four meditations on slowness and speed for a time obsessed with speed
speed demands and creates an insensitivity to everything that might slow things down: the frictions, the rubbing, the hesitations that make us feel we are not alone in the world. slowing down means becoming capable of learning again, becoming acquainted with things again, reweaving the bounds of interdependency. it means thinking and imagining, and in the process creating relationships with others that are not those of capture.
%%purple%%isabelle stengers%%, %%green%%another science is possible%%
i am talking about the speeds and slowness produced by thought, just as a body has effects of speed and slowness depending on the movements it undertakes [...] it is sometimes necessary for thought to produce slowness, the slowness of its own development, and it is sometimes necessary for it to go faster, the relative speed of its development relative to one concept or another, to one topic or another.
%%purple%%gilles deleuze%%, %%green%%the velocities of thought%%
among chuang-tzu's many skills, he was an expert draftsman. the king asked him to draw a crab. chuang-tzu replied that he needed five years, a country house, and twelve servants. five years later the drawing was still not begun. "i need another five years," said chuang-tzu. the king granted them. at the end of these ten years, chuang-tzu took up his brush and, in an instant, with a single stroke, he drew a crab, the most perfect crab ever seen.
%%purple%%italo calvino%%, %%green%%quickness%%
historical times slow down or speed up, advance or regress, look forward or backward. according to what criteria? according to representations and political decisions, but also according to the historian who puts them into perspective. objectively, for there to be change, a social group, a class or a caste must intervene by imprinting a rhythm on an era, be it through force or in an insinuating manner.
%%purple%%henri lefebvre%%, %%green%%rhythmanalysis: space, time and everyday life%%