A book for outliers.

Lossy Ecology asks: what concept of the body can accommodate the ever-changing sense of self, the atypical experiences of statistical outliers, and the impact of the imaginary?

Drawing on a range of disparate ideas from neuroscience of embodiment, to autistic perception to Derek Jarman’s garden, LE presents a new interpretation of John Latham’s flat-time and Alfred Jarry’s ’pataphysics.

A ’pataphysics for the invisible body: body as imaginative manifesting zones for new kinds of knowledge, that could account for experiences of self that fall beyond the parameters of normal, real and visible.

Lossy Ecology instrumentalises science to point to the limitations of any thought discipline, including science, in which a self might be identified; that all systems of thought, all bodily and sensory ‘systems’, all interpretation of reality that necessarily include loss of detail, compress out ‘irrelevant’ information - are ‘lossy’, and consequently result in a loss of bodies. How to find and sustain a ‘self’ in a lossy world…?

Escape into the floating world of untethered experience that might offer new ways to draw out a self into existence.

Image works and a glossary of re-purposed terms are distributed among a series of commissioned texts and interviews drawing on a range of subjects including John Latham’s Flat Time, ’pataphysics, autistic perception, cognitive disability, the politics of visibility, and the neuroscience of embodiment,
 by
 Ralph Dorey, Sabel Gavaldon, Victoria Gray, Gareth Bell-Jones, John Latham,
 Anna Remington and Manos Tsakiris.

The texts collectively indicate a new approach to notions of ‘self’ or ‘body’ which might begin to account for bodies and embodied experiences that are not articulated in existing, standardised representational systems; a 'pataphysical body which transforms perceptual and representational voids into new possibilities,
including freedom of movement.

“Louisa Martin draws a door to enter into the invisible: other knowledges, other affects, a different language. Inspiring and necessary!” - PAUL B. PRECIADO, Philosopher

"What fascinates me about Louisa Martin’s poetry is the way she lifts terms from science and engineering and twists them in ways that make us question the nature of selfhood and the self-making technologies that constitute the world today." - MURRAY SHANAHAN, Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London, and Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind.

Paperback. Limited Print of 500.

Publication © 2017 Louisa Martin
All texts © the authors
Design & typeface © Fraser Muggeridge studio
Images: ‘Leaves’ © 2017 Louisa Martin
All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-9957231-0-8