Manuel De Landa - Videos
06/18/2011
Length: 1:31:48
Manuel De Landa, philosopher, artist and author, talking about the ontology of Aristotle and Gilles Deleuze. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa discusses metaphysics, universality, particularity, generality, singularity, realism, mathematics, and social science in relationship to Leonhard Euler, Kurt Gödel, Henri Poincaré and Michel Foucault focusing on a priori truths, virtual capacities, affects, differential calculus, necessity and contingency. European Graduate School EGS
Length: 2:20:39
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, talking about the trajectory of his intensive 2 week seminar "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" at USC school of Architecture. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa discusses history of philosophy, its consequential and contextual relevance, and its different temporal scales. More specifically, Manuel De Landa discusses the fundamentals of philosophy of urban history in social context, focused on the varied heterogenous processes, stressing particular urban examples instead of vague generalities such as “society” or “capitalism”. Introducing the concept of Ontological Commitment, or, claims of existence, Manuel De Landa frames the foundations from which to challenge basic assumptions and presuppositions of fundamental philosophical categories of Idealism, Purisism, Realism. Manuel De Landa reviews the course aims, introducing students to two important areas of contemporary thought: The new theories of material self-organization, including nonlinear dynamics and far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, needed to ground a materialist conception of urban dynamics. USC School of Architecture. 2011
Length: 2:51:20
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, talks about market economy and 'capitalism'. In this lecture, Manuel De Lande examines the continuum between individuals and societies ranging from social entities smaller than cities (communities, organizations) to larger ones (provinces, nation states). He discusses the fundamental typology of urban centers extrapolating the functions of two different activities, one from centralized decision making the other from multiple decisions made in a decentralized way. The former tends to serve as capital or organizing center of hierarchy of towns while the other may provide a gateway to foreign markets and transnational network. Bridging the gap between private entrepreneurship, corporate competition and market economy, Manuel De Landa maps out the networks of hierarchy within various systems and subsystems as reflected in the industrial, organizational and corporate networks of the urban centers, otherwise known as 'capitalism'. Third lecture of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC school of Architecture. 2011
Length: 2:34:31
Manuel de Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, talking about theories of assemblages and social holds, communities and organizations as recursive systems generating irreducible and interactive emergent properties. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa emphasizes that any micro-level of understanding is necessarily dependent on assemblages' part-to-whole relations, in particular, interpersonal networks as co-existing alongside these communal systems. He introduces the structure of these systems with the concept of legitimacies comprised of traditions, narrative, and bureaocracies, as producing particular emergent interactions, activities and feedback loops within the domain of their physical properties or spaces such as urban regions. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa focuses on Western urban dynamics and its varied self-stimulating processes providing historical evidence that the rise of Europe was a contingent achievement that may not have taken place at all. Second lecture of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC school of Architecture.
Length: 2:18:23
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, talks about variation distribution, memes (patterns of behavior transmitted by imitation) and norms (patterns of behavior transmitted through social obligations) distinguishing between population vs. variation, genes vs. memes, language replicators, sounds, words and syntactical phonemes. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa discusses the evolution and survival of languages; the history of dialects' variation distribution and social linguistics and the role the urban dynamics played in their development. Specifically, Professor De Landa focuses on the emergence of current languages from early in the millennium, as urban centers proliferated all over Europe, when Latin, which had been imposed throughout the Continent by Roman rule, had already diverged into many Romance dialects. In the context of the acceleration of urbanization after the year 1000 spelling and writing systems appeared and it was these that gave the vernaculars a more or less permanent identity. Seventh lecture of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011
Length: 2:45:31
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, speaks about the exploration of the history of human diseases and their impact on social institutions. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa discusses the historical development of specifically urban infectious diseases playing a central role. He talks about vertical flow, selective breeding, flow control as redirecting of biomass in plants from humanly inedible to edible parts inheritable to the next generation, gene flow, simulation of evolution a metaphor for the immune system and genetic replicators. Manuel De Landa emphasizes the tight packing of people and domesticated animals, characteristic of dense urban centers, as creating conditions for the stabilization of the relation between microorganisms and their hosts, and for the evolution of new variants of those microorganisms. This turns cities into veritable epidemiological laboratories, creating the variants of the diseases (such as small pox or measles) that played a key role in facilitating colonialism. Sixth lecture of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011.
