Višak stvarnosti i dalje
Već neko vreme, medijativni i formativni aspekti objekata, stvari i ne-ljudskih entiteta su isticani kao važna komponenta u društvenim formacijama (up. Latour, 1993; 1996; 2005; Law, 2007; Law & Mol, 2008; Law & Lien, 2013). Dok su ovi prikazi prvenstveno naglašavali njihovo dejstvo u vidu posrednika, narativno upisivanje rada ovih entiteta i raznolike procese u kojima oni odigravaju ključne uloge, čini se da su dvosmislenost, neprisutne karakteristike i, ništa manje, dekompozicija ovih entiteta, nedovoljno proučavani. Diskusije o solidnoj fluidnosti velikim delom pospešuju refleksivni pristup metaboličkim procesima same materije. Kako posebno Ingold i Simoneti ukazuju, ekološka era donosi prekretnicu za relativno zdravorazumsku podelu između serija varijacija koje su pretvorene u stabilne regione stvarnosti, nasuprot ponekad vrtoglavim promenama. Svojstva različitih materijalnih formacija kao što su led, staklo ili beton ne mogu se jednostavno svesti ni na čvrstoću ni na fluidnost, jer su istovremeno plastične, viskozne i elastične. Ono što postaje karakteristika ove solidne fluidnosti, jesu fazne tranzicije: po sebi, ona govore da se konstitutivna svojstva materije takođe mogu opisati jezikom fluidnosti, ali i da svaki entitet ima sasvim poroznu granicu, izuzetno deljivu „iznutra" (Clark, 2021; Ingold & Simonetti, 2021; Simonetti & Ingold, 2018; Simonetti, 2019).
Ono što je, međutim, poseban izazov ovde upravo misteriozna dubina objekata. Uprkos zbilja ozloglašenem statusu usled radikalnog odricanja od ljudske izuzetnosti na konto objekata, savremeni spekulativni realistički pokret u filozofiji i njegova ispostava nazvana objektno-orijentisana ontologija (u daljem tekstu O-O-O) pruža kontraintuitivni pravac. Ako se ovom bavljenju pitanjima neizvesnosti koja je više od ljudske u poslednje vreme sve više pristupa, posebno u vezi sa antropocenom (up. Chandler, 2018; Chakrabarti, 2019; Haravai, 2016), O-O-O ide jedan korak dalje. Nasuprot „stabilizujućim“ pristupima, neizvesnost predstavlja primarno stanje za koje korespondencija nikada ne može biti potpuna ili totalizovana. Naime, uzimajući svaki entitet kao objekat i na taj način podjednako obuhvatajući ljude, stvari, znakove, koralne grebene, duhove ili romane, O-O-O postavlja izazovni istraživački vektor na moguće neodređene i zamagljene aspekte objekata u njihovoj međusobnoj ugrađenosti i misterioznoj dubini (c. Brajant, 2014; Morton, 2013; 2016; Harman, 2016).
Zamršena ontološka formula nerelacije ovde predstavlja posebno užasan motiv. Koncepti kao što su hiperobjekti (Morton, 2013; 2016) ili mašine (Briant, 2014) razvijaju osnovnu pretpostavku O-O-O o kapacitetu objekata da se međusobno tkaju, stvarajući gigantske formacije koje imaju izrazitu temporalnost i prostornu plastičnost. Dublje, ovi takođe označavaju neprisustvo. Naime, slabi kapaciteti ljudskih sposobnosti spoznaje i percepcije da dostignu dimenzije koje nadilaze sadašnjost i neposredno, predstavljaju krajnju ilustraciju nerelacije. Ogroman reziduum koji je nesvodiv na neposredno prisustvo, u velikoj meri potiče od samoodržavanja, odnosno atributa koji omogućavaju izdržljivost predmeta. Upravo ovu ogromnu dubinu objekata, koja sadrži zagonetnu mrežu svojstava, jedan od ključnih zagovornika O-O-O, Graham Harman, naziva viškom realnosti. Bez obzira da li govorimo o kompjuterima, kriminalističkim romanima, virusima ili božanstvima koja obožavaju plemena, svaki od ovih objekata ima dimenzije koje prevazilaze sadašnje forme i potencijalno postaju strašne nakon što se otkriju. „Da bi se nešto pokvarilo“, naglašava Harman (2018: 188), „to mora da sadrži tvrdoglavi višak ispod svojih trenutnih efekata i uticaja, višak koji jednog dana izbija kao simptom i zahteva da ga shvatimo ozbiljno.“
Nerelacija stoga izaziva duboku fenomenološku zagonetku: kako smiriti iskustvene tenzije nakon otkrivanja objekata, njihovih iznenadnih kvarova ili marljivog iskopavanja njihovih skrivenih atributa, pretvara ovo odsustvo u prisustvo. Ogroman udeo u diskusijama koje su izneli zagovornici O-O-O ponovo uvodi problem pristupa skrivenim, skrivenim i uglavnom neotkrivenim aspektima objekata, zajedno sa njihovim pomeranjem i fazama koje na kraju isplivavaju na površinu viška realnosti. Harman (2011; 2016; 2018) vidi ovu glomaznu ontološku situaciju kao rezultat tenzija koje proizlaze iz menjanja kombinacija stvarnih i čulnih objekata i stvarnih i čulnih kvaliteta. Dualizam između sadašnjosti i povučenog na kraju se svodi na problem, koji su majstorski proučavali pragmatični sociolozi – posebno Luc Boltanski (2011; 2014), kako „ukrotiti” preteći svet, pun događaja koji izbijaju i „ubacuju” bića za koji se postojeći okviri stvarnosti, kao što su načini opravdanja, standardizovanja ili angažovanja, čine kao neadekvatni ili nedovoljni. Upravo iz ovih razloga su interesantni prekidi koji nastaju nakon što povučeni kvaliteti uđu u sadašnje stanje, posebno kada nedostaje drugih objekata, kao što su narativi, znakovi ili standardi, kako bi se bar delimično „stabilizovali“ njihovo mešanje. i otkriti višak stvarnosti.
