Cosmic Considerations: Astra as Thought-Apparatus

Introduction:

Thought-apparatus as activated by Maaike Bleeker in her work “Thinking in the World: Estado Vegetal as Thought-Apparatus” draws inspiration from the thought-image as spearheaded by Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno along with Karen Barad’s notion of the apparatus. Bleeker explores thought-apparatus through her analysis of Manuela Infante’s performance Estado Vegetal, a theatre performance that guides the audience through a playful confrontation of human and vegetal modes of thinking in an exploration of a non-human-centred perspective of the world. Bleeker situates her argument in the thought-image and apparatus combining the two concepts to create a performative theoretical framework which engages both performer and audience in a mode of thinking separate of the autonomous human subject. In this essay, I use the mixed reality experience Astra to highlight a new layer of entanglement to thought-apparatus originating from the immersive nature and technological affordances of mixed reality. I argue that the concept of thought-apparatus not only reframes Astra as an experience that situates the participant in the mode of thinking of matter, but that Astra, through its technological affordances in relation to immersion and embodiment help reconfigure the thought-apparatus.

The formation of thought-apparatus:

The concept of thought-image, although not defined, was first conceptualized by German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin in his works such as The Arcades Project. He describes the thought-image, although not with this particular terminology, as when past and present come together in a flash to form a constellation, not progression but emergent. He calls this relation “dialectics at a standstill” as he views this way of thinking not as a linear emergence but as a moment of awakening that language evokes. This idea is expanded upon by Benjamin’s contemporaries eventually coining his idea the thought-image (Denkbilder).

Theodor W. Adorno, one of Benjamin’s close contemporaries in Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, describes thought-images as not wanting to stop conceptual thought but aiming to get thought moving by shocking through their enigmatic form to spur on the spontaneity and energy of thought. In Notes to Literature, Adorno identifies Benjamin’s writings, specifically Einbahnstraße, as Denkbilder. He depicts them as “scribbled picture-puzzles, parabolic evocations of something that cannot be said in words.” These definitions delineate how thought-images subverts conceptual thought as a mode of thinking and put emphasis on evocations. For both Benjamin and Adorno, the thought-image illustrates how texts engage readers by grasping possible connections between elements presented in writing forming the constellation and therefore the mental image.

Furthering these ideas, Professor Gerhard Richter describes Denkbilder as “conceptual engagements with the aesthetic and as aesthetic engagements with the conceptual, hovering between philosophical critique and aesthetic production.” This explanation highlights how Denkbilder exists at the intersection of philosophy and art. Within that intersection is a performative aspect where the image evoking ability of text provides a point of connection between philosophical thinking and performative staging. This performative dimension creates a path that brings the act of thinking into spatial form. Thought-images therefore refer to what texts performatively elicit, generating new thought in non-linear modes while combining multiple elements into previously invisible constellations which create new meaning through the mental image.

Bleeker expands the thought-image by proposing that theatre can produce these constellations and images, thereby moving from written texts to the realm of theatrical performance. She situates the thought-images as “short prose texts that aim to evoke mental images as a result of how they engage the reader.” Theatre itself is all about engaging an audience whether that be emotional immersion or critical cognitive engagement. Theatre however does not evoke images through text—, instead the mise-en-scène, formed of bodies, sound, light and objects, works to evoke such images. In Bleeker’s theory, the mise-en-scène functions equivalently to how Benjamin’s texts work as Denkbilder. Through this connection Bleeker reworks the thought-image, showing that it can be expanded to realms other than texts, into a performative concept called the thought-apparatus.

Bleeker continues by integrating the thought-image with Karen Barad’s notion of the apparatus to develop her concept of thought-apparatus. Barad observes that human ways of thinking happen within interactions with the material world and situates humans as being a part of an apparatus: a dynamic configuration which includes humans and other nonhuman elements including matter. They position the apparatus as something we do as part of the world by conceptualizing it as “material (re)configurings or discursive practices that produce (and are part of ) material phenomena in their becoming.” With the addition of Barad’s apparatus, Bleeker moves from thought-image, capturing thinking as a flash of recognition, to thought-apparatus defined as:

an expressive modality that engages audiences in a mode of thinking that happens in the world rather than solely in the mind of the autonomous human subject, therefore conceiving thinking as a sensuous and sensory practice in which mind and body become indistinguishable.

