Introduction on P2P Relationality: The Wolf-Man's Top 8

The concept of relationality is central to the very notion of P2P. In turn, relationality relies much on the a multiple conception of subjectivity. From the technological or the institutional, to the global or the individual-ontological, subjectivities of multiplicity seem to be a defining element of contemporary cultural thought. Phenomena from terror-networks, to globalization, to social network sites all bring to light our deviation from lives and politics imagining autonomy. Even if ideals such as 'independence' or 'individuality' are expressed as the goals of cultural and social production, it is more often than not that we find these ends springing from and ultimately constituting formations of the multiple. Yet this is not to say that singularities such as the individual have become critically unimportant, but rather to suggest that we must now view them as a part and product of emergent systems.

Deleuze and Guattari touched upon the idea of emergent subjectivities – those resulting from, and inconceivable without multiplicities – in A Thousand Plateaus. Beyond the perhaps too often cited rhizome, their critique of Freud via the “Wolf-Man” describes our relational nature on the individual-ontological level. Not only do they describe the singular wolf as inseparable from the the pack, or “wolf-multiplicity,” but, more significantly, they state that “the unconscious itself [is] fundamentally a crowd.” The Wolf-Man exists simultaneously as singular, emergent, and constitutive.

Denying the impenetrable singularity of the individual unconscious, however, does not seem so recondite when viewed within the context of social network sites, for example. These sites operate on the very idea of the individual-as-multiple. A MySpace page is made up more of the user's friends than his favorite books or movies; a del.icio.us profile consists entirely of links to outside sources – yet both of these examples have become primary signifiers for individuality. A central, contemporary expression of singularity is defined on no uncertain terms by multiplicity and in this same process acts within a larger relational network of subjectivity.

These social media have allowed us to reify, through processes of archivization, otherwise unspoken yet actionable network structures built around cultural and communicative production. This is not to say these media are the cause for such phenomena, but rather the expression of a wider environment of biopolitical shift. To that end, however, they may be useful in providing grounds on which observe, theorize, learn from – if not revel in or take advantage of – these shifts.

The Wolf-Man exists as a metaphor for a subjectivity of multiplicity; yet, we now interact in ecologies that require us not to discard the notion of individuality, but to implicitly acknowledge that individuality is inherently relational. The singular has become the emergent result of a networked system of the global, national, institutional, individual-ontological, and so on: a subjectivity in itself, yet constituted and constitutive of many further subjectivities.

This section of the wiki aims to provide a rich resource for the study of P2P relationality. And true to the focus itself, it draws upon a number of fields, traditions, and applications. While no relational project can be complete, or experienced completely in its deficiency, there is much we can do in its direction.