- Which Side Are You On? We live in a world that has multiple dimensions, however, too often we are forced to reduce everything to a single one. A simple straight line with opposite ends is used to define reality in all its complexity. Pro or anti. Black or white. Woke or conservative. Democrat or Republican. 1 or 0. People force […]
- The Magic of Feedback Loops: AI Takes Over The world is gripped by the collective anxiety proliferated by live death-count dashboards, exponential charts, and frightening headlines that promise the imminent apocalypse. The real extent of the problem, however, is not really known. The decisions are made based on incomplete data. Worst-case scenarios are used to implement social and economic policies without a proper discussion or long-term implications assessment.
- Software Takes Command A post on Facebook says “there was 9/11, now there is 11/9”. The scale of disaster is almost comparable: who could have predicted that Donald Trump would become the next president of the US? A recent piece from NiemanLab (a leading think tank on journalism) asks if this election is the turning point for media’s […]
- Introduction to Polysingularity Practice The transcript below is the summary of the introductory section on Embodied Network Dynamics offered by Nodus Labs / Special Agency as an online course or a 2-hour long workshop session. Polysingularity is a practice of soma~cognitive / body~mind reconfiguration. The main intention of the practice is to explore altered states of consciousness by […]
- Ignore Terror This article was written as a response to terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 and in Brussels in 2016. Terror works when it instills fear (from Latin terrere ‘frighten’). When something works there will be more and more of it (positive reinforcement feedback loops are everywhere). Therefore, the reaction to terror is its fuel and its […]
- Personal Space In this world, everyone wants to have their personal space. A space where their persona can extend, stretch, and feel free to function. The subjects of our study pay double to have a little bit more of their personal space in the 1st class of a train.
- Their War A state of war is a state of exception, which pushes one to take a position: to fight back, to pray, to protect, to hide, to escape, to start acting and change the world, to be afraid and stay immobile, to give blood, to learn first-aid, to learn self-defence, to pretend like nothing is going […]
- The System of Improper Conduct “This is morally incorrect” they might say. // declaration of variables Morals are about the proper conduct, the customs. Ethics is the science of morals (meta-level zoom out). … Interestingly, the interest towards ethics increases, while the interest towards morals decreases. (especially since 1940) After all, what is right and what is wrong in the […]
- Special Agents and Special Agency Everybody is special and everyone is an agent. Every human being is special even if just because they are unlike anyone else – hence, the “special”. Every human being acts in the world – hence, the “agency”. So even if you don’t yet know it, you are […]
- Сorrupted Innocence If there is something inside the innocence that wants to be corrupted, it is the total lack of resistance towards the eyes of the beholder. As soon as it is corrupted, it is not innocent anymore. “I surrender”, “I give myself up to you”. Fully, univocally, completely. But only this one time. What’s next? Both […]
- Mediated by Synchrony The most plausible mechanism for large-scale integration is the formation of dynamic links mediated by synchrony over multiple frequency bands.
- Chaos and Circadian Rhythms In this world, there are several facts that are scientifically confirmed. The state of cognitive rest is characterized by chaotic variability. Chaotic variability has a pattern of pink noise. Pink noise: oscillation amplitudes negatively correlate with their frequencies. The smaller the amplitude, the higher the frequency. The higher the amplitude, the lower the frequency. Everyday things happen more often than […]
- Will She Will He If we attempt to illustrate the above intentionality, it would look something like that: Therefore, for the majority of those who are interested in “Will She”, there is definitely a concern that somebody might leave beyond the vicinity of the agreed border. For the majority of those who are interested in “Will He”, however, there […]
- Re~Definition of “To Act Accordingly” To act accordingly is to act consequently. To act accordingly is to act correspondingly. To act accordingly to the environment. To act accordingly to the situation. To act accordingly is to follow the heart. From Latin ad- ‘to’ + cor, cord- ‘heart’. … What does the situation demand? What is the situation? To act accordingly […]
- Sovereignty “An act is sovereign when it realizes itself by simply taking away its own potentiality not to be, letting itself be, giving itself to itself” – Giorgio Agamben They took away my first country again. Again, because it’s happened many times before. Sometimes I’ve taken it back. Mainly when I was somewhere at the countryside […]
- Drugs as Advertising In this world, drugs are like advertisements. Things can get complicated. What’s promised may be perceived to be real and the other way round. Drugs advertise. They direct attention to something. We are told what’s possible. It turns out that everything is. We know that already. It’s good to have a reminder. However, the “What” (is […]
- A Dialogue Polysingularity manifests itself through a dialogue. Each exchange maintains a certain center of gravity through continuous reiteration of the intention. Often, the intention is just to be polite or to stay within the common cultural or semantic field. When one wants to explore polysingularity of oneself, then the circular motion can be maintained and the […]
- People on Ice Polysingularity is when multiple solutions are possible and yet only some are actualized at every moment of time. The same solution can be actualized through various different rules and function. It’s possible to arrive to the same point even if you start from a different place or follow a different route. The traces on ice […]
- Army Day Parade Army is a good example of the social structure where polysingularity of an individual is sacrificed for polysingularity of the group. Uniform, strict regulations, formal and informal codes of behaviour and embodiment ensure that the solutions that are available to each individual are subordinate to those of the army. Photo “Taiwan Army Day Parade” by […]