Length: 2:28:29
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, discusses urban and natural ecosystems, focusing on urban centers' many different relations with organic entities. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa discusses cities' outgrowth of countrysides, as the primary food supply zones, to a biomass circulation of ecosystems through trade, colonialism and conquest. In addition to food growth, Manuel De Landa discusses production of human supply from rural to the city, at a time when death rates exceeded birth rates in the city (only until the 19th century did urban centers become net producers of people). This is in juxtaposition to the mass production of food from trade contributing to stimulation of population growth. Manuel De Landa differentiates intensive from extensive agriculture, citing ecological theorist Alfred Crosby, concluding with the evolution of different products and foods, or, flow of biomass, whose value were a reflection of reproductions, migrations, slavery, colonizations of various populations. Fifth lecture of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011.
Length: 2:38:38
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, continues the exploration of economic dynamics with a few case studies. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa provides examples of two industrial hinterlands closely linked to cities, Silicon Valley and Route 128, examining their different dynamics contrasted later developing into a contemporary context as used to examine the rest of the millennium. He then concludes emphasizing the history of economies of scale is examined to show the role that military organizations (arsenals, armories) played in their rise and eventual domination of urban economics. Fourth lecture of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011.
Length: 1:13:17
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, traces the emergence of the self from the coherence of various socio-economic scales. In this lecture, Professor De Landa speaks about the largest scale, the military and its origins, in Italy, as a systematized commercialization of violence. Specifically, he focuses on Siege warfare producing the profession of military engineer (and architect) concerned with the design of engines of war and defense of cities through fortified walls. Manuel De Landa emphasizes the period of 1494 when wall design mutated drastically from a principle of defense through height, to one of defense in depth, involving a complex system of bastions, ditches and low walls. Ninth Lecture of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011.
Length: 2:23:08
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, talks about various modes and evolution of transportation between and among cities. He emphasizes the distinction between maritime metropolises and landlocked capitals as intimately related to the speed of transport. Specifically, Manuel De Landa analogizes the energy of atmosphere-hydrosphere coupling with the steam engine coupled to the locomotive which led to new urban forms in the 19th century, like the beadlike strings of towns that grew around train stations in the nineteenth century. He concludes with the internal combustion engine and the spread of the automobile as giving suburbs the impetus they needed to overcome central cities as the fastest growing settlements by the 1920?s. Eighth lecture, day 2, of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011
Length: 1:44:13
Manuel De Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, talks about simulations of Darwinian Evolution, in the computer, and their use as an aid or tool in the architectural design process. He discusses genetic algorithms, genetic programming and search algorithms in the creative architectural space of possibilities. He emphasizes relevant relations as a creative act, engaging from the parametric into procedural design. Manuel De Landa introduces John Koza's concept of genetic programming, specifically, how to design programs that generate analogue electrical circuits to ensure the matching of human creativity. He focuses on behaviorism training technique, as successfully applied with Neural Nets, demonstrating how pattern recognition training incites relevant criteria of similarity. Eighth lecture, day 1, of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011.
Length: 1:18:46
Manuel de Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, continues his discussion of computer simulations used to model city life. In this lecture, Manuel De Landa differentiates standard mathematical models of “bottom-up” from “top-down”; meaning, they do not begin with a small set of equations to capture the dynamics of a city as a whole, but instead begin at the bottom, with a population of decision-making citizens. Manuel Delanda focuses on the specificities of neural networks, distinguishing "knowing that" from "knowing how", (connectionism), the latter being of Humian tradition. He discusses the "know how" of pattern recognition, emphasizing memory, rather than representation, stored in connections. Manuel De Landa concludes ascertains that connectionism is and will be replacing symbolic artificial intelligence, driven by design. Tenth Lecture, second half, of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011.
Length: 1:13:50
Manuel de Landa, media artist, programmer and software designer, concludes the series of lectures discussing practical applications from theories of urban dynamics. In this lecture, Manuel de Landa reiterates the discursive and recursive reverberations between emergence of the whole and its component parts. Specifically, Manuel De Landa maps out the assumptions and alternatives of theory of mind for a closer match to materialism. He differentiates between Hume and Kant, exploring two radically different approaches to Artificial Intelligence (Symbolic and Connectionist AI) and how they can be used to model urban dynamics in a computer. Tenth Lecture, first half, of "Theories of Self-Organization and Dynamics of Cities" seminar at USC School of Architecture. 2011.
