Simondon 101
Simondon turns 101 today. “101” is also an epistemic formula used to frame judgments, arguments, and claims as “introductory,” “basic,” and therefore foundational. The tension between these two readings of the same number is the main intrigue of the issue we have put together with the esteemed Alina Likhachevskaya. It offers many interesting and beautiful texts on some of the less conventional modes of working with Simondon’s legacy: techno‑aesthetics, techno‑theology, conceptualizations of objects, and a theory of invention.
As editor‑compiler I had a hand in the issue as a whole; as author I contributed the introductory text, which tries to problematize the very idea of an “introduction” to a theory through a playful construction of a catalogue of Simondons, as well as a long‑gestating article with a monstrous and hooligan title inspired by commemorative inscriptions carved into tree bark, “Bourdieu + Simondon = Chernobyl: Sketch of a General Theory of (Social) Inventions.” In it I offer an alternative, in relation to my previous sketch, conceptualization of the middleness implied by inventions and raise the question of whether it is possible to describe the mediation of different ontological orders by means of the social sciences (and not only them).
It came out fun.