This article offers a reading of Ken Loach’s 2016 film I, Daniel Blake, a fictionalised account of experiences of the UK welfare system in conditions of austerity. We consider, firstly, the significant challenge the film poses to dominant figurations of welfare recipients under austerity, through a focus on vulnerability to state processes. We follow with a reading of some of the film’s interventions in relation to reciprocity, drawing on the important trajectories of care, community and resistance that the film renders (...) visible through the collective stories of the major characters. Finally, we conclude with reflections on citizenship, subject narratives and alternative imaginaries of ‘deservingness’. Our article offers an ‘against the grain’ reading (hooks, 1996; Wearing, 2013) of the film, highlighting some of the radical possibilities of the more minor moments, character arcs and subject positionalities within the film’s central narrative of Daniel’s experiences in the shadow of the steadily crumbling welfare state. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that in Western postmodernism, both religion and the university are under the sign of simulacra. Friedrich Nietzsche’s “death of God” instigates a discussion of postmodernism and a simulacrum of religion. According to Jean Baudrillard and the theory of the Three Orders of the Simulacra, reality died and “hyperreality” took its place and now governs our existence. If, for Michel Foucault, the religious phenomenon today is outside theological beliefs and traditions, oriented towards the (...) body, power and panoptic supervision, for Jacques Derrida the phenomenon appears more as a negative theology of deconstruction. The theoretical objective seeks to explore the mutations that have occurred both in the academic environment and in religion under the phenomenon of globalisation and the technologisation of humanity. Here, the study of religion in universities is a third order simulacrum, the consequence of which is the illusion of knowledge and the unconditional independence of humanity, manipulated by technological evolution. The methodology used is Derridarian decon­struction, Nietzschean nihilism and the Baudrillardian criticism of the postmodern consumerist system. (shrink)

Technological augmentation in the field of communication is a new way of controlling and manipulating the interface between current political communications and information. This is because, within the new paradigms of power, political communication is under the influence of netocracy, a new and mythical form of cybertechnological superpanopticism. The general objective of this paper is to analyze the phenomenon of cybertechnological globalization where, according to Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist, this new form of political and communicative superpanopticism is the result (...) of netocracy. This is related not just to the undermining of capitalism, but also to the myth of internet transparency as the site for communicational freedom. In theoretical terms, this paper seeks to deconstruct this hypothesis based on Slavoj Žižek’s position on netocracy. He claims this phenomenon is little more than a new and perverse form of capitalism which engages new methods of manipulating political communication. The methodology used in this paper draws on Bard and Söderqvist’s arguments, Žižek’s critique and Gilles Deleuze’s deconstruction. (shrink)

The present study focuses on the situation in which mind-reading machines will be connected, initially through the incorporation of weak AI, and then in conjunction to strong AI, an aspect that, ongoing, will no longer have a simple medical role, as is the case at present, but one of surveillance and monitoring of individuals—an aspect that is heading us towards a future techno-panoptic singularity. Thus, the general objective of this paper raises the problem of the ontological stability of human nature (...) which, within the limits of the technological singularity of mind-reading machines, leads to the loss of autonomy and a reduction in freedom when it comes to human thoughts. In this paradigm, the hypothesis of a future era of technological singularity is prefigured to be a cumulation of factors in which artificial intelligence holds a dominant position in relation to the human agent, in a techno-panoptic system of human supervision, in the form of a new world order of manifestation/imposition of power—that of a “singleton.” The theoretical objective analyzes the phenomenon of “deterritorrialization” of the Foucauldian panoptic mechanism —which is based on the “biopolitical” system of “biopower”—and its “reterritorialization” in the “territory” of the techno-panoptic singularity, where the scenario of a strong AI “singleton”, represents the alienation of the Being into a hard technological determinism. (shrink)

