Negarestani Reza Undercover Softness Introduction Architecture and Politics Decay

COLLAPSE VI
Undercover Softness: An Introduction to

t he Architecture and Politics of Oecayl
Reza Negarestani
Amongst philosophers and theologians of the Middle

Ages, few did not make at least a tangential remark on
a particular or general aspect of decay and putrefaction.
Whether in the context of theological quandaries
concerning the world of beings or in the context of
philosophy and the science of the age, mediaeval thinkers
touched on putrefaction as a problem too intimate with
the world of beings or the explicatio of the universe to be
blUshed aside on emotional or rational grounds. Yet even
among this rot-frenzy of the Middle Ages, there are only a
handful of passages that directly focus on the implications
of omnipresent problems which decay and putrefaction
give birth to. One such passage can be found among the
pile of proto-scientific works on impetus theory ascribed
to the German theologian and mathematician Henry of
Langenstein, also known
as
Henry of Hesse the Elder.
1. 11li. essay was extensively developed from a seminar originally given at l1le
Cemfe for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, UniversilY ofL:mdoll, in May 2007. Whilsl
ti,e arguments and analyses are different, the fundamenlS arc still the same. I could
nOI have written this essay without engaging commentaries provided by Robin
Mackay, Ray Brassier, Euge.ne Thacker, Nick Land, Mark FL,her, Eyal Wcizman,
Susan Schuppli, and Luciana Pansi, who chaired the seminar.
379
COLLAPSE VI
Hem-y poses a ludicrously bizarre yet metaphysi
cally troubling question regarding the possibility of the
generation of one species from the putrefying corpse of
another species: that of whether a fox can spontaneously
be generated from a dog's carcass_ Even more grotesquely
unsettling is Henry's stmng suspicion that 'it is not clear
whether all men are of the same species or not, and so too
with dogs and horses; [since] corpses which had been of
the same species when living might differ in species from
one another when corrupted.'2 For Henry of Langenstein,
puo-efaction creates a differential productive field in
which natural evolution is transmogIified into a sinisterly
putrid inter-species production line. The so-called beloved
creatures of God, in this corrupt scenario, are so unfortunate
tllat mey might be me festering fruits of rotten dead worlds
and corpses. It is not only that forms of different species
can overlap in decay, but tllat, according to Hemy of Hesse,
following the scholastic polymam Nicole Oresme and his
theory of qualities or accidental forms, in putrefaction one
species can uniformly or diffomllY deform in such a way
that it gradually assumes the latitude of fomlS associated
with other species. These defomuties can progress to such
an extent that one species might engender an entirely new
species, an unheard-of thing, a universe whose reality can
only be speculated upon_ The gradational movements of
decay
its vermict1lax liquidation across all latitudes and
longitudes - thus create fields of differential deformity
wherein the rotting corpse of one species or fonnal category
interpolates between all orner known species. In orner
words, gI-adients of decay or me blurring movements of rot
L. Tborndike, A HislUll 0/ Magic mul E<jJI:timcnlal StUll"', Vol III (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1934),485.
2.
380
Negarestani - Undercover Softness
calculate latitudes and longitudes peculiar to other species

by interpolating other forms between them. T hese inter
polated forms
are
in fact derivatives of the initial form of
the decaying species, putrid or thawing forms which are

derived as the process of decay differentiates or gradually
subtracts from a formation or structural framework. This is
suggestive of an affect without the positivity of affinnation
- a becoming devoid of desire but driven forward solely by
the creeping power of thawing forms and their differentia
tion across the latitudes of forms already taken by other
bodies and entities. In this sense, we can say
that in putrifactitm
lite universe is calculated; yet even more importantly, the universe tllat
is sensed or specu.lated, wltetlter as an idea or a maierialiudfarm, is
tlte calculus if" an irfmiie rot - this is the belated epigraph from
which we shall begin Our investigation into the architecture,
mathesis and politics of decay:
The world bas its origin in putrefaction.
ThE CORPSE OF WORLD POLmCS

The whole world is full of cor pses. 4
If political systems are constituted of formations - both
in the realm of ideas and in concrete structures - then,

like living species, they also are subject to the troubling
deformities brought about by the process of decay. In fact,
Henry of Langenstein's formula of decay as a weird inter
polating or extrapolating differential dynamism calculating

3. This remark is associated with the Friulian miller Domenico Scandclla, also known
as Menocchio who ",a, declared a hcrcsiarch bv the Inquisition and bum! at the
stake" Sec C. Gi'1Lburg. 1M ClllIese and Ihe 1Mmru: 1M a"""" r/a Sixlcenlfl-Cerilury Mill",
(London: Routlcdge &: Kcgan Paul Ltd, 1980), xi
4. From Swat Movie (1974) written and directed by Dusan Makavejev.
381
COLLAPSE VI
the entire universe through the putrefying gradations of a
corpse finds its most refined expression in politics and on
socio-political grounds. The power of differential interpola
tion or weird affective dynamism lends the idea of localized
or isolated decay a universal twist. "Vhat is rotting is indis
tinguishable from the wholesome remainder: not only
can the decaying part generate the healdlY parts through
differentiating into d1eir forms and ideas, the healthy parts
themselves may indeed be the gradients of a decaying part.
That is to say, in decay the origin qua the ideal shrinks more
and more toward nothing and becomes urtrecognisable,
whilst the idea is spewed forth from dIe differential
subtraction of the ideal. To put it differently, in putrefac
tion, it is not the decaying formation that is derived from
an idea, but the idea that is differentially or gradationally
formed duough putrefaction. The idea, accordingly, is a
deteriorating husk belatedly formed over an infmitely
shrunken ideal. It is in this sense that the most proper form
of a political formation - its idea - can be dIe product of
a process of decay feeding simultaneously on the uniden
tifiable corpse of the ideals of dlat system along with the
putridly amalgamated forms of odler decaying systems.
The process of decay constructs the idea only as a
byproduct of the differential regurgitation of a shriveling
body which is in the process of becoming less and less,
without ever finding the relief of complete annihila
tion. This is to say, once again, dlat the troubling aspect
of decay has to do more with its dynamism or gradation
dIan with its inherendy defiling namre: The most
proper form of a formation such as a political system
is not enveloped, as an origin or a priori ideal core;
it is rather unfolded as a form which is differentiated
382

a posteriori from the putrefaction of that fonnation or
political system. The ideas of the wholesomeness and
decaying (whether in regard to design, function, economy
or ideas) of socio-political formations, accordingly, are
posited as the latter products of a putrefying system. Yet
tIus is not where the scenario of rot ends. Decay does not
result in an equivocation between putrid and wholesome;
it rather constructs botll ideas as its gradationally proper
forms, so that what is considered wholesome can in fact
be seen as a rotten derivative of an initial construction that
has Iimitropically dinUnished. The reverse of tlUs scenario
is not only possible but is even more prevalent: through
putrefaction, the system or construction can assume forms
and ideas associated with those systems or constructions
wluch have whether rightly or wrongly - been assumed
wholesome.
The obvious, yet gullible, objection is that such an
investigation of the politics of decay is not a universally
or globally-relevant political issue or project, because a
discussion of political rot is supposedly relevant only once
one makes assumptions about the Middle East or the
Balkans. In other words, in order to speak of political decay
and its mechanisms, one has to provide an example such
as Dubai or Bucharest - otherwise the problem of decay
is not that relevant. If this is not a blind and oversimpli
fied identification of world politics, it at least indicates a
failure to understand the mechanisms at work in decay.
Not only because a rotting political formation can germinate
other forms which might overlap revolutionary, emancipa
tory and civilised political formations, but also because
Western political formations and civilisations might
indeed be the degenerate forms of an already rotten and
383
COLLAPSE VI
limitropically decomposed Middle-Eastern or Balkanese
socia-political formation. In this sense of putrefaction and
rot as persisting and creeping, political decay casts a morbid
shadow on the question of relevancy (or irrelevancy) and
swiftly neutralises tlle idea of a 'localized rot'. There is no
decay whose swollen and slimy nodules of rot - its differ
entiated forms - have not already interpolated themselves
between all known and unknown fomls in the softest
and smoothest way possible so as to disguise the deterio
ration or putrefaction of the ,vhole. These are just a few
of the numerous conclusions to be drawn from a politics
of decay; conclusions that hardly any political system or
agency - despite testifying to the current fetid atmosphere
of world politics - is ready to admit. The reason for this
ironically passive stance, frequently espoused by both the
right and the left, is that sucll conclusions overtlrrow certain
presumptions about the fundanlents, ideas and concrete
fonnations of socio-political systems and agencies. vVhat
putrefaction changes, mimics and hollows Out is not only
the surface of a system but also its essential interiority, all
tlle way down to its inner ideals, fundaments, axioms and
so-called necessities. It is this spontaneous threat against the
interiority of the system or formation from within tllal nO
political system or agency is willing to acknowledge, for
it is exactly the admission of such a resident tlrreat - the
cllemical evil of decay - tllat casts doubts on one's political
agenda or tlle legitimacy of an emancipatory socio-political
formation. In short, to profoundly doubt the interiority of
one's politics or political agency can hardly be anything
other than a real politicalfoux pas.
384

