Multistable figures offer an intriguing model for arbitrating conflicting positions. Moving back and forth between the different aspects under which something can be seen, one recognizes that mutually contradictory descriptions can be equally valid and that disputes over the correct account can be resolved without dissolving differences or establishing a higher synthesis. Yet, the experience of a gestalt switch also offers a model for radical conversions and revolutions – that is, for irreversible leaps to incommensurable alternatives foiling ideals of rational choice while providing the possibility and necessity of decision. Accentuating the temporal dimensions of multistable figures, this multidisciplinary volume illuminates the critical potentials and limits of multistability as a complex figure of thought.
Volume 8 of the series ‘Cultural Inquiry‘ with Turia + Kant
266 pp., 29 EUR, ISBN 978-3-85132-734-2
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- KippCity
- Aspects and Abstracta
- Splitting Images: Understanding Irreversible Fractures through Aspect Change
- The Munchausen Effect: Subjectivity and Ideology
- Cognition and Volition: Two Aspects of the Human in the Age of Experimental Systems
- Identity Politics Redux
- Multiple Temporalities of the Partisan Struggle: From Post-Yugoslav Nationalist Reconciliation Back to Partisan Poetry
- Figuring Ambivalence, Capturing the Political: An Everyday Perspective
- Oscillations and Incommensurable Decisions: On the Multistable Use of Multistable Figures
