Issue #65 The Alchemic Digital, The Planetary Elemental

The Alchemic Digital, The Planetary Elemental

Jussi Parikka

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An excerpt from a promotional video for the gold Apple Watch features a succession of shots of its casing and the gold alloys cast to make it.
Issue #65
May 2015










Notes
1

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London: Continuum, 2004), 454.

2

Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Techniques of Psychoanalysis, 1954–1955, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Sylvana Tomiselli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 61.

3

Arduino Production Factory Tour, YouTube, March 20, 2014.

4

Thank you to Ryan Bishop for reminding me about the mythological connotations of the medieval alchemic elements.

5

Tom Holert, Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, and Anton Vidokle, “Editorial – ‘Politics of Shine,’” e-flux journal 61 (January 2015) .

6

Paul-Jacques R. Malouin, “Alchemy,” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d‘​Alembert Collaborative Translation Project, trans. Lauren Yoder (Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2003) . “Alchimie,” Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 1, Paris, 1751. For an alternative take on alchemy and digital practices, see Denisa Kera, “Conflict-Free Minerals and Open Source Hardware: Homunculus or Minerals Baby?” Talk at the transmediale festival, Berlin, February 1, 2015. The whole panel “The Media of the Earth” can be found online .

7

See .

8

Roger Caillois, The Writing of Stones, trans. Barbara Bray (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985).

9

Hannah Devlin, “Gold in faeces ‘is worth millions and could save the environment,’” The Guardian, March 23, 2015 .

10

Erin Griffth and Dan Primack, “The Age of Unicorns,” Fortune, January 22, 2015 . Thanks to Geraldine Juarez for the heads-up on this theme. On money’s mythic contexts in relation to figures such as the Trickster, the Devil, and the Fool, see Angus Cameron, “Money’s unholy trinity: Devil, trickster, fool,” Culture and Organization, 2015.

11

“Magic,” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project, trans. Steve Harris (Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2010) . “Magie,” Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 9, Paris, 1765.

12

See .

13

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, “On ‘Sourcery,’ or, Code as Fetish,” Configurations, vol. 16, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 299–324.

14

See Benedict Singleton, “The Maximum Jailbreak,” e-flux journal 46 (June 2013) .

15

“Magic,” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project.

16

Ned Rossiter, “Materialities of Software: Logistics, Labour, Infrastucture” .

17

R. C. Kedzie, “Alchemy,” Science, XVIII, no. 447 (August 28, 1891): 116.

18

See Manuel DeLanda, Deleuze: History and Science (New York: Atropos, 2010), 86–87.

19

Kedzie, “Alchemy.”

20

Ibid.

21

Ibid.

22

Benjamin Bratton, “Chemistry and Urbanism,” Fulcrum 84 (2014).