Ontomena

being-as-it-shows-itself — a conceptual map
core concept
Ontomena
being-as-it-shows-itself
+4
ethics / practice
Panonticism
liberating all the things
+2
aesthetics / ethics
Aisthesis / An-aisthesis
perception vs its closure
philosophy / process
Prehension
process, feeling, creative advance
philosophy / process
Duration
durée, élan vital, becoming
philosophy / epistemology
Esse est Percipi
to be is to be perceived
+1
political
Autocracy Inc.
industrialised ontomenal management
+1
philosophy / ontology
Aletheia
truth as unconcealment and disclosure
+1
practice
Magnet Opus
geomagnetic sonification
practice
Mardship Bow
the walk, Leeds–Halifax
ecology / ethics
Bioregional Ethics
place, vitalism, and the ethics of the local
philosophy / ethics
The Flesh / The Face
embodied perception and ethical encounter
+1
philosophy / systems
Aphanipoiesis
the unseen bringing-forth
political / ecological
Metabolic Landscape
the managed appearance of normality
aesthetics / practice
Ecstatic Truth
fabrication as revelation
method / epistemology
Anything Goes
against method — Feyerabend, Kuhn, and the strong programme
method / epistemology
Assemblages
actants, rhizomes, readymades — being as composition
+3
the open
Question
what the map cannot close
+2
method / epistemology
Abduction / Associative Method
the logic of creative inference
+1
philosophy / epistemology
Cave
managed appearance and the return
aesthetics / method
Symbol / Metaphor / Image
managed sign and ontomenal showing
+1
aesthetics / art
Dada
"Dada is a virgin microbe"
meta / reflexive
The Unclickable
reflexivity and strange loops
+1
philosophy / epistemology
Foucault / Las Meninas
representing representation
+1
philosophy / ethics
Rebellion
"Je me révolte, donc nous sommes" — "I rebel, therefore we are"
+5
politics / aesthetics
Sordid Realism
fabricated appearance and its refusal
+2
aesthetics / memory
Magic Lantern
projected light, living time, the past made present
+2
philosophy / ecology
Vitalism
the aliveness of matter — ancient and modern
ecology / ethics
Eco
deep ecology and the ecological self
threshold / element
Water
the medium of perception and of life
+1
ecology / politics
Rubbish
vibrant matter, toxic politics, what we put in the water
politics / aesthetics
Situation
the spectacle, the dérive, détournement
+3
aesthetics / practice
Dreams
reverie, the paranoiac method, and widened perception
meta / ethics
Stet
let it stand — that which refuses deletion
philosophy / memory
Anamnesis
learning as recollection — knowledge already known
practice / method
Walking
thinking through the feet — from peripatetics to psychogeography
+1
politics / epistemology
Homophily
people like people like themselves
+5
politics / economics
Real Economy
the economy as actually experienced
+5
politics / method
Revolution
withdrawing consent, large and small
+4
symbol / practice / conflict
Rose
sub rosa, conflict, resolution, the petal and the thorn
+3
philosophy / dialectic
Aufhebung
sublation — cancel, preserve, lift up (Hegel)
+1
philosophy / epistemology
Esse est Percipi
to be is to be perceived
George Berkeley (1685–1753). Esse est percipi — to be is to be perceived. This refuses the gap between being and appearing, there's no imperceptible "matter" lurking underneath experience. The appeara…
1 / 41
philosophy / systems
Aphanipoiesis
the unseen bringing-forth

Nora Bateson (2021). Aphanis (αφανής — unseen, obscured) + poiesis (ποίησις — making, bringing forth). "An unseen coalescence toward vitality." The third in a trilogy of neologisms following Warm Data (2017) and Symmathesy (2016).

Living systems are constantly forming through mutual interaction at scales and in registers that resist observation. The change before the change — the composting underneath. Pathology and vitality may be describable once manifest, but the ways they come to occur are at least in part unseen.

Extends Gregory Bateson's work on abduction — the way one context describes another — into the zone where contextual mutual learning hasn't yet surfaced as identifiable pattern. "The tissues between the gaps hold the implicit premises of the system."

The productive tension with [ontomena]: if being and appearing are inseparable, what do we make of formative processes that are genuinely real but genuinely unseen? Resolution: "showing" is not limited to human perception. Being is always already in mutual manifestation — to itself, at every scale. Aphanipoiesis names this same process from the perspective of the human who can't yet see it.

You can't "do aphanipoiesis" — plunging your hand into the stream disrupts the stream. This echoes [Bergson's] critique of the spatialising intellect. The panonticist commitment: insist that the unseen is real while accepting that our relationship to it must be tending rather than grasping.

Sonification as aphanipoietic practice: not forcing the geomagnetic field to reveal itself, but widening the channel through which it was always showing itself — just not to human ears. See [Magnet Opus].