A Viscous Cycle and Situational Ontology
Eduardo Kohn’s (2013) How the Forest Thinks: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, presents a particularly instructive piece in relation to these interruptions and interferences. As its title partially discloses, Kohn investigates semiotic forms that are emerging through an ongoing entanglement with the non-humans. His, nonetheless, experimental endeavor, principally is situated not only against a threadbare Cartesian division that guarantees the exclusive status of meaning-makers solely to humans. Kohn also identifies an anti-dualist camp of material semiotics and its attempt of establishing an ontological continuum by stripping away symbolic omnipotence to humans and inflating objects with more agential properties as rather poorly designed solution for accessing precisely the ways of human being in the world, as indissolubly embedded into a fluctuating semiotic realm.
A hidden and somewhat enigmatic logic of signs emanating from a world that exceeds the humans alone, therefore indicates a life-flowing, heterarchical and lateral process of morphogenesis occurring as a tangible, but also uncertain transfer, commensuration and anticipation of actions performed by other entities. By identifying the sign as a principal relata, Kohn describes the very semiosis in terms of concatenated events that necessitate a diligent interpretative detection of properties assumedly contained in other entities. Some of these operations certainly instantiate previous references. Among the three types or classes of signs which Kohn distinguishes by recalling Charles Pierce’s work, icons for example involve similarity and thus do not impose any specific attributes to the entity outside the event in which it is represented. Symbols are somewhat more intricate, but reserved solely for humans: they imply conventions and systematically relate to another symbol. Yet, the most of Kohn’s attention is directed towards probably the most emblematic issue for our discussion.
Unlike with the icons or symbols, the third class of signs called indices requires an improvisation. Indices namely, lack a certain reference to which the current event might be associated to. Interpreters are thus enforced to relate the current events with the potentiality of events that have not yet occurred and enter into an interpretative labyrinth where the absent, and currently inaccessible segments of beings, opened through these events, instantiate a somewhat mysterious and speculative “what if” question. In Kohn’s words, “indexicality involves a prediction of what is not yet present (…). In the “world of mind,” constitutive absence is a particular mediated way in which an absent future comes to affect the present” (ibid: 37). Because the sign is not pre-given in terms of formatted cognitive directives, signs interpreting the ones initially accompanying the objects do not guarantee certain outputs: interpreters are here brought into a situation close to a liminal one, becoming impelled to engage into burdensome work of translating the absence into presence.
Outside this animist ambient, a situational ontology and a communitive contingency analyzed by Kohn, certainly might be applied elsewhere for describing this uncanny disclosure of withdrawn attributes of objects. What we term as a viscous cycle, intends to situate these encounters that imply the disruptive, inconsistent and hazy semiosis, as something that “glues” together all the parties involved. According to the model provided below (Figure 1.), we distinguish two key stages, with few intermediary steps. Namely, this cycle starts from assumed, poorly grasped presence of a ghostly object such as the virus within immediate, sensory sites. Initially characterized with an indexical absence of signs due to a lack of referential stability provided with previously formatted cognitive directives, the non-presence gradually evolves into blurry anticipation, improvisation and imaginative processes which become an epitome of this situational ontology. The second phase thus evolves into iconic ”unveiling”, that is, unfolding and involving other beings (such as DIY knowledge, disinfectants etc.) in order to reduce the uncertainty brought with non-present and ghostly aspects of being such as the virus. Eventually, while the non-presence is ontologically continuous, this cycle ends with a “truncated presence” where absent, mutating and inaccessible segments of beings are only partially disclosed.
