“Searching for a Way Outside the Box” – Mavi Irmak Karademirler

“Geographers talk about maps, distances and all questions related to objective space science, but where does that leave the experience of a place?” (Saldunha, 2019). Drawing on Guattari’s analysis on the computerization and evaluation of the technological evolution, Arun Saldanha started his talk by discussing the experience and globalization in geography.

For the market to function, capitalism minimizes the differences between places. Furthermore, for the market to continue to grow and expand, it not only reduces or eliminates the differences but also recreates or re-invents new opportunities for and new places of profit. Saldanha provided a relatable example of adding of a vegetarian burger option in the Indian branches of Burger King. He said that, if we think about the elimination of differences, this is also the case with mass-media, television, information technologies, or computerized graphic design. Hence, the devices we use to open the gates to a content of an always accessible commercially constructed world, reconfigure “ the whole planet into [a] non-stop working site or an always open shopping mall of infinite choices, tasks, selections, digressions” (Andersen, 2016). The expansion of these devices in smaller, mobile forms bring us a world where there is access to twenty-four-hour access to consume. The potential of the digital devices to “capture, orient, model, control, or secure the gestures behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings” as Agamben asserts, makes them incredibly powerful, evocative and affective apparatuses, contributing to the growth and acceleration of the capital (Andersen, 2016).

Another intriguing point Saldanha brings from these relations is Deleuze and Guattari’s criticism of the Western world’s obsession with face. Through facialization, he asserts that what capitalism does is to organize and arrange individuals in groups. To have a place in society it is necessary to have a face, and through “the process of facialization we are put into boxes, boxes as consumers” (Saldunha, 2019). The profiles that we create and connect with other people through media become our representatives, the representatives of our faces, of us as consumers of a product, a viewer, a profile among other users. But then one wonders, can’t we recreate, reimagine new possibilities or alternatives to find a way out?  Eventually, we contribute to and take part in reproducing capitalism, but as Saldanha adds; because of the very reason that we take part in reproducing the system, we also have the power to change it.

References:

• Andersen, G. (2016). Guattari and Planetary Computerisation. Deleuze Studies, 10(4), 531 doi:10.3366/dls.2016.0244
• Saldanha, Arun. (2019, March). The Stratification of Cyberspace: from Experience to Waste. Utrecht.