Many countries have implemented infection control measures directed at carriers of multidrug-resistant organisms. To explore the ethical implications of these measures, we analyzed 227 consultations about multidrug resistance and compared them with the literature on communicable disease in general. We found that control measures aimed at carriers have a range of negative implications. Although moral dilemmas seem similar to those encountered while implementing control measures for other infectious diseases, 4 distinct features stand out for carriage of multidrug-resistant organisms: carriage presents (...) itself as a state of being; carriage has limited relevance for the health of the carrier; carriage has little relevance outside healthcare settings; and antimicrobial resistance is a slowly evolving threat on which individual carriers have limited effect. These features are of ethical relevance because they influence the way we traditionally think about infectious disease control and urge us to pay more attention to the personal experience of the individual carrier. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este articulo pretende describir el concepto de subjetividad nómade desarrollado por Rosi Braidotti, teniendo en cuenta su estructura con respecto a la diferencia sexual. Este análisis permite comprender cuál es la configuración del sujeto nómade revisando las implicaciones que tiene asociar tal concepto con la búsqueda de aceptación y representación de esa diferencia en el contexto político. La lectura critica de Braidotti remite directamente a examinar los conceptos originales de Deleuze y Guattari referidos al nomadismo, como singularización, devenir y (...) subjetivación. ABSTRACT This article aims to describe the concept of nomadic subjectivity developed by Rosi Braidotti, while considering its structure with respect to sexual difference. This analysis allows us to understand the configuration of the nomadic subject by reviewing the implications of associating the concept with the search for acceptance and representation of the sexual difference in the political context. A critical reading of Braidotti means to examine the Deleuze and Guattari's original concepts about nomadism, such as singularization, becoming and subjectivation. (shrink)

The life we considered normal was disrupted due to measures taken to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Quarantine, isolation, social distancing, and community containment have influenced consumer behavior and contributed to the rapid development of e-commerce. In pandemic times, even those unfamiliar with the online environment have had to adapt and make acquisitions in this new manner. Hence, we focused our research on measuring the perception of consumers on how the restrictive measures imposed to limit the spread of (...) the COVID-19 virus had influenced their decision to buy a product or service from the online environment, given that purchases are highly subjective and influenced by cumulative effects of economic, social, psychological and behavioral factors. Our paper comes with additional insights from the literature. It adds empirical evidence that reveals that the number of transactions and the value per transaction increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights that online purchases will continue as such even after the pandemic. (shrink)

The tetradic Lorentz-gauge invariant formulation of the SU(2) × U(1) theory in S3 × R space-time is presented and the general gauge covariant Dirac-Klein-Gordon-Maxwell-Yang-Mills equations are derived. A direct comparison of these equations to those of the SU(2) × U(1) gauge theory on Minkowskian background points out major differences effectively induced by the minimally coupling to S3 × R gravity.

The \\)-Robertson–Walker spacetime is under investigation. With the derived Hamilton operator, we are solving the Wheeler–De Witt Equation and its Schrödinger-like extension, for physically important forms of the effective potential. The closed form solutions, expressed in terms of Heun’s functions, allow us to comment on the occurrence of Universe from highly probable quantum states.

Control measures directed at carriers of multidrug-resistant organisms are traditionally approached as a trade-off between public interests on the one hand and individual autonomy on the other. We propose to reframe the ethical issue and consider control measures directed at carriers an issue of solidarity. Rather than asking “whether it is justified to impose strict measures”, we propose asking “how to best care for a person’s carriership and well-being in ways that do not imply an unacceptable risk for others?”. A (...) solidarity approach could include elevating baseline levels of precaution measures and accepting certain risks in cases where there is exceptionally much at stake. A generous national compensation policy that also covers for costs related to dedicated care is essential in a solidarity approach. An additional benefit of reframing the questions is that it helps to better acknowledge that being subjected to control measures is a highly personal matter. (shrink)

This essay proposes a review of the conceptual basis of the Complex Paradigm o Complex Thought. It reviews its core assumptions and give examples in the social sciences.

