or, the confession of a ‘theorist’:

i confess that i continue to believe that ‘theory’ is essential to any form of forward movement in any zone. yet… yet i also believe that there is far too much ‘off the shelf’ theory too ready at hand and too often imposed as somehow ‘necessary’. necessary for credibility. necessary for authority. necessary for sales of this or that. even necessary, to continue several themes developed below, for ‘communication.’

so the the ‘theory’ of this blog, which is indeed a non-theory, is what i might, just might, call: disjunctive continuity on the one hand; and on the other, cross-sectionality. both these terms have an enemy – or two –   :: i’m opposed to every theoretical program willing to align itself with, ‘inter’ – interdisciplinary, for example. or, intersectionality. i’m opposed to other similar terms such as, ‘inter-species.’ or, inter-phylums. or, inter-taxonomies, or inter-ventions.

the non-theory of this blog is based on its opposition to inter: it’s opposed to a naive conception of ‘betweeness.’

there is of course nothing ‘essentially’ wrong with the state of being ‘inter’. some forms of being ‘inter’ can be extraordinary. but ‘inter’ generally has a very narrow extent, and typically used to refer to the relationship ‘between’ at most 2 things, beings, events. ‘between’ ‘people, ‘objects’, ‘things’, or, ‘nouns’ linguistically speaking.  ‘inter’ is trapped in a narrow spatial register.

but the preposition, ‘cross’, when used as a prefix, as in, cross-sectional, has a far wider berth. it’s a bridge over any series of multiple domains. it even has the power to ‘bridge’ oppositions.

such as this, a work by roman de salvo called: Hydrant Fire, 1993

there is no better image than this to exemplify my excursions through the spectacle. roman’s art activism here has a rare symbolic value. his is such a simple and direct, yet enormously profound, act/statement. it’s an image-act.

i’d hoped to juxtapose roman’s Hydrant Fire, to one of his earlier works, Augur, but that work no longer exists. so a brief description will have to do: roman once carved an augur out of wood, at a very large scale. it was at least 3 meters high. no pictures of that brilliant work exist. so we’ll have to imagine it back into existence. an augur, carved impeccably out of wood, the very substance it was designed to violate, in exaggerated form – 3 meters high.

that is a metaphor for theory. and sometimes, such a tool is useful. at others, not. it’s uselessness, is highly useful.

thus: pearodox.