Luis de Miranda

Luis de Miranda

Luis de Miranda, (born 1971) is a philosopher and novelist. Born in Portugal, he grew up and has lived most of his life in Paris. He began travelling the world alone at the age of sixteen including Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States where he lived for two years. While living in New York City, he wrote his first novel, Joy (Joie).

An author of thirteen books his writing has been translated into English, Arabic, Spanish, Turkish. He has published influential opinion articles in major French newspapers: his analysis of Facebook in France's leading newspaper Le Monde, has been shared more than 1400 times on Facebook.^[1] Luis de Miranda was the first French intellectual to react to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal in 2011 in an internationally commented article published by mainstream newspaper Libération.^[2] In 2010 he wrote and directed a short movie where Nietzsche meets Jesus, seen by over 37,000 people and heavily commented upon on YouTube.^[3]

He holds a postgraduate degree in philosophy (DEA) from Pantheon-Sorbonne University and another in economy and management from HEC Paris.

He was formerly the editorial director of and co-managed the independent publishing press Max Milo Éditions from 2004 to 2012.^[4]

During the 2000 decade he gathered his literary and philosophical projects under the name of "Crealism"^[5] and created a related movement in 2007. Arsenal du Midi,^[6] his virtual writing laboratory from 2004 to 2007, used one of two anagrammatic signatures "Arsenal du Midi" and "Animal du Désir".

His philosophical essays develop a specific interest for societal issues, historical methods, technological devices, and process philosophy (Deleuze, Bergson). He has written a cultural history of neon signs (L'être et le néon), a widely reviewed and influential cultural history of digital devices and automata (L'art d'être libres au temps des automates),^[7] presented by the magazine Sciences Humaines as "a new utopia", "both philosophical, literary, artistic and scientific,^[8] an analysis of the Lacanian concept of jouissance in relation with capitalism, and a study on Deleuze which was translated and published by the Edinburgh University Press (Deleuze Studies).^[9] In all of these he develops his concept of 'Creal',^[10] which designates a form of ethical creative absolute becoming.^[11]

He is currently writing a PhD thesis on the concept of esprit de corps at the University of Edinburgh, where he is the director of the CRAG (Creation of Reality Group)^[12] and the Anthrobotics Cluster.

Academia

PhD Research

Since September 2014 Luis de Miranda has been conducting his PhD research^[13] on the concept of esprit de corps^[14] at the University of Edinburgh^[15] from a historical, political, philosophical, and comparative perspective. He is exploring the ideas of collective life and the hive mind from a discourse analysis and conceptual history perspective, comparing long-term data since the eighteenth century until the present day. The University of Vienna invited Luis de Miranda to talk about his research in April 2016 and published his paper online.^[16]

His research focuses on the question What is Life?, process philosophy, social creation, discourse analysis, cultural and conceptual history and French philosophy, with an emphasis on Deleuze (and Guattari), Lacan, Bergson, Foucault. His concept of 'Creal',^[17] explores a form of post-anthropocentric creativity, and notions as (collective) agency, autonomy, subjectivity, social practices, biotechnologies, and esprit de corps.

As part of his research he is also the co-founder and director of The Crag (Creation of Reality Group),^[18] an interdisciplinary community of interest on creation and/of reality and founder of the Anthrobotics Cluster,^[19] "a platform of cross-disciplinary research that seeks to investigate some of the biggest questions that will need to be answered"^[20] on the relationship between humans, robots and intelligent systems and "a think tank on the social spread of robotics, and also how automation is part of the definition of what humans have always been",^[21] "a hybrid unity made of flesh and protocols, creation and creature".^[22]

His philosophical essay "Is a new life possible?" co-translated into English has been published as a peer-reviewed essay by the Edinburgh University Press^[23] (Deleuze Studies). It remains one of the most downloaded Deleuze Studies papers since 2013, and is an attempt to present an overview of Deleuze's philosophy through the concept of lines of life. In his dialogues with Claire Parnet, Deleuze asserts that: "Whether we are individuals or groups, we are made of lines" (Deleuze and Parnet 2007: 124).^[24] In A Thousand Plateaus (with Guattari), Deleuze calls these kinds of 'lifelines' or 'lines of flesh': break line (or segmental line, or molar line), crack line (or molecular line) and rupture line (also called line of flight) (Deleuze and Guattari 2004a: 22).^[25] Luis de Miranda explains the difference between these three lines, how they are related to the 'soul', and how a singular individual or group can arise from the play of the lines. Eventually, he introduces the concept of 'Creal' to develop the Deleuzian figure of the 'Anomal', the so(u)rcerer.