In a variety of synaesthesia, photisms result from affect-laden stimuli as emotional words, or faces of familiar people. For R, who participated in this study, the sight of a familiar person triggers a mental image of "a human silhouette filled with colour". Subjective descriptions of synaesthetic experiences induced by the visual perception of people's figures and faces show similarities with the reports of those who claim to possess the ability to see the aura. It has been proposed that the (...) purported auric perception may be easily explained by the presence of a specific subtype of cross-modal perception. We analyse the subjective reports of four synaesthetes who experience colours in response to human faces and figures. These reports are compared with descriptions of alleged auric phenomena found in the literature and with claims made by experts in esoteric spheres. The discrepancies found suggest that both phenomena are phenomenologically and behaviourally dissimilar. (shrink)

Beginning with the representation of age in extremis in the nature morte or still life, a depiction of aged artifacts and representations of vanitas, artistic representations particularly in painting associate woman and death. Looking at artistic allegories for age and ageing, raising the question of aura for Walter Benjamin along with Ivan Illich and David Hume, this essay reflects on Heidegger on history together with reflections on the ‘death of art’ as well as Arakawa and Gins and Bazon Brock, (...) both as artists ‘at your service,’ as Brock would say, contra death, and including a brief discussion of wabi sabi and kintsugi. The ‘ageing’ of art includes a review of the (ongoing) debate concerning Michelangelo’s forging of the Laocoon as well as ancient views of age together with contemporary philosophic reflections (Simone de Beauvoir and Michel de Certeau). The figure of Baubô in ancient Greek sculpture and cultic context can make it plain, as Nietzsche shows (as Sarah Kofman follows him on this), that laughter and death are connected (along with fertility cults in antiquity). Satire preserves the Greek tradition of laughing at death and the essay closes with Swinburne. (shrink)

This paper considers a key text in the field of Cultural Studies for its relevance to questions about the identity of knowledge in education. The concept of ‘aura’ arises as being of special significance in ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ as a way of understanding the change that occurs to art when mass reproduction becomes both technologically possible and industrially realised. Aura seems to signify something of the symbolic halo generated by objects of (...) special significance that is both powerful and indefinite. This paper argues that aura is in fact the necessary property of symbolic representation—and that it attaches as much to the figure of Walter Benjamin as it does to any canonical work of art. But the paper also claims that Benjamin’s argument about the significance of popular forms of art—particularly photography and film—can be updated and applied to critical questions about the established order of knowledge in education. This is particularly relevant to those curriculum domains where specific objects—texts, for example—are invested with powerful auras. It may also be applicable to all forms of established knowledge and curricula. (shrink)

This paper investigates the transformative influence of generative AI on the arts, connecting it with Walter Benjamin's insights regarding the aura of art in the mechanical reproduction era. It scrutinizes how generative AI not only redefines art's traditional aura but also introduces a dynamic interplay between technological liberation and dependency. The analysis extends to the democratization of artistic expression and its broader societal impacts, highlighting a shift in art creation, perception, and interpretation in the digital age. This research (...) encapsulates the evolving nature of authenticity, creativity, and human–machine collaboration, marking a significant paradigm shift in art's conception and its role in society. (shrink)

In a remarkable range of disciplines — from legal studies to architecture, from art history to rock music — there is emerging a paradoxically unified approach to the theory of contemporary cultural dissolution. In the humanities in America, three major post-structuralist philosophic movements may be discerned, each describing a separate facet of traditional disciplinary studies yet all having a remarkable cross-departmental impact. These are the anti-foundationalism of Richard Rorty and other end-of-the-line philosophers in the American pragmatist tradition, the textual deconstructionists (...) who swim about Jacques Derrida, and the revisers of Western Marxism, such as Fredric Jameson, various Parisians, and Terry Eagleton, who dialectically step out of history into its forms to tease the future out of the maw of capitalism. (shrink)

