Moises Ramirez: I am a researcher based out of New York. Currently, I am working on a dissertation at European Graduate School on the question of articulating a systematic definition of impresence. My graduate education (M.A. in Philosophy w/concentration in Psychoanalytic Studies + M.A. in Psychology – both from the New School for Social Research) have never lost sight of this question and most of my papers have taken on some fragment or angle towards asking whether there exists a space between presence and absence. Further, I hope that defining such a place or space to inform subjectivity while remaining contingent of the real, surreal, and the virtual.
Proposal:
The nature of my theoretical project revolves around the affective origin of the interface, computational linguistics, psychoanalysis, and the virtual /spatial economic subjectivity of the flaneur worker. At stake is the re-definition of metaphysics towards a molecular and scientific understanding of the space between presence and absence, which I am terming as impresence. The work will be an attempt to make a systematized definition of impresence. The goal of this work is provide a philosophical system to the concept of impresence. A preliminary hypothetical definition is that impresence is the existential and active space between presence and absence. I predict that there is a mode of cognition for both object and subject in relation to the separation of a constitute whole into fragments. One may think of the gestalt of a table that suddenly loses an essential component to its figure, e.g. one leg, and for a moment the atomic/static configuration does not recognize this loss and sustains the table-as-a-whole against the will of gravity from falling. This simultaneous suspension and upholding of the figure of the table is one instance of what I am calling a materialist and molecular definition of impresence. Before achieving this materialist definition, there will be an existential and metaphysical analysis. There are three iterations of impresence in this work. I) The Photograph; II) The Anti-Monument; III) The Interface; IV) Anti-memories. These divisions will organize the foundations of a systematic attempt at a multi-modal definition of impresence. During the Posthuman lab I hope to develop specifically the chapter of my dissertation relating to interfaces and the origins of mediated desires through technology and algorithm. Taking into account the neuroscience of perception and memory construction and recall. The second part of this question is whether the psychoanalytic model can successfully intervene symptoms when the analyst is substituted with an entirely computational and virtual model to be used as a program in virtual reality. Visual communication and audible presence are again taken into light regarding the virtual presence of the absent analyst. While the work to be done has existential and metaphysical undertones, furthermore the physiological and psychological elements not invoked by material and immaterial architecture will be analyzed through the instances of touch and proximity. Arguments from Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy pertaining to presence and touch leading up to a discussion on the interface and virtuality. Virtuality of the self will be modeled on not only ordinary life but also the role of the interface and subjectivity on interface-mediated transactions of the flaneur-worker and the psychoanalyst. The spatial interaction between the environment and the subject in the context of the psychodynamic processes of analytic intervention will be considered. Is tele-therapy and remote practice productive/conducive to transference? Can the unconscious be summoned or otherwise activated to participate with(out) the immediate physical presence of the psychoanalyst in the room? Without such need of psychodynamic nurturing of the psychoanalytic intervention can an accelerated analysis be provided with the algorithmic replacement of the physical and practical analyst? If the presence of the analyst can be substituted for a virtualized presence, can we further push the possibility for complete substitution of the encounter with the analyst and analysand with a machinic and algorithmic replacement mediated by the holographic and computational linguistic technologies of today? Can a machinic distillation of therapeutic artificial intellect that can substitute the presence of the analyste in modes of therapy that are transference-based? Is the immediate and direct material presence of the analyst and his/her office necessary for this type of therapy to take place?
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