English

This article is a first attempt to specify some technical and conceptual aspects of the productive process under Informationalism, and to cut through some of the ideology surrounding it. The text suggests the role of the imaginary both in enabling and potentially disabling this social form (i.e. the value-form as expressed in contemporary society); but it doesn't deal with the integrative processes. Some research on migrant labor struggles in the US intermodal and warehouse sectors is underway, so hopefully we will publish something on it soon. All comments welcome, changes can still be made. Thanks to Armin for the just-in-time critique on version 1.0.

Introduction

The Origins of International Economic Disorder
A Study of United States Monetary Policy from World War II to the Present

by Fred L. Block
University of California Press, 1977 -- 277 pages

The book begins with an overview of the British gold standard and its gradual breakdown during the interwar period. This sets the stage for the main subject: the history of the monetary order underlying the multilateral free-trade system promoted and managed by the United States.

This article examines the 'digital city' debate of the mid 1990s as a point of departure for a media-historical questioning of how technology and the discourse about technology were used as an experimental playground for new forms of knowledge that are fundamental for the understanding of today’s network society. This text has been presented as a conference paper at the 'networks and sustainability' track of the 'textiles' conference in Riga in June 2010. The paper will also appear in a special edition of the Arts and Communications Journal edited by RIXC at the end of 2010.

Knowing well about the problematic of publishing notes, unfinished forms of writing, in a very early stage, I am publishing here an excerpt of thoughts that I had when reading up on Pierre Bourdieu's theories on art, filtered by a quite concise presentation by Derek Robbins.