Historically, in Aesthetics, auratic object turned toward the study of the sensibilia and of the acts of perception, of imagination and of memory. Among the sensibilia that offer themselves to be apprehended by subjects and cultural communities, some objects of symbolic value have taken here on a special role: artworks. If it is not possible to build a unified canon of Art that is universally accepted as valid, aura is in Art the link between the symbol’s power of allusion (...) and a symbolic idea of form. This symbolic idea of form has the visible and the invisible always simultaneously present and mediated. The artistic “form” is not a mimetic image, but it is, as Kant will say, an aesthetic idea not reducible to the word.So, when Merleau-Ponty writes about the eye and visibility, he shows how painting is an “interrogation” of the invisible through the visible: but this interrogation always begins with a unitary body, with the «delirious and secret genesis of the aspects of our body».We can then conclude that the artistic auratic object bring us beyond the “illusionism” of vision, back to the “metaphysical” significance of artistic image: to an invisible Being made of contingencies, reversibility, of living and lived bodies. Here, the “form” of objects is inseparable from the “total experience” of our embodied senses: our perception is the capacity to unite all of our sensory experiences into a “single auratic world”. (shrink)

Historically, in Aesthetics, auratic object turned toward the study of the sensibilia and of the acts of perception, of imagination and of memory. Among the sensibilia that offer themselves to be apprehended by subjects and cultural communities, some objects of symbolic value have taken here on a special role: artworks. If it is not possible to build a unified canon of Art that is universally accepted as valid, aura is in Art the link between the symbol’s power of allusion (...) and a symbolic idea of form. This symbolic idea of form has the visible and the invisible always simultaneously present and mediated. The artistic “form” is not a mimetic image, but it is, as Kant will say, an aesthetic idea not reducible to the word.So, when Merleau-Ponty writes about the eye and visibility, he shows how painting is an “interrogation” of the invisible through the visible: but this interrogation always begins with a unitary body, with the «delirious and secret genesis of the aspects of our body».We can then conclude that the artistic auratic object bring us beyond the “illusionism” of vision, back to the “metaphysical” significance of artistic image: to an invisible Being made of contingencies, reversibility, of living and lived bodies. Here, the “form” of objects is inseparable from the “total experience” of our embodied senses: our perception is the capacity to unite all of our sensory experiences into a “single auratic world”. (shrink)

In this paper the author reconstructs the Klagesian positions that, according to him, have possibly inspired Walter Benjamin in his reflection on “aura”. Ludwig Klages’ thought, in fact, and especially the notion of “Nimbus-Aura”, had an interesting resonance in the work of Walter Benjamin. The author shows that Benjamin has probably shared with Klages the idea that human history is indeed rooted in what we might call “myth”, differently from Theodor Adorno, who intends to criticize Klages’ influence in (...) Benjamin’s notion of “aura”, dialectilizing the mythical “origin” and characterizing it as fiction. In the author’s view, moreover, if in Klages this root receives nourishment from the universal symbolism of matter, that Klages intends as originally “auratic”, in Benjamin this root becomes the starting point through which, by means of artistic reproducibility, the human pattern moves away from the myth. (shrink)

In this paper the author reconstructs the Klagesian positions that, according to him, have possibly inspired Walter Benjamin in his reflection on “aura”. Ludwig Klages’ thought, in fact, and especially the notion of “Nimbus-Aura”, had an interesting resonance in the work of Walter Benjamin. The author shows that Benjamin has probably shared with Klages the idea that human history is indeed rooted in what we might call “myth”, differently from Theodor Adorno, who intends to criticize Klages’ influence in (...) Benjamin’s notion of “aura”, dialectilizing the mythical “origin” and characterizing it as fiction. In the author’s view, moreover, if in Klages this root receives nourishment from the universal symbolism of matter, that Klages intends as originally “auratic”, in Benjamin this root becomes the starting point through which, by means of artistic reproducibility, the human pattern moves away from the myth. (shrink)

Adorno and Benjamin offer us an aesthetic concept, that of aura. The analysis of this has tended to circumnavigate the concept, that is, it has examined the historical dimension to aura, or turned to the texts of Adorno and Benjamin with a view to finding discrepancies between their theses. However, the important conceptual detail has not been explored with suf ficient rigour. My question is a simple one: what is aura? How do we piece together its various (...) features such as 'a feeling of distance', 'pointing beyond a work's givenness' and 'a capacity to look back'? I provide a more in-depth and thoroughgoing analysis of these qualities and their interrelation than has so far been offered. I also argue for the relevance of aura to modernity. (shrink)

