2 WHAT IS A MACHINE

✅ What Is a Machine? — Core Concepts

1. Machines Everywhere

Bryant defines machines very broadly. They are not limited to technology or human-made tools.
Examples:

• Trees, quartz crystals, recipes, novels, frogs, cells, tanuki, books.

• Machines don’t need design, purpose, or users to count as machines.

A world is made of machines.

This term avoids the baggage of “object,” which assumes:

• attachment to a subject who perceives it,

• definition by properties and predication.

2. From Objects to Operations

Traditional metaphysics treats things as objects with:

• a subject,

• a set of qualities or predicates,

• an unchanging essence beneath changing accidents.

But Bryant shifts the focus:

The question is not “What qualities does something have?” but “What does it do?”

A machine = something that performs operations.

3. Operations, Inputs, Outputs

Drawing on Ian Bogost, an operation:

• takes one or more inputs,

• transforms them,
 • produces an output.

Inputs can arise:

• from outside (e.g., a flower draws water from the soil),

• from inside (e.g., cells releasing chemicals to other cells).

A machine is:

a system of operations transforming inputs into outputs.

4. Examples Reimagined as Machines

Rather than seeing entities as static things with properties, Bryant reinterprets them dynamically:

• Tree: transforms water, light, nutrients into wood, oxygen, seeds, etc.

• Recipe: a machine acting on cooks, ingredients, utensils.

• Book: a machine affecting language, readers, characters, institutions.

• Scientific paper: a machine that proposes observations, constructs devices, generates

experiments.

• Frog: a machine catching insects, producing songs, navigating water, emitting CO₂,
reproducing.

5. Production vs Representation

Machines do not express or represent; they produce.

This opposes the idea that:

• books express meaning,

• the unconscious represents symbols,

• objects mirror human perception.

Instead:

• Machines are productive factories.

• The world is a fabric of ongoing processes and outputs.

6. Deleuze & Guattari: Factory vs Theater

They argue Freud made a critical error:

• Freud discovered the unconscious as productive (factory),

• but then reduced it to representational expression (theater) through Oedipus.

Bryant applies the same contrast to all machines:

• Factory = production, operation, transformation.

• Theater = expression, representation, meaning.

Machines are always factories, not theaters.

✅ Big Takeaway

A machine is not defined by what it is but by what it does.

• It performs operations.

• It takes inputs and produces outputs.

• It is material and active.

• It is not reducible to meaning, expression, or representation.

This becomes the foundation for his ontology:

Being = machines all the way down.

If you'd like, I can turn this into a visual diagram, concept map, or bullet-point guide for
reference—just say the word!

✅ 1. Machines Have Two Dimensions

Bryant argues that every machine has two distinct but inseparable aspects:

a) Virtual Proper Being (Powers)

• What a machine can do — its capacities or operations.

• These powers exist even when not exercised.

 • Example:

◦ Iron can rust, even if it never does in outer space.

◦ A match has the power to burn, even if unlit.

b) Local Manifestation (Products/Outputs)

• What a machine actually does when its powers are exercised.

• These are the concrete results of operations: rust on iron, a flame from a match, oxygen
from a plant.

✅ 2. Powers Are Real, Even When Inactive

Drawing from George Molnar, Bryant explains five key features of powers:

1. Directedness

◦ Powers aim at specific kinds of effects (e.g., photosynthesis → oxygen).

2. Virtuality & Range

◦ Powers can produce more manifestations than appear at any given moment.

3. Independence from Manifestation

◦ A power exists even when not being exercised (e.g., a skunk’s spray).

4. Actuality of Powers

◦ Powers are real features of things, not hypothetical or mental.

5. Intrinsic & Objective

◦ Powers belong to the machine itself, not to observers or contexts.

Terminology distinction:

• Power = the capacity itself.

• Operation = when a power is exercised.

✅ 3. Manifestations Are Products, Not Perceptions
Manifestations are not for someone — they simply happen:

Types of manifestations:

1. Qualitative (e.g., a tan, color change, brittleness in steel).

2. Agentive (changes in behavior or activity, like shivering or love).

3. Material (outputs that leave the machine — oxygen from trees, a diploma from an
educational system, speech).

Crucially:

• Qualities (like color, temperature, texture) are not inherent properties but effects of
operations.

✅ 4. Inputs Trigger Manifestations

Operations can be triggered:

• Externally (sunlight, soil nutrients, wind, heat).

• Internally (radioactive decay, sequential thoughts).

A manifestation = operation of a power on an input.

✅ 5. Local Manifestations Vary With Conditions

• Machines do not express fixed properties — they produce effects depending on context.

• Example: The same grape stock produces different wines in different regions.

Machines form relational ecologies, interacting and mediating each other.

✅ 6. Powers Are Plastic and Change Over Time

Machines:

• Can gain or lose powers.

• Experience waxing and waning of capacities (e.g., hunger affecting cognition).

• Can transform through learning, tools, encounters, or internal change.

Examples:

• The brain of a pianist differs from that of a mechanic.

• A blind person with a cane has different cognitive powers than without.

• A caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

• Steel loses malleability in extreme cold.

Plasticity is always present, though not infinite—each machine has limits proper to its kind.

✅ 7. We Discover Powers Experimentally

Echoing Spinoza:

“We do not know what a machine can do.”

The being of a machine is found through:

• Acting on it,

• Altering its relations,

• Observing new manifestations and transformations.

✅ Core Takeaway
A machine is defined not by what it is but by:

• What it can do (virtual proper being — powers),

• And what it actually does (local manifestation — products).

Being is operational, plastic, and context-dependent—not a static set of inherent properties.

