In this Book
- The Viscous: Slime, Stickiness, Fondling, Mixtures
- Book
- 2020
- Published by: Punctum Books
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
summary
Slime, goo, gunge, gloop, gels, sols, globules, jellies, emulsions, greases, soaps, syrups, glues, lubricants, liquid crystals, moulds, plasmas, and protoplasms – the viscous is not one thing, but rather a quality of resistance and flow, of stickiness and slipperiness. It is a state of matter that oozes into the gaps of our everyday existence, across age groups, between cultures and disciplines.Since the large-scale extraction of petroleum in the 19th century the viscous has witnessed a proliferation in the variety of its forms. Mechanized industry required lubricants and oil distillation produced waste products that were refined to form Vaseline. From this age, new viscous forms and technologies emerged, products from plastic (and plastic explosives) to cosmetics, glycerine, asphalt, sexual lubrication, hydro- and aero- gels, even anti-climb paint.Based on unique and wide-ranging research, The Viscous is the first major investigation of viscous encounter and possibility over the course of the last century, not simply as a material state, but also an imaginative event. We enter into a story of matter at its most wayward, deviant, hesitant, and resistant.From asphalt lakes to industrial molasses tanks, from liquid crystals squirming in our screens to milk fetishes, The Viscous discloses gooeyness as a peculiarly modern phase of matter. "Everything oozes," as Beckett’s Estragon famously proclaims in Waiting for Godot. Viscous dynamics are exposed as not only hugely various in a post industrial age, but particularly useful ways of thinking, feeling, writing, and making in a time of ecological anxiety.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. 1-8
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 11-14
- Introduction
- pp. 15-42
- 1 Of Slime and the City
- pp. 43-92
- 2 Sticky Worlds/Sticky Words
- pp. 93-142
- 3 Smear Screens and Fondled Things
- pp. 153-202
- 4 Colloidal Thinking/Colloidal Feeling
- pp. 203-246
- Conclusion
- pp. 247-254
- Bibliography
- pp. 255-274
Additional Information
ISBN
9781950192878
Related ISBN(s)
9781950192861
MARC Record
OCLC
1253408440
Pages
274
Launched on MUSE
2021-06-12
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-SA
Copyright
2020