: as containing within itself multiple future states at once and as only appearing to collapse into one probable or preferable future due to the 'angle of view' and 'angle of illumination' (more broadly interpreted in epistemological terms). In this chapter I use the short-story form to explore how we might use iridescence to shape our thinking about the future. It is 2035, and a scientist, Daniel, has relocated to an Institute near Portland to further develop his Timescope-a device for visualizing the future in three dimensions, using color to represent the different probability of each possible future. He is writing to his partner Anna in New York about his work, and about their future together, which now seems in doubt. Each of his three letters gives us a glimpse into a successive versions of Daniels's Timescope. The first is based in what he calls the 'classical' futuristics of the late twentieth-century idea of the 'futures cone' (Voros 2017; Gall et al. 2022); the second incorporates special relativity and the concept of the 'light cone' (Sard 1970), and the third moves further into the post-classical ideas of time and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (Carroll 2019), in which a smoothly expanding futures cone is replaced by a branching universe. In each case, Daniel's attempts to stabilize the Timescope's use of color to represent the probability of future world-states-and his increasing attempts to find a future in which he and Anna are reunited-are compromised, as 'the future iridesces'.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021
Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scient... more Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source – the phenomenon of ‘mitigation deterrence’. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving mitigation deterrence. The workshops examined ways in which deterrence might arise, and how it could be minimized. The deliberation exposed social and cultural interactions that might otherwise remain hidden. The paper describes narratives and ideas discussed in the workshops regarding political and economic mechanisms through which mitigation deterrence might occur, the plausibility of such pathways, and measures recommended to reduce the risk of such occurrence. Mitigation deterrence is interpreted as an important example of the ‘attracti...
Frontiers in Climate, 2019
Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately fro... more Targets and accounting for negative emissions should be explicitly set and managed separately from existing and future targets for emissions reduction. Failure to make such a separation has already hampered climate policy, exaggerating the expected future contribution of negative emissions in climate models, while also obscuring the extent and pace of the investment needed to deliver negative emissions. Separation would help minimize the negative impacts that promises and deployments of negative emissions could have on emissions reduction, arising from effects such as temporal trade-offs, excessive offsetting, and technological lock-in. Benefits for international, national, local, organizational, and sectoral planning would arise from greater clarity over the role and timing of negative emissions alongside accelerated emissions reduction.
Religion in the Anthropocene, Sep 27, 2018
Earth scientists have proposed that the activities of a technologically enhanced humanity are tip... more Earth scientists have proposed that the activities of a technologically enhanced humanity are tipping the Earth and its subsystems out of the Holocene-the geological epoch that, with its relatively stable climate, hosted the rise of agriculture and civilization-into a new and uncertain state, which it is proposed should be called "the Anthropocene". 2 How might we think the Anthropocene through the lens of religion and the sacred? In any new "geo-spiritual formations" that might emerge-any new, more-or-less stable configurations of humans, non-humans, spiritual beings and Earth processes-what forms might religion take and what roles might it perform? I have tried to explore such questions in a series of "theory-fictions". 3 Borrowing Karl Jaspers' idea of the Axial Age, in these writings I have presented the cultures and religions of the Earth over the coming century as undergoing a "Second Axial Age", a radical shift in thinking and praxis, involving a deeper awareness of being as conditioned by the dynamic material becoming of the universe on multiple spatial and temporal scales. As the idea of the (First) Axial Age is an important part of the backdrop for my theory-fictions-and one with a complex relationship with the emergence of the Anthropocene-it is worth rehearsing the significance of Jaspers's ideas.
In this article I discuss three "Warnings to Humanity" about the state of the global environment,... more In this article I discuss three "Warnings to Humanity" about the state of the global environment, signed by global networks of scientists and published in 1992, 2017 and 2019. I place these in the context of the long practice in human culture of separating and relating different registers of time: the human time of communication and recollection, and 'inhuman' times such as the time of the gods, culture heroes, or latterly Earth history. I suggest that in the Anthropocene the ability of geological and meteorological tropes to control the semiotic relations between lived human time and deep, planetary time is being disrupted. I then use speech act theory to analyze how the language of the three "Warnings" works to position the scientist signatories as accredited "watchmen" monitoring the changing relations between human and Earth time, and wider humanity as exposed to knowing culpability in ongoing global environmental deterioration. I conclude by suggesting that the meshing of human and Earth time is stretching the representational capabilities of the natural sciences to breaking point, and that the environmental humanities should also play an important role.
Stasis, 2021
In this paper, I make a case for a philosophy of continuous matter, in dialogue with object-orien... more In this paper, I make a case for a philosophy of continuous matter, in dialogue with object-oriented ontology. A continuous-matter philosophy is one that focuses not on the identity, properties and relations of discrete, countable objects, but on the nature of extended substances, both in relation to human experience and in terms of their own 'inner life'. I explore why and under what conditions humans might perceive the world as objects or as continuous substances, and the language that humans use for talking about both of them. I argue that approaching the world as continua requires the foregrounding of concepts that emphasise the immanent (internal to a region of space), the inclusive (with contrasting properties coexisting in the same substance), the gradual (manifesting differentially at different points) and the generative or virtual (involving the constant production of form and new gradients). I suggest that starting philosophy from continuous matter rather than objects also has wider implications for speculative thought.
