Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter.
“The notion of thing-power aims instead to attend to the it as actant; —— an active, earthy, not-quite-human capaciousness (vibrant matter) (p.3)”
“Human power is itself a kind of thing-power. (p.10)”
“We are walking, talking minerals. (p.11)”
“Assemblages are ad hoc groupings of diverse elements, of vibrant materials of all sorts. Assemblages are living, throbbing confederations that are able to function. (p.23)”
“The effects generated by an assemblage are, rather, emergent properties, emergent in that their ability to make something happen (a newly inflected materialism, a blackout, a hurricane, a war on terror) is distinct from the sum of the vital force of each materiality considered alone. (p.24)”
“It is ultimately a matter of political judgment what is more needed today: should we acknowledge the distributive quality of agency to address the power of human-nonhuman assemblages and to resist a politics of blame? Or should we persist with a strategic understatement of material agency in the hopes of enhancing the accountability of specific humans? (p.38)”
📷: an assemblage that emerged on st johns street