• COVID-19
• 2013-2022close
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In a very literal sense, a biological organism cannot be alive on its own. I employ key premises in second-order cybernetics in current developments in philosophy of science and posthumanist thought in an attempt to speak upon the state of precarity and lived reality of social and political life during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. I posit the parasite and the virus as biological and communicational forms which model the impossibility of solipsism in life (be it viral, parasitic, or human). I believe that disrupting a premise of solipsism operates as a central task in an attempt to see and speak of the skein of interrelationships that inform our shared understanding about current events. To mobilize this discussion, I am sensitized to seek the resonances of the film Parasite on topics of radical interrelationality, systemicities within capitalist strictures, and muddled boundaries of biological and political life. The role of socio-economic boundaries affectively felt in the film provides a starting point from which I delve into analogous scientific concepts, including work of cyberneticians Gregory Bateson and Heinz von Foerster, among others, and their respective notions of epistemological responsibility and the circularity of human relations and mutual interaction. This discussion will anchor my attempt to present a symbiosis of concepts that posit the existence of viruses as the existence of boundaries in life forms on earth. Such concepts include Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt especially as it pertains to viral life, Michel Serres’ malleable interpretation of the parasite, and the formal analogies made by cyberneticists between viral ‘consciousness’ and Alan Turing’s machine (self-)organization. I frame these concepts with their potential to offer a phenomenologically resonant and scientifically nuanced understanding into systemic class warfare in mind, as depicted in the film and ramifying throughout.

Tras la declaración oficial de la COVID-19 como pandemia por la Organización Mundial de la Salud en marzo de 2020, los Estados Miembros de la Unión Europea pusieron en marcha una serie de medidas para contener y frenar la expansión del virus en los lugares de trabajo. La naturaleza y el alcance de las restricciones difieren entre Estados y sectores. La crisis de la COVID-19 también ha forzado a las empresas a aplicar nuevos procedimientos y prácticas en muy poco tiempo o, en algunos casos, a suspender su trabajo y actividades económicas…

Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; 2019-nCoV; Activitats; Contenció; Mesures de seguretat Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; 2019-nCoV; Actividades; Contención; Medidas de seguridad Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; 2019-nCoV; Activities; Containment; Security measures Cartell adreçat a la ciutadania informant de les mesures de protecció destinades a la contenció de la COVID-19 que seran d'aplicació a partir del 8 de març a Catalunya. Cartel dirigido a la ciudadanía informando de las medidas de protección destinadas a la contención de la Covid-19 que serán de aplicación a partir del 8 de marzo en Catalunya. Poster addressed to the public informing of the protection measures intended for the containment of the COVID-19 that will be applicable from March 8 in Catalonia.