World politics and its systems - whether erected on the
side of outright repression or on the side of emancipation have every reason to be wary of a politics of decay, because
the ultimate truth of decay is that it is a building process

that builds a nested maze of interiorities whereby all interi
orized horizons or fOlmations are exteriorized in unimag

inably twisted ways. To put it simply, decay is a process
that exteriorizes all interiorities via their own formal or
ideal resources (capital?); and in doing so, its politics
and schemes of complicity operate not on behalf of the
interiority of the horizon (of any kind) but rather on behalf
of the exteriority which demands their inflection to the
outside. For this reason, we shall simultaneously explicate
the
weirdly-resident,
or undercover,
exteriorization of
decay in regard to space and time so as to subsequently

draw out a fonnalism of decay's dynamic process wherein
the abstract matheme of decay gains a chemical disposition,
and tlle chemistry of putrefaction is distributed in a math
ematical space. T he embracing of a politics of decay as
a building process toward exteriority, and tile possibility
of
political
intervention
against
decaying
formations,
botll demand a systematic investigation tIlat criss-crosses

territories associated with chemistry, mathematics, biology,
geophilosophy and ontology. W itllout such a preparatory
investigation, one risks either over-aestlleticising decay

as tile fetish of the age , or falling into a moral credulous
ness tllat sooner or later will host a political parasite which
cannot tolerate any doubt regarding tile wholesome
ness of its interiority. As a mere overture to tile politics

of decay, tllls essay, accordingly, proceeds to expound on
the calculus of putrefaction - togetller witll tile reason as
witll respect
to why we associate decay with calculus
-
to its conceptions of space, time, form and dynamism.
385
COLLAPSE VI
Since decay is tile intensive destiny of terrestrial life and
ecology, tellurian formations and earthly tIlOught, a geophi
losophy or tell urian politics mat does nOt inflect upon its
intensive destiny has its head
speaking entirely non
metaphorically - in me clouds.
DECAY AS A BUILDING PRO CESS, OR EXTERIORlZATION
VIA
NESTED INTERlORITIES
The first axiom of mis essay is mat decay is a building
process; it has a cllemical slant and a differential (hence
open to mathematical formalisation) d ynamic distribution.
TIle process of decay builds new states of extensity, affect,
magnitude and even integrity from and out of a system or
formation vVlmout nullifying or reforming it. TIle decaying
format"ion is dispossessed of its chances to die or to liv e
wholesomely, to be abolished, reformed or delivered to
its origin. For mis reason, decay is an irresolute process of
building mat potentiates architectures which, whilst infinitely
open to new syntheses and transformations, cannot undergo
complete annulment or rerurn to meir original form.
One of the basic questions regarding decay as a building
process is, tIlUs far, me question of its vectorial aligIID1ent:

Is decay a positive or a negative building process? The
answer is mat me building process of decay is subtractive,
which is to say, it is concurrently intensively negative
and e.xtensively positive. Just as me vector of perpetual
subo'action adds
to the subtracted a.mount by deducting

from what is subtracted, the process of decay generates
differential forms by lirnitropically subh'acting from the

rotten object. This process is manifested vividly in a rotting
fruit as it generates gradients of decay and differentiates
into dose and distant delivatives, whilst at me same time
386

progressively shrivelling. The difIerential or germinal
derivatives of the rotting fruit - its rancid smell, maggots,
constitute the
colour changes, secreted enzymes, etc.
positive building vector of decay which extends outwardly.
Yet the shriveling body of the fruit as it continuously
shrinks forms the negative building vector of decay. As
long as the fruit shrivels, it gives rise to its derivatives or
gradations of decay. In fact, the longer and more the object
shrivels, the more remote and distant - hence weirder
- its putrid derivatives and differential forms become.
The process of decay, therefore, exacerbates the blackening
indeterminacy already enu'enched at the heart of subtractive
cosmogenesis: It is no longer possible to determine how
much one can lose or shrink before it becomes void and
zero or how much one can spew forth and generate before
it becomes nature or God.
Confronting the problem of the infinitesimal persistence of
the decaying object, it becomes increasingly difficult to say
w hen the process of decay ceases to exist and is supplanted
by complete ontological annulment or extinction. However,
the problem of infinitesimal persistence (becoming infinitely
close to zero but never effectively becoming zero) poses yet
another perplexing quandary in regard to the process of
decay, a problem which can be summarized as follows: If
the decaying object never completely disappears, and, in
so far as it continues to become less, generates derivatives
and maintains a germinal capacity, then does this mean
that death never occurs and th.e minimally surviving
object can never be fully exteriorized? An affirmative
answer to this question surely risks advocating a form
of vitalism that is ultimately unable to think exteriority.
An outright negative answer can also lead to a form of
387
COLLAPSE VI
utopian naivety for which the outside - viz. inflection upon
death and binding exteriority
is always available and
at hand. In order to examine the process of decay whilst

avoiding such tortuous traps, we propose that decay as a
building process renegotiates - or simply twists
the loci for
the effectuation of architecture, exteriorization and binding

death. In brief, the process of decay finds and develops
a different site for the unilateral power of negativity.
The infinitesimal persistence of the decaying object - in
other words, its lim.itropic convergence upon zero - and
correspondingly, its unceasing germinal power in decay,
should not be examined in 311 isolated manner. In decay,

the infmitesimal persistence of the decaying object marks a
limit:ropic line of transition along which the interiority of one
decaying object falls back onto the interiority of its consti
tutive ideas, and those ideas in turn are undone to other
fundamental interiorities whose intrinsic nature is exterior
to the decaying object. As the ideas break into their more
fundanlental but minimal ideas, the infinitesimal persistence

of the object becomes asymptotic to the extinction of the
object. Correspondingly, if in the subtractive logic of decay,
remainvlg (viz. residing within the interiority of what is left)

me311S remaining less (viz. moving in the direction of more
fundanlental interiorities which constituted the horizon of
what had previously remained), then to remain indefinitely
means to lirnitropically converge upon zero. Therefore,
although the inward and depthwise movement toward the
constitutive ideas or the ideal substratum which m3l1ifests
itself as 'remaining less' happens only within the confines
of different horizons of interiority, its dynamism limitropi
cally embraces the
zero
qfideas. In doing so,
the interiorized
movement becomes asymptotic to a line of exteriorization
upon which death is inflected, and objectal persistence in
388
Negarestalli - Undercover Softness

decay becomes an asy mptotic expression of loosening into
the abyss.
In order to simplify the above argument, we shall

deVelop a spatial model for decay whereby both the infini
tesimal persistence of the decaying object (i.e. a horizon
of interiority) and its outward differential productivity
become the essential vectors of a process of exteriorization
- a arrmpt method of binding exteriority. 111e reason why,
in decay, binding exteriority occurs in such a twisted way,
comes down to the following: living things undergo decay,
not so much because decay and life come hand-in-hand, as
because the living - whether living on a biological level or
not - secures a horizon of interiority whose envelopment
must be exteriorized according to the differential rates or
gradients that bind the horizon to that which is exterior
to it. In other words, if decay is most frequently associated
with life, it is because the manifestations of life are all
founded on horizons of interiority. All that is interiorized
decays_
If the process of building is not exclusive to architec
ture and if, wherever building as a process is actualised,
architecture too is potentiated, then the locus of architec
ture can also be renegotiated. Architecture and its socio
political aspects can be approached in territories where
they are least expected. We call this architecture with an
anomalous locus, ex situ architecture. The process of decay
as a building process, as we will elaborate in what follows,
generates an ex situ architecture where what is built cannot
not be dwelled or grounded in any possible way. Because

what is in the process of being built, in this case, is a nested
exteriority wherein one interiorized horizon (such as the
organism) falls back upon its precursor exteriority, which
389
COLLAPSE VI
itself is another interiorized horizon built upon an exterior
horizon which is in the process of loosening into its abyssal
backdrop. Just as the lines of envelopment and growth for
any horizon of interiority (whether the organism, earth,
sun, or matter on the cosmic level) are convoluted and
circuitous paths
(umwege)
toward the precursor exteriority,
the line of exteriorization is also a circuitous path drawn

along and through the horizons of interiority which fall
back, decompose and loosen into each other.
Consider
Terrestrial
an
elucidating - albeit reductive - example:
organisms
mark
the
organic
interiority
enveloped against the inorganic materials which under

hospitable conditions can envelope the potencies of life. As
hoth the vessel and the medium of complicity for inorganic
materials, Earth is yet another interiorized horizon which
is set against its immediate source of energy, the Sun.
Howevel; the solar empire is, in the same vein, an interiority
enveloped and detennined against its exterior cosmic
backdrop . This nested continuum of interiorities goes on
to the material substratum of all horizons. Yet even mat ter
as the fundamental requirement for embodiment and
materialisation is an enveloped horizon whose interiority
and supposed necessity is a roundabout expression of a
refractory indifferent universe in which even matter is an
interiorized
hence idealised - contingency. Accordingly,
what decay or putrefaction draws is a line of exteriorization

toward the precursor exteriority. The organism decomposes
into its inorganic telTestrial environment, the tellurian
bedrock is in turn decaying into the solar horizon
as
the
Sun's thermonuclear decay dissipates the star into its cosmic

backdrop, whose material veneer, in turn, is peeling away.
Decay draws a line of exteliorization which traverses
390

the nested interiorities in order to asymptotically bind
exteriority. Therefore its dynamism is subjected to differ
ential bonds which connect and nest these interiorities
within each other. For this reason, such a differencial line of
exteriorization or' dissolution into conceptless exteriority is
neitIler manifestly a retum to an ideal origin nor a decontrac
lion back into me originary exteriority where even matter

enjoys no privilege of any kind. This is because decay's
line of exteriorization builds a space of complicity between
horizons of interiority wherein the unilateral power of exte
riorization is mathematically and chemically contorted.
This contortion or twist happens in a specific fashion:
That which is exteriorized or dissolved into its precursor
exteriority becomes a differential interpolation of a nested
series of interioricies whose limitropic convergence upon
zero (i.e. infiecl'ion upon death) has a weirdly chemical
- thus contingent and productive
disposition which
simultaneously forecloses the idea of return to the ideal

origin and differentially convolutes me path of decontrac
tion to the originary Ratline of death. Let us recapitulate
me reasons why the process of decay does not abide by
the laws o f return to the ideal origin and me energetico
dynamic principles of decontraction:
The site where decay's process of exteriorization is
effectuated is the interiority of the horizon. Therefore,

the course of exteriorization conforms to the differen
tial fields enveloped inside or extended froin tIle inte
riorized horizon. Decay loosens up me interiority of
the horizon, firstly wough exploiting the horizon's
own
differential links
between its
actualities
and
potencies; secondly by conforming to the differen

