” … the Aphex Twin of Philosophy … ” (Sascha Wolters)
“Luce lips sink ships.” (Blake Shaw)
Luce on Twitter: @Luce_deLire
Luce on IG: @Luce_deLire
Luce on Email: Luce DOT deLire AT jhu DOT edu
Getaphilosopher.com offers existential coaching and consulting beyond esoteric mysticism and right wing propaganda. Our aim is to enable critical engagement with the help of western philosophy. We want to assist you in going beyond the consumption of what other people think – towards self directed production of theory. We offer lectures, performances, podcasts, written text, individual conversations and more in English or German (for some examples, see the sections ‘projects‘ and ‘blog‘ on this website). An intitial consultation is free of charge.
Why Philosophy?
The current upswing of populisms speaks to a change in the social fabric of western societies. Today, fundamental questions are revisited with a fresh outlook:
How do we want to live?
What is freedom?
Do we have to work and if so, how much?
What is ‘efficiency’?
Why democracy?
What is the nature of the universe?
Is there a God, or many, or none?
Questions like these are existential questions in that they concern (human) existence as a whole. Current political and social debates respond to these questions – and give wrong answers, lead astray by mystic confusion and a populistic strive for power. Getaphilosopher.com offers to inquire these and other questions in a scientific, philosophical way – beyond party lines, equipped with a thorough training in Western philosophy, critical of racism, sexism, classism, misogyny, capitalism, partisanship and everything else that causes trouble in the world. Philosophy can be like pop music – but, rooted in eternity, the playlist never stops.
Please contact us for more information. We will be happy to develop individual offers and payment plans for you, your company, your event or whatever else you have in mind.
Interested? Send us an email!
Luce DOT deLire AT jhu DOT edu
What people say in anonymous reviews:
“Pioneer in communicating complex notions and theoretical schemes.” (Anonymous Review)
“[…] was the greatest of all digitalized instructors i ever had. In times of corona Luce did awesome work, bringing us cool and provoking stuff, […].” (Anonymous Review)
“Her passionate way really inspired me and contributed to my development in the most creative way, […].” (Anonymous Review)
“Like you did a panel discussion by yourself. Who tf does that shit!?” (Anonymous Review)
About Luce:
Luce deLire is a ship with eight sails and she lays off the quay. A time traveller and collector of mediocre jokes by day, when night falls, she turns into a philosopher, performer and media theorist. She loves visual art, installations, video art etc. She could be seen curating, performing, directing, planning and publishing (on) various events. She is working on and with the philosophy of treason, infinity, post secularism, self destruction, fascism and seduction – all in mixed media.
Publications:
As Publisher:
With Jan-Philipp Kruse, Kritik, Praxis, Krankenhaus, xenomoi 2015
As Author:
Forthcoming:
“Our Political Categories: Property, Property, Property”, Political Non-Fiction, DIVIDED publishing (forthcoming 2024)
“Can the Transsexual Speak?“, in: philoSOPHIA: Journal of Transcontinental Feminism, Special Issue on Intersectionality Today, Vol. 13 (forthcoming 2024)
“An Unfortunate Individual Case – Denazification and the Deconstruction of Value“, in: James Martell, Tyler Williams (eds.), Against Fascist Mythologies (special issue of Politica Comun), Michigan Publishing 2024 (forthcoming)
“Nature is a Transsexual Woman – Lucretian metaphysics reconsidered”, in: Sarah Nooter (ed.), Classical Philology, volume 119, number 2, April 2024.
