One of the most overplayed songs of all time was

penned by Disney ÒImagineersÓ just as increased

communicative connectivity, commercial global
travel, and transnational economic
dependencies were (or were on the verge of)
becoming commonplace. ÒItÕs a Small WorldÓ

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debuted in 1964 at the New York WorldÕs Fair.
While itÕs easy to cynically shrug off the lyrical
simplifications of this earworm, itÕs worth closer
inspection: the lyrics capture some of the more
insidious and inhibiting idealisms that persist in
the present. The banal expression of the same
name, recited nowadays as an automatism,
typically describes a serendipitous moment of
mutual reference in conditions otherwise
Patricia Reed uncertain or unknown; rarely is this expression
uttered in a lamenting tone. There is nothing
Orientation in a wrong with the pleasant quality of this Òsmall
worldÓ encounter, per se, but it does raise more
general questions as to why the sentiments
Big World: On captured by this expression seem desirable, and
why they are understood as comforting. What
the Necessity of does this expression divulge about an approach
to navigating the world today?
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThere are two interwoven problems
Horizonless captured within those four, mundane words.
First, the expression marks the enjoyment in
Perspectives confirming familiar frames of reference in order
to tame an otherwise unknown or alien
Orientation in a Big World: On the Necessity of Horizonless Perspectives

encounter Ð be it with a stranger, a perception,

an idea, or a situation. As the driving fable of
early domestic internet uptake, the framing of a
Òsmall worldÓ amounts to the sales pitch of a
simplified world readily amenable to human
sensibility as it currently is, ÒpromisingÓ a
minimization of the unwieldly global, into the
e-flux journal #101 Ñ summer 2019 Ê Patricia Reed

cozy, intimate scale of a village. Second, the

seemingly harmless expression obfuscates the
ill-reasoned assumption that heightened
interconnectivity yields proximity and closeness.
While today there are more logistic, ecologic,
economic, and communicative vectors that
connect humans and nonhumans in deep chains
of relation than ever existed before, structurally
speaking, this condition points to something
quite the opposite of a small world. It points,
rather, to the increased dimensionality of
coexistence produced by exponentially
multiplied vectors of relation. More critically, the
idealized myth of containable smallness
constrains cognitive, ethical, and technological
capacities to more adequately and justly
navigate the world in its current nth
dimensionality. The proliferation of interrelations
and interdependencies has, for better or for
worse, ushered in a very big world. This is a world
that demands more adequate frames of
reference (spatial, perceptual, and linguistic) to
construct orientation within and for its extensive
dimensionality.

06.21.19 / 17:30:19 EDT

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe Òplanetary scaleÓ serves as an initial, functional or affective valence of direction to
terminological index for this big-world condition mobility, the politics of navigation are bound to
of coexistential nth dimensionality. Particularly claims on constructing these points of
deployed in discourses on climate change and referential orientation, as well as making them
ubiquitous computation throughout the last sensible, intelligible, and shareable.
decade, the planetary scale, in general, ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSecond, navigation is reliant on extra-local,

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describes the consequential magnitude of mental diagrams of space and time that are
(some) human techno-economic activity (such as continually cross-referenced with situated
fossil-fuel reliance and its derivative localization. In this way navigation embodies the
products/externalities) and the amalgamation of continuum between the conceptual and the
their interacting effects that supersede the material; and it is due to this weaving that
boundaries of earth (like mounting carbon navigators can continually revise and adapt their
dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere). choreography and markers of orientation over
Beyond its diagnostic significance, can the time. As the saying goes, Òthe map is not the
application of this term denoting Òthe scale of territory.Ó However, arresting this thought in its
how things currently areÓ be put to use as a new purely oppositional state undermines the crucial,
frame of reference for social transformation? synthetic dynamic wherein the map (understood
Could it serve as a pivotal concept through which as a conceptual artifact) partially shapes:
the making of otherworlds can be practiced Ð a ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊa) the perception and perceptibility of the
ÒmakingÓ that is always a remaking of the world territory or system,
already at hand?1 Can this concept of Òplanetary b) how that territory or system is thought to exist
scaleÓ function as a basis for political invention beyond immediate sensory feedback (if it is
and solidarity to lead us beyond the simplified sensible at all),
comforts of a small-world framework? Today, c) the possibility space of its imagined
those comforts and that framework combine to tractability, and
operate more as a threat than a promise as d) the understanding of causal interrelations,
Òglobal villagesÓ mutate into fractured social which contribute to pictures of agency.
bubbles steadfastly enclosed by confirmation- ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe map, be it a story, a drawing, a diagram,
bias. If the planetary scale came into being as an a model, or a mathematical projection, may be
Orientation in a Big World: On the Necessity of Horizonless Perspectives