tial bonds between me interiority of the horizon and
391
COLLAPSE VI
its precursor exteriority. Yet precursor exteriority
(whether as the material, systematic, formal or ideal
fundament, as in the case of inorganic materials and
the organic horizon) is itself an interiorized horizon
determined by its i:nner and outer differential bonds.
This nestedness of interiorities wherein every idea
or form differentially - and in this case regresively
- inflects the next idea or form keeps decay's line of .
exteriority in conformity with the differential bonds
and the increasing inflections of the nested horizons of
interiority. Therefore, decay's process of exterioriza
tion does not bind the outside from without so much
as it binds the exteriority from V\rithin nested horizons
of interiority. Tlus binding of exteriority, however, is
in confomuty with differential fields inherent to each
horizon of interiority as well as inter-cOImective differ
ential bonds between these nested horizons. Conse
quently, the course of decay's process of exteriorization
is conducted in accordance with spatial involutions,

differential rates and modes of distribution immanent
to nested interiorities. Since courses of exteriorization
are subjected to differential peculiarities and twists of
the nested space of interiorities, effects of exterioriza
tion - tllat is to say, the effects of binding exteriority
and inflecting upon deatl1 on interiorized horizons and
formations - are also expressed in different ways. For
tlus reason, the persistent involvement of nested inte
riOl"ities undoubtedly complicates tlle philosophical,
political and social implications of binding exteriority,
inflecting upon death and extinction, for all formations
and systems (from basic terrestrial formations to
social networks, political systems and the horizon of
thought)_ In decay, what is considered as the bedrock
392

of the originary turns into a slimy swamp of nested
interiOl'ities where the bottom is always too soft and
unsolid to hold or ground anything. T11e sinking is

neither swift nor clean .
The differential and regressive movement through
nested horizons of interiority which the process of

decay undertakes is not unidirectional and simplex,
since, as argued above, this process conforms to the
space of interiorities, which are nested within each
other, not according to a one-to-one line of correspon
dence but according to a differential and multiplex
nested structure. For example, in decay an idea qua an

index of interiority is not merely differentially founded
on one precursory idea but on a multitude of other
fundamental and constitutive ideas which themselves
are also inflected within different ideas. T11e image
that the nested space of interiorities - as the site of

decay - calls to mind is not a unidirectional tunnel of
connected niches whose size and qualities are uniformly
changing, but rather a rabbit warren 01' a worm-ridden
cheese where every niche or hole opens into numerous
smaller or larger interconnected caverns and holes. As
the liquid that enters the first niche seeps into all such
connected caverns, the gradationally rotting object,
idea or formation also oozes, or more accurately, is
exteriorized into the multitude of interiorities inside
which it is nested. The model of exteriorization, in
this sense, follows (1) the instantaneous rate of change
between the decaying interiorized horizon and those
non-uniformly nested interiorities into which it is being
exteriorized, and (2) the in stantaneous rate of change
between the inter-cOIll1ected multitude of interiorities
393
COLLAPSE VI
which are differentially exterior to the decaying horizon
of interiority. TI1e idea X is inflected back upon its
nested fundamental ideas which are themselves differ
entially interconnected (X inflects back to XI' Y, Z, D,
F, Z3> Yl' D2 Y2D3) }. The process of decay,
accordingly, traverses multiple ever-changing ideas

or variables (as indexes of interiority). Therefore, in

order to differentially exteriorize or putrefy an object,
the process of decay must operate according to the
instantaneous rate of change not only between the
decaying object (the variable X) and nested inleri
orities gradationally exterior to it, but also betvveen
those interiorities I variables into which X is limitropi
cally diminishing. TIle instantaneous rate of change,
accordingly, is calculated between X and
F, Z3' as well as between Xl' Y, Z,
...
Xl' Y, Z, D,
D, F, Z3'
.... themselves. TIle interconnected and nested space

of interiorities, for this reason, requires that decay
operate as an instantaneous rate of change between
different horizons of interiority or points of inflection.
It is this ability to exteriorize a horizon of interiority
via the relation - viz. nested interconnections - betvveen
exterior horizons which themselves are being exterior
ized - and thus changing
that posits the process of
decay as the blackening counterpart of the differen
tial calculus. TIlls is because differential calculus is a
technique to detemrine and calculate the instantaneous
rate of change between different uniformly or difforrnly
changing variables. Just as Leibniz's solution for
calculating the instantaneous rate of change between
different changing variables involved the concept of
infinitesimals, decay exteriorizes an object into its
exterior backdrop through the limitropic shrinking of
394

the object. For a decaying object, what is considered
the exterior backdrop - as argued earlier is a nested
space of interiorities whose complicities do not allow
the process of exteriorization to be vectorially unidirec
tional, SlTUcturally uncomplicated or, as a consequence,
unproblematic. The "}fnplidf)' between interiorilies cannot be
undone ()T decontracled in a simple fashion, for such comjJlicit)'
engenders differentialfolds which can on9' be exteriorized by tAe
subtractive logic, chemical tedmiques alld mathema.tical dynamism
as a building jJTOceSS and a model if comjJlicily. The
political implications of decay as a model of complicity
corresponding to the original ideas buried in differen
tial calculus call for a thorougbgoing investigation into
the calculus of decay.
q/ decay
The differentially regressive plunge of decay into the

depth of nested interiorities always finds an extensive
echo in the form of differential reverberations of rot.
TI1ere is no depthwise putrefaction or nig;redo without
the wriggling of worms on the surface and the mephitic
extension of the rotting object into the air. Decay's
intensive exteriorization of nested interiorities has an
outward productive expression which is subtractively
correlated to the blackening line that traverses the
confines of nested interiorities. The more enveloped
and interiorized the horizon, the more chemically
productive its extension to the outside. It is as if the
degree of interiorization - that is to say, the spatial
confinement of the horizon and the amount of capital
enveloped for sustenance and development - is directly
proportional to the chemical fertility of the horizon
when it begins to extend outside of its confines.
Here, the degree of interiorization does not become
395
COLLAPSE VI
an impeding factOr for the extensive loosening of the
horizon, but contributes to the differential extension
of the horizon to the outside as well as the chemical
- hence contingently dynamic - productivity of the
horizon during decay. This illogical proportionality
between the insistence on remaining interiorized and
the spontaneous chemical loosening into the outside
shares more with the laws of the grave than with the
laws of nature - the putridly productive amalgamation
of the restrictions of wmos and the confines of tap/lOs.

We argued that decay is neither wholly negative nor
wholly positive; it is rather subtractive. The subo'active

logic of decay suggests that decay does not merely
build the nested horizons of interiorities as an intensive
limio'opic vector toward zero but that it also builds via
extensive deployment of interiorities so as to create a
dynamically contingent universe. Leibniz - following
the proto-scientific ideas in the Middle Ages frequently
uses as an example tlle model of a rotting body (usually
cheese) whose remaining perforated body suggests an
intensive limitropic convergence upon zero. Yet tlus
intensive movement in the interiority of the object,
manifested as shrinkage, cannot exist without anotller
opposite movement which extends the body into the
outside in the form of contingently differenLi.ated
ideas or smaller bodies. At the same time as tlle apple
shrivels, it spews forth worms as extensively deployed
and hence dynamically contingent interiorities. These
worms or derivatives in tum envelop smaller worms
and further derivatives which contain yet smaller
bodies ad
iJifillitum
. . .
all ready to heave forth and b e
extensively deployed i n the most contingent manners.

This applied dynamics of contingency marks the rise
396
Negarestani
Undercover Softness
of chemistry as a process commencing from within.

T he subtractive movement of decay's blackening
line of exteriorization through nested horizons of
interiority produces two functions: firstly, a limitropic
convergence upon zero dubbed wmplUaii{) and formally
expressed as progressive shrinkage; secondly, a differ
ential extension or divergence from the object, called
explicatio and expressed in the form of a dynamic and

contingent process of productivity. C(Jl1lplicatio and
explUaiio are subtractively correlated, in such a way
that dle intensive interiority of complicatio contributes
to dle extensive deployment of interiorities in explicatio.
The decaying idea, in this sense, not only undergoes
a nested twist as it limitropically approaches the u:ro 0/
ideas, but also a productive t\vist as it is subtracted to dIe
outside. For this reason, decay's process of exterioriza
tion is in complicit y wiili interiorities and their differ
ential fields on two levels: (1) the intensively enveloped
- hence nested
interiority of the decaying idea or
rotting object; (2) the extensively developed interiori
ties which are differentiated from ilie rotting object and
whose contingent world points to a dynamic chemistry
which enforces the irruptive contingencies of time
mobilized through the involutions of space. To sum up,
decay's line of exteriorization has, weirdly, a productive
disposition which generates extensively and contin
gently distributed differential fields (or sites of chemical
activity). TIle eruption of these explicated differential
fields reinforces the necessity for a complicity between
ilie process of exteriorization (viz. binding exteriority
and inflection upon death) and horizons of interiority,
whether as fundamental terrestrial fonnations or socio
political grounds and networks.
397
COLLAPSE VI
The three reasons enumerated above briefly explain the
complications that the process of decay brings about for
the idea of return to the ori gin , and for a philosophy based
on the implications of binding extinction and decontrac
tion into originary death. Yet they also diagram the spatial
model in which the process of decay operates. In order
to present a formalism of decay which provides us with
a mathematical model for decay's dynamism, we must, in
addition to decay's conception of space, examine decay's
conception of time. For this reason, we shall inquire into
decay's conception of time and how it is expressed by the
spatial involutions generated by decay's line of exterioriza
tion as it traverses nested interiorities.
MEMENTO TABERE: THE TERNARY CONCEPTION OF TIME,
OR THE MISSING LINK OF CHEMISTRY
The process of decay has a spatial model comprised
of intensive envelopment and extensive development, and
whose subtractive correlation creates differential fields
which
are
sites for the generation of abstract twists and
deformities. In other words, these sites spatially nanate