Already Out:
“Beyond Representational Justice”, in: Christian Liclair, Luce deLire (ed.), Texte zur Kunst 129: Trans Perspectives, March 2023
“How ideal is ideal theory actually? Rawls, Mills, Reverse Racism and Justice as Failure”, Philosophy Today, 67:2, April 2023
“Trans Quilombismo and the Catastrophe of Critical Writing”, in: Texte Zur Kunst (online review), December 2023
“The Death of Critique and its Rebirth in Traumatic Attachment.” in: Göksu Kurnak and Andrea Bellini (ed.), The Artist Starter Kit, Centre d’Art Contemporaine Genève 2023
“Beyond Representational Justice”, in: Christian Liclair, Luce deLire, Antonia Kölbl, Anna Sinofzig (ed.), Texte zur Kunst 129: Trans Perspectives, March 2023
“Preface” (with Christian Liclair), in: Christian Liclair, Luce deLire, Antonia Kölbl, Anna Sinofzig (ed.), Texte zur Kunst 129: Trans Perspectives, March 2023
“You are paid in exposure and nothing else – Roundtable with Chris E. Vargas Kübra Uzun, Vidisha-Fadescha and Luce deLire”, in: Christian Liclair, Luce deLire (ed.), Texte zur Kunst: Trans Perspectives, March 2023
“Queer Feminist Witchcraft – a Spinozistic intervention” in: Katharina Rein (ed.), Magic Compendium, Peter Lang Publishers 2022
“Catchy Title – Gender Abolitionism, Trans Materialism and beyond”, in: Year of the Women Magazine, online publication 2022
“Lessons in Love II: The Erotics of Toxicity”, in: Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon, Stillpoint Magazine 011: SLEEP (2022)
“NEW FEARS 5: MATTER”, in: Julian Weber (ed.), New Fears, Berlin 2022
“Why dance in the face of war?”, in: Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon, Stillpoint Magazine 010: Judge (2022)
“Spinoza’s Infinities” in: Yitzhak Melamed (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Spinoza, Blackwell 2021
“Full Queerocracy Now! Pink Totaliterianism and the Industrialization of Libidinal Agriculture”, in: McKenzie Wark (ed.), trans|aesthetics – Eflux Journal 2021
“‘[E]very day the matter seems to get worse, and I don’t know what I should do.’ Violence, Spinozism, and Digital Reality.” in: Daniel Neugebauer (ed.), Skin and Code, Spector Books 2021
“The New Queer – Aesthetics of the Esoteric Left and Virtual Materialisms,” Public Seminar 2019
“Fighting the New Wars. Weaponization and the Essence of Technology.” in: Thresholds 47: Repeat, MIT University Press 2019
“Ein Tag in Vanilla – Flirten am Ende des Kapitalismus” in: Riss – Journal for Psychoanalysis, Vissivo 2019
“On Violence, Privilege and Baltimore. A Benjaminian Analysis of the ‘Baltimore Riots’”, in: Vanessa Sinclair (ed.), Rendering Unconscious – Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Politics & Poetry, (Stockholm: Trapart Books 2019)
“What Do We Even Want from One Another? Anxiety, Permeation and Identity in the Age of a Slowly Imploding Liberalism. With Jamieson Webster and Luce deLire”, Public Seminar 2018
“L’Ancien Régime Strikes Back: Letter to Paul B. Preciado”, E-flux Conversations 2018
“’The neighbor as a metaphysical constant of virtuality’ – Permeable Subjects: A column”, Reflektor M 2018
“Ich finde es gut!” (with Lene Vollhardt), art book, self-published (edition of four), 2017
Forthcoming:
“The Death of Critique and its Rebirth in Traumatic Attachment.” in: Göksu Kurnak and Andrea Bellini (ed.), The Artist Starter Kit, Centre d’Art Contemporaine Genève 2021
“Queer Feminist Witchcraft.” in: Katharina Rein (ed.), Magic Compendium, Peter Lang Publishers 2021
“The Metaphysics of Desire – Aristole, Avicenna, Spinoza and beyond”, in: Ben Gook (ed.), Libidinal Economies of Crisis Times, Transcript 2021
The Angel of Menstruation
Cecilia Vicuña, Angel de la Menstruación (Angel of menstruation, 1973), Oil on canvas, 57.8 × 48.3 cm, Collection of Catherine Petitgas, London
A Vicuña painting named “Angel of Menstruation” shows an angel looking as though she was about to wrap herself in some red thread, while in a state of bliss. Her eyes are rolled up, her mouth is open, her wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. Her face is turned toward us, where we perceive a chain of events as ‘living present.’ She, however, senses the exceeding future (a-venir, eternal return), both inside herself and above the frame. The double catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls around her feet is the nature of problematicity itself:
With only her left toes in this world, “[s]he […] is floating or flying ‘on the air above the olive green killed by the titanium white,’ ‘with a snake of sand’ that stretches like an extra limb across the canvas” – the trajectory of ordinary time, from left to right, past present to future present.
But there is another time as well: “She plays with a string that circles her body:” (Adès) A quipu – “pre Columbian type of writing, […].“ (Roelstraete 2017) A haptic practice in knots that circle around her body – turns it inside out in fact as it follows this course of virtually inaccessible time. From some position (namely pre-colonial priests of the Inka, see Domenici 1996) it might be readable. But the angel doesn’t bother – connected as she is by cyclical recurrence of blood with this other time, which permeates into the world without formal resemblance, without contact – the leafs, “[t]wo tightly woven blood-red plaits [that] frame her face and her eyes [which] are red ‘because I use my blood for looking.” (Adès quoting Vicuña)
What the angel would like to say, nobody knows. The unity of history (the snake, the branch), however, has become fragile – without disappearing, without smashing violence. No storm is blowing in from Paradise; but the infinite deflection between the two kinds of time (the linear branch and the cyclical string, actual history and virtual excess) keeps her wings flapping with such excitement that we cannot get near her – to read the cord, support her balance or interrupt her enjoyment (jouissance). The storm irresistibly propels us into oblivion, to which our back is turned, where piles of debris grow skyward. This storm is what we call reality.