aggregate result of nineteenth-century liberal distinct from the territory or system to which it
incentives of private wealth accumulation, can refers, but it informs the way it is conceived,
the existing hyper-relationality and path rendered accessible, and imagined as a
dependence endemic to planetary coexistence navigable entity. Abuses of cartography occur
be otherwise mobilized away from the ideals that when the abstraction of the map or mental
underwrote the very materialization of this schematics remain fixed and unresponsive to
condition? Obviously, a linguistic marker on its situational localization. The transplantation of
e-flux journal #101 Ñ summer 2019 Ê Patricia Reed

own is not enough to answer such loaded European names to existing, inhabited, and
questions. That said, such an utterance is not a locally named sites as a way to leverage
trivial exercise either, provided that terms cartographic projection for extraterritorial claims
become consequential and not mere tokens of is just one such example where abuses of
disciplinary jargon. When language is figured as a abstractions have been historically
human-world interface for picturing and instrumentalized to abolish or disregard
correlating with reality, it is useful to tease out situational reality.2
how the term could transform given frames of ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLast, the activity of navigation presupposes
reference Ð and in turn how these renewed the existence of a navigable thing. When it comes
frames could serve as a starting point for to the present, how navigable is the world today
hypothesizing navigational ramifications both at in its complex, nth dimensionality? In thinking
and for this planetary scale. through the politics of navigation, itÕs crucial to
consider several related questions: For whom or
Navigation as Synthesis what is navigability optimized? For whom or what
Before diving into navigation at a planetary scale is the very possibility of navigation foreclosed,
specifically, it is worthwhile to lay out a brief and through what power dynamics are those
outline of what navigation is. Navigation is, above affordances determined? Ready-at-hand
all, a synthetic operation. First, itÕs the ongoing navigability cannot be assumed as a given; the
mediation of intentionality with the contingency activity of navigation is inseparable from
of unknown or accidental events. Navigation is resetting and/or questioning frames of reference
not destination, but it is not entirely divorced for rendering conditions navigable in the first
from destination either. ItÕs a movement of instance. Since the planetary scale denotes an
inclination requiring markers of orientation. If ÒobjectÓ so complex it surpasses the capacity for
navigation requires inclination to lend a individual, heroic, human intellection, it can only

06.21.19 / 17:30:19 EDT

be partially accessible at a collective or scale without it becoming a mode of enforced
distributed level. In other words, planetary uniformity, this structural condition of nth
navigability can only be figured as an equally dimensionality needs to be approached with a
intricate, collective project. The necessary commitment to the preservation of localized
geometries, narrations, epistemologies, images, distinctions. What are the politics of location at
and interfaces (in both operational and linguistic the planetary scale? ÒA politics of locationÓ