chemical activities potentiated by time's contingencies;
activities whose irruption endows the spatial plot with
a holey and porous underside. Chemistry, therefore,
as applied dynamics wherein contingencies of time are
extensively enforced by the involutions of space, requires

a third conception of time whereby absolute contingencies
of time can operate from within the interiority of a horizon.
If putrefaction marks the beginning of chemistry, its

subtractivelyproductive process needs such a conception
of time so as to mobilise the contingencies of time as
the chemical
traces of those spatial involutions and
398

envelopments which are asymptotic with the conceptless
exteriorily of space. This brings us to more fundamental
questions concerning the role of time in any politics or
philosophy incorporating decay as the building process
of its formations or ideas: What is the relation of decay
or putrefaction to time? Is decay a narrative conception
of time's indifference to ontic differences, or is it the
experience of time as presence which
in a Heideggerian
fashion - turns death into an infinitely-deferred occurrence
through Dasell's already-dying? What exactly is the role of
time in decay, and does this role reinscribe the correlationist
a ppropriation of time through experience and presence, or
amount to an idealism which favours and plivileges time
over space? And fmally, if time is imbued with radical
contingencies which suspend all affects and relationships
tl1rough the indifference of time as an impenetrable alterity,
then how can decay as a building process bring about the
opportunities of complicilY belWeen the involutions of
space and contingencies of time? It is evident that decay's
conception of time, which emphasizes the role of time in the
chemistry of decay, is so pivotal that it determines different
conceptions of decay and putrefaction. Decay as a roman
ticized concept, decay as a necrocratic fetish, decay as a
diflerential form of emptiness, decay as an urnwege (maze)
toward base-matter and decay as an ontological fate, are all
decided by different conceptions of time, in itself and in its
relation to space.
The chemical potency of putrefaction (tabes) which
decomposes the object into other horizons of interiOli
ties across infinite latitudes of forms, attests to the fact
that there is a complicity belWeen irr uptive contingen
cies of time and spatial folds and inflections of space.
399
COLLAPSE VI
l1rrough such complicity, the diachronicity of time and the
exteriority of space are evinced by each other: Whilst space
is perforated by time's emptiness or fundamental indiffer
ence, time's contingency is formally expressed by space's
unbound ferocity for the assimilation of any ground of indi
neither
viduation. It is this collective fold of complicity
demanding a conrrnonality between the parties involved
nor the substitution of either of them by the other
that
makes decay an unwholesome participation between the

most abominable aspects of time (non-belonging and pure
contingency) and the most degenerate aspects of space
i ite involutions which undermine
(space's tendency for infn
any potential ground for the emergence of discrete entities).
It is the complicity between the worst nightmares of space
and time that brings about the possibility of putrefaction
(even an infinite decay) as a differential form of ilTesolvable
emptiness disguised as ideal objectivity with a generative
twist. To think of this impregnable hollowness endowed
\vith a generative proclivity, one can envisage an infinitely
porous abomination, an obscene hollowness, folded and
mobilised in such a way that it has an objectal grimace:
T he mediaeval da:llse macabre depiction of the Tree of Rot a 'difforml y difformly difforrnly clifform's (Nicole Ores me)
tree trunk which spews forth a cosmic range of both
familiar and nameless creatures as a differential extension
of its arborescent emptiness.
T he complicity between space and time - that is, between
the dynamism of inflections and the irruption of contingen
cies
brings forth the possibility of chemistry as the concom
itantly softening and loosening dynamism of putrefaction.

5. See L. TI,omdikc, 'An Anonymous lre,uisc in Six Books all Metaphysics and
Nalur;!l Philoso phy', TI,e Philosophical Review 40,110.4, 1931: 317-4-0.
400
Negarestani - Undercover Sofmess
As the chemical space of decay, putrefaction exposes

the object to the contingencies of time so as to thaw the
object's ideal integrity and initiate its loosening into the
conceptIess involutions of space. In order to explicate the
nature of this compliciry as an intrinsic act for the chemical
dynamism of putrefaction, first we must clarify the modes
of complicity at work here. If time belongs to no one and is
absolutely indifferent to ontic differences, then how can its
worst nightmares participate with space? And if, notwith
standing such irresolvable inconnnensurability, time and
space can indeed participate with each other, then how
can this participation be conceived outside of the correla
tionist ambit? Our conj ectural s olution for these problems
conceming a blackening complicity betvveen space and
time consists of two stages: In the first stage, our solution
entails the implementation of two conceptions of time.
On the basis of these two conceptions, we seek to bridge
the exteriority or diachronicity of absolute time and the
exterioDly of space. This means that in addition to the
absolute conception of time, an intermediary conception
is also required. The intermediating time must be inter
connected with the absolute conception of time (i.e. time
as an indifferently impenetrable alterity that belongs to
nothing and no one) as a manifestation of the latter's pure
contingency. In other words, the intermediating conception
of time should itself be a production of absolute time's pure
contingency which suspends all natural laws, obstructs
the operation of belonging and nullifies ontic differences.
To put it differently, the intermediary conception of time
should itself be a symptomatic production of absolute time's
pure contingency. Accordingly, the intermediating time dlJes not
suggest a didwtomoUJ scission in time, but a temporal and contingent

conception 11iJs absoluteform. Only tile vital temporality of this
40 1
COLLAPSE VI
intermediating time can bring about the possibility of
ontological difference in relation to appropriated regions
(scales) of space.
Space-tinle syntheses necessary to support ontological
determination
require the bifurcation of TillIe into two
different but interconnected conceptions. Without such a
bifurcation, absolute time and thanatropic space remain
inherently exterior to each other and cannot ground the
conditions for ontological detennination on any level. It was
the Stoics who for the first time fully realised the necessity
of having different conceptions of time with the aim of
explaining the vital syntheses of time and space. In order
to explain the intensive vitality of determination qua differ
ence-in-itself, Deleuze adapts and ingeniously modifies the
Stoic model so as to develop and employ two conceptions
of time, the time of alon and the time of chronos.6 Since the
indefinite non-pulsed time of alon is inherently closed to vital
bodies, tllere must be another conception of time capable
of synthesizing with the scales of space and supporting
vital vibrations . This second conception of time is tlle
pulse-time of cill-onos, which supports organic vitalities and
provides time with qualities compatible with tlle structure
of corporeal beings. Accordingly, the first already-established
stage of our solution requires tl1e bifurcation of Time intO
two d ifferent but interconnected times. Following Deleuze,
but in contrast to his quasi-Heideggerian reading of time,
tl1ese two conceptions are reabsorbed in tlUs fashion:
6. See John Seilars, 'Alon and Cltronos: Ddell>c and the Stoic 111cor), of Time:
COLLAPSE III, 177-205.
402
Negarestani
Undercover Softness
1 . The ungraspable and cosmic time which belongs

to nothing and no one. It is the absolute time of pure
contingencies or cosmic climates which unilaterally
suspends all laws and eliminates all necessities.
The temporal conception of time, which is time
insofar as we experience it and which, therefore,
is characterised by the access to its presence rather
than its quiddity per se. Yet, even more importantly,
the temporal conception of time supports the
temporality of beings by providing the conditions
for their ontological determination and emergence.
These conditions are nothing but the contingen
cies of the cosmic and absolute time. The temporal
conception of time, accordingly, envelops and
foregrounds contingencies of absolute time in the
form of conditions for the emergence of life (or the
subject of temporality) . Therefore, the temporal
conception of time is an interiorized or bounded
form of absolu te time, a temporal set wherein contin
gencies are taken as conditions for the determination
and the continuation qua temporality of existence.
In other words, temporal time posits the contingen
cies of absolute time as the ground for the determi
nacion of d ifference and ontic emergence, through
a bracketing and interiorizing of those pure contin
gencies. We call this temporal conception of time,
vital time or the time of determinations and making
differences. Constitutive to the ground of life, vital
time is accentuated in the organic realm through
the compatibility of its interiorized and sequential
structure with the sequential growth or the rhythmic
d ifference of organic interiority. In other words,
2.
403
COLLAPSE VI
the interiorized contingencies of vital time become
s tructurally compatible with
the involutions
or
interiorized horizons of space. Without such basic

s(Jllcturai compatibility between space and time
albeit at the cost of their envelopment and inte
riOlization - ontological determination and
the
emergence of on tic differences which are tied to

spaCe-tllle syntheses are impossible.
Vital time - the intermediary conception of time emerges from the cosmic tllle of pure contingencies as
'an interiorized set of contingencies'. As a temporal set,

vital time interiorizes contingencies as its elements. Since
the function of the set is interiorization, it can intensivdy
determine the contingencies of absolute time as conditions
for the emergence of life, or as necessities for making
difference. In the process of interiorizing contingencies and
realizing them
as
concomitantly temporal and necessary
conditions, vi tal time appropriates the exteriorily of cosmic

tllle and turns it into an inteliorized conception of time
accessible by life and its manifestations. Yet the cosmic time
of non-belonging and pure contingencies can never be fully
appropriated or assimilated (inteliorized) by vital time and
its temporal conception. This is because vital time is itself
contingent upon cosmic time as a temporal condition for the
interiorization and bracketing of absolute tllle's contin

gencies and their realisation
as
the conditions required for
the emergence of life. This means that since vital time is

i ts elf a temporal condition qua contingency of cosmic time,
it cannot fully interiorize the exteriority of absolute rime
qua pure contingencies. Vital time suggests only one of the
infinite pure contingencies of absolute time; its fundamental
404
Negarestani
Undercover Softness
functions are simultaneously supported and derailed by

other contingencies. For this reason,
contingencies of
cosmic time are never fully reintegrated and absorbed

within the manifestations of life (viz. realised horizons of
interiority) conditioned by 'vital time. To put it differently,
vital time can be interiorized by beings as the necessary
condition for their emergence because it is itself an inte
riorized conception of cosmic time's pure contingency.
This brings us to another problem which constitutes the
s econd stage of our conjectural solution to the problem
of complicity betvveen space and tUne necessary for the
chemical dynamism of putrefaction.
If cosmic time can never fully b e appropriated by and