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Bibliography & Acknowledgements

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY A working bibliography of texts, films, recordings and online sources referenced or implicated in the Ontomena project as currently developed. Not exhaustive — every node carries further references in its body text. ──────────────────────────────────────── PHILOSOPHY Adorno, Theodor W. — Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialektik). 1966. Trans. E.B. Ashton, Continuum 1973. Aristotle — On the Soul (De Anima). Metaphysics. Various editions. Bachelard, Gaston — L'Eau et les rêves (Water and Dreams). 1942. Trans. Edith R. Farrell, Dallas Institute 1983. — La Poétique de l'espace (The Poetics of Space). 1958. — La Poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie). 1960. Bateson, Gregory — Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chandler, 1972. — Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Dutton, 1979. Deleuze, Gilles — Différence et répétition (Difference and Repetition). PUF, 1968. — Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque (The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque). Minuit, 1988. — (with Guattari, Félix) see existing Deleuze & Guattari entry. Haraway, Donna — Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke UP, 2016. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich — Phänomenologie des Geistes (Phenomenology of Spirit). 1807. — Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte (Lectures on the Philosophy of World History). 1837 (posthumous, ed. Eduard Gans). Barad, Karen — Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke UP, 2007. Bennett, Jane — "The Force of Things: Steps toward an Ecology of Matter." Millennium: Journal of International Studies 32(3), 2004. https://pages.mtu.edu/~jdslack/readings/CSReadings/Bennett_Jane_The_Force_of_Things.pdf — Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke UP, 2010. Bergson, Henri — Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Time and Free Will). 1889. — L'Évolution créatrice (Creative Evolution). 1907. Berkeley, George — A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. 1710. Bloor, David — Knowledge and Social Imagery. 1976. Bourdieu, Pierre — La Distinction (Distinction). 1979. — Le Sens pratique (The Logic of Practice). 1980. Camus, Albert — L'Homme révolté (The Rebel). 1951. Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix — Mille Plateaux (A Thousand Plateaus). 1980. Feyerabend, Paul — Against Method. 1975. Foucault, Michel — Les Mots et les choses (The Order of Things). 1966. Hofstadter, Douglas — Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books, 1979. Heidegger, Martin — Sein und Zeit (Being and Time). 1927. — "On the Essence of Truth" ("Vom Wesen der Wahrheit"). 1949. Jung, Carl Gustav — The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works Vol. 9. Princeton UP, 1959. Kuhn, Thomas S. — The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, 1962. Latour, Bruno — Nous n'avons jamais été modernes (We Have Never Been Modern). 1991. — Reassembling the Social. Oxford UP, 2005. Levinas, Emmanuel — Totalité et Infini (Totality and Infinity). 1961. Trans. Alphonso Lingis, Duquesne University Press, 1969. — Autrement qu'être (Otherwise Than Being). 1974. Mathews, Freya — The Ecological Self. Routledge, 1991. — For Love of Matter: A Contemporary Panpsychism. SUNY Press, 2003. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice — Phénoménologie de la perception (Phenomenology of Perception). 1945. — Le Visible et l'invisible (The Visible and the Invisible). 1964. Naess, Arne — "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement." Inquiry 16, 1973. Plato — Republic. Meno. Phaedo. Various editions. Sartre, Jean-Paul — L'existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism). 1946. Spinoza, Baruch — Ethics. 1677. Thales of Miletus — fragments preserved in Aristotle (Metaphysics A) and Diogenes Laërtius (Lives of Eminent Philosophers). Whitehead, Alfred North — Process and Reality. 1929. ──────────────────────────────────────── POLITICS / RESISTANCE / ECONOMICS Carney, Mark — Address to the World Economic Forum, Davos, 20 January 2026. (Cited Václav Havel's "The Power of the Powerless" explicitly. "We placed the sign in the window… This bargain no longer works.") Duchamp, Marcel — Readymade works including Bicycle Wheel (1913), Fountain (1917). See also Schwarz, Arturo — The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp. Delano Greenidge, 1997. Debord, Guy — La Société du Spectacle (Society of the Spectacle). 1967. Ferns, Barry — Barry's Economics. YouTube channel, 2025–. Episode on Homophily and Rory Stewart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm_L9VCBJ_E Fink, Larry — Opening remarks to the World Economic Forum, Davos, 20 January 2026. ("Will anyone outside this room care?") Havel, Václav — Moc bezmocných (The Power of the Powerless). 1978. Hertel-Fernandez, Alexander — State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States — and the Nation. Oxford UP, 2019. Mamdani, Zohran — Mayor of New York City (elected November 2025; took office January 2026). Mandelstam, Nadezhda — Vospominaniya (Hope Against Hope). 