For a Pragmatics of the Useless, or the Value of the Infrathin

Authors

  • Erin Manning Concordia University

Keywords:

Infrathin, Marcel Duchamp, Alfred North Whitehead, Speculative pragmatics, Value/Valuation, Art/Artfulness, Politics/The Political, Time/Duration

Abstract

Marcel Duchamp describes the infrathin as “the most minute of intervals, or the slightest of differences” (in Perloff 2002: 101). Working through Duchamp’s proposition, and taking him at his work that the infrathin cannot be defined as such – “One can only give examples of it” (in de Duve 1991: 160) – this paper explores how the infrathin comes to expression and asks what a politics of the infrathin might look like. Key to the exploration is the question of how else value can be defined and how this rethinking of the concept of value might compose with the concept of a pragmatics of the useless.

Author Biography

Erin Manning, Concordia University

Erin Manning is a PHD professor of philosophy and cinema at Concordia University, Montreal, as well as an artist, dancer and research-creation practitioner. She directs the Senselab laboratory.

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How to Cite

Manning, E. (2016). For a Pragmatics of the Useless, or the Value of the Infrathin. Galaxia, (31). Retrieved from https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/galaxia/article/view/26498

Issue

No. 31 (2016)

Section

Artigos | Articles

License

I cede the copyrights to publication of my article to Galaxia journal and will consult the journal’s scientific editor should I decide to republish it later in a book.