English

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF WORK

Submitted by Armin Medosch on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 13:45

This text is a first draft, trying to identify key topics for an inquiry into the new organisation of labour. It starts with a historic analysis and then explores the notion of Post-Fordism.Specific sections are devoted to cognitive capitalism, the creative industries, informational capitalism and the split between manual and mental labour. It ends with a modest proposal for an alternative path of development.

More Lennon than Lenin: Imaginal Machines by Stevphen Shukaitis

Submitted by Armin Medosch on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 18:50

It is not often that left-wing politics is associated with attributes such as humour and wit. Stevphen Shukaitis' book Imaginal Machines (2009) is not only abundant with it but shows that certain strands of imaginative revolutionary politics in the 20th century were also endowed with those precious qualities. This journey through the radical imagination of the left, written in a compelling and entertaining style, is definitely worth a read for everybody interested in radical and antagonistic politics.

Technological Determinism in Media Art (republished)

Submitted by Armin Medosch on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 11:28

The most influential discourse on media art up to and around 1995 uncritically based itself on techno-science and the techno-imaginary which it creates. It offers a technologically deterministic interpretation of the relationship between societies and social change. This discourse was successful in institution building and is still very influential today, even though its foundations can shown to be problematic. This is the essence of my 2005 MA thesis on "Technological Determinism in Media Art" which I republish here due to difficulties with my old site.

Paradigm Changes: The Grid and the Fork by Alex Foti

Submitted by Armin Medosch on Fri, 11/13/2009 - 11:39

The researcher and euromayday activist Alex Foti has created a diagram based on a framework of techno-economic paradigm change similar to ours - I must admit debt to Brian who first has made me aware of it. The Grid & the Fork: Critical Dynamics of Advanced Capitalism from the Second to the Third Industrial Revolution (2006) offers itself as a very good starting place for the discussion of different models of technopolitical change and for the creation of own diagram. Both the original and a first attempt at modification are included below.

Technopolitics - Research Project Outline

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 15:19

We propose to develop a cooperative, open-content research format that will facilitate a detailed theoretical debate on the historical relations between technological and political transformations, culminating in studies of the present crisis of "informationalism" or the "network society." Building on existing concepts of the technological paradigm, we seek to enlarge the current horizons of research by establishing a chronological framework to track developments in the arts and the communications media as well as changing patterns of consumption, circulation, self-organization and political mobilization. The resulting more broadly integrated model of technopolitics will allow individual researchers to develop their own applications of shared concepts and resources, thus contributing to an informational commons and an enriched public sphere.

Free market flawed, says survey

Submitted by tt on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 20:24

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism

Review: Labor and Monopoly Capital. The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, by Harry Braverman

Submitted by Armin Medosch on Mon, 11/02/2009 - 09:51

This excellent book by Harry Braverman revolves around the main thesis, that labour in the 20th century has become 'degraded'. The combined effects of mechanization, scientific management and other control techniques allowed management to wrest control from workers and enforce, under ever changing circumstances, alienating practices onto workers across all industries, including office and service jobs.

Course proposal: Four Pathways Through Chaos

Submitted by Brian Holmes on Mon, 10/05/2009 - 18:20

Here I want to lay out the elements of a coordinated research-education-writing proposal and submit them to the critique of anyone who cares, in order to hopefully find some partners for the implementation and realization of what could be a new and more socially significant way of learning and producing cultural/intellectual content. Let me know what you think! - BH

***

On Periodisation: Some thoughts on waves of techno-economic and cultural change

Submitted by Armin Medosch on Mon, 09/07/2009 - 17:36

Following on to Brian's listserv post, I would like to add a few more points on periodisation. Although Kondratieff cycles or long waves do play a role here, the intention is not an in-depth discussion of the long wave theory. The intention is rather to create a foundation for a narrative that describes the second half of the 20th century as an interplay of economic, political, technological and cultural forces, seeking out turning points that allow to identify specific characteristics of techno-economic changes as an explanatory framework for specific cultural or artistic phenomena, such as participatory media and / or media art and technology practices.

Periodizing Cinematic Production

Submitted by Brian Holmes on Wed, 09/02/2009 - 19:50

[What follows is another look at periodization in the history of media, adapted only very slightly from a post I sent to the iDC list. It follows directly on the long comment I made to Armin's 45 RPM text, concerning the dialectical transformations of the communicational commodity. The idea is to build momentum for shared investigations into the relations between the technological forms, political-economic functions, expressive uses and oppositional appropriations of communications media. Best to all, BH]