23 research outputs found
The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism:Part II
Get PDFAn international array of philosophers, critical theorists, media theorists, art historians, architects, and artists discussed the state of the mind and brain under the conditions of contemporary capitalism, in which these cognitive apparati have become the new focus of labouring. Like its predecessor ‘The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism: Part I’, this conference investigated how the conditions of ‘semiocapitalism’ and ‘cognitive capitalism’ have transformed the conditions of labour – specifically the fact that so much contemporary labour is immaterial, affective, and cognitive – and as a result détourned the role of emancipatory politics, art/architecture, and education today. Might these new conditions also have lasting material ramifications for the brain and mind? The conference elaborated upon many of the questions left unattended in Part 1. Questions such as: What is the future of mind in cognitive capitalism? Can a term such as ‘plastic materialism’ describe the substantive changes in neural architectures instigated by this contingent cultural habitus? Is there such a thing as ‘cognitive communism’? Is designed space an agent or platform in the production of subjectivity and is parametrics complicit with its devices? How does artistic research create new emancipatory possibilities in opposition to the overwhelming instrumentalization of the general intellect in semiocapitalism?The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism: Part II, conference, ICI Berlin, 7–9 March 2013 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e130307
Liberalisation, surveillance and suicide at La Poste
Get PDFThis article examines how the contradictory dynamics of freedom and control that characterise neoliberal capitalism are played out on lived experiences of work in the context of the newly liberalised and restructured French postal services (La Poste). At La Poste, liberalisation was framed as a great emancipatory project that would reinvigorate a moribund state-owned company, remove regulatory constraints, deepen economic freedoms and strip away deadening bureaucracy. Yet, whilst liberalisation freed La Poste of regulatory controls, it was accompanied by an intensified surveillance and control of everyday working life. The new control measures were not limited to external working practices and structures, but sought to capture the individual worker’s personality, communication and values and harness them towards the company’s redefined commercial goals. Drawing on critical scholarship on neoliberal capitalism and labour, the article shows that when capitalist rationality extends beyond working activity and encroaches on complex, intimate and vulnerable dimensions of the person, this can have dangerous human consequences. At La Poste, liberalisation triggered a profound crisis across the company, transforming it into an ‘entreprise en souffrance’ characterised by escalating levels of psychological distress, chronic stress and a series of employee suicides
Precarious Living
No full text1 h 4 min«The financial Black Hole is swiftly dissipating the legacy of industrial labor and of the very structures of Modern civilization. Precariousness is spreading in the labor market, and in the very foundations of language, affection and perception of time.
A fissure is running in the ground, and we are trying to escape it. It is like a tectonic fault in the texture of our expectations, a deep cut in our imagination of the future.
The Modern art of politics, the rational prediction and the voluntary act of government is deprived of potency and effectiveness. For the time coming after the future we have to learn how to ride on the dynamics of an irreversible disaster.»
Franco Berardi Bifo is a writer, media-theorist and media-activist. Among others he was involved in Potere Operaio and the political movement of Autonomia in Italy. He also worked with Félix Guattari in the field of schizoanalysis. Selected publications: «Poetry and Finance» (2012), «After the Future» (2011), «The Soul at Work» (2010), «Felix» (2001), «Cibernauti» (1994), «Mutazione e Cyberpunk» (1993), contributions to Semiotext(e), Chimères, Metropoli, Musica 80 and e-flux Journal. Education projects include: Coordinator at SCEPSI, Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, PEI-Macba in Barcelona, Accademia di Brera in Milano, and social centers and universities worldwide.
Invited by Susanne M. Winterling
Precarious Living
No full text1 h 4 min«The financial Black Hole is swiftly dissipating the legacy of industrial labor and of the very structures of Modern civilization. Precariousness is spreading in the labor market, and in the very foundations of language, affection and perception of time.
A fissure is running in the ground, and we are trying to escape it. It is like a tectonic fault in the texture of our expectations, a deep cut in our imagination of the future.
The Modern art of politics, the rational prediction and the voluntary act of government is deprived of potency and effectiveness. For the time coming after the future we have to learn how to ride on the dynamics of an irreversible disaster.»
