RADICALREADING#1

TheTerrain
4/2016

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TheTerrainasPrimordialMatter
FilipposOraiopoulos

The following text is nothing more than an attempt to rethink over the conceptoftheterrain
or, rather, territoriality. It does not intend to present a comprehensive view, much less a
theory, or even less a reference context of producing texts or works. What it aimstopresent
is a series of thoughts that will not be random instead, their kind of orientation (their
versions) will seek to provoke thinkers and artists, of seemingly heterogeneous fields of
activity, into different intellectual inventions and work practices intellectual inventions and
works that will be mainly characterized by difference, in the sense of producing multiple
versions and, thus, an appositional intellectual wealth.Theultimategoalofsuchameetingis
to produce a digitalorinpersonroundtableofdiscussinganddepositingartworks,inorderto
enhancesuchwealthbyincreasingtheproduceddifferenceoftheconceptofterrain.

From the outset, I would like to point out that my thought (its version) will be orientated
towards an open intellectual horizon, which I call neoPoetics (not in the sense of the
absolutely new but that of reconsideration). This means that the desired intellectual
stimulation and production of different discourses willbegroundedintheproductiveprocess
of the multiple contingent versions that this conceptual orientation intends to use. The latter
means that it will be based on the logic of aconceptualsystem,whoseopennesscanwork in
the intersection of the general and the specific, which could be described, by set theory,
according to the logicomathematicalfunction{f(x)}.Thisisaprocess(and,inthisrespect,a
performative one), open to multiplicities of meanings, where one of its key elements is the
empty function f(), which can act as the material contingent reception of a subversive
event. It is certainly an attempt of a condensed combination of Platonic (reception),
Aristotelian (material) and contemporary logicomathematical versions that concern
becoming in general. Yet, with this type of logicomathematical position, we are in asortof
approach, which A. Badiou calls metaontological, and where our version is individuated
around the concept of makingconstructing (poiesis), i.e., in the fieldofpoetics.Thiskindof
specialized approach is what the collateral metaphorical poetic proposal of the title
The
TerrainasPrimordialMatter
means.

Using such an approach, theopenconceptualhorizon,impliedbyourtextstitle,getsinfinite

versions and, therefore, the attempt of a sequential individuation (from the general to the
specific, and vice versa) treats the notions of terrain and territoriality as functions, thatis,as
metaontological entities. Here, a conceptual clarification: if terrain refers to thespecies(the
actual in contingent terms), territoriality refers to the genus (in terms of a feasible infinity).
Andifwedliketomoveforwardwiththestudyofindividuation,theindividual(asafeasible
indivisible) refers to geography, landscapes, topography, surfaces, geometry, soil bodies,
ecosystems, the flora, the fauna, as also to the metaphorical versions of territorialization
[edaphopoiesis] and deterritorialization (economic, authoritarian, national, technological),

the genders (as records of soil bodies), thephenomenonofimmigration(asanelementofthe

neoliberal globalization), etc. Such a neoAristotelian differential sequence allows us to
move from a semantic version (without negating it) to a metaontological version of terrain
and territoriality. This means that if the terrain is a neutral matter, territorialityistheinfinite
wealth of the worlds of meanings that such materiality can incorporate. Matter as a function
of the empty {f(
)}, the amorphous, the formless, the incomposite, the nonsensical, may
obtain both the infinite entities (as multiplicities) andthecorrespondingsemanticversionsof
f(x1,2...n), since the void as a neutral matter (Aristotle, Kristeva, Butler, Derrida, Badiou,
Deleuze) leaves the horizon utterly open to contingencies at the three levelsofrealtime(the
objective time), where formative processes take place. These levels, in a schematic form,
arethefollowing:

The terrain as a relatively initiatorystructurepriortohumanexperience(Meillassoux),hence

without meanings, i.e., without the world of meanings that territoriality embodies in the
terrains materiality this denotes a prelinguistic situation and thus a period of contingency
that incubates the human existence completely at random (playing dice). Here is where we
can talk about the terrain per se, without the relational human version, hence in a region of
time wherewecouldbetalkingaboutthefeasibleinfinity,intermsofrealism,withoutfalling
under a metaphysical idealization,butalsowithoutgivingaway,tometaphysics,themeaning
of the universality degree and the charm of the relativelyfeasible absolute, which can be
approached through metaontology. It is here that mathematics offers us the feasible infinity
with the concept of fractals. Therefore, in this great prepoetic field of the relatively infinite
contingent semantic versions of territoriality, we can approach and comprehendthemeaning
of the terrain as a primordial matter. From here, the human being will convey, or rather
choose, the possible semantic versions that on the basis of the neoPoetics process
will
establishthematerialandthetranscendentalworld.

