Artwork © Latrell (@latrells_art)
Friday, January 17, 2025
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Chronicles of the Galaxy
Conjuncture and revolution
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 15, 2025
It is a fact we should never tire of meditating upon that one of the key terms of our political vocabulary — revolution — was taken from astronomy, where it designates the motion of a planet around its orbit. But also another term which, in the general tendency characteristic of our time to replace political categories with economic ones, has taken the place of revolution, comes from the astronomical lexicon. We mean to refer to the term “conjuncture”, to which Davide Stimilli called attention in an exemplary study of his.
This term, which designates “the phase of the economic cycle which economic activity goes through in a given period of short duration”, is in reality a modification of the term “conjunction”, which means the coincidence of the positions of several stars at a certain time.
Stimilli cites the passage from Warburg’s eassay on Pagan Antique Prophecy in Words and Images in the Age of Luther, in which conjunction and revolution are juxtaposed: “Only at long intervals, known as revolutions, were such conjunctions to be expected. Great and greatest conjunctions were systematically distinguished: the latter, stellia of all three superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, were the most perilous of all, but were very infrequent. The more planets there were in the conjunction, the more alarming it was, although those known as benefics might exert a moderating influence on the malefics”. And it is significant that a revolutionary just like Auguste Blanqui, disappointed in his expectations, at the end of his life, got to conceive human history as something that, like the motion of the stars, repeats itself infinitely and eternally recites the same representations.
What is now happening before our eyes is just such a phenomenon, in which an economic conjuncture that by its nature is contingent and arbitrary seeks to impose its terrifying dominion over the whole social life. It would be well, then, to drop, without reservations, the nexus between politics and stars and sever all bonds which claim to bind together astronomical destiny and revolution, necessity and economic conjuncture, natural sciences and politics. Politics is not inscribed in the celestial spheres or in the laws of economics: it is in our weak hands and in the lucidity with which we deny any claim to imprison them in conjunctures and revolutions.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 15, 2025
It is a fact we should never tire of meditating upon that one of the key terms of our political vocabulary — revolution — was taken from astronomy, where it designates the motion of a planet around its orbit. But also another term which, in the general tendency characteristic of our time to replace political categories with economic ones, has taken the place of revolution, comes from the astronomical lexicon. We mean to refer to the term “conjuncture”, to which Davide Stimilli called attention in an exemplary study of his.
This term, which designates “the phase of the economic cycle which economic activity goes through in a given period of short duration”, is in reality a modification of the term “conjunction”, which means the coincidence of the positions of several stars at a certain time.
Stimilli cites the passage from Warburg’s eassay on Pagan Antique Prophecy in Words and Images in the Age of Luther, in which conjunction and revolution are juxtaposed: “Only at long intervals, known as revolutions, were such conjunctions to be expected. Great and greatest conjunctions were systematically distinguished: the latter, stellia of all three superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, were the most perilous of all, but were very infrequent. The more planets there were in the conjunction, the more alarming it was, although those known as benefics might exert a moderating influence on the malefics”. And it is significant that a revolutionary just like Auguste Blanqui, disappointed in his expectations, at the end of his life, got to conceive human history as something that, like the motion of the stars, repeats itself infinitely and eternally recites the same representations.
What is now happening before our eyes is just such a phenomenon, in which an economic conjuncture that by its nature is contingent and arbitrary seeks to impose its terrifying dominion over the whole social life. It would be well, then, to drop, without reservations, the nexus between politics and stars and sever all bonds which claim to bind together astronomical destiny and revolution, necessity and economic conjuncture, natural sciences and politics. Politics is not inscribed in the celestial spheres or in the laws of economics: it is in our weak hands and in the lucidity with which we deny any claim to imprison them in conjunctures and revolutions.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Jane Fonda in Roger Vadim’s 1968 science fiction cult film Barbarella. Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images. |
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Basically
9m88, a queen of soul with a pose à la Sharon Stone, with her enchanted, solemn cadences knows how to make winter a springful of blossoms. Photo: KKLIVE x 爵士寶貝提供 (Jazz Baby Co.). |
Monday, January 13, 2025
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Diorama
China’s first-ever (and only) Olympic gold medalist in tennis, 郑钦文 (Zhèng Qīnwén), dubbed “Queen Wén” by admirers and fans, was announced last Thursday, January 9, 2025, as new global brand ambassador for Dior. Video: 时尚编辑Mars (Fashion Editor Mars). |
Friday, January 10, 2025
Hit a Grand Slam
居文君 (Jū Wénjūn), the first Chinese woman to win all three World Chess Championship titles in classical, rapid and blitz time controls, enjoyed a triumphant homecoming by 上海 (Shànghǎi)’s highest authorities on Thursday, January 9, 2025. Such a celebration must be regarded as a reassuring signal for her, in view of the next Women’s World Chess Championship which will kick off at April in 上海 (Shànghǎi), when she will have to defend her title against 谭中怡 (Tán Zhōngyí).
In the pictures above 居文君 (Jū Wénjūn)’s being warmly welcomed in her native 普陀区 (Pǔtuó District) by her fellow citizens. Photos: 佳斌 (Jiā Bīn). |
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Spring Rain
「9m88 2025 春季巡迴：我只想唱歌給你聽 ☂︎ 」
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Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Numbers and Stories
The number of the slain
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 7, 2025
Again, and always, we should meditate on the passage from the Apocalypse (6, 9–11) which reads: “And when (the lamb) had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?’. And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants and also their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled”.
History will not end and the final judgment will not be pronounced until the number of the righteous killed is fulfilled. Is this perhaps what is happening around us? And how many more righteous must be killed before we see them dying every day? To be sure, history is story of wars, deaths and killings. But the meaning of the opening of the fifth seal is not that, in the time we are living in, we have to wait inertly for the number of the killed to be fulfilled. Even if the newspapers do nothing but count them every day, we do not know what the number is, just as we do not know when the judgment will take place and if it will ever take place. We live in an intermediate time and, like those who were slaughtered, we must testify to what we see and what we believe. Before the number of the slain is fulfilled, this and nothing else is our task.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 7, 2025
Again, and always, we should meditate on the passage from the Apocalypse (6, 9–11) which reads: “And when (the lamb) had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?’. And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants and also their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled”.
History will not end and the final judgment will not be pronounced until the number of the righteous killed is fulfilled. Is this perhaps what is happening around us? And how many more righteous must be killed before we see them dying every day? To be sure, history is story of wars, deaths and killings. But the meaning of the opening of the fifth seal is not that, in the time we are living in, we have to wait inertly for the number of the killed to be fulfilled. Even if the newspapers do nothing but count them every day, we do not know what the number is, just as we do not know when the judgment will take place and if it will ever take place. We live in an intermediate time and, like those who were slaughtered, we must testify to what we see and what we believe. Before the number of the slain is fulfilled, this and nothing else is our task.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Enrico Baj, Vieni qua biondina, 1959. Courtesy of Artuu.
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