ENERGY: A (Philosophy of) Practice

今天，“能源”一词与我们对化石燃料燃烧的极度依赖联系在一起，化石燃料是取暖、运输和食品生产所必需的。所有这些都受到人为气候变化的威胁。尽管“绿色”能源创新并不缺乏，但许多创新造成的问题比解决的问题要多，比如瓦哈卡州的风力发电场，在恢复殖民关系的同时导致了干旱（Dunlap 2018）。其中一个原因是能源的大量开采。另一个是支撑这一活动的概念框架：这是能源的来源-转换-最终使用概念。尽管从亚里士多德到爱因斯坦都有一条不间断的探索路线，例如，亚里士多德的能量论（energeia）——使事物运动的能力——和完整动作的力量——从思考杠杆的功能到20世纪发现质能等价，这段时间将能量与技术不可逆转地结合在一起。潜力，也就是能量的主要“聚合状态”，在这里被简化为最终用途。这就产生了一种“常备”的能源观，在这种观点中，实际的与可用的等同起来：森林是一种生产木材的资源，河流是一种水力发电的供应者（海德格尔，1977）。如果这个概念似乎过时了，那么快速浏览一下“零工经济”就会发现，零工劳动者是一种长期待命的后备力量（Srnicek 2017），就像合成生物学表明生物实体是一种功能后备力量（Schyfter 2021）。依靠新唯物主义和后人文主义哲学，能源人文学科的后学科配置近年来发展了对能源政治的批判性理解（Szeman & Boyer 2017）。然而，能源人文学科的研究主要集中在能源消费伦理问题上，这虽然很有用，但并没有解决能源观念危机的问题。本项目旨在填补这一空白。其主要目的是通过关注以下问题，从根本上改变我们对能源的看法：a)能源是一种具有复杂空间、时间、环境和跨物种关系的通量-潜力连续体；B)网状（而非线性）因果关系，承认在自然、机械和算法环境中不断发生微观层面的变化；c)研究文化上的少数群体，例如土著人；亚洲的、艺术的——通常被认为是“不太严肃的”——能源实践，挑战了简单化和环境灾难性的开采使用范式；D)内容（能量的来源）与方法（转化的技术）不分离的非二元分析方法。能源：A（实践哲学）在概念上和组织上分为三个子项目。每个子项目都侧重于以能量为主题的实践-艺术，仪式和土著（北美/亚洲）“了解”实践（将观察与参与相结合的持续体验实践），以揭示不同的能量集群：共振询问物理、空间、时间、植物和动物的能量。AURA（或辐射）探索文化虚拟能量。该项目使用跨学科的方法——哲学和文化分析、案例研究、艺术（表演、视觉和自动人种学技术）和3D可视化，以便：a)绘制公认的和微妙的能量转换的动态图；B)产生对非显化能量通道的新见解；C)重新评估艺术和边缘化的文化能源实践的价值，以及它们与主流能源实践的关系；d)产生关于建筑、制造、安排、改造、推进和修复的理论和实践，可操作的知识。

Today, 'energy' is associated with our vital dependence on the combustion of fossil fuels, needed for heating, transportation, and food production. All are threatened by anthropogenic climate change. Although there is no shortage of 'green' energy innovations, many cause more problems than they solve, as the example of wind farms in Oaxaca, which caused aridification while reinstating colonial relationships, shows (Dunlap 2018). One reason for this is the sheer volume of energy extraction. The other is the conceptual framework that underpins this activity: this is the source-conversion-end-use concept of energy.Despite the fact that an unbroken line of inquiry can be traced from Aristotle to Einstein, taking in, for instance, Aristotle's energeia - the ability to set things in motion - and entelecheia - the power of a completed action - the passage from pondering the functioning of levers to the discovery of mass-energy equivalence in the 20th century, wedded energy irrevocably to technology. Potentiality, which is energy's main 'aggregate state' so to speak, was here reduced to end-use. This gave rise to a 'standing-reserve' view of energy where the actual is equated with the usable: a forest is a wood-producing resource, a river a hydropower supplier (Heidegger 1977). If this notion seems dated, a quick glance at the 'gig economy' shows gig labourers to be a standing-reserve on permanent call (Srnicek 2017), just like synthetic biology shows living entities to be a standing-reserve of function (Schyfter 2021).Relying on new-materialist and posthumanist philosophy, the post-disciplinary configuration of Energy Humanities has, in recent years, developed a critical understanding of energopolitics (Szeman & Boyer 2017). However, Energy Humanities has focused mostly on the ethics of energy consumption, which, though very useful, doesn't solve the problem of the crisis of the concept of energy. This project seeks to fill this gap.The main aim is to radically change the way we think about energy through a focus on: a) energy as a flux-potentiality continuum, with complex spatial, temporal, environmental and cross-species relationships; b) reticular (rather than linear) causality, which acknowledges constant micro-level change in natural but also machinic and algorithmic environments; c) a study of culturally minoritised, e.g. Indigenous; Asian, and artistic - usually considered as 'not really serious' - energy practices that defy the simplistic and environmentally disastrous extraction-use paradigm; d) a non-dualistic analytical approach where content (the source of energy) is not separate from method (its technology of transformation).ENERGY: A (Philosophy of) Practice is conceptually and organisationally divided into three subprojects. Each of the subprojects focuses on practices that thematise energy - art, rites, and Indigenous (North-American/Asian) 'coming to know' practices (durational-expriential practices that combine observation with participation) in order to shed light on a different cluster of energy: 1. RESONANCE interrogates physical, spatial, temporal, plant, and animal energies 2. AURA (or radiation) explores cultural-virtual energies 3. ASSEMBLAGE (or kinetics) investigates energies arising from arrangements and contraptions The project uses a cross-disciplinary methodology - philosophical and cultural analysis, case studies, artography (performative, visual and auto-ethnographic techniques), and 3D visualisation in order to: a) map the dynamics of acknowledged and subtle energy transformations; b) generate new insights into non-manifest energy channels; c) re-appraise the value of artistic and marginalised cultural energy practices, and their relationship to mainstream energy practices; and d) produce both theoretical and practical, actionable knowledge of building, making, arranging, transforming, propelling and remediating.