Aura & Transvestment is a transmedia project consisting of a series of generative images, an experimental form of cryptomedia and a video essay. By describing its own powers and contradictions, the work explores notions of value, ownership, authenticity, artificial scarcity and abundance in the digital realm. The project is a critical analysis of non-fungible tokens used as proof of ownership for digital art, taking Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura as a starting point. It argues that, for tokenized art, (...) cryptography serves as an artificial source of auratic power that reverts the political potential of reproducibility falling back to a magical and ritual notion of aura. This time around the ritual performed is that of property, authenticity, ownership, markets and commodification. Finally, the article outlines alternative uses of cryptography and distributed ledger technologies to support artistic labour and proposes transvestment as a temporary counter-action for the reallocation of value from capitalist forms of production and into commons-based models of social coordination. Submitted to this journal is an adaptation of the script for the video essay, alongside other elements of the project. Please visit: https://aura-transvestment.art/. (shrink)

Digital technology has revolutionized connectivity, but it has also overcome spatial obstacles that used to shield people from subjugating gazes and unlimited exercise of power. The home as an auratic space is dead, and this alienation has hindered our democratic capacities and created complex crises. The Death of Home aims to intellectually engage readers via enhancing spatial literacy to critically confront today’s crises.

Previous studies have reported abnormal amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and regional homogeneity in patients with migraine without aura using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. However, how whole brain functional connectivity pattern homogeneity and its corresponding functional connectivity changes in patients with migraine without aura is unknown. In the current study, we employed a recently developed whole brain functional connectivity homogeneity method to identify the voxel-wise changes of functional connectivity patterns in 21 patients with migraine without aura and (...) 21 gender and age matched healthy controls. Moreover, resting-state functional connectivity analysis was used to reveal the changes of corresponding functional connectivities. FcHo analyses identified significantly decreased FcHo values in the posterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, and left anterior insula in patients with migraine without aura compared to healthy controls. Functional connectivity analyses further found decreased functional connectivities between PCC and medial prefrontal cortex, between AI and anterior cingulate cortex, and between THA and left precentral gyrus. The functional connectivities between THA and PCG were negatively correlated with pain intensity. Our findings indicated that whole brain FcHo and connectivity abnormalities of these regions may be associated with functional impairments in pain processing in patients with migraine without aura. (shrink)

If the aura has been interpreted as a result of the artwork or its enactment, it is possible to think the aura as the work that the artwork produces: the artwork acts, interacts with the Other or identifies it. Can the aura be identified in this relationship between moods and emotions, between the artwork and the viewer? Where to place the path that opens a gap to establish a connection between Self and Other? The aura of (...) the artwork is this Otherness, this Other that remains to be seen, to be listened and traced: the Other that still cannot be heard, which remains silent or speaks through tensions, plots and tracks. The relationship between trauma (shock) and experience, memory and consciousness, between what is remembered and what is hard to remember, is the question addressed in these pages. (shrink)

If the aura has been interpreted as a result of the artwork or its enactment, it is possible to think the aura as the work that the artwork produces: the artwork acts, interacts with the Other or identifies it. Can the aura be identified in this relationship between moods and emotions, between the artwork and the viewer? Where to place the path that opens a gap to establish a connection between Self and Other? The aura of (...) the artwork is this Otherness, this Other that remains to be seen, to be listened and traced: the Other that still cannot be heard, which remains silent or speaks through tensions, plots and tracks. The relationship between trauma (shock) and experience, memory and consciousness, between what is remembered and what is hard to remember, is the question addressed in these pages. (shrink)