03/08
form) to make this planetary scale tractable to emphasizes an accounting of (and accountability
navigation seem to be in a nascent state, if to) specificity in order to avoid the tyranny of
existing at all. This is not a dissuasion from the diminishing the differentiation of the world into a
proportion of labor ahead, but a note of optimism rigid and reductive picture of totality. The
infused with a realist bent. question instigates a situated accounting for the
localized geo-historical-material contexts from
Planetary Considerations which one speaks, thinks, relates, learns, and
Several factors arise when speculating on acts Ð in other words, a conscious activity of
transforming the Òplanetary scaleÓ from its positioning knowledge-makers. As Donna
existing diagnostic state to one that may offer a Haraway wrote, an insistence on ÒpositioningÓ is
valence for political orientation. The first and not simply about revealing bias and scientific
most obvious factor is the critical question of misuse. It also elaborates on a mode of
how to contend with scale as such. Historically, objectivity understood to be productively partial;
scalar ambitions have been equated with forms and since knowing (in both propositional and
of domination, conformance, and material forms) comes from this partial
homogenization. This correlation is evidenced by objectivity, it is informed by the perspectival
the current (yet dwindling) version of so-called contingencies of a specified place. Importantly,
globalization Ð a Òunilateral globalizationÓ built these partial, locatable knowledges are not
of, in the words of Yuk Hui, the Òparticular instances of an anything-goes relativism that
epistemologies [from a] regional worldview to a serves only as the Òmirror twinÓ for an a-
putatively global metaphysicsÓ3 Ð as well as the positional mode of objectivity (the god-eye trick),
ongoing oppressions of colonial subjection, but are rather to be understood as gateways for
including its managerial derivatives. One of many Òwebs of connections called solidarity in politics
and shared conversations in epistemology.Ó4 The
Orientation in a Big World: On the Necessity of Horizonless Perspectives

examples of such managerial derivatives is the

disputed and ongoing French treasury value of this Òsituational insistenceÓ is that it
guarantorship of the Central and West African preserves contextual particularity, and sees in
franc currency. this framework ways to build better, more robust
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAnother factor in figuring the possibility of accounts of reality. Where this situational
an emancipatory planetary scale is to ask how insistence offers less methodological guidance,
this nth dimensional abstraction works back however, is in approaching the coherence of a
e-flux journal #101 Ñ summer 2019 Ê Patricia Reed

upon and transforms human self-understanding. generalized, better account Ð that is, how all
The planetary scale isnÕt just an external those ÒconversationsÓ or relays between
condition, but also provides a conceptual epistemological localizations cohere in mutually
opportunity to reframe where the human stands influential, co-constitutive ways. How can
within this scale, a repositioning from which situatedness be formulated in consideration of
other pathways and logics for navigating the nth dimensional relationality, by relations both
world cascade. What new perspectives are near and distant, by those which are immediately
opened when human self-picturing is perceivable and those which are not? One of the
repositioned at and within this nth central problems posed by the proposition of
dimensionality? What other modes of relation political orientation at the planetary scale is how
unfold from the repositioning of self-picturing; to simultaneously uphold multiple scales of
and how can the consequences of this relationality. ItÕs a mereological, part-to-whole,
perspectival shift be narrated in both one-to-many-and-many-to-one problem, which
hypothetical and meaningful ways? If there is to is as old a problem as one gets in philosophy.
be any just, political navigation of and at the However, the stakes for finding ways to coexist in
planetary scale, these fundamental factors need this concept today turn it into an urgent question
to be accounted for both epistemologically and of social pragmatics.
ethically. The aforementioned perspectives and
modes can also be seen as interwoven precisely The Discrete and the Continuous
through the conceptual-material activity of There is a shared inclination in this regard,
navigating. already present in ƒdouard GlissantÕs writing
towards the end of the twentieth century on a
Preserving Specificity Òone-worldÓ (tout monde). GlissantÕs tout monde
To begin imagining navigation at the planetary was one composed of vastly different worlds,

06.21.19 / 17:30:19 EDT

 04/08

ÒHypothesizing Planetary Scaled Situatedness,Ó diagram courtesy of the author.

06.21.19 / 17:30:19 EDT

including representations of it, making it thinkers, coming from disparate fields, there is
impossible to speak of the whole from a single no pitting of the discrete against the continuous.
position.5 The negotiation of this multiplicity They each refuse this false choice, and put their
comes through the enactment of a what he efforts towards the articulation of a relational
proposed as a Òworld mentalityÓ (a morphing of glue that upholds both discrete and continuous
mondialisation to mondialitŽ)6 Ð a mentality in scales simultaneously.11 Each approach delivers