Bleeker shows through her analysis of Estado Vegetal how the performance evokes an entanglement of human and nonhuman agencies where the human and plant world intersect despite the fundamental differences in their modes of thinking and experiences of the world. Bleeker highlights a scene in which performer Marcela Salinas uses a “looping pedal” to create textual circularities by recording her voice. She records multiple lines with extended pauses between them then when the lines are played back, she adds more lines. When this recording is played again, she adds more lines gradually building upon each other in overlapping layers that merge into a complex, temporal structure. Rooted in the formation of the mise-en-scène and its material entanglements, this scene engages the audience in the ideas of plant communication and vegetal life where the experiences of time may be different to human forms of communication. Bleeker understands this scene as a process where thinking occurs in the interaction between performer, machine, and vegetal logics and therefore as an example of the thought-apparatus.

The thought-apparatus as described above is a tool for examining how theatre and performance generate thought through sensory practice which ultimately guides both performer and audience through a different way of thinking not limited to the human mind. It shows that theatre does not only represent thought but can also generate thought. The thought-apparatus asserts that theatre can generate modes of thinking, materializing connections between humans and nonhumans. With this in mind, what of thought-apparatus changes and adapts when used to examine a different kind of performative experience?

Introducing Astra:

Produced by Atlas V, Astra (2024) is a mixed reality experience written and directed by Eliza McNitt. She aims to explore the “cosmic collision” of science and art by working alongside scientists to tell stories about the human connection to the cosmos. The story takes the participant on an exploration of known planets and their moons in our galaxy to find the elements necessary to create life. The narrative is guided by actress Taylour Paige, who plays the participants' mother Dr. Nathalie Vita, via a cassette tape. This mother character, who is deceased, was a scientist from the Department of Astrobiology who researched planets in search of life. Her auditory field notes guide the participant through the narrative. Astra contains a unique blend of storytelling, AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), and interactive design to guide the participant through a plethora of stunning cosmic bodies on a personal yet universal adventure. The experience uses a combination of AR spatial data to merge the participants' surroundings into a spaceship and hand tracking which allows the participant, in both AR and VR environments, to collect and interact with the chemical compounds necessary for the creation of life. This essay is grounded in my experience of Astra in 2024 at Alliance Française Vancouver’s VR art exhibition ‘V-Unframed.’

Astra as thought-apparatus:

Astra guides the participant on a staged encounter of between the human and cosmic worlds. In the opening scene of Astra, the participant is transported to the helm of a spaceship which merges their physical world with the digital world’s spaceship. This is a vessel of memories which guides the participant through space while the narration encourages them to look beyond their human situatedness and into a new way of thinking. As the participant travels to different planets to uncover the chemical fingerprint of each celestial body, Dr. Vita explains scientific facts of each planet. She also talks about how humans have a perception of the universe only through the facts that are accessible to us, leaving a whole other world inaccessible to our understanding. She states, “life as we know it is a self-sustaining chemical system that self produces with variations. Biology composed by the same chemistry would be life as we understand it.” This line situates the participant in an idea easily understood by the human mindset; life in the universe should be composed like life on Earth. She continues later in the story with; “perhaps we are looking for all the wrong things, and life out there relies on an entirely different set of rules that we are yet to understand. ” Through lines like these, Dr. Vita transitions the participant into a different mindset; the mindset of matter.

Astra, understood as a thought-apparatus, engages the participant in a mode of thinking that happens in the world, the creation of life, through sensory practices. Near the end of the experience, Astra situates the participant as part of the creation of a star. The human participant experiences the agency of matter through sensory practice as they visually can see the star being created, hear the nebulous clouds rushing past and move their bodies, yet they are unable to resist the gravity of the star. Bleeker states that the thought-apparatus destabilizes self-evident modes of conceptualizing consider how human modes of thinking happen in interaction within the material world within a situation of being part of a dynamic configuration that includes matter. In this sense, the participant is caught in the gravity of the situation both literally and figuratively as they experience the nebula cloud of gas and dust grow dense enough to attract more matter gravitating together until dense enough to create a star. To Barad, “matter does not refer to a fixed substance; rather, matter is substance in its intra-active becoming—not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency.” The participant experiences what a human could imagine is the temporality, movement and scale of the cosmic experience and is left to contemplate the associations and interpretations. Astra makes the participant a part of something occurring according to the agency of matter and thus mediates an immersive experience where the human experiences a different mode of being and new way of thinking.

While one can argue that matter cannot think so therefore the human participant cannot be experiencing a new way of thinking, I argue that the human is experiencing the intra-active becoming of a matter into a new material form of life. If we meet the universe halfway, we can conceptualise that while stars may not be alive in the human understanding of the term, they still hold the features of life. When stars are formed by the dust and gas from the deaths of other stars, is this not proof of reproduction? If stars can be born, die and generate energy, are they not alive? These two questions are examples of the human meeting the universe halfway. When Earth and humanity are made of elements forged in the hearts of previous generations of stars, are we not a part of matters dynamic intra-active becoming? This mode of becoming experienced by the participant is an ongoing reconfiguring which is mostly inaccessible to us due to our nature of embodiment and relationship with time. Pulling from Bleeker, I see the non-human experience of the participant to be a part of the composition of the performative experience which invites them to consider an agency and logic though the becoming of matter. Through a performative staged encounter of between the human and cosmic worlds, Astra highlights a difference in ways of thinking between humans and the ‘agency’ of matter through a narrative framework based on the creation of life reminiscent of the thought-apparatus.

