Emergence and Differentiation: Reconceptualising the Digital Object

Abstract

In this thesis I develop an ontology of digital objects. I combine Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s general logic of the assemblage with the concept of emergence. I propose that digital objects such as video game weapons, Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs), and wearable biosensors are emergent objects. I argue that these objects are ontogenetic entities that emerge as part of a primordial process of machinic production. Beginning with a close reading of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Gilbert Simondon, and Charlie Broad, I develop an ontogenetic schematic that traces the origins of these objects from Being to emergence.

Using the conceptual apparatus of the assemblage, I conduct an empirical analysis of the computational, cultural, and subjective elements contributing to the production of each object. This thesis centres on three main case studies: video game weapons, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). Each of these case studies explores the process of ontogenesis endemic to each object from Being to emergence. In each case study I demonstrate that emergent objects have a set of unique causal powers. This includes the ability to affect transformations in their surrounding milieus, subjectivate actors, and initiate phase-shifts. In undertaking this project, I reconcile the concept of the object with assemblage theory. I show that rescuing the concept of the object from the technical complexity of digital media does not mean subsuming the complex infrastructures underlying each emergent object within an organic unity. On the contrary, I show that the production of a digital object is a privileged moment of individuating-difference, a moment that sees a partial flight from the assemblage in the form of the object.