The essay has three main objectives and therefore is divided into three parts. The first is to dispel some misconceptions related to the notion of aura, in the centre of Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (§ 1). First and foremost, is criticized the claim that Benjamin intends the decline of the aura of the work of art (its crisis) in terms of an irreversible end. In response to this misunderstanding is then (...) analyzed the concept of aura in the light of fundamental opposition between the two conceptions of technology (as magic and as perfective mímesis) at the centre of the second version of the essay on the work of art (§§ 2-3). The theme of the aura is so is explained in the context of Benjamin’s other works (especially the Arcades Project and the Baudelaire), in close relationship with his political theory of experience and with its original historical materialism (§ 4). The third part of the essay, finally, concerns the contemporary metamorphosis of aura, in relation to art practice and digital interfaces that shape social life (§ 5). (shrink)

Migraine is a chronic and idiopathic disorder leading to cognitive and affective problems. However, the neural basis of migraine without aura is still unclear. In this study, dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations analyses were performed in 21 patients with migraine without aura and 21 gender- and age-matched healthy controls to identify the voxel-level abnormal functional dynamics. Significantly decreased dALFF in the bilateral anterior insula, bilateral lateral orbitofrontal cortex, bilateral medial prefrontal cortex, bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, and left middle (...) frontal cortex were found in patients with migraine without aura. The dALFF values in the anterior cingulate cortex were negatively correlated with pain intensity, i.e., visual analog scale. Finally, support vector machine was used to classify patients with migraine without aura from healthy controls and achieved an accuracy of 83.33%, sensitivity of 90.48%, and specificity of 76.19%. Our findings provide the evidence that migraine influences the brain functional activity dynamics and reveal the neural basis for migraine, which could facilitate understanding the neuropathology of migraine and future treatment. (shrink)

Unsere von den Medien gelenkte Aufmerksamkeit gilt zumeist den grossen Themen aus Politik, Okonomie und Gesellschaft. Das Kleine, Einfache, Banale und lebensweltlich Ubersehene hingegen erscheint kaum der Beachtung wert. In diesem Buch werden vier alltagliche Situationen herumraumlichen Erlebens zum Anlass phanomenologischer Reflexion - ein zufallig angreifender aversiver Geruch, das Warten in Airport-Lounges, das Wehen des Windes und das Gebannt-werden von Atmospharen der Stille. Mikrologische Beschreibungen detaillierten Situationserlebens lassen uns hinsehen, wo es schein- bar nichts zu sehen gibt. Im Fokus steht (...) potentiell alles, was sich in wacher Achtsamkeit erkunden lasst. Die phanomenologische Durchquerung des Einfachen und scheinbar Banalen eroffnet nicht nur Einblicke ins Ubersehene auf Seiten der Objekte. Auf der Subjektseite scharft sie das Selbst-Bewusstsein und macht alltaglich gelebte Beziehungen zum eigenen Selbst wie zum Herumwirklichen dem Nachdenken zuganglich. (shrink)

This article identifies the emergence of the problematic of the body as a consequence of the forces of technology and bureaucracy which have run through the 20th century. It explores the hypothesis that the problem of the body has emerged out of the wreckage of the aura of the individual. It is proposed that aura was destroyed in the First World War, but it is also shown that for Benjamin anticipations of the destruction can be found in the (...) technologies of photography. Yet, out of the ruin of the auratic individual, there emerged a vision of the armoured body in the work of fascist writers such as Ernst Jünger. A variation on the theme of armour can also be found in Kracauer's discussion of the Tiller Girls. The article concludes that the Holocaust can be read, at least in part, as a logical product of the destruction of the aura of the individual and the subsequent identification of the individual with her or his body alone. (shrink)