within vital time, then the horizons of interiority inherent to
manifestations of life or ontic differences cannot assimilate
and appropriate the contingencies of cosmic time either.
Consequently, the interiority of life is a host or a niche for
the inassinlllable contingencies of cosmic time - contingen
cies that never completely lurned into temporal conditions
within vital rime but remained part of the unilateral ecology
of the cosmic abyss within ,rital time's temporal set. Briefly,
vital time interiorizes contingencies of the cosmic abyss
in order to form its temporality ; however, there are still
contingencies of cosmic time which, despite being interior
ized, defy assimilation by the laws of the temporal set that
turns contingencies into vital conditions. These interiorized
yet inassimilable contingencies, consequently, implement
the unilateral ecology of the cosmic abyss from within vital
time and consequently, from within an interiorized horizon
such as the organism or the planet. In conditioning the
emergence of life, vital time introdnces the nightmares of

cosmic tinle into the phenomena of life. The horizon of
405
COLLAPSE VI
interiority inherent to the manifestations of life beconnes
an incubating chamber for the pure contingencies amd
non-belonging of cosmic time. It is this non-belonging qma
principle of negativity that is mobilized by the dynamism
intrinsic to involutions of space. TIle subtractive process of
decay is the outcome of such spatial mobilisation wherelby
the unilaterality of cosmic time undelpinned by its irruptive
contingencies gains a subtractive - that is, extensivdy
positive and intensively negative - momentum through
inflections of space. As an outcome of its complicity
with space, time's unilateral negativity is inlposed on me
horizon of interiority in a way that forces the horizon to lbe
concUlTently swept away along the extensity of space amd
intensively shattered on zero qua the eternaL
Thus cosmic time is deployed inside vital time anJd,
correspondingly, inside the life or the horizon of interiority
that is conditioned by vital time. This remobilisation of
cosmic time's exteriority and redeployment of its contingen
cies witlnn vital time and manifestations of life posits a tllird
conception of time wInch constitutes the second stage of oor
conjectural solution. The blackening complicity betWOl:n
space and time can only be fully explained via recoUJse
to a third conception of time which is always implicit - as
an internal tension - to the dyadic conception of time. We
call the tIllrd conception of time, the insider conceptioll ifcosnic
time. It is conceived of
as
a treacherous insider insofar as
it intemalizes the complicity between time's diachronicity

and tile exteriority of space witllln the manifestations of life
and the horizons of interiority. The conception of cosmic
time as the insider redefines the intermediary concepcion of
vital time
as
a 'temporal agent' that brings with it into life's
horizons of interiority the contingencies and non-belongillg
406
Negarestani
Undercover Softness
of cosmic time. In other word s , the insider conception of

cosmic tTIne interiorizes and cultivates the incommensu
rable tensions between cosmic contingencies within life
and its manifestations - thereby giving cosmic ecology an
eruptive (i.e. volcanically extlllsive) expression rather than
an intrusive insinuation.
In the wake of the insider conception of time, the
termination of life does not
exclusively mark
the temporality
of life qua its contingency, because the very interiority of

life (its difference and internal vitalit)') can unfold as the
abyssal infinity of material and ontological contingencies
whose irruption is equal to death. This unfolding of cosmic
time's pure contingency through life and by life is expressed
by decay as a dysteleological process. In this sense, life's
interiority is a medium for the cultivation of incommen
surable tensions between the contingencies of cosmic
time. And d ecay is the germinally-cultivated expression
of thes e incommensurable tensions or contingencies along
infinite involutions of space - a complicity between time's
subtractive enmity to b elonging and the enthusiasm of
space for dissolution of any ground for individuation, a
participation between cosmic time's pure contingency and
the infinite involutions of space from whose lTapS nothing
can escape.
The process of putrefaction or decay accentuates the
compulsion to return toward pure contingencies of cosmic
time through the third conception of time (i.e. cosmic time
as insider time) . This s o-called 'compulsion to return'

instigated by the insider conception of time becomes a
source of tension between the principles of cosmic time
(i.e. contingency and non-belonging) and the temporal
conditions
or
necessities of vital time. These contingent
407
COLLAPSE VI
and subtractive tensions are nanated by the degenerate
qualities of space through the process of decay in the form
of a progressive softening of forms and loosening of the
horizon. We can say that in decay space is perforated by
time: Although time hollows out space, it is space that gives
time a n"list that abnegates the privilege of time over space
and expresses the inepressible contingencies of absolute
time through dynamic and formal means. This inflective
mobilisation of cosmic time's radical contingencies heralds
the birth of chemistry as the blackening complicity between
time and space. I t is chemisbl' that endows the subtractive
process of decay with a putridly productive nature.
FIGURING OUT THE FACE OF ROT, OR InEl\'TITY AND THE
FORMS OF BEING LESS THAN A ThING, MORE THAN
NOTHING
The subtractive dynamism of d ecay is generated on
the basis of a complicity belween space and time which
allows for the
chemical loosening of the horizon of
interiority along nested inflections that are simultaneously

extensive and intensive to the horizon. The dynamism of
decay u tilizes the complicity between space and time as
the principle for an unconstrained deformability where
loosening and softening - the lytic functions of chemistry
and the smoothing functions of differential calculus, i.e.
mathesis - are intertwined and unbound. Yet such uncon'
strained deformabilit:y is lTanslated, as elaborated above,
into the intensive complicity of nested interiorities as
well as the complicity of interiorities in their extensive
deployment. Through these intensive and extensive planes
of complicity, interiorized horizons asymptotically bind
the exteriority of space and the diachronicity of time .
408
Negarestani - Undercover Sofmess

The asymptotic binding of exteriority requires
an
inter
polating dynamism capable of traversing all interiorities

complicit in the process of exteriorization as changing
variables whose ratio must be calculated. To put it
differently, since interiorities are always in complicity with
each other, the process of exteriorization must find a way,
firstly, to grasp interiorities in terms of their complicities;
and s econdly, to conduct exteriorization based on the
dynamic factors, elements and variables brought about by
such complicities. Exteriorization is not possible v",ithout
factoring in and acting upon the complicities between
interiorized horizons. Yet acting upon such
ties
complici
characterized by dynamic relationships and rates of
change b etvve en horizons of interiority requires a solution

reminiscent of difTerential calculus , a solution capable
of calculating the instantaneous rate of change between
changing variables.
The solution of decay's process of exteriorization
for the problem of changing and complicit interioritiesl
variables is the limitropic decomposition of the object
or formation. Only though the limitropic movement
of the object or formation toward zero (whether as the
conceptless exteriority of space or the diachronic eternali!:y
of lime), can the process of exteriorization cut through
the complicity between interiorities which is too differ
entially convoluted to be disentangled or decontracted
through regressive thanatropic movement. The limitropic
wasting or subtraction of tile object (or formation) along
its extensive and intensive vectors does not allow for the
complete eradication of the object's ontologkal registers,
structural fundaments or operating axioms. The effect of
such funitropic \\'3.stage, in which me formation is loosened
409
COLLAPSE VI
and softened to no end yet leaves traces which linger as the
agents and particles of complicity, has a strong socio-polit
ical undertone. Even after a political formation turns into
an
unrecognizable corpse, where all of its s tructural and
operative influences have presumably vanished, there still

remain active structural fundanlents and functional axioms
from that formation without whose complicity the political
calculus of world politics carnlot possibly be formed. For,
once again, in decay the relationship or change between
horizons of interiorities (as entities inb"insically susceptible
to decay) is possible only through Ilmitropic deterioration
toward a
zero
ofi111eriority. The limitropic deterioration brings
about the possibility of the differential interpolation of the

decaying horizon between other interiorized horizons and,
as a result, ins tigates the construction of a universal calculus
of putrefuction. It is this limitropic deterioration that
introduces the lingering and persistent axiomatic remnants
of the decaying formation to an unsuspecting uni-vcrsal
calculus, as minute but ineradicable agents of complicity.
Neither fully negating the system by overthrowing
it nor reaffirming it through reformation, the process of
decay imposes a perpetual deformability on the formation
without completely erasing its ontolohtical registers and
functional axioms. In short, decay extracts infinite defoml
ability from an interiorized horizon without eventuating
in radical erasure or complete transformation. Such

perpetual defommbility is supported by the intensive and
extensive complicity of horizons of interiorities in the form

of an unbreakable continuity in which every hOl;ZOll of
interiority either inflects the next or is nested within yet

another horizon. Accordingly, it is the ceaseless continuity
- in the sense of intensive and extensive inflections of
forms and interiorities - that imparts a fluid continuity to
410