Franco Berardi Bifo is a writer, media-theorist and media-activist. Among others he was involved in Potere Operaio and the political movement of Autonomia in Italy. He also worked with Félix Guattari in the field of schizoanalysis. Selected publications: «Poetry and Finance» (2012), «After the Future» (2011), «The Soul at Work» (2010), «Felix» (2001), «Cibernauti» (1994), «Mutazione e Cyberpunk» (1993), contributions to Semiotext(e), Chimères, Metropoli, Musica 80 and e-flux Journal. Education projects include: Coordinator at SCEPSI, Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, PEI-Macba in Barcelona, Accademia di Brera in Milano, and social centers and universities worldwide.
Invited by Susanne M. Winterling
Schäuble’s grandmother
No full textWhat rules are we talking about?In an article by Jochen Bittner, a collaborator with the prestigious weekly Die Zeit, published on 18th July, 2015 in the New York Times and titled It’s time for Greece to go, we read that “patience is rapidly wearing thin since the Greeks have shown with the referendum that, according to them, no rule can be considered to be set in stone”. The question of rules is central to the European cultural dispute. Mainly because it is not clear who is establishing the rules
La abuela de Schäuble
No full textEn un artículo de Jochen Bittner, un colaborador del prestigioso semanario Die Zeit, publicado el 18 de julio de 2015 en el New York Times bajo el título It’s time for Greece to go, se puede leer que “la paciencia se está agotando rápidamente, ya que los griegos han demostrado con el referendum que, según ellos, ninguna regla puede considerarse del todo establecida”. La cuestión de las reglas es central en el contencioso cultural europeo. Principalmente, porque no está claro quién establece las reglas
[Academy Lectures, 2013.11.12]
No full text1 h 26 minBorn in Bologna, Italy in 1949, Franco Berardi Bifo is a writer, media-theorist, and media-activist. As a young militant he took part in the experience of Potere operaio in the years 1967-1973, then he founded the magazine A/traverso (1975- 81) and was part of the staff of Radio Alice, the first free pirate radio station in Italy (1976-78).
Involved in the political movement of Autonomia in Italy during the 1970’s, he fled to Paris, where he worked with Félix Guattari in the field of schizoanalysis. He has been involved in many media-projects, like Telestreet and Recombinant. org.
Bifo has published the books “Poetry and Finance” (1912), “After the Future” (2011) “The Soul at Work” (2010), “Felix” (2001), “Cibernauti” (1994), “Mutazione e Cyberpunk” (1993) and contributed to the magazines Semiotext(e), Chimères, Metropoli, and Musica 80. He is currently contributing to e-flux journal.
Coordinator of the European School for Social Imagination (SCEPSI) he has been teaching at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, PEI-Macba in Barcelona, Accademia di Brera in Milano, and has been lecturing in social centers and universities worldwide.
Talk by Franco Berardi Bifo.
Invited by Susanne Winterling.
Tuesday 12. November 2013, 7.15pm, KHIO’s Main Auditorium, Fossveien 24, Grünerløkka, Oslo
Precarious Living
No full text1 h 4 min«The financial Black Hole is swiftly dissipating the legacy of industrial labor and of the very structures of Modern civilization. Precariousness is spreading in the labor market, and in the very foundations of language, affection and perception of time.
A fissure is running in the ground, and we are trying to escape it. It is like a tectonic fault in the texture of our expectations, a deep cut in our imagination of the future.
The Modern art of politics, the rational prediction and the voluntary act of government is deprived of potency and effectiveness. For the time coming after the future we have to learn how to ride on the dynamics of an irreversible disaster.»
Franco Berardi Bifo is a writer, media-theorist and media-activist. Among others he was involved in Potere Operaio and the political movement of Autonomia in Italy. He also worked with Félix Guattari in the field of schizoanalysis. Selected publications: «Poetry and Finance» (2012), «After the Future» (2011), «The Soul at Work» (2010), «Felix» (2001), «Cibernauti» (1994), «Mutazione e Cyberpunk» (1993), contributions to Semiotext(e), Chimères, Metropoli, Musica 80 and e-flux Journal. Education projects include: Coordinator at SCEPSI, Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, PEI-Macba in Barcelona, Accademia di Brera in Milano, and social centers and universities worldwide.
Invited by Susanne M. Winterling
