Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing

Index [Includes Image Plates]

155 index access, human, 4; philosophies of, 5 Ace of Cakes (television series), 116– 18 actants, 8, 10, 39, 133; relations among, 76, 114 actor-network theory, 6, 7, 10, 19– 20 Adams, Ansel, 48 Adventure (graphical adventure game), 100 Aethelberht II, 35 ahimsa, Jainist, 73 alien phenomenology, 32–34, 62; artifacts of, 109; carpentry in, 92–104; characterization of experience, 63; distortion in, 66; incompatibility in, 40; source codes in, 105; speculative, 78; wonder in, 124 aliens: communication with, 33–34, 137n3; sightings of, 2 Allen Telescope Array (ATA), 137n3 American Idol (television series), 115 animal rights, 72–73 animal studies, 8 anthropocentrism, 7, 64–65, 80; and correlationism, 29; in metaphorism , 74, 78; narrative of, 42; among residents of homes, 108 anticorrelationism, 5, 80 apeiron, Anaximandrean, 11 APIs (application programming interfaces), 95; for Flickr, 98; for MediaWiki, 95 architecture: optical illusion in, 46; Wittgenstein’s, 99–100 Aristotle: on causation, 75, 78; on hexis, 77; Metaphysics, 92; on wonder, 121, 122, 123, 129 ASIMO (humanoid robot), 126 Association of Computing Machinery Computer-Human Interaction Conference, 107 Asteroids (computer game), 101 astrobiology, 2 Atari Video Computer System (VCS, aka Atari 2600), 100; components of, 127, 128; creative possibilities of, 127; human interface with, 104; teaching about, 126, 145n24; TIA graphics and sound chip of, 102–4, 127, 128 atomism, Democritean, 11 Aware Home (residence), 106 awe, 120–24 Bacon, Francis: on broken knowledge , 129; on wonder, 122, 123 [156] Index Badiou, Alain, 137n10; set theoretical ontology of, 26–28, 139n66; on situations, 26 Baltimore, Maryland: drug scene in, 113; urban decay in, 116 Barnack, Oscar, 68 Barthes, Roland: lists of, 41 bats: consciousness of, 62–63, 72 Bayer sensors (cameras), 69–71 becoming, Deleuzean, 40 being: connecting powers of, 40; in correlationism, 4; expansion of, 22; hierarchy of, 22; as problem of access, 4, 5; in set theory, 26–27; in speculative philosophy, 31; theories of, 21; three-dimensionality of, 21; writing as, 90. See also existence beings: naming of, 55; objects and, 3–4. See also human beings Bejeweled (videogame), 52 Bennett, Jane, 65, 108 Bergson, Henri, 7 Berkeley, George: subjective idealism of, 3 Big Bang, 26 biodiversity, cooperative, 8 blackbody radiation, 33 black holes, 22, 26, 27 black noise, 32–33, 34 Blanciak, François: Siteless, 45– 46, 47 bossa nova, Brazilian, 42–44 Bourdieu, Pierre, 77 Brassaï, 47, 48; camera of, 68 Brassier, Ray, 4 Braver, Lee, 6 Broglio, Ron, 8 Brown, Alton: Good Eats, 118–20 Brown, Bill: thing theory of, 24 Bryant, Levi, 98, 131, 132; flat ontology of, 11; on mereology, 22; on nonsemiotic world, 90; on posthumanism , 16–17 Bukowski, Charles, 134 cake baking, tiny ontology in, 119–20 cameras, 68; sensors in, 69–72 Cantor, Georg: on transfinity, 26 carpentry: in alien phenomenology, 92–104; in cake construction, 118; phenomenological performance of, 100; as philosophical creativity , 92–109 Carriozo Malpais (New Mexico), 2 Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 47; range- finder of, 68 cataloging: in Latour litanies, 58; ontographical, 41–42. See also lists catalogs, photographic, 50 Caterpillar Technical English, 140n7 cathode ray tubes (CRTs), 101–2 causation: Aristotelian, 75, 78; purpose in, 75; vicarious, 11, 111 centrism: escape from, 80 charge-coupled devices (CCDs, photography), 68 children: career goals for, 126 “Coke Is It!” (slogan), 44, 141n25 Columbia (space shuttle), 3 Combat (Atari game), 101, 104 Comic Book Guy (animated character ), 91 computation: true nature of, 15 computer games, in flat ontology, 17–19. See also Atari Video Computer System; videogames computer platforms: role in creative Index [157] production, 100; for Wikipedia, 94–96 computers: components of, 9; construction of visual images, 101, 107, 108; in flat ontology, 17; frame buffers of, 102; graphics, 100–106; human operators of, 9–10; phenomenology of, 10; as prompts, 9–11; understanding of, 16 computer science: objects in, 23 computer software: object-oriented, 139n52; as ontographical tool, 94; philosophical creativity in, 93–100, 131–32; of Wikipedia, 94–96 consciousness, 32; of bats, 62–63, 72; subjective character of, 62 correlationism, 4; anthropocentric, 29; appeal to feeling in, 73; and external reality, 21, 38; in literature , 40–42; messes in, 21; rejection of, 5, 16, 29, 65; in science, 126; in scientific naturalism, 14; in social relativism, 14; of The Wire, 115 Cox, Tony, 85–87 Crawford, Hugh, 111 Crawford, Matthew B.: Shop Class as Soulcraft, 92 Crayons to CAD (curriculum), 125 creaming (baking), 118–20 creativity: in computer software, 93...