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Onto-Cartography

An Ontology of Machines and Media

Levi R Bryant author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Edinburgh University Press

Published:28th Feb '14

Should be back in stock very soon

Onto-Cartography cover

This is a study of how space and time create objects, and how these objects interact. Using real-world examples, Bryant shows how a networked concept of space and time is at the heart of our central political concerns. What sort of interaction is there between, for example, slow-moving objects like climate and comparatively fast-moving objects like governments? How can they interact with each other given their very different lifespans? How do the Amish interact with the members of the stock market, and vice versa? How do members of congress, who always exist, interact with the temporally discontinuous objects of Congressional sessions that only meet during a certain session each year - flitting in and out of existence? It proposes a new form of social and political analysis - 'onto-cartography' - that looks at how relations between objects are forged by communication and causation. It draws on the social sciences, geography, new materialist thought and object-oriented ontology.

'Bryant's ecological focus on the crucial interaction of the corporeal and incorporeal makes his contribution extremely important ... The sturdiest bridge yet built between post-structuralism and the vibrant new research being conducted under the auspices of a return to materialist thought.'--Los Angeles Review of Books

ISBN: 9780748679973

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 477g

312 pages