Strange Assemblage

This paper contends that the power of Deleuze & Guattari’s (1988) notion of assemblage as theorised in 1000 Plateaus can be normalised and reductive with reference to its application to any social-cultural context where an open system of dynamic and fluid elements are located. Rather than determining the assemblage in this way, this paper argues for an alternative conception of ‘strange assemblage’ that must be deliberately and consciously created through rigorous and focused intellectual, creative and philosophical work around what makes assemblages singular. The paper will proceed with examples of ‘strange assemblage’ taken from a film by Peter Greenaway (A Zed and 2 Noughts); the film ‘Performance’; educational research with Sudanese families in Australia; the book, Bomb Culture by Jeff Nuttall (1970); and the band Hawkwind. Fittingly, these elements are themselves chosen to demonstrate the concept of ‘strange assemblage’, and how it can be presented. How exactly the elements of a ‘strange assemblage’ come together and work in the world is unknown until they are specifically elaborated and created ‘in the moment’. Such spontaneous methodology reminds us of the 1960s ‘Happenings’, the Situationist International and Dada/Surrealism. The difference that will be opened up by this paper is that all elements of this ‘strange assemblage’ cohere in terms of a rendering of ‘the unacceptable.'

Benthic Foraminiferal response to sea level change in the mixed siliciclastic-carbonate system of southern Ashmore Trough (Gulf of Papua)

Ashmore Trough in the western Gulf of Papua (GoP) represents an outstanding modern example of a tropical mixed siliciclastic-carbonate depositional system where significant masses of both river-borne silicates and bank-derived neritic carbonates accumulate. In this study, we examine how benthic foraminiferal populations within Ashmore Trough vary in response to sea level–driven paleoenvironmental changes, particularly organic matter and sediment supply. Two 11.3-m-long piston cores and a trigger core were collected from the slope of Ashmore Trough and dated using radiocarbon and oxygen isotope measurements of planktic foraminifera. Relative abundances, principal component analyses, and cluster analyses of benthic foraminiferal assemblages in sediment samples identify three distinct assemblages whose proportions changed over time. Assemblage 1, with high abundances of Uvigerina peregrina and Bolivina robusta, dominated between ∼83 and 70 ka (early regression); assemblage 2, with high abundances of Globocassidulina subglobosa, dominated between ∼70 and 11 ka (late regression through lowstand and early transgression); and assemblage 3, with high abundances of neritic benthic species such as Planorbulina mediterranensis, dominated from ∼11 ka to the present (late transgression through early highstand). Assemblage 1 represents heightened organic carbon flux or lowered bottom water oxygen concentration, and corresponds to a time of maximum siliciclastic fluxes to the slope with falling sea level. Assemblage 2 reflects lowered organic carbon flux or elevated bottom water oxygen concentration, and corresponds to an interval of lowered siliciclastic fluxes to the slope due to sediment bypass during sea level lowstand. Assemblage 3 signals increased off-shelf delivery of neritic carbonates, likely when carbonate productivity on the outer shelf (Great Barrier Reef) increased significantly when it was reflooded. Benthic foraminiferal assemblages in the sediment sink (slopes of Ashmore Trough) likely respond to the amount and type of sediment supplied from the proximal source (outer GoP shelf)

Discomfort food : how a market for synthetic foods is being assembled : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Images redacted from thesis due to copyright reasonsThis research follows the discursive productions of human actors in an assemblage that is creating a market for Synthetic Foods. This assemblage, which includes human actants referred to here as The Movement, is represented in two major empirical themes. First it is demonstrated how The Movement is attempting to immaterially disassemble conventional Animal Agriculture, by discursively cleaving it from the notion that it produces natural foods. Second it is shown how The Movement is constructing a new market for natural foods, where animal products are made without animals. The non-human actors of this assemblage are said to be enrolled but this belies the multiple levels of negotiation that are yet to take place. Through collecting and analysing the media productions of The Movement, the discursive performances and relational spaces that constitute this assemblage can be traced. Through tracing these material and immaterial practices the main argument developed here is that a market for Synthetic Foods is being culturally assembled in a series of discursive productions. The Movements discursive texts show an attempt to both, requalify what natural foods are said to be and then to simultaneously create a spectacle that fixes the identities of actors that supposedly produce them. This can be understood using a Cultural Economy approach which extends the argument by demonstrating that this market assemblage recombines nature with its binary other, culture, in a new way, to form a differently constituted world

Analysis of the Ceramic Sherds from Area C at the Ware Acres Site (41GG31), Gregg County, Texas