05/08
opposition the flattening forces of unilateral its own set of consequences and contexts of
globalization (described by him as a driven by a application to be sure, yet in thinking through
non-site or non-positional mentality) Ð while both authors, we glean a mode of refiguring
simultaneously upholding a picture of a spatial relations, as well as relations to
nonhomogeneous totality.7 His focus on spatiality, that offer important insights for
relationality qua specificity of location preserves navigation at a planetary scale. Notably, this
particularity while also addressing the results in a picture of situatedness as discretely
connected embeddedness of that site, insofar as located, but also, crucially, as inextricable from
any particular location is not extractable from the continuous or nonuniform totality.
the totality of its relations, despite its
differential specificity. GlissantÕs is a multiplied Distributed Locatability
and nested picture of specificity, not a Through the synthetic lens of the discrete and
subtractive one, constituting an important the continuous, it can be said that locations or
theoretical move that undercuts reductive claims sites not only exist in and have relations to
linking specificity to atomized individualism.8 neighborhoods of broader contexts, but that this
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFrom another, rather distant field, leaps of relationality feeds back into them. This means
invention around similar part-to-whole problems that sites or situations are co-constituted by
can be traced in the domain of mathematics. extra-local relations. There exists an array of
More precisely, the second half of the twentieth contextual conditions that co-produce any
century saw a working through of what instance of localization. Today this isnÕt even a
mathematician RenŽ Thom called the Òfounding difficult idea; itÕs part of everyday life for those
aporia of mathematicsÓ: namely, the dialectic with internet connectivity, even if it doesnÕt lend
between the discrete (or the particular) and the itself to direct experience in many cases. Being
continuous (or the global).9 Alexander
Orientation in a Big World: On the Necessity of Horizonless Perspectives

online entails relations with both the locations

Grothendieck, the mathematician, climate that serve as sites of material extraction for our
activist, and vehement critic of scientism who machines, and the specific laborers doing the
notably cofounded the group Survivre et Vivre work; additionally, the computational parsing of
(Survive and Live), worked through this problem our requests instantiates chain reactions
geometrically. He arrived at what is known as (columns) across variously geolocated
ÒArithmetic GeometryÓ Ð where ÒarithmeticÓ jurisdictions and entities at once, regardless of
e-flux journal #101 Ñ summer 2019 Ê Patricia Reed

signifies the discrete, and ÒgeometryÓ signifies the happenstance, physical location of the user.
the continuous. In his lengthy semi- In operational terms, this contemporary
autobiography RŽcoltes et Semailles (Harvest condition means that humans are multiply
and Sowing: The Life of a Mathematician, located Ð a distributed form of situatedness.
Reflections and Bearing Witness), Grothendieck This in no way erases the concretely differential
details, in (somewhat) layperson terms, the experience of locational embodiment, but offers
scope of his geometrical innovation, historically a more extensive, local/extra-local picture of
on par with the innovations of Euclidean Òbeing situatedÓ in view of the path
geometry (in its time), as well as the dependencies that constitute the planetary
transformation of the general conception of scale. Location is partially defined by a
space-time from EinsteinÕs theory of relativity: specificity of experience, but it is irreducible to
that which can be directly experienced. Although
As for Geometry, one can say that in the two this may appear to be a useless academic
thousand years in which it has existed as a framing of location, when evoking a concept like
science in the modern sense of the word, it Òsystemic oppressionÓ there is already a
has ÒstraddledÓ these two kinds of gesturing to both scales of location: the causal
structure, ÒdiscreteÓ and Òcontinuous.Ó One forces of distributed localizations that co-
can say that the new geometry is a produce a concretely localized (embodied, lived,
synthesis between these two worlds, and known) experience of oppression.
which, though next-door neighbors and in ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo define location Ð or to define something
close solidarity, were deemed separate.10 as ÒlocalÓ Ð requires the implicit articulation of a
geometric threshold. The term is usually taken as
The point of this comparative detour via Glissant self-evident, yet it is one that implies specific
and Grothendieck is to highlight that for both (and contingent) spatial norms, scales,

06.21.19 / 17:30:19 EDT

perspectives, and abstractions at work Ð ones frameworks, now augmented by twenty-first-
that are rarely made explicit, drawing a border century AI, smart cities, and iPhones. Implicit
between a general terrain and a particular endorsements for dehumanization can be found
instance. Understanding the implied spatial in this destructive negation of these capacities.
abstractions in a term like ÒlocalÓ provokes a This is so, not because this endorsement traffics
helpful moment to scrutinize certain in images of machinic supremacy on the surface,