1970. McDonough, William & Braungart, Michael — Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press, 2002. Navalny, Alexei — Patriot: A Memoir. Knopf, 2024. Ostrom, Elinor — Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge UP, 1990. Piketty, Thomas — Le Capital au XXIe siècle (Capital in the Twenty-First Century). 2013. Raworth, Kate — Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. Random House, 2017. Saez, Emmanuel & Zucman, Gabriel — The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. Norton, 2019. Sharp, Gene — The Politics of Nonviolent Action (three volumes). Porter Sargent, 1973. — From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. 1993. Albert Einstein Institution. Stevenson, Gary — The Trading Game: A Confession. Penguin, 2024. Zucman, Gabriel — The Hidden Wealth of Nations. 2015. — "The Billionaire Tax — A Modest Proposal for the 21st Century." UNU-WIDER Annual Lecture 28, Helsinki, 4 September 2024. https://www.wider.unu.edu/event/billionaire-tax-modest-proposal-21st-century — G20 report: https://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/report-g20.pdf World Inequality Database: https://wid.world/ RealTimeInequality.org: https://realtimeinequality.org/ ──────────────────────────────────────── ECOLOGY / VITALISM / MATERIALS Bennett, Jane — see Philosophy. Johnson, A Frances — "What Rubbish: Ecologies of Vibrant Matter in Contemporary Poetry." Axon Journal 8.1, 2018. https://axonjournal.com.au/issues/8-1/what-rubbish/ Alemanno, Alberto — "How the plastic bottle cap became a parable for the value of EU regulation." Guardian, 27 May 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/27/how-the-plastic-bottle-cap-became-a-parable-for-the-value-of-eu-regulation Mathews, Freya — see Philosophy. Hofman, Justin — "Sewage surfer" (photograph: seahorse with cotton swab). 2017. Wildlife Photographer of the Year shortlist. ──────────────────────────────────────── AESTHETICS / FILM / ART Bergman, Ingmar — Laterna Magica (The Magic Lantern). Memoir, 1987. Breton, André — Manifeste du surréalisme. 1924. Buñuel, Luis & Dalí, Salvador — Un Chien Andalou (film). 1929. Herzog, Werner — "Minnesota Declaration: Truth and Fact in Documentary Cinema." Walker Art Center, 1999. Kuhn, Annette — Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. Verso, 1995. Panahi, Jafar — This Is Not a Film. 2011. Taxi. 2015. Three Faces. 2018. No Bears. 2022. Tarkovsky, Andrei — Sculpting in Time. Trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair. University of Texas Press, 1986. Von Trier, Lars — Antichrist (film). 2009. Arrow, Ruaridh — How to Start a Revolution (documentary film, on Gene Sharp). 2011. ──────────────────────────────────────── WALKING / PLACE / PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY Campbell, Neil — The Rhizomatic West: Representing the American West in a Transnational, Global, Media Age. University of Nebraska Press, 2008. Chatwin, Bruce — The Songlines. Jonathan Cape, 1987. Ingold, Tim — Lines: A Brief History. Routledge, 2007. Jarry, Alfred — Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien. 1911 (posthumous). Solnit, Rebecca — Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Viking, 2000. ──────────────────────────────────────── SIMON BRADLEY — own works referenced Bradley, Simon — "Top of the World." Blog post, 7 April 2009. https://simonbradley.blogspot.com/2009/04/top-of-world.html — Mardship Bow (novel in progress). Built around the ritual walk from Armley (Leeds) to Beacon Hill (Halifax), performed at the Winter Solstice, 23+ iterations since c.2000. — Magnet Opus (27-hour durational geomagnetic sonification, supported by Arts Council England DYCP grant). Eskdalemuir Observatory data; First Order Ambisonics; REAPER + Python pipeline. — Archaeology of the Voice (practice-led PhD). — DisplacementActivities (Jekyll/GitHub Pages site). https://displacementactivities.org — "69 Cards" (oral history HTML project). — scb_keep_composer (Python/HTML toolkit for creative text composition). — scb_media_scan / scb_media_select / scb_media_section (media archive pipeline). — Ontomenator (the present concept-mapping tool). ──────────────────────────────────────── ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To the long arc of conversation, walking, listening, building and arguing that produced these nodes. To the magnetic field for keeping the world held together long enough to think about it. To the bottle top, for being there. ──────────────────────────────────────── This bibliography is a working document. Additions and corrections welcome.

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Introduction

The Ontomenator

a conceptual map

This is a spatial map of interlinked ideas, designed to be explored on a larger screen — the full experience lays the concepts out as a canvas you can roam.

On a phone, that spatial view is cumbersome, so this adapted version offers a straight reading route through the nodes instead. You can still open the map to see the whole shape.