Day 54: Dana Kopel responds to Showkat Kathjoo, “The Memory of a Deluge and the Surface of Water”
“. . . what to make of objects whose properties and relations are magical, decidedly unreal? Philosophy constitutes itself in opposition to magic; realism and rationality are understood to be incompatible with the inexplicable, unpredictable nature of wish-granting boxes, immortal apples who long for death, and other supernatural phenomena. While OOO and SR point towards a universe in which everything exists, the objects in these stories press further, insisting upon their own agency, centrality and unknowability. They are magic objects; they constitute miniature universes in which the tragedies and commonplaces of the “real” are constantly displaced by the possibility of unexpected transformation . . . [magic objects] offer an escape from the codified, knowable real, but one grounded in the reality of tangible things and the relations between them. They are magic not because of some illusionistic quality—that they are not, or something more than, what they seem—but because they possess supernatural abilities, affective and material capabilities literally beyond nature.”
***
Join the conversation and respond to Dana Kopel, or add your own perspective on Showkat Kathjoo’s piece.
To participate follow the link or register here: http://conversations.e-flux.com/signup
Superconversations is a collaboration between
e-flux & The New Centre for Research & Practice