the rotting object without essentially turning it into fluid.
Each form is only gradationally preceded and succeeded by
other forms in such a way that transition along latitudes
(of forms) is always blurred. The gradients of deformities
are differentially smooth, to the extent that the formal
dynamism of rot appears to be that of sludge or oozing
flesh. In decay, the solid undergoes a Bowing series of
deformations without becoming liquid, or in other words,
without losing its basic principles of solidity. The wholeness
or coherency of the solid is derailed within the fundamental
principles of solidity. In a similar fashion, in pUh"efaction
the liquid's degeneration vacillates between solid and gas,
slime or miasma, but in either case it remains fundamen
tally - albeit minimally - liquid. This minimum body of
the element, horizon, formation or object, in fact suggests
its concomitant asymptotic exteriorization and limitropic
diminution. Recall Bishop Berkeley's sneering deprecation
of infinitesimal calculus as dealing with the 'ghosts of
departed quantities';7 the decaying object, indeed, is an
evanescent yet lingering ontological register that is less than
a thing but more than nothing.
Supported by the complicity of interiorities, the
continuity of forms or the gradients of deform ability ensure
that the interiorized horizon is always formalized as a fluxion
of contingent and even inconsistent forms. It is actually in
decay that inconsistent forms are smoothly connected to
each other so as to form a congmous plane of deformability
in which becoming does not essentially follow the logic of
the affect but rather the logic of putrefaction and its medlOd
of exteriorization. Victor Hugo concisely epitomizes this
fluxional connection of inconsistent forms, ideas and
7. C. Berkeley, 17", <11ll1l1)" ; or, Ii dU(l)IlrJe addrwcd 10 illl i'iflIki mathematician (1754), 59.
411
COLLAPSE VI
entities in putrefaction in Les Miserables: 'In a pit of slime
[ ... ] the dying man does not know whether he has become
a ghost or a toad.'s It is only in putrefaction that death is
essentially and weirdly non-hauntological: one becomes a
toad rather than a poltergeist armoyingly clamouring for
appropriate mourning, for a proper judgment or a spectral
solution. VVhilst in putrefaction the human might end up
as a toad, the toad itself grows a tail. The tail, in this case,
speaks to the differential idea or latitudes of form between
a toad and a tadpole, the mathemathico-chernical affect
between them, the ratio of putrefaction: the longer the tail,
the fouler the putrefaction:
It was observed in the great plague of dle last year, dIal there
were seen, in divers ditches and low grounds about London,
many toads that had tails t\vo or three inches long at the least;
whereas toads (usually) have no tails at all. vVhich argueth a
great disposition to putrefaction in the soil and air. It is reported
likewise, that roots (such as carrots and parsnips) are more
sweet and luscious in infectious years than in o ther years.
So the parts of beasts putrefied
extreme subtile parts,)
(as castoreum and
are to be placed
[ .]
..
musk, which
amongst them. We see
also that putrefactions of plants (as agaric and Jew's-ear) are

of greatest virtue. The cause is, for that pu trefaction is the
subtilest of all motions in the parts of bodies ; and since we
cannot take down the lives of living creaUlres, (which some
of the Paracelsians say, if iliey could be taken down, would
make us inmlOrtal,) the next is for su btilty of operation, to take
bodies putrcfied; such as may be s afel y taken.9
Putrefaction is comprised of these extremely subtle

motions - infinitesimal fields of differentiation - according
8. V. Hugo, Us Misimhles (London: Penguin, 1 982), 1087.
9. E Bacon. The 1#rlu rfLcrd &u:u!1 (London:
412
Henry C. Eohn, 1854), 159.

to which various and outlandishly incongruous forms can
smootluy blend. The idea of the human becomes a smooth
gradient of different worms, flies, wasps, plants and fungi.
The toad, the miasma, the sludge and the human all b ecome
part of a differential field wherein each entity can gradually
unfold into another regardless of the congruity of their
traits, environments and habits. These subtle, fluxional or
infinitesinlal movements point to the gradational continuity
of deformities in decay whose basal continuity is maintained
by the dynamism of complicity as a form of participa
tion in which, instead of commonality and replacement,
inflection and nestedness - that is to say, the mathesis of
the insider
aTe the guarantors of the collective action.
To this extent, a politics of decay as building process fully

employs the mathesis of the insider as the prerequisite for
the dynamism of collectivity: In the calculus of decay, it no
longer matters if there is a commonality or even a minimal
agreement between conjoined or discrete elements; putre
faction causes the decaying or infected parts or elements to
interpolate themselves between other healthy elements and
parts in such a way that everything is collectively mobilised
by and toward putrefaction.
The fluxional continuity of decay gradients smoothly,
or more accurately, differentially connects incongruous
forms. The act of figuration, in terms of decay, is equal to
smootlling what is already out of place; everything must
be con-figured again according to the smooth gradients
of decay whose basal continuity lies in the complicity of

horizons of interiority. To putrefy means to 'parabolify
use Boscovich's term) ,l then to twist
line'
the
10.]. F. Scon, 'Boscovich's Mathematics' in lWger Jruq)n iJosaJuidt, S]., F.R.s., 1711-
1787: SllIdieJ "His Lifo llJld Hft,. on tlte 2501lt Anniumary "His Birth [London: George
Allen &: Unwin Lld 1961). 183-92.
.
413
COLLAPSE VI
the curve and eventually to convolute the already twisled
curve. In other words, in order to approxlinate forms, me
line of figuration must pass thwugh points of inflections or

latitudes of a given form. In this sense, figuration becomes
more accurate as it passes more points of inflection or
traverses more latitudes ; yet to encompass more pomts
means that the line of figuration cannot remain a straight
line but must become an increasingly convoluted curve .
The painter Francis Bacon presents such a model of
smooth figuration in which a form is lin1itropically approxi
mated through ever swirling and twisting curves. Bacon's
method of figuration becomes a function of approxlination
rather than reproduction and for dns reason, it acquires
a configuring mechanism that corresponds intin1ately to
that of decay and its smooth gradients : How many points
can
a line encompass, how many latitudes can be travened
by a differential function, before the line turns into a

coiling abomination or the differential function becomes
'difformly difformly . . , difformly dilloon'? The thawing
meat of Francis Bacon's figures, the oozing colour gradients
of his landscapes and the heads whose figural approxima
tions are bundles of coiling tails all suggest a differemial
function wInch indexes instant and remote derivatives of a
given form in the smoothest fluxional manner.
In decay, the act of figuration corresponds to the act of

curve fitting in interpolation. Between two forms, nyo entities
or two horizons , one
can
only make a continuously smooth
connection by encompassing the derivatives which remotely

connect these foons or entities together. The remoter 2l1d
further apart the delivatives of these forms and entities, me
smoother and more congruously they can be connected to
each other. As the forms or given variables increase, ilie
differential function also becomes more complex and tthe
414

curve for smoothly connecting these variables or given d ata
points becomes increasingly more convoluted. A curious
literal depiction of these seething differential curves which
connect putrefying forms together in the slimiest and most
twisted ways possible can be found in Laurence Housman's
intricate art nouveau drawings. Cauchemar (which originally
appeared in The Dome, published by Unicorn Press [1899])
is a nightmare of a slimy nature lost and perplexed in the
putrid mazes of its evanescent forms and their derivatives.
It depicts a man being consumed by trees, becoming a tree,
415
COLLAPSE VI
yet this concomitant change of identity and fonns leaves
behind it a slimy trace, demonstrated by a pandemonium
of twirling curves which connect the horizon of ma.n to that
of trees.
The universal calculus of decay does not tolerate
an
abrupt mutation from human to tree, as Hieronymus

Bosch's tree-man might imply. In decay as a process of
cosmogenesis, the tree and human are not twO entelecrues
or perfected b odies of actuality which
can
be connected
together via a s traight line. B oth 'being a tree' and ' being a
man' are changing variables rates of change between their
respective actualities and potencies on the one hand and
between their interiorities and the exteriority on the other.
Therefore, the most velitable line of o'ansition that can be
drawn between a human and a tree is not a line connecting
their fixed actualities or traits but a line that encompasses
their existing actualities (given points)
as
well as their
potentials and derivatives {even the remotest ones}. The

tree is itself a differential field of ideas - or in a Leibnizian
sense a generative reservoir of smaller bodies - which
themselves are changing and have their own derivatives;
the same profusion with subtle bodies and movements is
also applicable to man, its idea and its fonn. TI1erefore,
in order for the line of putrefaction to draw gradients of
decay between tile man and tl1e tree, it must encompass
such ever-increasing (both in quantity and distance from
their Oliginal ideas or fonnations
as
a whole) emerging
bodies, ideas or derivatives. In interpolating b etween
all these points and emerging values, the slimy line of

rot becomes an everconvoluting curve. For this reason,
the nightmarish plunge of ti1e human into the verdant
inferno of growth is accentuated when the line between
the human and the tree becomes infinitely convoluted,
416
Negarestani
Undercover Softness
encompassing a cosmic array of beings which only differ

entially - that is to say, very remotely - connect to either
the tree or the human. In other words, in decay, the object
travels across a world of familiar and alien beings which
may or may not have any inm1ediate relationship or affinity
,.nth the decaying object. This also means that the most
accurate line of transition b etween a human and a tree is
a line that progressively encompasses not only the tree
and the human but also their remotest derivatives and the
least actual potencies. 111is is the taphonomic logic behind
the slimy forms of pun'efaction and the ever-shrinking
bodies of decomposition (as in ruins) where the complicity
b e tween parts
and
derivatives
becomes a subtractive
and hence synergistic counterpart to the limitropically

shrinking remnants of the thing's fonner self. In becoming
a vividly accurate (i.e. nighnnarish) transition between the
human and the tree, the connecting line encompasses more
b eings and consequently becomes more convoluted. Decay
corresponds to such an approximation of the dis tance or
relationship between n'lO given entities
as
continuously
changing variables. The minimum possible number of

curves for passing through tl1e maximum number of points
or entities - this flawed but concise formula defines the
nighnnare of decay as an abominable curve that exn'acts
values and beings from all that it encompasses, building
worlds and corpses more efficiently than God. The effect
of decay's cosmogenesis for any horizon of interiority is
a weird amalgamation of vitalistic trust in one's survival
and susceptibility to a unilateral terror from the inside the treachery of the former and the non-negotiability of the
latter. TIlls is not just because decay draws its lurid forms
upon the complicity of contingencies of an indifferent time
with the concepdess exteriority of space, bur because it
417
COLLAPSE VI
mobilises the exteriorizing terror of such complicity right
from the inside of the interiorized horizon and through its
locus of persistence and its definition of survival.
BUILDING WORLDS AND CORPSES, OR ThE
QyESTION OF
M.\THEMATICO-CHEMICAL DYNAMISM
I observe ill advance U1at numerically the
same
change 111 '0/
be the generation of one bein g and the alteration of aI10dH::
[or exan1pie, since we know dIat putrefaction consists in litlie

worms invisible to the naked eye, any putrid infection is
alteration of man, a generation of lie worm. 1 I
!ll1
It was argued that decay effectuates a perpetillal