The Ware Acres site (410031) was discovered by Buddy Calvin Jones in 1951 on an alluvial terrace of Grace Creek, a southern-flowing tributary to the Sabine River in the southwestern part of the city of Longview, Texas. The site is best known for Jones\u27 discovery and excavation of an eighteenth century Caddo burial with an abundance of European trade goods. However, Jones also investigated other parts of the site, which contained extensive Caddo habitation deposits, especially one area at the southern part of the site that had Late Caddo Titus phase midden deposits and remnants of house structures. A large assemblage of ceramic sherds were collected from this area, and although Jones indicated that a complete analysis of them will be given in a later report, this was never done. This article presents an analysis of these ceramic sherds, primarily to put the ceramic assemblage findings from this important East Texas site on record. The stylistic attributes and known ceramic types in the Ware Acres assemblage are also compared to the ceramic assemblage from the Pine Tree Mound site, as the Ware Acres site may be a component of the Pine Tree Mound Titus phase community found in the middle reaches of the Sabine River basin

Comparison of species richness of light trap-collected caddisfly assemblages (Insecta: Trichoptera) using rarefaction

ConselVation value of light trap-collected caddisfly assemblages(Insecta: Trichoptera) was evaluated on the basis of their species richness. The assemblage coming from an artificial stream showed a higher conservation value based on species richness than the natural ones. In contrast, using rarefaction, the conservation value of the assemblage in the artificial stream was lower in comparison with assemblages in natural habitats. Further examples are given to demonstrate the importance of rarefaction in comparing species richness of assemblages

Star Architecture as Socio-Material Assemblage

Taking inspiration from new materialism and assemblage, the chapter deals with star architects and iconic buildings as socio-material network effects that do not pre-exist action, but are enacted in practice, in the materiality of design crafting and city building. Star architects are here conceptualized as part of broader assemblages of actors and practices ‘making star architecture’ a reality, and the buildings they design are considered not just as unique and iconic objects, but dis-articulated as complex crafts mobilizing skills, technologies, materials, and forms of knowledge not necessarily ascribable to architecture. Overcoming narrow criticism focusing on the symbolic order of icons as unique creations and alienated repetitions of capitalist development, the chapter’s main aim is to widen the scope of critique by bridging culture and economy, symbolism and practicality, making star architecture available to a broad, fragmented arena of (potential) critics, unevenly equipped with critical tools and differentiated experiences

Afterberners: An Assemblage of Nouns

The English language owes a debt of gratitude of Dame Juliana Berners. She was born circa 1388 and is believed to have been the prioress of a nunnery near St. Albans, Hertforshire, England. Her major contribution to literature is The Boke of St. Albans, a treatise on hawking, hunting and heraldry first published in 1486

Taxonomy and palaeoecology of continental Gastropoda (Mollusca) from the Late Pleistocene mammoth-bearing site of Bullendorf in NE Austria

We present a taxonomic and palaeoecological analysis of a continental mollusc fauna from a mammoth-bearing succession near Bullendorf in Lower Austria. The taxonomic analysis comprises morphological descriptions and SEM documentation of 15 Pleistocene gastropod species. A Principal Component Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative composition of the investigated samples reveals a stratigraphic succession of four mollusc assemblages defined herein as Galba truncatula assemblage, Succinella oblonga assemblage, Pupilla muscorum/loessica and Pupilla alpicola/sterrii assemblages. The autecological requirements of the species of each assemblage allow a reconstruction of the palaeoenvironmental history of the section with alternating dry and humid conditions within a general cooling trend. Despite generally low mollusc density and species richness, the Bullendorf site allows important insight into latest Quaternary regional environmental conditions and climate. Based on the comparison with similar mollusc sites across Europe, a biostratigraphic correlation with the Late Pleistocene (~110\u201312 ka) is propose

The Shell of the Tortoise: Four Essays & an Assemblage by Don McKay

Review of The Shell of the Tortoise: Four Essays & an Assemblage by Don McKay

The sexuality assemblage: Desire, affect, anti-humanism

Two theoretical moves are required to resist the ‘humanist enticements’ associated with sexuality. Post-structuralism supplies the first, showing how the social produces culturally-specific sexual knowledgeabilities. A second anti-humanist move is then needed to overturn anthropocentric privileging of the human body and subject as the locus of sexuality. In this paper we establish a language and landscape for a Deleuze inspired anti-humanist sociology of sexuality that shifts the location of sexuality away from bodies and individuals. Sexuality in this view is an impersonal affective flow within assemblages of bodies, things, ideas and social institutions, which produces sexual (and other) capacities in bodies. Assemblages territorialise bodies’ desire, setting limits on what it can do: this process determines the shape of sexuality, which is consequently both infinitely variable and typically highly restricted. We illustrate how this anti-humanist ontology may be applied to empirical data to explore sexualityassemblages, and conclude by exploring the theoretical and methodological advantages and disadvantages of an anti-humanist assemblage approach to sexuality