Crealism

"The relationship between crealism and digitalism [numérisme] is the dialectic of the 21st century".^[26] Largely born out of his readings of Jacques Lacan, Karl Marx, Gilles Deleuze and Martin Heidegger between 2003-2007, The Creal or Crealism is Luis de Miranda's proposed answer to the philosophical problem of the Real. "Creal is obviously a portmanteau compound of created-real. At the same time, I elaborated on the concept in an essay on Deleuze (Is a New Life Possible?). A philosophical concept answers a question and Creal is my answer to the question What is more real than the Real?".^[27]

Literary works

Novels

• Luis de Miranda, "Joie", Éditions Le Temps Des Cerises, Paris, November 1997 (ISBN 2-84109-105-8)
• Luis de Miranda, "La mémoire de Ruben", Éditions Gamma Press, Nivelles, September 1998 (ISBN 2-930198-06-0)
• Luis de Miranda, "Le spray", Éditions Calmann-Lévy, Paris, February 23, 2000, 192 p. (ISBN 2-7021-3084-4)
• Luis de Miranda, "À vide", Éditions Denoël, Paris, September 2001, 246 p. (ISBN 2-207-25251-5)
• Luis de Miranda, "Moment magnétique de l'aimant", Éditions La Chasse au Snark, Paris, August 28, 2002, 160 p. (ISBN 2-914015-24-0) Moment magnétique
• Hélène Delmotte & Luis de Miranda, "Expulsion", Max Milo Éditions, coll. « Condition humaine », Paris, January 1, 2005, 123 p. (ISBN 2-914388-56-X)
• Luis de Miranda, "Paridaiza", Éditions Plon, Paris, August 21, 2008, 200 p. (ISBN 2-259-20821-5)
• Luis de Miranda, "Qui a tué le poète?", Max Milo Éditions, coll. « Condition humaine », Paris, January 1, 2011, 156 p. (ISBN 978-2-315-00147-7)

Philosophical essays

• Luis de Miranda, "Ego Trip" : La Société des artistes sans oeuvres, Éditions Max Milo, coll. « Mad », Paris, April 1, 2003, 125 p. (ISBN 2-914388-35-7)
• Luis de Miranda, "Peut-on jouir du capitalisme ?", Éditions Punctum, Paris, March 5, 2008, 125 p. (ISBN 2-35116-029-0)
• Luis de Miranda, "Une vie nouvelle est-elle possible ?", Éditions Nous, Paris, February 2009 (ISBN 978-2-913549-30-2)
• Luis de Miranda, "L'Art d'être libres au temps des automates", Éditions Max Milo, Paris, January 2010, 224 p. (ISBN 978-2-35341-083-5)
• Luis de Miranda, "L’être et le néon", Éditions Max Milo, Paris, January 2012, 224 p. (ISBN 978-2-315-00370-9)

Films

• 1990 : "Un nectar pour oreilles enneigées" directed by Luis de Miranda.^[28] A documentary on the interpenetration of hinduism and buddhism in Nepal, made by Luis de Miranda when he was 18 years old. The documentary won the Bourses Zellidja Grand Prize.
• 2004 : "Quitte ou double" (court métrage) directed by Luis de Miranda.^[29]
• 2010 : "Jesus & Nietzsche interviewed by Luis de Miranda".^[30]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Luis de Miranda.

• Official website
• Luis de Miranda in the French newspaper Le Nouvel observateur (French)
• Luis de Miranda in the French newspaper Libération (French) - (same article in English) Opendemocracy Truthout