deformation which does not dismantle the primal formation
by erasing its fundamental ontological registers or minimal
fOl11lal traits, but rather ceaselessly pushes the formation
to new levels of degeneration by infinitely building ewer
and through it. }or tlus reason, decay can exo'act softness
from solidity (if solidity is inexo-icable from its stable, molar
and rigid qualities as well as its manifest wholeness) and its
socia-political abso-actions, deducing political tenacity and
persistence from tlle degeneration of power formatiooS.
This is the arcane modus vivendi of certain political systems
whose decay or corruption does not lead to their d eIllis e
and destruction but rather endows them with the gift of a
camouflaged existence - a simultaneous unrecognizability
ensued by thawing forms and an axiomatic or fundamental
persistence as the result of their limitropic dissolution.
Once the state embraces decay as a form of camouflage
and persistence, it turns into a site of complicity betwte n
1 1 . G. W. Leibniz, Phikuophicai RljJtrs alul Lellrn (Dordrecht: Kluwer Ac.1dtmic
Publishers, 1989), 96.
418
Nega:restani - Undercover Softness

all decaying elements or splinters of rot in its vicinity, in
the manner of an interpolating differential function. The
nebulous term ' rouge state' outlines some of the charac
teristics of a state which has d eliberately bound decay as
the building process of its formation. It is in this sense, that
the degeneration of the solid and its abstractions does not
essentially entail its dissolution into liquid or the fluid state
where the solid loses its minimal traits through fundamental
transfonnation, but the differential deformity of the solid to
such
an
extent that the idea and formal integrity of solidity
are chemically pulverised by the inner potencies of the solid

itself. The solid gains a corrupting mobility - or a differen
tial power of interpolation - at the cost of losing its integrity
and established forms. The impaired integrity of the solid
formation allows for the eruption of potencies whose actu
alisation would othen'l'ise have been subjected to the pre
established laws and climates of solidity (viz. its cohere"!1ce,
formal rigidity, stability, etc.)
The fonus of rot, as discussed in the previous section,
are in direct con-espondence with the 'dynamism of decay
or its differentially con-uptive mobility. Since the complicity
of time and space in their contingency and exteriority
bring ab ou t the possibility of this peculiar dynamism, the
dynamism of decay is characterized by a chemical disposition
with a calculative mode of distribution. Whereas its chemical
disposition is associated with the spatially enveloped and
mobilised contingencies of time, its calculative mode of
distribution i s the result of its asymptotic approach to the
e x teriority of space according to which every interiority
inflects yet another interiority, whether in the direction
of the precursor exteriority (camplicatio) or the extensively
dissipated interiorities
(explicatio),
419
This chemicallycharged
COLLAPS E VI
and calculative dynamism, accordingly, operates
as
bidirectional building proces s : it intensively builds me
abstract by positively binding a linutropic conception of

zero (the body of the mUllmum) and extensively builds the
concrete by extensively giving rise to derivatives or d iflfer
entiated horizons of interiority (worms, animalcules, ontic
differences) . In order to fonnalise the dynamism of deay

as a building process, a reductionist mathematical formula
of decay can be constructed so as to demonstrate, caprnre

and ultimately diagTam decay as a building process. This
reductionist formal model incorporates three basic inter
connected aspects of decay's dynamism:
(1) Perpetual inclusion - inflection and nestedness:

The line of decay or the differential function of
putrefaction must cover and encompass all given
values
given points, forms and traits of the inte
riorized horizon as well as its emerging derivatives ,
actualities and gradationally emerging potencies.
Pelpetual
inclusion
ensures
that
all
emerging
potencies be indexed and encompassed by the
differential function of decay. Any cllange - whether
extensive or intensive, outward or inward - in the

decaying object should be included by the process
of decay. The possibility of induding and encom

passing both intensive and extensive changes attests
to the inIperfectibililY of being and the inlleren t
susceptibility o f the interiorized horizon t o xteri
orization. Since perpetual inclusion means that bodl
extensive and intensive changes are encompassed

concurrently and since these changes are subtrac
tively cOlTelated to eacll, tlle perpetual inclusion is
essentially the ratio of changes which regis ters itself
420

as a slope - the rate of ex-plicatio (unfolding) to com
plicatio (folding) , extensive motions to intensive
Ay
.
motIons, - .
Ax
The law of basal continuity, or the persistent
continuity between limitropically vanishing values
and emerging values: In a decaying object, no
matter how significant the change or how unrecog
nizable the deformity is, it cannot depart from the
ever-shrinking fundaments, axioms or basic registers
of the object or formation. In other words, as the
formation undergoes new extI-emes of deformity
or the object rots to new levels, the fundaments of
the formation or the basic ontological registers of
the object also become more emphatic - that is to
say, truer to their ideal. The law of basal continuity
in decay holds that emerging values or changes
must be continuous to fixed or established values,
fundaments and basic axioms of the formation
regardless of their distance and difference. Here
continuity can be formalised as follows : Suppose X
is a fundament or an axiomatic value of a decaying
system and Y is a deformation, a change or an
emerging value, and the function J stands for the
putrefying line of decay that encompasses X and Y.
Now, J is continuous at x for some x E X if for any
neighborhood W ofJ{x) , there is a neighbourhood
Z of x such thatf(Z) W ; meaning that, irrespec
tive of how small W becomes, a Z containing x that
will map inside it can be found. ITJis continuous at
every x E X, thenJis continuous.
(2)
42 1
COLLAPSE VI
(3) Differentiable smoothness: Following and in
accordance with the first two principles, the encom
passing process of decay as an interpolant should be
as smooth as possible, or more precisely, infinitely
differentiable so as to support both the perpetual
inclusion of all extensive and intensive cllanges and
the basal continuity between persistent remnants
and emerging fonus and values.
In decay what is firstly enacted is the subtractive
power ofputrefaction whereby extensive and intensive
changes are simultaneously included. Subtractive
binding of dlanges ensures that vectorially opposite
changes can be included in regard to each other in
such a way that every extensive change inBects an
intensive change and vice versa. For this reason,
the law of basal continuity whicll emphasises the
continuity between ever-shrinking fundaments and
the emerging changes cannot be maintained except
through the subtractive power of decay, or more
accurately, decay's perpetual inclusion of changes
and deformities. Therefore, perpetual inclusion
enacted by the sublTactive logic of decay precedes
the continuity between the intensive ideals of the
formation and its extensive ideas which are in the
process of unfolding. In this sense, continuity C is
built upon the output of inclusion I (i.e. inclusion
of both intensive and extensive changes). Inclusion
alone, however, does not support the continuity of
what is included either in terms of 'the continuity
between those changes which will be included
and those which have already been included' (the
intensively enveloped fundaments) or in terms of
422

'the ceaseless differentiability of the process'. For this
reason, the input of continuity should b e the output
of inclusion, which is the sum of the actualities of the
interiorized horizon and its gradient of potencies,
the
extensive
development
and
the
intensive
Diagram I . Basal continuity between the limitropically shrinking object

(persistence) and its putrid deformity (changc)
envelopment of the formation. Here, if I is the

perpetual inclusion and C the basal continuity, then
their relation can be formalized as :
C o l or x I-+ C (I(x))
Perpetual inclusion l, basal continuity C and differenti
able smoothness constitute the main principles of decay's
dynamism D in regard to any interiorized horizon H and
in relation to time t. These three principles give decay the
power to mobilise and unleash the irru p tive contingencies
of time from within and through the interiorized horizon.
423
COLLAPSE VI
Putrid deformities Or smooth gradients of decay are
forcefully yet nonviolendy extracted from the ostensibly
secured interiority of the horizon by the combined function
of dle aforementioned principles. Accordingly, for an inte
riorized horizon demarcated by the ratio of its actu alities
(a) and potencies (Pl , decay can be reductively symbolized
as : 12
The
(C(J;x)))nl
Leibnizian
(C(J(x)))"
would
dt
notation
be
for
dn (C(J(x)))
dxn
the
differentiation
expressed
as
rate of differentiation widun itself - a differential curve

within a curve. To put it difTerendy, in the above formalised
model of decay's dynamism, the process of decay D evolves
not only as a curve generated by dle complicity of time and
space but also as a curve that differentially encompas ses
the potencies and actualities of a horizon. Decay, in this
sense, is a curve in the perpetual act of curving. The act of
perpetual curving whereby for every twist another twist is
reinvented (q)'ma reversa) presents (red uctively) a model of
decay as a building process that delivers the interiorized
horizon to its heretical wastelands. In line with Leibrnz's
remarks cited at the beginning of this section regarding
12, 111t: ve!'tical bars here signify the absolute value of dec.y's dynamism D. both
in its negative and positive orientations. Schematically, by positive deGiy we mean
the extensive veCIOI' of deca y ",hid, takes the idea toward its cona'etc chemical
manifestations and LUuolds the forms or derivatives wbidl are enveloped by the
interiorized horizon. By ncg;ll.ivc decay, on the other hand, we point to the inttllsive
vector or decay which timin'opic.y abstracts and shrinks the idea toward the zero of
ideas and inflects the imeriolized horizon towill'd the precursor extcrionty,
424
Negarestani
Undercover Softness
the dynamics of infinitesimal vermiculation of the body in