06/08
assumptions. What is the border condition of as is often the point of critique, but because it
location, and at what threshold does the local amounts to a renunciation of the capacity to
cease to be local? From which perspectival make claims on the artificial nature of humanity
position are these thresholds drawn? The itself, a coexistential fictitious necessity for
answers are many, since what these dilemmas of constructing markers of collective orientation. In
location signal is that location is, above all, a the end, revelling in the chaotic perpetuation of
relative and not an absolute spatial concept. navigational turbulences at the planetary scale
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHow does this multi-scalar understanding is nothing more than an uninventive fossilization
of localization Ð as a continuum between the of status-quo fictions as given and permanent
concrete and the abstract Ð affect the relative facts. At this juncture, it becomes evident that
perspective from which situatedness is the struggle for orientation at nth-dimensionality
understood at a planetary scale? How are we to coexistence demands intervention on this
understand ÒpositioningÓ within this framework, artificial plane, in order to dislodge naturalized
dependent as it is on consciously locating the conservatisms that are often disguised as
knowledge-marker Ð a locatability now framed in blinking futurity.
a nested, non-extractable, and yet perspectivally ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSylvia Wynter crucially theorized that no
differential dimensionality? There is a historical paradigm exists without a
bidirectional answer: we can understand corresponding concept of the human to buttress
positioning from the location of a particular its logics, modes of justifying certain
human self in relation to the general location of actions/decisions, and frames of reference for
human, conceptual self-images. If the position of Òmaking sense.Ó As the hybrid, bio/mythos
the human at the planetary scale is a decentered creatures she frames us as (not unlike HarawayÕs
one, that is, one no longer conceivable as a ÒnaturecultureÓ), none of our social reality would
heroic, monohumanist12 human separate from
Orientation in a Big World: On the Necessity of Horizonless Perspectives

be possible without the conceptual engineering

and masterfully dominant over the world, how of a certain Ògenre of being human.Ó This genre-
does this play into the navigational synthesis concept operates both as a template for
between the conceptual and the material, in the idealized human adaption (setting borders of
mutual influence between the abstract and the inclusion/exclusion in the process), as well as a
concrete? Put simply, how does the decentered vehicle through which to legitimize certain ways
human picture work back upon us as a form of of organizing social life.13 Paradigmatic
e-flux journal #101 Ñ summer 2019 Ê Patricia Reed

diagrammatic agency, towards the way we come epistemic and political change is tethered to how
to account for situatedness in this nth genres of being human are conceived, meaning
dimensional frame of reference that is informed that placing emphasis on the human does not
by, but irreducible to, the immediately concrete? necessarily lead to more anthropocentric
narcissism, since the ramifications of human
Struggle over the Human self-image transformation concern not only the
There are those who champion, or who actively human itself, provided that this non-radiant
seek to amplify, the navigational turbulence situatedness serves as a pivotal abstract
produced by this decentered human position at location from which conceptual reconstruction
the planetary scale, making for an urgent battle can begin. In response to the totalizing effects of
over claims on orientation. Such tendencies unilateral globalization, ushered in through the
thrive among several techno-neoreactionaries, logic of an ontologized, monohumanist human,
who, in denying absolutely any form of planetary and the homo economicus template that it
navigability from a resituated human position, imposed far beyond the scope of its regional
ultimately advocate for the stripping of invention, Wynter asserts the need to construct
humanityÕs cognitive-political agencies to genres of being human Òmade to the measure of
transform given frames of reference. the planetary,Ó as a way to justly contend with
Paradoxically, what is often perceived as a form this now wholly inseparable, entangled totality.14
of techno-fetishist futurism is nothing but an How is this Òmeasuring-upÓ of humanity to be
unimaginative conservatism that celebrates the imagined in a way that encompasses both an
preservation of existing frames of reference. accounting for nth-dimensionality coexistence,
These existing frames are defended as if they are and yet is also accountable to contingent,
an immutable fact of nature, a world ÒnaturallyÓ localized differentiation?
oriented by nineteenth-century navigational ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWe can begin to answer this question in the

