Mediation of the Voice
Robin James here is responding critically to Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2009), in particular the notion of vital materialism defined succinctly as human attunement to the non-representational [voice – in our case]. James sets up that:
‘“Voice” is Bennett’s term for non-propositional or “nonlinguistic” (104) communication. Voice is a rippling agency, a type of resonance or “buzz” (14) that is induced by and induces sympathetic vibes “as a swarm of vibrant materials ente[r] and leav[e] agentic assemblages?” (107). “Voice” doesn’t express or represent a content; it sets things in motion.’ (James, 2014).
James then follows on to challenge Bennett’s view of the objection that communication (i.e. via the voice) is possible only through the intermediary of humans. Bennett’s view is that vocal communication necessarily requires an intermediary and as such this objection is irrelevant. This however entails a reduction of communication to only those that happen in our human networks, ‘sure, all communication is mediated, but this is not the same claim as “all communication is mediated by and through humans.’ (James, 2014). Can we mediate the voice outside of the human? Or does the human just become a mass media company responsible for the distribution of the voice. If the voice is distributed through different channels outside of the human how will this affect it? For example the mediation of the voice through the laptop, through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram etc, linking back to Holly Herndon’s use of the laptop as an exit to a new platform.
‘Every mode if it is to persist, must seek new encounters to creatively compensate for the alterations or affectations it suffers.’ (James, 2014).
‘When sounds interact with the material in which they’re transmitted (air/stone, air/electric components, code/hardware), their vibratory patterns change.’ (James, 2014). There is a base interaction with sound and the material it is mediated through and this mediation distorts/ changes the vibratory patterns. As such, if these patterns are to persist they must seek new encounters to compensate for the affectations they suffer in their mediation – to seek to maintain their consistency or conatus, “’conatus” is Bennett’s Spinozist term for the activity or energy that keeps a frequency vibrating at a consistent rate, not despite but because of interference.’ (James, 2014). But this notion of consistency is difficult, what is consistency when things (effects/ objects/ bodies) are constantly under deformations? Also from an OOO perspective, to end is to reduce to consistency. The death of the voice is as such in its reduction to consistency.
Distributed Agency – Patterns/ Swarm
Following on from this James discusses the notion of distributed agency, a concept that the real action isn’t the primary tones (chords), but the patterns that emerge from their interaction. There is a phase relationship occurring between overtones and harmonics that makes up a single chord and the most important aspect, in terms of an interaction sense, is the resonance of them. Termed differently, ‘“In nonlinear assemblages, ‘effects’ RESONATE with and against their ‘causes’”’ (James, 2014). Vibrant materialities are therefore the harmonics that emerge from the “anthropomorphism” chord that acts to rub “things” up against “human agency” (James, 2014), or to look at this differently it rubs the voice (a thing – an effect) up against the human causality that produced it. The two resonate with and against each other to form a pattern of their interaction.
‘A theory of distributive agency…does not posit a subject as the root cause of an effect. There are instead always a swarm of vitalities at play. The task becomes to identify the contours of the swarm and the kind of relations that obtain between its bits (31-2).’ (James, 2014).
Here a subject is not the root cause of an effect; the singular human is not the root cause of the voice (thing as effect). Rather there is a swarm of vitalities. We are therefore tasked to identify the contours of the swarm and the patters of relations in-between. ‘The theorist’s task is to find the signal–literally, the frequencies or phase patterns (contours, peaks and valleys) of the major players, and their resonance (consonance/dissonance, harmonics)–in the swarm’s noisy buzzing.’ (James, 2014).
The notion of contours of the voice is interesting to consider, contours gives the voice a 3-dimensionality that allows you to get up close to it, but still maintain your conceptual mind’s grip to not see it as completely opaque (linking back here to Deleuze’s notion of smooth). To see the patterns. [There is also perhaps a link to Timothy Morton’s notion of Hyperobjects to consider, James goes on to mention that when we are confronted with the alien-ness of the human it dampens vibrations with its viscosity. The viscosity of Hyperobjects puts them here, right here in my social and experiential space. They stick to us so that we cannot see them in their entirety, we are always-already in the midst them.]
Exception/ Oppressor
If we move on to consider the voice as removed from the human we can begin to see how vital materialism seeks to take the figure of life as removed from the body/human. This however forms an organicism that is mechanistic and deterministic in the sense of the body as a whole (seen as an integration of systems of organs that function together).
‘Vital materialism understands life as neither mechanistic nor integrated. “Life” in this view, is “an interconnected series of parts, but it is not a fixed order of parts, for the order is always being reworked in accordance with a certain ‘freedom of choice’ exercised by its actants” (97)–it is, in other words, an “ecology”’ (James, 2014).
What this leads on to is therefore: physiology > ecology. The view that life is not mechanistic or an integrated whole but an interconnected series of parts, the order of such are always being reworked in accordance with a certain freedom of choice. This presents a shift from physiology to biology and in turn a biopolitics, when we see this shift we can link back to notions of consistency as discussed in the mediation of the voice. A politics of exception is the move from the instant elimination of whatever makes that body incoherent or inconsistent to beginning with including everyone (as everyone has the right to be a full participant), but material conditions ensure that some groups are unable to meet the requirements of entry. James quotes Lester Spence’s breakdown of this into three groups:
‘(1) Those who already exhibit the behaviours required for membership; (2) those who are included as in need of reform, or those who do not currently but can potentially exhibit the behaviours required for membership; and (3) those incapable of exhibiting the behaviours required for membership, those who are incapable of reform.’ (James, 2014).
This is interesting to consider in terms of the fragility of the voice and the maintenance of consistency. If we were to include group 3, what effect would this have? To confront the voice with that which makes it inconsistent, would we destroy it even further or would the destruction form creation? James then goes on to counter this notion of exception with an ethics of ambiguity, which is in essence an existential authenticity to actively become something I ‘am’ not. ‘Humans are not beings, they are virtualities, and authentic existence is the capacity to act upon, realize, or flesh out — to give life to, even — the virtualities that one ‘is.’’ (James, 2014). Oppression is that which diminishes authentic existence for all. To commit yourself to the freedom of others can mean the killing of the oppressor. Ethics here isn’t about health, it is about freedom and therefore different in notion to the biopolitical killing off of pathogens (or the interventions that are exploiting the fragility of the voice in order to push it out of consistency). Oppressors such become those who society strengthens. Biopolitics kills off the weak, authenticity kills off the strong. We can as such view the voice from another direction, rather than focusing on the pathogens (interventions) on the voice as needing to be killed off, we can see the consistent voice (the oppressor) as needing to be killed off in order to achieve the freedom of existential authenticity.
James, R. (2014) MORE ON VIBRANT MATTER: ON NOISE, BIOPOLITICS, NEW PARADOXES OF WHITENESS, & WHY BEAUVOIRAN FREEDOM IS BETTER THAN BENNETTIAN VITALITY. [online] It’s Her Factory. Available from http://www.its-her-factory.com/2014/09/more-on-vibrant-matter-on-noise-biopolitics-new-paradoxes-of-whiteness-why-beauvoiran-freedom-is-better-than-bennettian-vitality/ [Accessed: 14 February 2016].