Intra-action as a Materialist Ontology of the Virtual: From the Analytical Engine to Analog/Digital Intraobjectivity
Main Article Content
Abstract
This article provides a theoretical contribution based on Sadie Plant’s critiques of the notion of virtuality as pure immateriality. Plant uses Ada Lovelace’s logic of the ‘Analytical Engine’ as a base, reinterpreting it as a feminine practice associated with the act of weaving, which has been repressed by official cyberculture. From this perspective, the article examines how Remedios Zafra identifies a continuity of this logic in domestic ‘prosumption’ practices, emphasizing their potential to achieve subjective autonomy, albeit subordinated to being captured by the neoliberal digital economy. Finally, Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action is introduced as a materialist ontology of the virtual, complementing Plant’s critiques and addressing the ambiguity of prosumption as discussed by Zafra. This ontology challenges techno-libertarian immaterialism by interpreting ‘digital objects’ as co-productive or intra-objective relations between the analog and the digital.
Downloads
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
All contents of this electronic edition are distributed under the Creative Commons license of "Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Internacional" (CC-BY-SA). Any total or partial reproduction of the material must mention its origin.
The rights of the published images belong to their authors, who grant to Diseña the license for its use. The management of the permits and the authorization of the publication of the images (or of any material) that contains copyright and its consequent rights of reproduction in this publication is the sole responsibility of the authors of the articles.
References
Barad, K. (2012). What Is the Measure of Nothingness: Infinity, Virtuality, Justice. Hatje Cantz.
Barad, K. (2023). Cuestión de materia. Trans/Materia/Realidades y performatividad queer de la naturaleza (S. Vetö, Trans.). Holobionte.
Eidelsztein, A. (2006). La topología en la clínica psicoanalítica. Letra Viva.
Hui, Y. (2023). Sobre la existencia de los objetos digitales. Materia Oscura.
Plant, S. (1995). The Future Looms: Weaving Women and Cybernetics. Body & Society, 1(3-4), 45-64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X95001003003
Rodríguez, P. M. (2019). Las palabras en las cosas: Saber, poder y subjetivación entre algoritmos y biomoléculas. Cactus.
Rouvroy, A., & Berns, T. (2016). Gubernamentalidad algorítmica y perspectivas de emancipación ¿La disparidad como condición de individuación a través de la relación? Adenda filosófica, 1, 88-116.
Sadin, É. (2018). La silicolonización del mundo: La irresistible expansión del liberalismo digital. Caja Negra.
Sibilia, P. (2006). El hombre postorgánico: Cuerpo, subjetividad y tecnologías digitales. Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Simondon, G. (2014). La individuación. A la luz de las nociones de forma y de información. Cactus.
Simondon, G. (2018). El modo de existencia de los objetos técnicos. Cactus.
Toffler, A. (1980). La tercera ola. Plaza & Janés.
Woolf, V. (2004). Un cuarto propio. Alianza.
Zafra, R. (2013). (h)adas: Mujeres que crean, programan, prosumen, teclean. Páginas de Espuma.