The Neo Materialism: The Abject Discourse and the Lyrics of Algorithm
At the height of the systematic all-pervasive de-materialization process that took place over the last couple of decades, there was a dialectical reversal in the Real: from the perception of the real as unrepresentable to the real “that is yet to come,” in terms of the Neo-materialistic return to material, to the "thing", to nature. This is a nature founded on “an abstract machine” of diagrams, translating substance to binary algorithms of 1 and 0. Today, the language of mathematics and the lines of code are the real bearers of the epistemological function. The bio-hackers, the alchemists, the new makers, are the agents of the making revolution of neo-baroque technological materialism. This is a hybrid world of cyborgs, of allegorical nature, of unlikely accidental combinations: the lyrics of algorithm, the new lyricism of Surrealism, which has been embedded in life, rendering it radical – a post-humanistic era delineated between the selfie and the bitcoin. This new materialistic philosophy strives to banish the last vestiges of transcendental, dualistic, and humanist traditions that still haunt cultural theory on the threshold of the post-modern age.
Neo MaterialismAbjectSurrealismthe RealPost HumanismBio DesignAlgorithmic design
Dror K. Levi
Dr. Dror K. Levi is the head of Master's Program in Integrated Design at HIT Holon Institute of Technology (since 2012). Dr. Levi also serves as the academic director of the Research Gallery operating under its auspices. He taught in various academic institutes, including the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, The Department of History and Theory at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, and the Department of MA Culture and Film Studies at the University of Haifa. He was the scientific editor for Resling Publishing House and a member of Block Magazine's academic board. He is a lecturer and scholar in culture studies and critical theory, and focuses on visual culture and spatial studies. The essays he had written concern various aspects of visual and material culture, literature, art, photography, cinema and architecture. His book From Time to Space and Vice Versa: Six Essays in Culture Criticism (2011) was published by Resling.