✅ 1. Machines Are Binary Because They Operate Through
Couplings
• A machine never operates in isolation—it always interacts with other machines that
supply inputs (flows).

• These coupled interactions produce local manifestations (qualities, activities, outputs).

• Example: A tree is coupled with soil, sunlight, rainfall, animals, and microorganisms.

However, the authors critique Deleuze & Guattari’s claim that machines are always coupled:

• Couplings must be variable, not fixed.

• It’s the presence or absence of a relation that produces different outcomes.

• Example: An infant isn’t always coupled to a breast; sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t—
this variation is what matters.

Key point:
Relations (couplings) are external to machines—they can be formed, broken, or changed. This
creates different becomings and manifestations.

✅ 2. Trans-Corporeality: Bodies Are Intermeshed and Co-

Affecting
Drawing on Stacy Alaimo:

• Bodies (human and nonhuman) are entangled with their environments.

• Inputs (air, chemicals, food, toxins, waste) come from other machines and shape local
manifestations.

• Example: Pollution enters water via dumps, enters wildlife, then enters our bodies—we
never really throw matter “away.”

Trans-corporeality =
Machines exist in a web of material exchanges that alter their states.

✅ 3. Flows Are Not Passive—They Are Machines Too

 • Inputs (flows) are not raw, formless matter.

• Every flow is another machine, with its own powers and operations.

• Example: Nutrients, omega-3 fatty acids, or marble being sculpted each exert their own
influence.

This leads to reciprocal determination:

• Machines modify the flows they act on,

• and the flows modify them in return.

✅ 4. Degrees of Plasticity: Machines Change to Different

Extents
Machines exist on a spectrum from rigid to flexible:

Rigid machines

• Barely altered by inputs.

• Examples: mathematical formulas, bureaucracies, cookie cutters.

Highly plastic machines

• Strongly altered by inputs.

• Examples: organic bodies, brains, political movements, artworks.

No machine is fully rigid or fully plastic—each exists on a continuum.

✅ 5. Great Works of Art as Pluripotent Machines

Artworks are unique kinds of machines:

• They maintain a stable form (a novel, painting, sculpture),

• But are highly plastic in meaning and effect.

They produce different manifestations depending on:

 • historical context,

• culture,

• interpretation.

Example: Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle can be:

• political critiques,

• theological texts,

• psychoanalytic caseworks,

• anti-bureaucratic parables,

• existential philosophy, etc.

This is called resonance:

• The artwork affects and is affected by its milieu.

• The milieu actualizes different potentials in the work.

✅ Core Takeaways
✔ Machines manifest differently depending on their couplings and inputs.
✔ Relations are external, variable, and transformative.
✔ Bodies are trans-corporeal, intertwined with other machines and environments.
✔ Inputs are active machines, not passive matter.
✔ Machines range from rigid to plastic, with artworks being especially pluripotent.
✔ Reciprocal influence—machines reshape and are reshaped by what flows through them.

✅ 1. Machines Operate
• Everything is a machine
Trees, recipes, novels, cells, crystals, papers, frogs—machines aren’t just tools or
technologies.
 • Not defined by purpose or perception
Machines don’t need a user, designer, or observer to exist.

• Shift from what it is to what it does

Focus on operations, not properties or essences.

• Operation = input → transformation → output

Inputs may come from outside or inside the machine.

• Examples as machines

◦ Tree: transforms water, CO₂, and light into oxygen, wood, seeds.

◦ Book: affects language, readers, institutions.

◦ Recipe: acts on cooks, ingredients, tools.

◦ Frog: catches insects, sings, reproduces, processes air.

• Production over representation

Machines don’t “express” or “mirror” meaning—they produce effects.

• Factory vs theater

◦ Factory = transformation and output (the real nature of machines).

◦ Theater = interpretation and expression (a misleading human frame).

✅ 2. Machines Are Split Between Their Powers and

Products
• Two dimensions of every machine:
 ◦ Virtual Proper Being (Powers):
Capacities that exist whether used or not.

◦ Local Manifestation (Products):

What appears when powers are exercised.

• Powers are real even when dormant

A match can burn even if unlit; iron can rust even if never exposed.

• Manifestations are effects, not fixed traits

Color, texture, behavior, outputs—these are products of operations, not inherent
properties.

• Inputs trigger operations

External (sun, nutrients, wind) or internal (chemistry, decay, thought).

• Context-dependent results
The same machine acts differently in different relations (soil → grape → wine variation).

• Plasticity of powers
Powers change, grow, weaken, or emerge through:

◦ tools, training, environments, encounters, internal change.

• We learn powers through experimentation

“We do not know what a machine can do” until it’s acted upon.

✅ 3. Machines Are Binary Machines: Trans-Corporeality

• Binary = machines operate through couplings
No machine acts entirely alone—operations occur through interacting with other
machines.

• Relations are variable and external

Couplings can form, break, or shift—this variability shapes outputs and metamorphosis.
• Trans-corporeality
Bodies (human and nonhuman) exchange materials, forces, and effects with their
environments.

• Flows are machines too

Inputs aren’t passive matter—nutrients, toxins, light, marble, air are active machines.

• Reciprocal transformation
Machines alter what they engage with, and are altered in turn.

• Range of rigidity vs plasticity

◦ Rigid machines: little changed by inputs (bureaucracies, formulas, cookie

cutters).

◦ Plastic machines: highly altered by inputs (bodies, artworks, movements).

• Art as pluripotent machine

Stable form + variable manifestation across:
culture, era, interpretation, context.

• Resonance
A machine’s environment activates different potentials within it.