Abstract. Social intensiology is outlined here in its connection to morphogenesis. the latter aims to explain how form come into existence, just as the former seeks to tackle the intensive states of social life. A topological reference model is proposed for conceptualizing how social life operates immanently with saliences and pregnances. The paper starts from the famous Collatz conjecture, and reviews how it has been recently modelled by Danail Valov using braid groups and including thermodynamic irreversibility into the picture. A ‘Valov braid’ can be understood as a manifold, an entity that is, at the same time, individual and collective. Its collective structure can be reconstructed, through its operational logic, as a tensional field. An attempt is made to show how phenomena of memory and measure are intertwined with the braid’s developments, giving rise to a rich present, multi-faceted that lives in non-coincidence. Within such framework, rhythmanalysis is presented as a useful tool for assaying and experimentally improving social life.

Keywords: social theory; social modelling; topology; braid groups; rhythmanalysis

>>> draft available upon request

Chek it out at : https://www.losquaderno.net/?p=2409

Paesaggi di margine. Strategie progettuali per leggere e trasformare il paeaggio

https://www.tsm.tn.it/pubblicazioni-libri/paesaggi-di-margine

PDF Version

Happy to be included in Dromologie 01, a new journal of Virilio studies.

+info | http://www.eterotopiafrance.com/catalogue/la-vitesse-cest-letat-durgence/

my hosted piece in pdf | Brighenti 2021 la vitesse au pouvoir

Abstract: The recent, rich scholarship on rhythms, following in the wake of Lefebvre’s book Éléments de rythmanalyse (1992), proves that rhythmanalysis is an important sensitising notion and research technique. Despite its increasing recognition, however, rhythmanalysis has not yet become a proper science as its proponents had hoped. In this article, we argue that rhythmanalysis could benefit from being further developed and integrated into a wider science of territories. What research must attain is, we suggest, not simply a recording, description or analysis of rhythms; instead, the goal is to capture the life of rhythms as they enter territorial formations. A neo-vitalistic conception, in other words, could enrich the standard social-scientific understanding of the relation between rhythms and territories. More specifically, we submit that the notion of rhythm could be explored not only in terms of the recurrent patterns of association it defines, but also with essential reference to the intensive situations and moments it generates and, in the end, territorialises.
Keywords: Social rhythms, Rhythmanalysis, Synchronisation, Science of territories, Territorial intensities

Open Access PDF

Nout out in Geographica Helvetica – https://www.geogr-helv.net/73/203/2018/

OUT NOW in CULTURE, THEORY AND CRITIQUE

The vegetative stratum is a layer of existence that is inherent not only in plants. Here, I propose to look at how vegetative life – or, the vegetative mode of existence – affects cities. The vegetative mode of existence is not focused on activities, routines, achievements. Here appears a city that is not industrial or industrious. When the industrious city retreats, or falls apart, the vegetative stratum becomes visible. The vegetative city is a city without any central nervous system. I suggest the interpretation of the vegetative city as a hopeful manifestation of the urban that only takes place when the time is ripe.

Also here

Abstract. The image of the city as a stressful place is an evergreen topic. In this article we review the imagination of urban stress, starting from Simmel’s classic thesis that the modern city is an unavoidably psychic-stimulating environment potentially leading to stimuli overload. City dwellers are then supposed to counter stimuli overload with a series of adaptation strategies. However, the ways in which these phenomena can be conceptualised are varied. Historically, a shift of emphasis seems to have occurred from the classic conceptualisation of hyperaesthesia to the contemporary preoccupations with the design of comfortable atmospheres. Such atmospheres are, in fact, comfort bubbles. In the article we tackle the aspirations and predicaments of such engineered atmospheres. In particular, we build on Sloterdijk’s argument that, ultimately, bubbles fail to do away with stress: whereas for Simmel stress anaesthetised urbanites, Sloterdijk has pointed out that, rather, comfort itself stresses them. To better tackle the magmatic stratum of dissatisfaction that seems so coessential to urban life, in the final part of the article we focus on the notion of animosity. We suggest to conceptualise it as a type of disquiet that cannot be reduced to established recognisable interaction formats.

Keywords: Urban Stress; Urban Feelings; Urban Atmospheres; Atmospheric Engineering; Animosity

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A seminar at http://resarc.se/courses/index.html, including lecture and workshop with PhD Students

Published in Time & Society

Abstract

Territoriality has primarily been seen as a spatial rather than temporal phenomenon. In this paper, we want to investigate how time functions in territorialising processes. In particular, we are attracted by the multi-temporality that is co-present in each process of territorialisation (i.e. processes in which time and space are used as means of measure, control, and expression). The article is divided into two main parts. In the first part we draw inspiration from Gilles Deleuze’s book Logic of Sense, as well as from authors such as Simmel, Whitehead, Benjamin and Jesi, in order to articulate three different types of the present (Aion, Kronos and Chronos). In the second part we move to a short case study of the collector John Soane and the establishment of his house-museum. The case is used to exemplify how these three presents can be used to discuss and temporal aspects of territorialisation in general, and the production of a specific sort of territory – the house-museum as a new building type – in particular.
Keywords

Territorial Production; Temporality of the Present; Aion, Kronos, Chronos; Collectionism; House-museum

PDF version here