putrefaction, the process of decay returns every outward
twist developed from the interiorized horizon with an inner
twist within the horizon itself and vice versa. The reason
(ratio) according to which the horizon of interiority works
and strives for its ideal status takes a vermiculate turn once
it is bent from both ends by the twists (abstract worms)
which force it to veer in unforeseeable directions. Once
a rectifying ratio between the ideal and the idea (both in
its intensive envelopment and extensive development) is
established, reason b ecomes a worm that bores through the
horizon so as to prepare it for that which can easily creep in
or ooze out. By differentially conupting the ratio between
the idea and its ideal and the ratio betr.veen actualities and
potencies of an object, decay reinvents the interiorized
horizon on the heretical side of itself. It is the pragmatic
artistry of decay to harves t limitless potentialities from the
subversive logic of interiority on behalf of an exteriority in
whose term every horizon must be deserted according to a
reason (ratio) which is crooked at both ends.
Nowhere has the curving function of decay been more
explored than in scholasticism - in particular in the theories
developed at Merton College, Oxford and the University
of Paris, which constitute some of the germinal ideas of
mathematics and chemistry. In scholasticism, mortjfzcalio,
nign:do and pulrifatio all point to the overlapping regions
between chemistry and mathematics through proto-scien
tific ideas germinated in theology, natural philosophy,
medicine and the culinary arts. The corpse, as the
epitome of putrefaction, demarcates the transition from
the w711plicatio of a body to its explicatio. Su ch transition
essentially takes place as a slope, 'the rise of potentialities
in the form of actualities' in respect to 'the varying flux of
425
COLLAPS E VI
potentialities'. These are the slopes of body qua complexus
that provide the process of decay with fields of gradation
whose dynamism can only be differentially grasped. Unlike
the co17lplicatio of God, the comJJiicatio of body qua complexus
is under the influence of its actualities whose disu-ibu
tion is extensively toward the outer world or the world of
multitudes. In other words, since the actualities of the body
are not perfect (immutable) , nor are its potencies fixed, the
wmplexus of the body is determined by the ratio of complicatio
(envelopment of potencies) and explicatio (the development
of potencies
as
actualities)
in regard to
each other
(). For God, there is no rate of change (slope) between
possibilities and actualities, since God is the complete

actuation of its complete potencies or JiJssest (Nicholas of
Cusa). Accordingly, if there is no rate of change between
possibilities (6.p) and actualities (6.a) in God, or in other
words, if God is not onto logically differentiable within itself,
then !J.a catu10t have a rate of change or slope, i.e. !J.a must
be a vertical line (illustrated by the vertical fold aJJ in diagran1
2) . It is ti1e verticality of God in the scholastic thTeefold
of existence that precludes deviation, the emergence of
gradients and consequently, the curving dynamism of rot

- God is the one witl10ut slopes. Hence the saying, God is
too stifT to rot.
Diagrrun 2. The scholasric threefold o[ existence
42 6
i,pruse, esl and
God qua p=1)

For
the
chemistry
scholastic
through
marriage
natural
of mathematics
philosophy,
the
and
colllplicatio
of body is full of deviations, rates of changes between
actualities and possibilities, little slopes everywhere

swerving from the vertical positioning of posses!. Twisting
in and out, wiggling in all directions, slopes are bodies,
disturbances in existence for which infinite differentiation
is assured. S cholast1c bodies are slopes or rates of change
between the rise of actualities and potencies capable of

being actualized (alP
). Despite their tangency to God,
they possess tlle power of infinite differentiability, the
power of prolonging tlle slope process - dragging the rate

of progression and change between potency and actuality
forever. But at any given time, for scholastic bodies,
6.j) >- 6.a and 6.p ;o' 6.a otherwise the body is supplanted by
the full body of entelechies whose possibilities have all been
actualised. That is to say, if actualities become equal to
possibilities or possibilities (all variations of posse) become

exhausted by being actualised, then the scholastic body
becomes a rival for the Divine or is posed as a blasphemous
threat to its posses! where a;=p. The perfection of God is
assured by uniting (or completely overlapping) the latitude

of both potencies and actualities with the distance or the
longitude between them. The impermeable innity of God

cannot express the world outside of itself; because outside
of it is the field of slopes which expresses everything in
tlle language of complicities , differentiations and ratios,

rises over runs, the worlds produced by the undulations of
imperfectibility - the cosmogenesis of decay. For scholastic
bodies whose potentialities are infinite, tlleir actualities can
be neither infinite (as opposed to the infinite ente!echia of

God) nor equal to possibilities/potencies as in the case of
the j)osses! of God ( i.e. 6.p >- 6.a, a;o' 00 , a;o' Pl . Consequently,
427
COLLAPSE VI
in this case, as actualities are fulfilled, their number in
respect to potencies (Possibilities) starts to decrease.

In other words, the increase in fulfillment of actualities or
perfections is equal to the decrease in actualities' capacity
for differentiability. Therefore, for scholastic bodies, which
are tangential to God's possest
(ar=p), being is lim
l>u-<l
IIp
Ila
that
is, an open quandary in regard to infinity. IS Howevel; even

i f the potentialities/possibilities of being are not limitless
(as some scholastic theologians like Anselm of Canterbury
might object), the scholastic body is still an anomalous
tarIgency to the Divine that instigates arI 'infinitesimal
subversion' against God :
lim IIp
l>u-D Ila
Therefore, in either
case, bodies of scholasticism are insurgencies or insistent

perversions mobilized by slopes. In taking all beings as
tangential to
the posseJ! of God, being CaTl only be conceived
in terms of rates of differentiation. The consequence of the

ontotheological marginalisation of scholastic bodies via
the privileging of God's possest is that the exclusive power
arId use of slopes is inadvertently dedicated to beings; this
power is the power of extracting worlds through differen
tiation, or unearthing schemas of subversions through the
limits of ratios. Everything other than God is the
expliwlW
of slopes (AtharIasius Kircher's absn-act worms) ; this is far

too cosmically revolutionary to be fathomed. Such is the
revolution of scholasticism, flourishing in the mediaeval
orgy of scholastic theology, natural philosophy arId science .
13. The anachronistic usc orthe limit function here is s olely for a suconct ""position
of the quandaries spontaneously generated in scholasticism as the raoul! of
marginulising the <XjJh'mlio of beings. These quandaries or ideas, as implied in this
essay, began to haunt mediaeval philosophy, and initiated a series of philosophical
and scientific problems heralding alld eventually leading to the rise of Renaissance
philoSQphy and sciCllce.
428
Negarestani
Undercover Softness
Corresponding to the subtractive logic of decay, the

ratios or slopes of p utrefaction ramify the mathematico
chemical vectors of decay in two directions. This results
in the architecture of decay being posited as a turning
point (inflection) at which the concrete manifestation of the
process of decay is chemically invested as the product of its
abSb"act process, and the abstraction of decay mathemati

cally returns to its concrete investment. The double-dealing
attitude of decay in regard to the concepts of the abstract
and the concrete contributes to the twist of decay
as
building process : That which is palpably rotting develops

out of that which is progressively becoming abstract.
To put it succinctly, the process of decay is progressively
concrete and retrogressively abstract. This retum between
the abstract and the concrete is especially evident in ruins,
where
the abstract is inextricable from the concrete;
to privilege one over another is either a necromantic fallacy

or a necrocratic policy.
Mathematics with a chemical . disposition or chemical
revolution via mathematical distributions, decay captures
both within its act of building. It is only in the light of
the mathematical and chemical complications o f decay
a building process that the melancholic admiration for
decay and fetid entities, along with the ostracization and
as
dismissal of socio-political decay, can b e dissected without

blind romanticism, moral opprobrium or crude judgment
It is not that earthly thought is the site of decay from which
we must ascend to the fresh air, but that the calculus of
decay constitutes the ecology of our interiorized worlds whether built on the desolate surface of the earth or in the
fresh air of a beyond. The calculus of decay has. its own
problems, ideas and solutions; to politicise, philosophise,
429
COLLAPSE VI
scheme or take action without such calculus is tantamount
to calculating out of this world
an
outside that does not
suggest the great abyssal outdoors but the sealed enclosures

of pure entelechy whose immutable horizon does not
welcome ecologi cal changes in any direction whatsoe\"cr.
430

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COLLAPSE VI

Undercover Softness: An Introduction to

Amongst philosophers and theologians of the Middle

Henry of Hesse the Elder.

Susan Schuppli, and Luciana Pansi, who chaired the seminar.

Negarestani - Undercover Softness

calculate latitudes and longitudes peculiar to other species

in fact derivatives of the initial form of

the decaying species, putrid or thawing forms which are

ThE CORPSE OF WORLD POLmCS

If political systems are constituted of formations - both

in the realm of ideas and in concrete structures - then,

polating or extrapolating differential dynamism calculating

Negarestani - Undercover Softness

Negarestani - Undercover Softness

the ultimate truth of decay is that it is a building process

orized horizons or fOlmations are exteriorized in unimag

decay in regard to space and time so as to subsequently

botll demand a systematic investigation tIlat criss-crosses

investigation, one risks either over-aestlleticising decay

ness of its interiority. As a mere overture to tile politics

to its conceptions of space, time, form and dynamism.

speaking entirely non

process is, tIlUs far, me question of its vectorial aligIID1ent:

to the subtracted a.mount by deducting

differential forms by lirnitropically subh'acting from the

Negarestani - Undercover Softness

at hand. In order to examine the process of decay whilst

the loci for

the effectuation of architecture, exteriorization and binding

should not be examined in 311 isolated manner. In decay,

to the decaying object. As the ideas break into their more

fundanlental but minimal ideas, the infinitesimal persistence

remainvlg (viz. residing within the interiority of what is left)

qfideas. In doing so,

movement becomes asymptotic to a line of exteriorization

upon which death is inflected, and objectal persistence in

Negarestalli - Undercover Softness

In order to simplify the above argument, we shall

not be dwelled or grounded in any possible way. Because

toward the precursor exteriority,

the line of exteriorization is also a circuitous path drawn

elucidating - albeit reductive - example:

enveloped against the inorganic materials which under

hence idealised - contingency. Accordingly,

what decay or putrefaction draws is a line of exteriorization

Sun's thermonuclear decay dissipates the star into its cosmic

Negarestani - Undercover Softness

neitIler manifestly a retum to an ideal origin nor a decontrac

lion back into me originary exteriority where even matter

simultaneously forecloses the idea of return to the ideal

The site where decay's process of exteriorization is

effectuated is the interiority of the horizon. Therefore,

potencies; secondly by conforming to the differen

is conducted in accordance with spatial involutions,

Negarestani - Undercover Softness

interiOl'ities where the bottom is always too soft and

unsolid to hold or ground anything. T11e sinking is

The differential and regressive movement through