Michael Kurtov

Kurtov, M. (2023). Russia and Europe: The Culture of Breakages and the Culture of Repairs. Technology and Language, 4(2), 116-127.

The article uses the method of technotheological analysis to study the differences between the cultures of Russia and Western Europe. The analysis consists in identifying the techno-religious Gestalt, that is, the relationship between the religious background and the things against that background, which is considered as the basis of culture. In order to examine culture in this light, a compact conceptual language can express this unity. Breakages and repairs are such concepts. From a religious perspective, things can break in two ways. There are "this-worldly" breakages which are those that can potentially be repaired: Minor Breakages. And there are "other-worldly" breakages, that is, those that are unrepairable: Major Breakages. Major and Minor Breakages and Repairs form a quadrant of concepts which serve to highlight the specificity of Russian and Western European cultures. Russian culture can be correlated with the culture of breakdowns, the Western European culture is a culture of repairs: They are technotheologically inverse to each other and are in a relation of chiasm. On the one hand, there is a lack of fear of Major Breakage along with the expectation of Major Repairs, with attention to Minor Breakages and no care of Minor Repairs. On the other hand, there is fear of Major Breakages and inattention to Minor Breakages coupled with skill in Minor Repairs and disbelief in the possibility of Major Repairs. This contrast can be exemplified in the thinking of the Russian avant-garde.

Being inside the Wind: Lubitsch's «Cluny Brown». Analysis of the film by Ernst Lubitsch through the lense of Gaston Bachelard's psychoanalysis of the Elements.

Анализ фильма Эрнста Любича «Клуни Браун» сквозь призму психоанализа стихий Гастона Башляра. Статья опубликована на сайте журнала «Сеанс» (27.12.2002). URL: https://seance.ru/articles/lubitsch-touch/

In this paper, we consider the problem of boredom experienced in the cinema halls. We try to reassess it and accord to it a "positive" meaning: the very conditions of the movie viewing predispose to boredom (cinematic ethos). This, however, contradicts the proclaimed goal of the cinema: to entertain (cinematic telos). We argue that the ontology of cinema is based on the discord between its telos and its ethos. The general line of the evolution of cinema consists in the development of the means of entertaining. Films that deviate from this line are called "boring". Thus, we find a non-sociological criterion for delineating so-called "popular" movies from so-called "indie": this is the attitude of filmmakers towards boredom. The pervasiveness of boredom in the cinema halls is explained by the historical and metaphysical connection of boredom with Modern industrial technology. Cinema, being the first institution and art born of industrial technology, is phenomenologically constituted by the experience of boredom. In the end we briefly discuss various methods that the filmmakers use to induce boredom in the spectator. "Boring" films paradoxically appear to be the only ones capable to "heal" from boredom, while the "entertaining" films just divert from it.

Crisis and Critique. Volume 7 / Issue 2, 22-07-2020

Dialogue on Deep Learning as Alchemical Opus

The paper offers a detailed comparative analysis of the ontologies and knowledge paradigms behind the Deep Learning (DL) and the Renaissance sciences, such as alchemy and astrology. We argue that these domains of knowledge have much in common and can be viewed as homological (structurally equivalent). Such a comparison helps to redefine the problem of interpretability of artificial neural networks (ANNs).

Куртов, Михаил. Диалог о глубинном обучении как алхимическом делании // Синий диван. Под ред. Е. Петровской. 2019. №23. C. 90-124.

The Purple Enlightenment (Logos, book 1, #4, vol. 29, 2019, pp. 168-181)

The article (which is a part of the collective article Seven Compact Essays on Color) addresses a revision of Goethe’s theory of color based on new physical experiments and on the logical geometry of colour and then arrives at a critique of contemporary chromo-ideology.

Keywords: Goethe; optics; Enlightenment; geometry of opposition; purple.

Куртов М. Пурпурное Просвещение / Семь фрагментов о цвете // Логос. 2019. Тетрадь 1, Том 29, №4. С. 168-181.

The Introduction of Color into Knowledge (Logos, book 1, #4, vol. 29, 2019, pp. 132-140)

The article (which is a part of the collective article Seven Compact Essays on Color) raises the question of the applicability of colorization to knowledge (in the same sense in which achromatic properties, such as light and dark, are conventionally applied to knowledge) and introduces a schema of "color knowledge", that has four dimensions: luminosity, resolution, saturation, and hue.