I will not thoroughly examine the third version of time as an antisymmetric version of the
present. This concerns the posthuman existence of the terrain and its territoriality as the
possibility of an infinite contingency, this time regarding not those that may have existed
before human being (the first version of time), butthosethatmayexistafterthepossibleend
of human existence (third version of time). The transition from the first to the third time is
accomplished on the basis of a neoPoetics process that Malabou schematically describes as
the plasticity of time for what is about to come
. So far, we are talking about two kinds of
neoPoetic versions: that of the terrain concerning the past and that of the future but the
issue, in both cases, is the absence of human experience and, consequently, of its
representation, which could be mathematically expressed as 0. Still, this kind of
establishingthedistantpastandfuturebroadens theterrainsworldofmeanings,territoriality,
whileitdefinesthecontingentworldofhumanexistencewithintheregionof0or,intermsof
a mathematical metaontological expression, as functions of the empty set f(
). This sort of
dealing with boundaries incorporates the area of
human existence in terms of a relatively
infinite contingency of events, where the void, as material reception of events, avoids the

idealization of beginning and the determinism of ending, without negating them, and
simultaneously removes the relativizedhumanselfreferentiality,wherethelinguisticversion
of thought forms the world of the terrain (correalisme). Suchaconsiderationallows,without
negating linguisticity as a field of producing meanings, the possibility of infinite contingent
meanings (in our case, in the field of territoriality) in the area of nonhuman experience
(beforeandafterhumanexistence).

Surely, such broadening of a conception, whichclaimspartofthesemanticpossibleversions

of metaphysical idealization (philosophical, religious, physical) on either side of the present
time (past and future) of human presence in terms of the relative infinity,isattainedonlyby
expanding this kind of boundaries of understanding territoriality as a material semantic
version of the terrain. It is obvious that this realization offers us an expanded semantic and
(neo)poetic space, not only for thinking but also for producing works. Certainly, hereinthis
infinite present that is placed between twocontingentworlds,beforeandafter theexperience
of human existence and language (in theflowofspeech,wedsayramminglogocentrism),is
the relativization ofthepastandthefutureinthehumanterritorialpresent.Inanthropological
terms, we could talk about the humanbeingasaprepoeticfieldoflivinglife (theprimordial
matter of the terrain, thus as genesis) and as a metapoetic field (asanafterdeathfield).But
in such a problematic underlies an unspoken, for now, presupposition: the incorporation (if
notidentification)ofhumanexistenceintheterrainsmaterialityand,thereafter,theexistence
of a second level of neoPoetics which concerns the works of man, namely, what is called
material culture. This expansion of the contingent field of neoPoetics (poetics of the world,
poetics of man), which keeps territoriality as a common ground and difference, is produced
only in the material terms that the concept of event rewrites, forms and reconstructs, for the
sake of life forms that concern not only the human species, but also the flora, the fauna and
the poetics from which material culture (every technology and every art) results. Yet, with
such an approach, the dualities natureculture, historywriting, matterform, materialmental
anymore alter their semantic forms and, moreover, develop poetic bridges between their
intellectualgaps.

