Cipher and Dividuality

The “Postscript on Control Societies” is considered one of the most accessible texts by Gilles Deleuze, contemporary, yet untimely, ahead of its time, perhaps even ahead of our time. In just a few pages, Deleuze here touches on the specifics of discipline and control and subjects them to three perspectives: history, logic, program. On closer reading, however, one comes across some stumbling blocks, where thinking falters. The paragraph in which the word ‘dividual’ appears for the first time in the text is such an instance. Of course, the individuals of control become dividuals, and the masses become banks. But what does ‘code’ mean here, and what is the difference between the ‘precept’ of disciplinary society and the ‘password’ of control society? As is so often the case, the key lies in questions of context and translation

Art and contemporary critical practice: Reinventing institutional critique

266 p.Libro Electrónico'Institutional critique' is best known through the critical practice that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by artists who presented radical challenges to the museum and gallery system.Since then it has been pushed in new directions by new generations of artists registering and responding to the global transformations of contemporary life. The essays collected in this volume explore this legacy and develop the models of institutional critique in ways that go well beyond the field of art.Contributors vii Acknowledgments xi Preface xiii WHAT IS INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE? 1 Instituent Practices: Fleeing, Instituting, Transforming 3 2 The Institution of Critique 13 3 Anti-Canonization: The Differential Knowledge of Institutional Critique 21 4 Notes on Institutional Critique 29 5 Criticism without Crisis: Crisis without Criticism 33 6 Artistic Internationalism and Institutional Critique 43 7 Extradisciplinary Investigations: Towards a New Critique of Institutions 53 8 Louise Lawler’s Rude Museum 63 9 Toward a Critical Art Theory 79 10 Anthropology and Theory of Institutions 95 11 What is Critique? Suspension and Re-Composition in Textual and Social Machines 113 12 Attempt to Think the Plebeian: Exodus and Constituting as Critique 131 13 Inside and Outside the Art Institution: Self-Valorization and Montage in Contemporary Art 141 14 The Rise and Fall of New Institutionalism: Perspectives on a Possible Future 155 15 The Political Form of Coordination 161 INSTITUENT PRACTICES AND MONSTER INSTITUTIONS 16 Instituent Practices, No. 2: Institutional Critique, Constituent Power, and the Persistence of Instituting 173 17 Governmentality and Self-Precarization: On the Normalization of Cultural Producers 187 18 To Embody Critique: Some Theses, Some Examples 203 19 The Double Meaning of Destitution 211 20 Towards New Political Creations: Movements, Institutions, New Militancy 223 21 Mental Prototypes and Monster Institutions: Some Notes by Way of an Introduction 237 Bibliography 247 The Transform Project issues of transversal 26

Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the ‘Creative Industries’

234 p. : il., Tablas.Libro ElectrónicoLa creatividad siempre está en movimiento: surge, se establece en el ente colectivo, palidece y desaparece a veces en el olvido; renace, vuelve con innovaciones, se reformula y resurge iniciando de nuevo el ciclo. Los viejos mitos de la creación y los creadores, los trabajos consagrados y los organismos privilegiados de los demiurgos están de nuevo en marcha, produciendo nuevos cambios. Los ensayos recogidos en este libro analizan ese resurgimiento complejo del mito de la creación y proponen una crítica contemporánea de la creatividad.Creativity is astir: reborn, re-conjured, re-branded, resurgent. The old myths of creation and creators – the hallowed labors and privileged agencies of demiurges and prime movers, of Biblical world-makers and self-fashioning artist-geniuses – are back underway, producing effects, circulating appeals. Much as the Catholic Church dresses the old creationism in the new gowns of ‘intelligent design’, the Creative Industries sound the clarion call to the Cultural Entrepreneurs. In the hype of the ‘creative class’ and the high flights of the digital bohemians, the renaissance of ‘the creatives’ is visibly enacted. The essays collected in this book analyze this complex resurgence of creation myths and formulate a contemporary critique of creativity.Contents vii Contributors ix Acknowledgements xv Introduction: On the Strange Case of ‘Creativity’ and its Troubled Resurrection 1 PART ONE: CREATIVITY 7 1 Immanent Effects: Notes on Cre-activity 9 2 The Geopolitics of Pimping 23 3 The Misfortunes of the ‘Artistic Critique’ and of Cultural Employment 41 4 ‘Creativity and Innovation’ in the Nineteenth Century: Harrison C. White and the Impressionist Revolution Reconsidered 57 PART TWO: PRECARIZATION 77 5 Virtuosos of Freedom: On the Implosion of Political Virtuosity and Productive Labour 79 6 Experiences Without Me, or, the Uncanny Grin of Precarity 91 7 Wit and Innovation 101 PART THREE: CREATIVITY INDUSTRIES 107 8 GovernCreativity, or, Creative Industries Austrian Style 109 9 The Los Angelesation of London: Three Short Waves of Young People’s Micro-Economies of Culture and Creativity in the UK 119 10 Unpredictable Outcomes / Unpredictable Outcasts: On Recent Debates over Creativity and the Creative Industries 133 11 Chanting the Creative Mantra: The Accelerating Economization of EU Cultural Policy 147 PART FOUR: CULTURE INDUSTRY 165 12 Culture Industry and the Administration of Terror 167 13 Add Value to Contents: The Valorization of Culture Today 183 14 Creative Industries as Mass Deception 191 Bibliography 20

