Stones. Building Itineraries, Chasing Interstices

Abstract

Stones can be used to indicate paths and routes for thinking. The following itinerary is composed of four stones that set a field of contrasts. The first stone highlights the contrast between the living and the nonliving, establishing it as the starting point in which the delicate interface between those two worlds is left suspended and questioned. The concept of agency emerges at this point in a confused and problematic way. The second stone moves towards a contrast between human building and geological construction, both of which are intertwined through the different meanings of the term ‘tectonic.’ The moving power of stones settles the third stone, in which ‘premodern’ conceptions of landscape and geographical ingenium take the stage to reveal a trait of the productivity of the earth that lies in minerals. The extraction of the latter underscores the intimate relationship between stones and the discrimination of certain human groups. The fourth stone exposes the paradox that lingers in the contrast between the outer and the inner. This last stone returns to the concept of agency to emphasize one of its troublesome aspects. Each of these stones surrounds a series of interstices through which a way of thinking flows, one that could be called a minor ontology.