Keywords: Enlightenment; color; lightness; definition; saturation

Куртов М. Введение цвета в знание / Семь фрагментов о цвете // Логос. 2019. Тетрадь 1, Том 29, №4. С. 132-140.

This article examines the origin of the concept of medium and of media theory as an area of knowledge. It claims that the concept of medium in the modern sense was first introduced in the works of German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. Attempting to re-read Feuerbach’s texts to reveal his original methodology and to “scrub” it of prevailing (mainly Hegelian and Marxist) interpretations, the author briefly traces the impact of this method— defined as a combination of three operations: an “inversion,” a determination of “material means,” and a “translation”—on the development of post-Feuerbachian thought. The question of “material means” is central to Feuerbach’s critical project and is directly linked to a “translation” procedure. Considered together, these two essentially coincide with the questions of medium and mediation as they are presented in media theory (particularly in Marshall McLuhan and Régis Debray). In conclusion, the author discusses the theological background of the concept of medium and introduces the concept of a “cultural Filioque.”

Mikhail A. Kurtov (2019) “Whence the Means?” Ludwig Feuerbach and the
Origin of Media Theory, Russian Studies in Philosophy, 57:2, 128-154
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10611967.2019.1628570

A comparison of Russian and Western European cultures in the technotheological perspective, basing on the first introduced concepts of the Small and Big Breakdowns and Repairs. Аn extension of the article "Russia: Hypernoncoincidence" (https://www.academia.edu/27314013/).

Cette communication retrace l’évolution des lignées techniques des langages de programmation à la lumière de la théorie de l’opération de Simondon. La nature des abstractions dans l’informatique, par contraste avec celles des mathématiques, est ainsi éclaircie : les premières privilégient l’opération, les secondes la structure. La notion de paradigme de programmation est redéfinie rigoureusement comme étant la représentation générale du dualisme opération/structure au moyen d’une abstraction technique primaire qui les connecte. Les abstractions primaires des différents paradigmes (variable, fonction, objet) interviennent comme modulateurs au sens simondonien. L’évolution des abstractions informatiques est enfin comparée à celle des abstractions métaphysiques. Nous aboutissons à l’hypothèse d’une récapitulation opératoire dans l’informatique.

Gilbert Simondon et l'Invention du futur. Colloque de Cerisy. Dir. par V. Bontems. Klincksieck, 2015. P. 255-260.

Логос. 2016. №4. С. 95-118.

Popodicy. A Technnotheological Reading of Popular Music

This paper provides a genetic analysis of popular music from both the technical and religious perspectives. Tht phenomenon of popular music is thought to be based on a sound record that is regarded as a medium in three ways: 1) as a techno-economic artifact (medium), 2) as a carrier of a love text (mediator), and 3) as a part of everyday life (milieu). The author traces the theological origin of these three concepts (medium, love, the everyday). For this purpose, the author introduces the notion of translation, which is the main tool of technotheological analysis. The history of translation from Young Hegelians to media theory is briefly explored. In the era of late industrialization, the techno-economic medium and the everyday both appear as a complete translation of theological content and love as its incomplete translation, or a “theological residue.”
Love is not fully translated (disenchanted, rationalized), and it thus becomes a key text (message) of pop culture media. The function of love being transmitted by means of sound media is the “bearing” of the everyday, the defense from it, whereas the anthropotheotechnical function of popular music in general is the stimulation of the will under conditions of “death” or “weakness of God.” The convergence of the technological, the economic, and the religious in a sound record is made possible by a unifying technotheological scheme. In order to replicate, love as theological residue parasitically exploits pop culture artifacts, while the economic and theological dimensions of pop media are symbiotic. The final beneficiary of both parasitism and symbiosis is capital, but the possibility of obtaining economic benefis stems from a certain theological construct, namely the technotheological scheme of filioque (“pop culture filioque”).

В статье предпринимается попытка рассматривать понятие техники как эквивокальное (омонимическое). На основе метаантропологии Жильбера Симондона выдвигается гипотеза, согласно которой означивание технического осуществляется за счет взаимных отсылок серии технических означающих и серии религиозных означающих как двух параллельных омонимических рядов. Знание о человеке с Античности и до наших дней переинтерпретируется как обусловленное отношением технической и религиозной мысли, или как надстройка над технотеологическим базисом. Всего выделяется четыре этапа эволюции этого базиса, или четыре технотеологические сборки (древнегреческая, христианская, просветительская и младогегельянская), и дается их краткое описание. Под углом метаантропологии переосмысляется и судьба гуманитарных наук.