Is writing so very useful? A Tukano myth tells that Yepa [Huake, the demiurge] said to Yupuri Bauro, the chief of the Tukano: “In this world, you will have several riches: ritual ceremonies, feathers, arrows, blowguns, benches… Your riches will remain in your homes, the homes of the Tukano – it is there that your…
Category: Otherness
Persian Love // C&S
Ancient Persian temples had no icons and no statues inside or outside their walls. They hosted fire altars. Altars with fire. Altars of fire. Fire symbolises the sacred (xodā). We are all fire. We are all incandescent. We are all a degree of intensity within a cosmic blazing dance. A burning flame. Unlike in the…
A Pure Body – Artaud’s Dream // Carlos
Trees do not exist: nobody has ever seen one. We see something we identify and name as “a tree,” but what we call a tree is always something else than what we assume. Suppose we touch the tree instead of staring at it: free from its twofold visual enclosure – from its numeric and objectual…
Humanity and Cannibalism as Problematic Notions // S&C
The crocodile-man from Papua New Guinea whom you see on the picture below is more similar to a crocodile than to any other “human” living in a nearby community. In turn, this cat-man from the Amazon rainforest is more similar to a jaguar than to any other “human” living in a nearby community. Finally, this…
Animism as a Question of Bodies and Logical Paradoxes // Carlos
There are two possible definitions of animism. The most widespread one turns around notions of projection and belief. Briefly, it states that we project onto animals, plants, rocks, and natural phenomena human qualities which these things lack like, for example, consciousness, intentionality, and agency. According to this definition, set forth by Hume and popularised by…
The Outside of Thought // Carlos
It is not only that attempting to write while lacking a certain degree of sensitivity is not possible at all. But that writing is, we may say, a sensitivity event. Yet there is no sensitivity but towards the Other – for sameness moves, instead, to recognition. Now, showing sensitivity towards anything means to let it…