06.21.19 / 17:30:19 EDT

negative, since there is no aspiration to continue reality is conceived as optimizable in its own,
the violent precedent of creating planetary-scale familiar image, and ÒknowingÓ is often reduced
conditions from the absolutizing of a particular, to picturing the world as a resource for human
regional-human perspective. Such a precedent projects.15 Correspondingly, in this classical
captures instances of domination stemming from perspective, the re-enactment of human vision
discrete conditions that get magnified to a on a two-dimensional plane became

07/08
continuous scale, forcing the plurality of the mechanized, reproducing images wherein the
world into a reductive template. Such reduction extra-local vanishes at the threshold of a
provides no schematic for orientation horizon, namely a subtractive mode of re-
commensurate with the planetary. Answering to presentation. This works to reinforce a narrow
this measure necessitates nth-dimensional depiction of what a location is, by extracting it
approaches that can account for, and be from extra-local relations, and merely mimicking
accountable to, differentiation, complexity, and the limitations of human biosensory visual
systems of human and nonhuman systems that have limited depths of vision and
interdependence, without the malicious that tend to privilege proximate immediacy.
comforts of simplification and confirmation of Moreover, in both common and academic
the familiar. There exists no nonhomogenizing language, the ÒhorizonÓ has (like the Òsmall
way of approaching this nth-dimensional, worldÓ expression) become an automated term
planetary condition with frames of reference of choice, usually referring to a sense of
applicable only to small-world scales. expansiveness, or a way to loosely gesture to an
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA crucial distinction needs to be made at unknown, becoming, futural phenomenon. At
this step, between the aggrandizement of a nth-dimensionality coexistence, the horizon is
locally situated concept to the scale of a big simply an inadequate correlation to reality;
world on the one hand, and on the other the spatially, representationally, and linguistically, it
situating of concept-creation within a big-world has no existence in reality and can only reflect on
perspective. A small-world perspective can be small-world proportions. The horizon may be
understood as a subtractive correlation to reality useful at the everyday, mechanical scale of the
where the borders of positional location are small world to be sure, but at the planetary
Òself-evidentlyÓ drawn in conformance with the scale, it stands in as a representational artefact
Orientation in a Big World: On the Necessity of Horizonless Perspectives

accustomed proportions of ready-at-hand, for the monohumanist human world.

immediate human experience Ð not unlike the ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhat is crucial, however, to glean from this
proportionate borders of the Vitruvian Human historical example is the mutual influence
diagram. A big-world perspective does not in any between an emerging concept of a genre of being
way disavow small-world localization; itÕs a human (at the time) and a representational
necessary position of departure, but it insists on system for spatializing it, making this concept
the insufficiency of such positioning in isolation amenable to both sensation and thought. The
e-flux journal #101 Ñ summer 2019 Ê Patricia Reed

to address (and be accountable to) the planetary planetary scale demands a similar picturing and
scaled. Big-world positioning demands a nested spatializing approach for a new genre of being
account of situatedness, where ÒlocationÓ is no human commensurate with the planetary scale,
longer figured as self-evidently enclosed, in order to better account for this nth
despite its differential status, but is rather dimensionality. Without the comforts embodied
imagined as a synthesis between by the relative nearness of the horizon of a
immediate/concrete surroundings and the discrete world remediated back to us in our own
dimensional vectors of relation that co- image, the big world demands perspectives from
constitute it. A big-world perspective is not a position of distributed localization, composed
driven by a hubristic ambition towards an illusory of, but irreducible to, happenstance personal
ÒperfectÓ vision of totality. These perspectives, geophysical location. To hypothesize on seeing,
like any other, are always partial. The ambition is, hearing, moving, relating, and communicating
rather, to introduce a better accounting for the from within this big world requires experimenting
transformation of spacial conception and with techniques for accessing its unfamiliar,
dimensionality at this scale, in order to avoid the often opaque, and nested scales Ð for making its
scalar pitfalls of conflating the part with the aggregate spatiality amenable to navigation at
whole, and deploying that misgiving as a all. It is one thing to name the Òdecentred
definitive navigational marker. humanÓ and its Òplanetary-scaleÓ situatedness,
but it is quite another to learn to coexist in the
Horizonless Spatiality consequences of those concepts meaningfully,
Spatially and geometrically speaking, itÕs worth with material, epistemic, and social
highlighting that the classical perspective ramifications. Considered navigation at the
coincided with the concept of the monohumanist planetary scale will be impossible with tools,
human Ð the genre of human centrality where language, concepts, and spatial figurations