Instituierende Praxen: fliehen, instituieren, transformieren

'Der Text verhandelt mögliche nicht-dialektische Formen der Aktualisierung von Institutionskritik. Ausgehend von einer Kritik aktueller künstlerischer Positionen wird eine Praxis der Institutionskritik gefordert, die sich mit den gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen weiter entwickelt, vor allem auch Anschluss findet an andere Formen außerhalb des Kunstfelds, wie sie gegen die jeweiligen Verhältnisse oder auch vor deren Ausformungen entstehen. Vor dem Hintergrund eines solchen transversalen Austausches von Kritikformen, aber auch jenseits der Imagination von herrschafts- und institutionsfreien Räumen wäre Institutionskritik zugleich als kritische Haltung und als instituierende Praxis zu reformulieren. Maßgeblich dafür ist u.a. die Überschneidung und Überlagerung mehrerer Formen von 'parrhesia', wie sie in der griechischen Antike entwickelt und in Michel Foucaults Spätwerk theoretisch aktualisiert wurden.' (Autorenreferat)'This text is about non-dialectical forms of an actualization of the critique of institutions. Emanating from a critique of current artistic positions it is challenged to perform a practice of critique of institutions emerging with changes in society affiliated to forms outside the field of arts generated against actual conditions or their implementations. On the background of such a transversal exchange of forms of critique the critique of institutions should be reformulated as well as a critical attitude as an institutionalizing practice, too - beyond any imagination of spaces free of power and institutions. Applicable amongst others is a coincidence with some forms of 'parrhesia' developed by the ancient Greeks and theoretically actualized by Michel Foucault in his last works.' (author's abstract

Przemysły kreatywne jako masowe oszustwo

brakPrzemysły kreatywne jako masowe oszustw

Strike, occupy, transform! Students, subjectivity and struggle

This article uses student activism to explore the way in which activists are challenging the student as consumer model through a series of experiments that blend pedagogy and protest. Specifically, I suggest that Higher Education is increasingly becoming an arena of the postpolitical, and I argue that one of the ways this student-consumer subjectivity is being (re)produced is through a series of ‘depoliticisation machines’ operating within the university. This article goes on to claim that in order to counter this, some of those resisting the neoliberalisation of higher education have been creating political-pedagogical experiments that act as ‘repoliticisation machines’, and that these experiments countered student-consumer subjectification through the creation of new radical forms of subjectivity. This paper provides an example of this activity through the work of a group called the Really Open University and its experiments at blending, protest, pedagogy and propaganda

Architecture, Multitude and the Analogical City as a Critical Project

This article develops a theory of the multitude for architecture. It is a close-reading of political theorist Paolo Virno’s concept of the multitude and its associated categories of language, repetition and what Virno calls “real abstraction.” The article transposes those categories to the thought of Aldo Rossi on typology, the city as a text and the analogical city. The aim is to explore the conditions of possibility for a renewed critical project for architecture and to articulate architecture’s capacity for framing a collective political subject. The key questions addressed are therefore how does Virno’s grammar of the multitude translate into an architectural grammar for the city; and how can architecture frame a collective political subject

Workshopping the revolution? On the phenomenon of joker training in the Theatre of the Oppressed

The article brings together observations and insights on the emerging phenomenon of training the trainers, also known as joker training in the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). The concerns raised in this article are twofold: first, how does the modularised, workshop format of joker training affect the core principles of TO? Second, what are the implications of professionalising the work of the joker? These questions relate to the critique of ‘creative industries’ and debates around precarisation that profoundly impact arts and humanities education in contemporary Europe. They also serve as a call to interrogate concepts central to TO, such as participation, empowerment and community, in terms of how these concepts are appropriated and made docile in the increasingly neoliberal environment of European cultural and educational policies. The article proposes that a training in TO must view the dissemination of techniques and methods of joker practice as inseparable from a deep commitment to a ‘conscientised’ understanding of the complex social problems that the theatre seeks to address. The focus on a technical training alone bears the danger of reinforcing Freire's ‘banking method’ of pedagogy, which is counterproductive to the political objectives of TO. The article observes that professional jokers work in precarious conditions far removed from the promises of the economic rewards of creative enterprise. The proliferation of project-based freelance work creates a situation where jokers tend to become de-territorialised and alienated from actual problems, thus propagating biographic and short-term approaches to systemic contradictions. The study aims to problematise these issues and contribute to a debate that might lead to politically and professionally viable paths for the future of TO

Cipher and Dividuality

The “Postscript on Control Societies” is considered one of the most accessible texts by Gilles Deleuze, contemporary, yet untimely, ahead of its time, perhaps even ahead of our time. In just a few pages, Deleuze here touches on the specifics of discipline and control and subjects them to three perspectives: history, logic, program. On closer reading, however, one comes across some stumbling blocks, where thinking falters. The paragraph in which the word ‘dividual’ appears for the first time in the text is such an instance. Of course, the individuals of control become dividuals, and the masses become banks. But what does ‘code’ mean here, and what is the difference between the ‘precept’ of disciplinary society and the ‘password’ of control society? As is so often the case, the key lies in questions of context and translation