100 Notizen - 100 Gedanken (100 Notes – 100 Thoughts): No. 033, Donna Haraway

As a prelude to the 2012 exhibition, dOCUMENTA (13) and Hatje Cantz are publishing a series of notebooks, 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts, that is comprised of facsimiles of existing notebooks, commissioned essays, collaborations, and conversations. The series is edited by Bettina Funcke.

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Donna Haraway
SF Speculative Fabulation and String Figures

“Consider a fictional multiple integral equation that is a flawed trope and a serious joke in an effort to picture what an intersectional—or intra-actional—theory might look like in Terrapolis. Think of this formalism as the mathematics of sf. Sf is that potent material semiotic sign for the riches of speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, science fact, science fantasy—and, I suggest, string figures.” In her text, Donna Haraway, author of the influential “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985), devises the formula for a possible world, Terrapolis, and places it in connection to string figures, which, as pictures of cosmological constellations and creation myths, constitute a popular cultural practice among the Navajo to this day.

Cultural theorist, biologist and feminist Donna Haraway (*1944) is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a member of the Honorary Advisory Committee of dOCUMENTA (13).