06.21.19 / 17:30:19 EDT

belonging only to the small world of the familiar ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1
Nelson Goodman, Ways of
and the discrete. If there is navigational Worldmaking (Hackett
optimism for this condition, a realist optimism, it Publishing Company, 1978), 6.
will be vital to mobilize existing vectors of nth- ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2
dimensional relationality otherwise in an effort J. B. Harley, ÒNew England
Cartography and the Native
to combat the exploitative incentives that Americans,Ó in The New Nature
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13
Sylvia Wynter, ÒA Ceremony Must
Be Found: After Humanism,Ó
boundary 2, vol. 12, no. 3 / vol.
13, no. 1 (SpringÐAutumn 1984),
19Ð70.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14
David Scott, preamble to Sylvia

08/08
of Maps: Essays in the History of Wynter, ÒThe Re-Enchantment of
instantiated their coming into being. That Cartography (Johns Hopkins Humanism: An Interview with
incentive is predicated on the most pernicious Press, 2001) 169Ð95. Sylvia Wynter,Ó Small Axe, no. 8
(2000): 119Ð207
fiction of the monohumanist genre of being ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3 https://libcom.org/library/r e-
human, the myth of atomized personhood, Yuk Hui, ÒCosmotechnics as enchantment-humanism-inter
Cosmopolitics,Ó in e-flux journal, view-sylvia-wynter.
whose idea of wealth belongs only to the no. 86 (November 2017)
smallest possible world. If existing relations are https://www.e-flux.com/journ ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15
al/86/161887/cosmotechnics-a Donna Haraway citing the
to be otherwise catalyzed against the inflation of s-cosmopolitics/. concept of ÒresourcingÓ from
small-world exploitation (the 1 percent meme Zo‘ Sofoulis, in ÒSituated
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4 Knowledges.Ó
captures this well), itÕs not just a world mentality Donna Haraway, ÒSituated
that is required, but also big-world frames of Knowledges: The Science
Question in Feminism and the
reference, through which to hypothesize Privilege of Partial Perspective,Ó
possibilities for non-radiant coexistence at this Feminist Studies 14, No. 3
(Autumn 1988): 575Ð99.
horizonless nth dimension.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ× ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5
ƒdouard Glissant, TraitŽ du Tout-
The author would like to thank Kaye Cain-Nielsen for her Monde (PoŽtique IV) (Gallimard,
editorial insights in transforming this text from its initial 1997), 176.
lecture form.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6
See ƒdouard Glissant
interviewed by Laure Adler in
2004
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=Ttqh1iIk_pc.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7
Glissant, TraitŽ du Tout-Monde
(PoŽtique IV), 192.
Orientation in a Big World: On the Necessity of Horizonless Perspectives

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8
J. Michael Dash, ÒIntroduction,Ó
in Caribbean Discourse: Selected
Essays by ƒdouard Glissant
(University Press of Virginia,
1989), xii.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9
Fernando Zalamea, Synthetic
Philosophy of Contemporary
e-flux journal #101 Ñ summer 2019 Ê Patricia Reed

Mathematics, trans. Zachary

Luke Fraser (Sequence Press,
2012), 138.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10
Alexander Grothendieck,
Recoltes et Semailles (UniversitŽ
Montpellier, 1986). Part I,
translated by Roy Lisker, is
available here
https://uberty.org/wp-conten
t/uploads/2015/12/RS-grothen
deick1.pdf.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11
Fernando Zalamea,
ÒGrothendieck and
Contemporary Transgression,Ó
seven-part seminar at Pratt in
collaboration with the New
Centre for Research and
Practice, New York, October
7Ð24, 2015. Lecture on gluing
operations can be found here
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=P2ACg83zI2Y.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12
Katherine McKittrick,
ÒUnparalled Catastrophe for our
SpeciesÓ (interview with Sylvia
Wynter), in Sylvia Wynter: Being
Human as Praxis, ed. K.
McKittrick (Duke University
Press, 2015), 10.

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