The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, 2011
This chapter explores the attempt to construct the European Union (EU) as a harmonised regulatory... more This chapter explores the attempt to construct the European Union (EU) as a harmonised regulatory space for the governance of genetically modified crops and food, in the additional context of the EU’s expansion eastwards. It explores how this attempt was repeatedly thwarted by national GM bans by member states, and how this has resulted in a project to construct Europe as a space of coexistence between separate agrofood systems, including GM, non-GM and organic, and the rise of GM-free regions based upon quality regional food strategies. The chapter also uncovers the industrial agrofood models implied by the dominant GM technologies, and contrasts these with emerging alternative agrofood systems and technologies around local, organic and quality driven production and consumption. It uses this analysis to question the linear conceptions of technological progress that underlie the assumption that CEE countries such as Poland must inevitably embrace a globalised and industrialised agrofood system.
Media and the Restyling of Politics: Consumerism, Celebrity and Cynicism, 2003
Culture and Economy after the Cultural Turn Culture and economy after the cultural turn, 1999
Spaces of Depoliticization, Spectres of Radical Politics, 2014
Uploads
Drafts by Bronislaw Szerszynski
Papers by Bronislaw Szerszynski
The artists and researchers involved in this publication and associated symposium, the Art & Mobilities Network Inaugural Symposium held 3 July 2018 at the Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University are: Kaya Barry, Tess Baxter, Bruce Bennett, Clare Booker, Natalie Bowers, Monika Büscher, Owen Chapman, Jocelyn Cunningham, Malé Lujan Escalante, Nick Ferguson, Bernard Guelton, Peter Merrington, Elia Ntaousani, Kat Jungnickel, Linda O Keeffe, Sven Kesselring, Carlos Lopez, Serena Pollastri, Nikki Pugh, Emma Rose, Kim Sawchuk, Mimi Sheller, Richard Smith, Jen Southern, Bron Szerszynski, Kai Syng Tan, Sam Thulin, Emma Whittaker and Louise Ann Wilson
---------------------
CONTEXTS
Kai was a 2017-2018 Centre for Mobilities Research CEMORE Visiting Fellow, Lancaster University. She worked closely with the Director of Mobilities Lab Dr Jen Southern, as well as Professor Emma Rose and Dr Linda O Keefe of the Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts, and successfully co-curated the Art & Mobilities Network Inaugural Symposium. The study and practice of Art & Mobilities has been gaining momentum in the past decade. This includes pioneering solo and collaborative work led by Jen, a key player in the field. The Art & Mobilities network consolidates, celebrates and develops this work. On 3rd July, nearly thirty artists, writers, curators and researchers gathered - physically and via Skype - at the Peter Scott Gallery. UK participants brought with them objects, images or texts for a pop-up exhibition. We wrote our big ideas on a ‘manifesto wall’ and considered the histories of mobilities in art practice through a timeline running across the Gallery. Jen gave a keynote packed full of information and provocations covering creative research methods, the aesthetics of mobility and so on. We closed the colloquium with a role and ‘next step’ that each of us intends to perform to get the group going. In the longer term, we will seek funding to build this network internationally and to facilitate collaborations and activities such as conferences, exhibitions and publications.
Kai helped to collate and design an ‘instant journal’, an experimental platform which documents some of our activities and thoughts, and which we will continue to edit and develop. You can see the full publication in the link above.
Kai also gave a keynote lecture which was a performance-lecture of how art and mobilities collide for her as an artist, curator and woman. See a version of it here in the form of an online story through 100 slides. https://bit.ly/2Ob34Ha
OTHER LINKS
See next steps here: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/cemore/mobilities-lab/art/
Flickr album: https://bit.ly/2vdIkri
Twitter discussion: https://twitter.com/hashtag/artmobs?src=hash
Timeline: https://bit.ly/2vhQSgB
The book introduces a radically new direction for contemporary debates about nature, technology and society. By demonstrating that the history of religion and our practical and theoretical relationship with nature cannot be wholly separated, it points towards a new framing for today’s critical discourse concerning nature and technology – one that reinstates it as a moment within the ongoing religious history of the West.
This volume’s purpose is to examine new perspectives on worlding in light of what looks like a shift recently registered in the politics of theory, one which has led from the exploration of the possible into the subsequent investigation of the compossible, i.e. from the counter-capitalist drive towards deterritorialisation (whose flag capitalism hoists today to an unprecedented degree) into the post-capitalist reinvention of new existential territories (partly virtual, partly already real) at the interface of modern frustrations and the logics of the otherwise, thus encouraging (against despotic encodings and active nihilisms alike) a re-stitching of liberation (Dionysus) and dwelling (Apollo) on behalf of what might be labelled a cosmopolitics and a poetics of care.
It includes papers on questions of order, chaos, immanence, transcendence, singularity, and variation; post-foundational and meta-foundational axiomatics around notions like Grund, Abgrund, and multi-centricity; cosmopolitical pragmatics of alliance; the poetics of dwelling against the politics of devastation; the metaphysics of the others; the narratives of new complex existential niches; and extra-modern ontologies and cosmologies. Ultimately, then, it is dedicated to exploring the contours of the Otherwise on behalf of a non-minimalist philosophical paradigm: that of Worlding.
Tim Ingold speaks of drawing “lines” and making “knots,” Donna Haraway of “string figuring.” These and other similar expressions hint beyond today’s object-oriented fever and dystopian dismay. Yet by putting together this volume we want to move forward on their track in new, unhackneyed ways; for not only do we wish to picture specific modalities of be(com)ing with and their logics: we aim, too, at studying their conceptual backstage, memories, and margins.
The volume, on the other hand, divides into three sections: “Integrals” contains reflections out of which specific notional areas and volumes, but also problems, arise. “Derivatives,” in contrast, brings together drifts into the otherwise that make audible, and readable, some of the otherwise’s multiform voices. “Constellations,” finally, shakes the dust that forms the soil of what deserves to be thought, sensed, and experimented with.
Our gratitude to all those who have generously contributed a piece to the volume’s music.
Sofya Gevorkyan
Carlos A. Segovia