Skip to main content

Social Expenditure


entropy as increasing disorder - bataillean expenditure: cooling down of sun - sun expends forcing us to overproduction and waste - entropy forces waste for bataille - lower entropy in sun, higher entropy in world (Bois 34)

"such regulation is never successful because always insufficient" - cooling down of words into cliches - information theory entropy - carl einstein opposes in critical dictionary (36)

entropy/expenditure "was inevitable and its effectiveness depended on no one's will" (37)

reichenbach - crisis of causality (pubbed in documents) - 2nd law of thermodynamics (carnot's discovery of mechanical heat loss) "is in fact nothing but a statistical principle") (37)

poussiere - "entropic nightmare" one day or another, given its presistence... dust will probably begin to gain the upper hand over the servants, pouring immense amounts of rubbish into abandoned buildings and desrted stockyards: and, at that distant epoch, nothing will remain to ward off night terrors, in the absence of which we have become such great bookkeepers." (bataille - documents 1 no.5 p.278) (38)

169 - 178 - entropic series of messages - dubuffet 1944

Bois. Formless: a user guide Zone Books, 1997




Popular posts from this blog

Radical Science and New Ways to Think About Knowledge

In a world that is rapidly changing—where new technologies, environmental crises, and societal challenges continuously shape our future—how we think about science, knowledge, and creativity must evolve. Enter radical science : a groundbreaking approach that blends scientific inquiry, artistic expression, and technological innovation to solve global problems in bold, interdisciplinary ways. But what exactly is radical science, and how does it differ from traditional science? This article explores the concept of radical science and why it’s becoming a crucial framework for understanding the complexities of our modern world. What is Radical Science At its core, radical science represents a departure from traditional scientific methods that typically segregate art, technology, and science into separate spheres. Radical science integrates these disciplines, encouraging collaboration between scientists, artists, engineers, and philosophers. It challenges the conventional belief that scientif...

Pascal and Laplace: Probabilities of the Divine and Divine Probabilities

  Pascal's Wager is the opportunity for a mathematician turned theologian to justify their view of cosmic order in the mathematical ways they've come to know.  What's the pay off if you're right and what's the pay off if you're wrong.  If the pay off for being right far outweighs that for being wrong, should we out of principle take the wager? Ask Laplace and we have a different framing.  Now probability has replaced the divine role so the aspect of choice has been eliminated.  Probability no longer informs a bet on divine order, divine order is a subsidiary part of probability.  Laplace's famous demon is not an impossible gambit on an all-controlling deity as popularly assumed, but a thesis that cosmic order can be predicated by sheer mathematical analysis.  Pascal's world still contains Christian state law, but Laplace's does not.  How do we culturally bind people without such moral institutions? It turns out fairly easily.  We don't need t...

Bridging the Gap: How Art Can Help Us Understand Science

  Science can be intimidating. Whether it’s the abstract equations of physics or the complex biological processes that govern life, many scientific concepts can feel distant and inaccessible to the public. But what if there was a way to make these ideas more tangible, relatable, and easier to understand? What if art could bridge the gap between complex science and the general public? In recent years, the integration of art and science has proven to be a powerful tool for not just communicating scientific ideas, but for expanding the ways in which we think about and engage with the world. In this article, we explore how art plays a vital role in making science more accessible, engaging, and emotionally resonant. Through creative coding, digital art, and speculative design, art provides a new lens through which we can explore the wonders of the natural world and the mysteries of the universe. Art as a Visualization Tool for Science One of the primary ways that art helps us understand...