Although with “aura” Benjamin designates more a “family”, or a “constellation” of phenomena, than a univocal concept, the analogical traits of these phenomena are grounded in an aesthetic unity of sense. The aesthetic (as distinguished from the “artistic”) understanding of “aura” is not juxtaposed to the “anthropological, perceptual-mnemonic, and visionary” dimension of it (Bratu Hansen), but it is rather its root. As a transcendental aspect of perception and imagination, though, the aura marks our experience in different ways, (...) according to determinate historical conditions. If, in a post-traditional society, every attempt to produce auratic experiences is doomed to produce phony auratic phenomena, the potentialities of the aura are nevertheless not exhausted: the “room-for-play” (Spielraum) of experimentation invoked by Benjamin can be maintained open only in the interplay of auratic and non-auratic polarities: attention vs. distraction, distance vs. nearness, tactile vs. optical, determined vs. undetermined. (shrink)

Although with “aura” Benjamin designates more a “family”, or a “constellation” of phenomena, than a univocal concept, the analogical traits of these phenomena are grounded in an aesthetic unity of sense. The aesthetic (as distinguished from the “artistic”) understanding of “aura” is not juxtaposed to the “anthropological, perceptual-mnemonic, and visionary” dimension of it (Bratu Hansen), but it is rather its root. As a transcendental aspect of perception and imagination, though, the aura marks our experience in different ways, (...) according to determinate historical conditions. If, in a post-traditional society, every attempt to produce auratic experiences is doomed to produce phony auratic phenomena, the potentialities of the aura are nevertheless not exhausted: the “room-for-play” (Spielraum) of experimentation invoked by Benjamin can be maintained open only in the interplay of auratic and non-auratic polarities: attention vs. distraction, distance vs. nearness, tactile vs. optical, determined vs. undetermined. (shrink)

Adorno and Benjamin offer us an aesthetic concept, that of aura. The analysis of this has tended to circumnavigate the concept, that is, it has examined the historical dimension to aura, or turned to the texts of Adorno and Benjamin with a view to finding discrepancies between their theses. However, the important conceptual detail has not been explored with suf ficient rigour. My question is a simple one: what is aura? How do we piece together its various (...) features such as 'a feeling of distance', 'pointing beyond a work's givenness' and 'a capacity to look back'? I provide a more in-depth and thoroughgoing analysis of these qualities and their interrelation than has so far been offered. I also argue for the relevance of aura to modernity. Key Words: Adorno • . aesthetic • . aura • . Benjamin • . indeterminacy • . modernity. (shrink)

On Islam with reference to politics and ethics; in question-answer form.

We live today within a system in which state and corporate power aim to render space flat, transparent, and uniform, for only then can it be truly controlled. The gaze of power and the commodity form are capable of infiltrating even the darkest of corners, and often, we invite them into our most private spaces. We do so as a matter of convenience, but also to placate ourselves and cope with the alienation inherent in our everyday lives. The resulting dominant (...) space can best be termed totalitarian. It is space stripped of uniqueness, deprived of the “spatial aura” necessary for authentic experience. In Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura, Saladdin Ahmed sets out to help us grasp what has been lost before no trace remains. He draws attention to that which we might prefer not to see, but despite the bleakness of this indictment of reality, the book also offers a message of hope. Namely, it is only once we comprehend the magnitude of the threat to our spatial experience and our own complicity in sustaining this system that we can begin to resist the totalizing forces at work. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is often seen as the engineering turn in biology. Philosophically speaking, entities created by synthetic biology, from synthetic cells to xenobots, challenge the ontological divide between the organic and inorganic, as well as between the natural and the artificial. Entities such as synthetic cells can be seen as hybrid or transitory objects, or neo–things. However, what has remained philosophically underexplored so far is the impact these hybrid neo–things will have on (our phenomenological experience of) the living world. By (...) extrapolating from Walter Benjamin’s account of how technological reproducibility affects the aura of art, we embark upon an exploratory inquiry that seeks to fathom how the technological reproducibility of life itself may influence our experience and understanding of the living. We conclude that, much as technologies that enabled reproduction corroded the aura of original artworks (as Benjamin argued), so too will the aura of life be under siege in the era of synthetic lifeforms. This article zooms in on a specific case study, namely the research project Building a Synthetic Cell (BaSyC) and its mission to create a synthetic cell–like entity, as autonomous as possible, focusing on the properties that differentiate organic from synthetic cells. (shrink)