Technological Affordances and Thought-Apparatus:

Mixed reality’s material contingencies reconstruct ideas of human situatedness because its immersive nature and shows that the thought-apparatus can be expanded to more than just the theatrical stage. Astra is mediated by the technical affordances of the virtual reality headset. For the ‘V-Unframed’ exhibition I visited, this was the Meta Quest 3. Barad posits, “humans do not merely assemble different apparatuses for satisfying particular knowledge projects; they themselves are part of the ongoing reconfiguring of the word.” This is especially true if we see apparatuses as referring to the technological apparatus of the virtual reality headsets. In the case of Astra, we can see thinking as an interaction with the theatrical and technological apparatus.

Sensorily transported through virtual reality to different celestial bodies, participants pick up the chemical compounds needed to make life and combine them together to make a visual fragment of life, which looks like an abstract crystalline statue, thanks to the hand tracking capabilities. This action can be described as a performative engagement with the conceptual idea as the expressive modality and technological apparatus immerse the participant in the embodied act. Through the physical act of picking up compounds and creating a fragment, the participant is enacting a form of creation which spurs a new mode of becoming as they enact a human form of the universes acts of creation.

Technical affordances outside of the intended experience contribute to nonhuman modes of thinking in which, like the thought-apparatus, the mind and body become indistinguishable. My own experience of Astra was mediated by a specific technical affordance: battery life. I was the last person to try Astra at ‘V-Unframed,’ and the headset was not charging for long enough between each participant. My embodied experience was therefore that of an android. A low battery graphic would be flashing in my field of vision, and I would suddenly be aware that I only had a limited time left before the machine would die and my vision would go black. This felt very nonhuman to me because when the low battery graphic appeared I was still able to see, hear and interact with everything as normal. I was not pulled out of the experience, instead; my mode of becoming changed to something nonhuman. To ensure I could finish the entire experience, I would walk back to the physical charging station and be plugged in by a staff member until I needed to move to interact with my digital surroundings. I would often get time to charge while I was on the spaceship and was unplugged to go explore the planets creating an even more immersive android charging experience. I was surprised by the feeling of the cable connecting to what was essentially my head as I could feel the pressure of the charger entering the port and hear the click. I could also, depending on the scene, see the staff member as if he were on my spaceship. This feeling quickly mediated my experience as I temporarily assumed the role of the android, performatively evoking a new mode of thought. My comments to the staff member quickly evolved from “My headset might be running out of battery” to “I’m dying again, plug me in please.” Unconsciously, I began to refer to the need to charge as a part of myself and my lived experience.

My thinking was meditated by the technological affordances of the headset in a sensory practice that resembles Bleeker’s thought-apparatus. My entanglement with the material world around me and the performative sensory experiences staged an unplanned encounter between the human and nonhuman. This was an unintended piece of the experience that was brought about by technological affordance of the headset. Bleeker’s thought-apparatus asserts that performances can generate modes of thinking and materialize connections between humans and nonhumans through the sensory practice. The composition of Astra, planned or mediated, embodies the human and nonhuman elements of the world taking the audience through different modes of thought using sensory practices. As shown above thought-apparatus can be expanded to more than just theatre, the immersive nature of virtual reality and its technological affordances add a whole new layer to how thought-apparatus can be used to engage audiences and explore new modes of thinking.

Conclusion:

Bleeker’s thought-apparatus is grounded in Benjamin and Adorno’s theoretical work of the thought-image where thought appears in flashes of information. When built upon with Barad’s apparatus, she demonstrates a framework where thinking emerges through enactment, sensory practices, and entanglement. Bleeker’s thought-apparatus is a tool for examining how theatre engages audiences through the sensory practice of thought which guides both performer and audience through a unique way of thinking not solely within the human mind. By understanding Astra through the lens of thought-apparatus, I reframe it as a performative staged encounter between the human and cosmic worlds that situates the participant in the nonhuman. Astra highlights a difference in ways of thinking between humans and the ‘agency’ of matter through a narrative framework based on the creation of life. I also show that due to technological affordances of mixed reality and its ability to immerse the participant, Astra helps reconfigure what the thought-apparatus can do to disrupt human modes of thinking. The thought-apparatus, in the context of mixed reality, not is an exploration of a nonhuman perspective of the world but truly personalizes the experience through the nature of its immersive properties.