#TREM (The (Re)Enchantment Machine) --- SynTalk

Published: Jan. 3, 2015, 7:30 p.m.

SynTalk thinks about the disenchantment of the world, & wonders if it is possible for there to be multiple metaphysics for the connection between human beings and nature. Is there always something in excess of what we know & experience? We discuss disenchantment and re-enchantment via contexts of boredom, capitalism, death, art, lullabies, adivasis, rag-picking, '\u200btuning of a tanpura\u200b'\u200b, pilgrimages, sparrows, \u2018a tree growing\u2019\u200b, & more\u200b. The concepts are derived off / from Kant, Marx, Weber, Adorno, Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Dagar Brothers, & Bhimsen Joshi, among others. Is disenchantment necessarily morally pessimistic? \u200bHow has the desire to create one's own reality and the 'cult of certainty' impacted the possibility of multiple realities & (sometimes) \u2018non-epistemic\u2019 routes? Is the disenchanted route almost always a \u2018personal\u2019 choice or is it an unequal battle? Is boredom a result of thinking about life in \u2018just\u2019 one way? Is one man\u2019s enchantment another man\u2019s bicycle? How disenchantment is an outcome (potentially) of the ascendancy of theory over observation? Is the process of re-enchantment also often compatible with the logic of capitalism, and how it is possible to live a partly liminal life? Can art still say something that truly surprises us? Is it even possible to interrogate the dominant logic of describing the world? Can an enchanted world be substituted, bought, or bracketed by something else? Is the digital world a source of enchantment? Why are we afraid of getting bored? How a \u20182-person system\u2019 is the basic instrument for re-enchantment. Is it possible to imagine a world where every logic is not subservient to the logic of the economy? Is it possible to think of a life which is neither controlled by the State nor entirely vanquished by death? Do we have to take our death less seriously? The SynTalkrs are: Prof. Bishnu Mohapatra (social theory, poetry, Azim Premji University, Bangalore), & Prof. Milind Sohoni (computer science, technology & development, IITB, Mumbai).