There's a load of really interesting stuff in this new book on
Architecture in the Anthropocene (discovered
courtesy of ANTHEM). In particular the interview with Isabelle Stengers has some interesting moments. I wrote a few weeks ago that there seems to be
an ongoing competition among some academic-types to be ever more anti-anthropocentric than everyone else—i.e. anthropocentrism might be the new 'presence.' Stengers says something similar:
The position of the critic will not get humans out of the trap. On the contrary, it will probably produce new ways of commenting on art, in a trendy race for the most radical manner of moving away from a human-centred view. This is exactly what I fear with the Anthropocene thesis; it proposes a “future perfect continuous” tense, which puts theorists into a very agreeable position. The mess can now be forgotten, swallowed in a continuity that can be theorized in a single shot. Abysmal aporia will flourish, happily confronted by theoreticians hunting down shades of anthropocentrism in other theoreticians’ writings—a beautiful prospect for generations of doctoral students and aesthetic ventures in the art world. (178)
Also, she has this to say in response to a question on the accelerationism of Nick Land, etc.:
I decline contrasting Cosmopolitics, whatever its shortcomings, with that trash—they are male chauvinist pigs, that’s all. I am only sorry for the memory of Félix Guattari, which they deface. (179)
I've heard tell of her capacity for brutal putdowns but that is quite something. Ouch.