La participación de Manuel se centró en exponer un materialismo deleuziano aplicado al arte, a la política y a lo social, con la idea de destacar la necesidad de volver a lo material y de encantarse de sus expresividades intensivas.
Delanda proposes a deleuzian materialism applied to art, politics and society, He emphasizes the need to return to the materials and the enchantments of their inner expressivities. (in Spanish, no subtitles or translation)
Manuel De Landa speaking about Deleuzian ideas of subjectivity, and the function of the mind, habit and routine, delirium and perception. He distinguishes the history of Western thought in terms of Kantian and Humian, most thinkers have been Kantians, Deleuze, as well as Bergson belong to the smaller category of Humians.
Manuel de Landa questions the role of structuralism and the post-modern position in philosophy, De Landa argues for a view of a materialist world autonomously removed from the concepts of our own mind. His challenge, he says, is to remove a transcendental plane from material objects, that is to remove the concept of essence from the world, without giving rise to a metaphysical position.
Manuel De Landa explaining Deleuze's notion of assemblage theory in reflection on contemporary society and discussing the notion of emerging properties in both tradition and rebellion during the formation of the nation-state over the last several centuries. Delanda compares the failure of Marxist revolutions, and the failure of Kantian categories with the insights afforded by Humian subjectivity which were so valuable for Deleuze.
Manuel De Landa discusses Gilles Deleuze's concepts of synthesis, nomadology and distributed variation as a way to undermine axiomatic thought and the monolithic perception of science in contemporary society. De Landa analyses the increasing divergence between 'royal' scientific fields and nomadic scientific explorations in the study of linguistics, phenomenology, and sociology.
Manuel De Landa describes 'intensive thinking' as an essential to Gilles Deleuzes materialism. de Landa then integrates the Deleuzian concept of difference into an exploration of the emergence of several concepts in modern Physics, invoking Aristotle, Hediegger and Einstein.
Manuel De Landa lecturing about the relationship between immanence and transcendence, in Deleuze's materialism. De Landa discusses the works of Henri Poinacaré and Réne Thom in relation to the topological thinking of Gilles Deleuze, exploring some ideas from differential calculus.
de Landa distinguishes Chomskian and Saussurian linguistics, the importance of syntax as opposed to semantics and argues that the fundamental function of language is to instruct. De Landa takes us back to the origin of language to explore some Deleuzian linguistic concepts such as the 'order word' and, more generally, of the persistence of the heterogeneity of languages faced with the standardization of languages.
the difference between explanations and interpretations. De Landa stressed the importance of causes, reasons and motives to understand the properties of action in the social realm. He cuations against reductionism, introducing Deleuze's vital concept of emergence, emerging properties which result from the interaction of elements.
Manuel De Landa lecturing about the duality of meaning in signification and significance in the Gilles Deleuze and Science seminar. He spoke about how these definitions shape perceptions and attitudes, drawing on Hume and Kant to explain the views of Gilles Deleuze. Referencing CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to discuss the advent of advertising in the birth of media, and the resulting formations of power, De Landa explored ethical decisions both within, and without the Academy. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland. Manuel De Landa 2009
Nietzsche, Bergson, Spinoza...Deleuze! De Landa positions Deleuze clearly in the tradition of Materialism, particularly Humian Materialism, where perception is a crystallization in a field of raw sensations. De Landa explores Deleuzes interest in delirium and madness, Artaud, Freud, psychology, with regard to subjectivity.
De Landa explores Deleuze's theory of "non-human expressivity", illustrated in the chapter "geology of morals" from "Thousand Plateaus", where Deleuze warns us not to lose track of our biological, chemical otherness by becoming overly concerned with what is 'human, all too human'. This is what makes Deleuze a realist, that form doesn't need us (to project our signifiers) to be born.
Length: 0:09:37
Manuel De Landa explores the relevance of Eastern mysticism and philosophy in understanding subjectivity, difference and the process of thought.
Classical (e.g. Marxist) materialism approaches the body as the token material object in philosophical idealism. What de Landa calls Deleuze's neo-materialism takes the body not as a token, he integrates Nature in the concept of the body, to avoid compromising the imaginative freedom of the subject. de Landa explores Deleuzes fascination with the language of mathematics, as a syntax of becomings and infinitesimals.
Length: 1:24:37
Manuel DeLanda begins with the distinction of Deleuze as a materialst as opposed to a Kantian post-modernist. He explores Deleuze's materialism as applied to computer-assisted design.