Of course data is always partial and reason is perhaps inescapably a process of abstraction, of moving away from the singularity of data toward the particular, the example, and the general. Moving in the other direction, I think about Latour’s plasma as his version of the Deleuzian virtual, which connects back to the concepts of time Laurie was exploring in her presentation and Gage’s use of DeLanda’s meshworks.

So I wonder if the call for new data you describe in your example and that Laurie seeks is a call for more points in the establishment of chronology, to be able to draw an arc that will resolve these questions. And in even further, in establishing chronology, is there a desire to describe the possible for future communications? Of course.

To be clear, I am interested in such work and look forward to what you both uncover. At the same time, I suppose my own work tends toward the other pole, that which cannot be chronological. I am looking forward to productive intersections with what you are both up to.

I think we can learn a lot about practitioner knowledge about delivery from street artists such as Shepard Fairey for which distribution and circulation are key concerns. In terms of the Obama image I have been tracking, Fairey credits “viral circulation” for the Obama Hope image’s iconic status. This explanation, however, as you mentioned in the panel to day is not very useful in helping us understand how this image circulated nor why it became so widely recognized. By enacting iconographic tracking, I have been able to unpack how it is that the Obama image went “viral.” What I have found is that the unintended consequences emerging from the image’s encounters with other people (and things) accelerated (and in some cases decelerated) the circulation of the image. Yet Fairey and Yosi Sargent, with whom Fairey worked closely, also employed extremely smart and deliberate guerilla marketing strategies to distribute the image in various genres and forms and locations. I have been trying to get in touch with both Fairey and Sargent to speak with them directly about these strategies and their relationships with the Obama Hope image, but haven’t been able to speak with them yet. Iconographic tracking though can provide some of that story because tracking the consequences of this image makes visible some of the common tactics that were used. These tactics reveal that Fairey and Sargant were quite delivery-savvy.

Talking to practitioners is one way to learn about their relationships with delivered artifacts, but we can also learn a lot from the artifacts themselves. By tracking them during circulation, we can make visible the relations they have/had with various people who contribute to their delivery. What I am advocating here is to think about artifacts as rhetoricians, who can reveal their relations with people to us. In making visible their stories of circulation, we can learn from them about the intricacies of delivery, distribution, and circulation.

Anyway, thanks so much again for being part of our panel. I look forward to continuing this conversation…