Could we then talk (boldly and maybe intellectually challengingly)withintheopenhorizon

of such a conception of terrain and territoriality about the great horizon of soil science
(edaphology and pedology) as a kind of cognitive field? And if so, do the concepts of the
subject and the object alternate with each other according to the territorial reference to the
first or second neoPoetics fields (cosmic, human), forming thus an active rhizomatic system
(potentially and actively) from all the neoPoetics derivatives of terrain and territoriality? A
terrain, though, as part of an absolute materiality in literal and metaphorical terms, which
excludes, from the very presuppositions of the existence of such a neoPoetics thought, the
transcendental metaphysics, proposing a territorial neorealism, formed by a speculative
discourse of the territorialitys contingency, that is, of the broadened semantic versions that
the materiality of the terrain per se incorporates. Within this horizon of thought, the concept
of contingency as a material territorial version cannot be interwoven, in my view, but with

two constitutive elements. At first, human labour as a force that intervenesintheneoPoetics

process through invention and practice (as a total human performative act), in order for the
rhizomatic territorial system to pass, by human intervention, from the state of absolute
potential contingency (relative nonexistence) to the state of an activepossiblesituation,i.e.,
to the potential version of its materialization. Such a version requires processes of choice,
evaluation and decision. But such a system sets up the material conditionsofliving(lifeand
death) and also, therefore, the neoPoetics processes of their construction, so that wecantalk
about passing from biopolitics to biopoeticsthisdoesnotimplythepoliticselimination,but
its existing without name (illegitimate).Thereasonablequestionsare:islivingconstructedin
terms of the territoriality weve described, that is, can the ways of life and death be
constructed with the material conditions of territorial contingency as personal selfpoiesis or
social selfinstitution? The second element of a neoPoetics territorial process is the
production of infinite contingent and potential semantic worlds that the terrains materiality
can embody in the context of material culture. Of course, what comesfirsthereisdiscourse,
explicit and implicit. In bothcases,however,theyareproductionsofeithercommunication
or works of art. The question here is: candiscourseandworksconstituteastageoftheworld
in terms of territoriality, i.e., in the context of a neoPoetics process that exposes thewaysof
embodyingtheterrainsmeanings?

Below, I choose to present paradigmatic texts from the Western tradition as kinds of
speculative discourses that have acted and keep on acting
as genetic models of producing
concepts, meanings and notions which start developing from the concepts of terrain and
territoriality. A sort of appendix, whichcould alsoconstituteakindofanopenarchivethatis
incessantly supplemented, as well as case studies for anunderformationareaofsoil science.
Ichoosetoincludethreesuchconceptualsystems,almostrandomly,asbothauthorsandtexts
are also almost randomly chosen. The wordconcepts, as magnets and at the same time as
genetic models of multiple concepts, meanings, views and theories, are: chora,
territorialization, dust (). The first one deals with the general concept of becoming (as
genesis and decay in the Aristotelian approach), basing it though ontheinitiatoryconceptof
chora (Platonic version). The second one deals with the terrain as an embodiment of the
meanings (literal sense and metaphor) that constitute an open conceptual system for
territoriality as the background of the genesisproduction of life in general (social, political,
intellectual...), while the third one refers to the general destruction oflife(thedeath,literally
andfiguratively).Ipresenttheauthorsandtherespectivetexts:

a) Chora:Plato(
Timaeus
),Derrida(
Chora
),Derrida(
Positions
),Buttler(
BodiesthatMatter
),
During(
Aristotle
),Thom(
MathematicalModelsofMorphogenesis
).

b) Territorialization: Deleuze andGuattari(

AntiOedipus
),Negriand Hardt(
Empire
)Schmitt
(
The Nomos of the Earth
), Agamben (
The Camp
), Foucault (
Of Other Spaces: Utopias and
Heterotopias
),Nehamas(
TheArtofLiving
).

c) Dust: Greek Orthodox Funeral Service, John of Damascus (Excerpts from the Funeral
Service), Blanchot (
The Space of Literature
), Elliot (
The Waste Land
), Lagios (

[
TheWasteEarth
]),Dimitriadis(
DyingasaCountry
).

Translation:MeropiZavlari

a) /Chora

)/Territorialization

)/Dust

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. To Radical Reading [RR] project ,
2014
.

Filippos Oraiopoulos is professor emeritus at the Department of Architecture, University of

Thessaly. Radical Reading [RR] is a curatorial project founded in 2014 inAthensbycurator
andartcriticEvangeliaLedakiandartistPetrosMoris.

radicalreading.com

RR