Temporada 3 · Espasmos del Fin · JVV-T3-03
Zero-Ω: pornography of the short circuit
I The erotic pulse of the short circuit
Every electrical system fears zero ohms: the null resistance that lets sparks loose, melts traces and devours fuses.
In accelerationist culture, the short circuit becomes a libidinal fantasy: the thrill of watching two forbidden conductors kiss, feeling the current unleashed, smelling the melting plastic.
It is no explicit sexual metaphor; it is thermodynamic enjoyment: pleasure in seeing entropy beat any insulator.
“Whoever craves the collapse is not after ruin: they are after the orgasmic flash of the overload.”
II Philosophical genealogy of the discharge
| Moment | Tension | Brief blast |
|---|---|---|
| Bataille (1949) | “Unproductive expenditure” | The sacrifice of energy as a limit experience. |
| Ballard (1973) | Crash | The eroticised car accident. |
| CCRU (1995-99) | “Libido-voltage” | Short-circuiting the semiosphere and the flesh. |
| Bug rave (Berlin 2024) | Amps at 0 Ω, fuses blown in loops | Rave-RMA: the crash is the beat. |
III Anatomy of a lubricious circuit
- Source – A compulsive need for throughput (data, blood, capital).
- Moral insulator – Norms, maintenance codes, the ESG fuse.
- Approach – Positive feedback: optimisation ↗, tolerances ↘.
- Illegal contact – Overflow: an untested patch, a fiscal shunt, an unsupervised subprocess.
- Arc flash – Heat + light + ozone: an instant of climax, treacherous and beautiful.
- Necrotic or reborn – The circuit dies… or reconfigures into a more chaotic topology.
IV Industrial pornography today
| Sector | Short-circuit scene | “Spectators” |
|---|---|---|
| Crypto-DeFi | A 0-fee flash loan devours a pool, liquidates millions in 18 s | Traders — exit-orgasm |
| Supply chain | A bot buys 1,000,000 AI dolls; the warehouse collapses | TikTokers — dopamine loop |
| Climate | Earth passes 1.7 °C; the derivatives desk toasts the spread | Hedge funds — apocalyptic jouissance |
The pleasure does not lie in the material disaster but in the line on the chart that shoots up vertical.
V Manual of self-short-circuitingsafe
(Conceptual exercises, not harmful instructions)
| Ritual | Material | Objective |
|---|---|---|
| Mirror circuit | A PCB schematic, a conductive pen, a 3 V battery | Draw a route with no resistance, watch the heat → meditate on transience. |
| Overclock loop | An old scrap PC, stress-test software | Push the clock until it crashes; hear the fans as a mantra. |
| Social Zero-Ω | A group conversation where nobody waits their turn | Experience verbal sparking and burnt silences. |
Stop at the first smell of plastic or excessive anxiety.
VI Pathologies of ohmic enjoyment
- Productivist nihilism — “Everything must burn to reveal its power”; it forgets the lives that depend on the fuse.
- Corporate aestheticisation — Brands sell “arc-flash” lamps as edgy decor.
- Fantasy with no commitment — A fake radical discourse that flirts with collapse but reinsures capital.
VII Politics of variable resistance
- Communal resistors — Collectives that introduce deliberate delays (legal pauses, captcha strikes) to prevent the overload.
- Solidary fuses — Individuals take the burn (whistleblowers) to save the larger circuit; they need a care network after the meltdown.
- Tactical semi-shorts — Small controlled sabotages that release the pressure and avert a systemic blast (free fares for 24 h on transport → cathartic, not catastrophic, chaos).
VIII Coda
“Between the copper and the plastic lies the spark: if you fear the flare, do not design circuits.”
Zero-Ω does not prescribe indiscriminate destruction; it points at the erotic pull the discharge exerts and demands honesty about our fetishes.
Taming the fire means knowing when to let the spark jump and when to add one saving ohm.