Figure 1. A model of the viscous cycle.
“Whatever you do, it’s not enough”
Once dragged into a viscous cycle, all the parties involved enter the horizontally set field and initiate a tricky semiotic interplay. Presence of a ghostly object, with an undefined and uncertain geography, therefore starts with an indexical operation lacking any stable referential background, except the quite basic signal that the virus is potentially present in an immediate environment. Yet, no matter how reduced these indices might be, they still create anticipated effects ascribed to the non-present aspects of the virus. The very fact that a potentially harmful element is, to play on words, absently existent in familiar environment with qualitatively inaccessible dimensions, has produced dramatic experiential shifts. „It was really hard for me, I felt claustrophobic, I had a panic attack, I didn’t have air “, a 29-year-old female said in flustered manner about the first indications that the virus might be around.
As the absent future looms over the present, intentions to turn the obfuscated indexicality at least into hazy icons with relatively clear boundaries and spots in immediate environment, means retrieving the delicate semiotic links and deploying referential frames that point at certain attributes of the virus. This step thus introduces a variety of DIY techniques and the “excavation“ of references that would produce an adequate reservoir of signs, necessary to interpret the behavior of the virus. Due to general distrust towards official announcements in studied cases, these improvisations involved drawing upon various Internet sources and quick-paced implementation of know-how in everyday environment. Ultimately, warning undertones of indices gradually got transformed into iconic operations that sought to reduce the tense communicative contingency with the virus and establish relatively consistent ordering that might potentially stall the menacing surplus reality.
First phase therefore rounds up as soon as the uncanny tension originating from withdrawn aspects of the virus and a general lack of clear sensory signals, become transformed into stabilized, though a truncated presence. Inserting the operations based on icons, introduced a routinized situating of the signs in transitory events which substantially corresponded to the demarcating of spaces and the introduction of stable hygienic scenario. In effect, translating the absence into absence’ induced a “cutting-off” of the surplus at the doorstep and leaving the uncertainty outside. Sometimes, these minuscule distinctions appeared as crucial markers for coping with an uncanny and potentially risky encounter with an invisible entity that lurks around: as it was explained by a 31 year old female, „(… )the very fact that I am outside creates guilt, as I will bring from the outside world what I should not.“
Second phase starts exactly when solving of tensions triggers “mapping” of a ghostly object through a plethora of demarcating practices. Even if these seem blurry and extorted, stabilized partition of demarcated areas where contamination stops simply prevents an abysmal ontological vortex generated with prolonged exposure to the non-present future. Against classical accounts on ritual reestablishment of an order in crisis or a breach in classificatory regime (cf. Duschinsky, 2013), hygiene in these cases goes along with disruptive nature of demarcating events which are accompanied with vigilant efforts in locating, defining and transforming the dirt spots and objects. Exactly this volatility and not the referential standard alone, is what helps specific semiotic regimes to emerge instantaneously through establishing indexical links between objects, humans and potential harms (cf. Pink, 2012; Wirtz, 2009). Icons in these situations present predominantly a speculative act, imbued with loose assumptions and imaginative efforts to objectify the lack of sensory signals. “God, it wouldn’t occur to me in my life to clean the handles“, one male respondent, aged 28, confesses. Additionally, these operations are performed through involving of other objects such as disinfectants, whose qualities assumedly reduce the non-present risks. Diligent separation of objects like clothes or food, that potentially were in contact with the virus, goes without much scrutiny and becomes an integral part of the everyday (Figure 2.). As vivid illustration of 32-year-old male tells, “basically, I wash everything with soap, spray a solution of Domestos bottle, wash fruit for 20 seconds, vegetables with baking soda, everything that can be handed over, hand over and throw away the packaging, transfer the frozen vegetables to another bag“.
Figure 2. An “iconic” objectivity (photo courtesy of a respondent). A communitive contingency that accompanies the attempts to disclose the withdrawn aspects of beings, in terms of unveiling the formal relational properties and anticipating their future effects, still, leads only to a truncated presence’. Results are, nonetheless, ambiguous. On the one hand, absent future accelerates the improvising skills, when flowing within the unclear, fuzzy and imprecise signals of the viscous cycle. Also, it feeds the speculation, precisely through indefinite shape and undisclosed semiotic depth of the virus, which apparently served as a hothouse for many conspiracies that accompanied the pandemic. An astonishing continuity of the non-presence, on the other hand, remains intact: each engagement, even when becoming iconic in character, does not diminish the menacing enigma of withdrawn dimensions. In words of our 32 years old male respondent, “whatever you do, it’s not enough!”
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