not

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[21]

[21]

[20]

[18-19]

[17]
kratky sumar

[14-17]

[13]
via doc film

[11]

[10]
w/ guy

[6-7]

A central task for reimagining society today is to develop an alternative management of the common wealth we share.

two distinct but related domains of the common:
– ECO ecological (natural) common [but this category is insufficient] – earth and all of its ecosystems, including the atmosphere, the oceans and rivers, and the forests, as well as all the forms of life that interact with them.
– ART social and economic (artificial) common [but this category is insufficient] – products of human labor and creativity that we share, such as ideas, knowledges, images, codes, affects, social relationships, and the like.

ECO & ART:
common in both domains confounds the traditional measures of economic value and imposes instead the value of life as the only valid scale of evaluation.

contradictions (ale ukazuju sa ako complementaries):
ECO – pro conservation, since earth is limited, logic of scarcity; ART – pro creation, open/limitless nature of production of common; ALE: both perspectives refer fundamentally to production/reproduction of forms of life, which are happening simultaneously (since eg. work-time vs non-work time collapsed)
ART – interests of humanity as central (ie. extend our politics to all humanity, overcome hierarchies/exclusions of class and property, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity..); ECO – interests much broader than human/animal worlds; ALE: navzajom sa mozu ucit eko-aktivisti a humanrights-aktivisti

The claim for centrality of the common relies on the hypothesis that we are in the midst of an epochal shift from a capitalist economy centered on industrial production to one centered on what can be called immaterial or biopolitical production. Toni Negri and I have argued this hypothesis over the course of three books — Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth.
– {industrial capitalism THEN} Industrial production has been central, rather, in the sense that the qualities of industry — its forms of mechanization, its working day, its wage relations, its regimes of time discipline and precision, and so forth — have progressively been imposed over other sectors of production and social life as a whole, creating not only an industrial economy but also an industrial society.
– {industrial capitalism IS OVER} industry no longer marks the hierarchical position in the various divisions of labor and, more significantly, that the qualities of industry are no longer being imposed over other sectors and society as a whole.
– {immaterial/biopolitical production NOW} (central position of industry is taken over by) production of immaterial goods or goods with a significant immaterial component, such as ideas, knowledges, languages, images, code, and affects (health care workers and educators, fast food workers, call center workers, and flight attendants). The cognitive and affective tools of immaterial production, the precarious, non-guaranteed nature of its wage relations, the temporality of immaterial production (which tends to destroy the structures of the working day and blur the traditional divisions between work-time and nonwork-time), as well as its other qualities are becoming generalized.
+ property: immobile (eg. land) => mobile (eg. commodities) => immaterial (discussions about patents/copyrights; question of exclusivity and reproductibility)

2 contradictions, 2 shared logics form significant basis for understanding guises of common & struggle to preserve/further them; foundation for linking forms of political activism aimed at the autonomy and democratic management of the common:

I. contradiction between private property and the common.
ART: bwn need for common in interest of productivity and need for private in interest of capitalist accumulation
ECO: bwn private nature of accumulation and social nature of resulting damages

II. the common defies traditional capitalist measures of value (or obey radically different scale based on value of life, which we have not yet invented)
ART: value of biopolitical/immaterial goods is immeasurable using traditional system of measure of econ.value; economists cast them as “externalities”, accountants as “intangible assets” (of esoteric value), (global bankrupt largely derives from this)
ECO: value of the common is immeasurable (eg. how much $ is damage costs of having half of Bangladesh under water? or permanent draught in Ethiopia? or destruction of trad. Inuit forms of life?)

watch out (when struggle for the common operate according to opposing logics in ECO and ART):
III. preserve ECO vs limitless prod ART
IV. humanity as frame of reference @ART vs broader @ECO

next: UN Climate Conference, Copenhagen, Dec 2009

next: the common @identity and identity politics; the common @social institutions (family, nation, ..)

[82-83]

There are media theories (plural) because we do not agree on what media are. I propose that if a theory is a media theory, it should take as axiomatic that mediation is primary, and that everything else (sex, power, exploitation) are effects of mediation and its vicissitudes. If everything from architecture to sunshine mediates, we have the critical agenda mapped for us ­ issue sof reciprocation and mutuality, solidarity, dependence and contingency. Once that is set out, we disagree on other issues ­ modes of causality, interplay between media formations
https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2009-July/003817.html

For then, the audiences will feel increasingly concerned with such questions as “What mechanisms or technical procedure produced that expression?” and “Why did that expression have such an effect upon me, my minds, and my emotion?” and, finally, “What kind of mechanism or procedures must exist within myself, in order that effect or experience could be produced?”
link

Gilbert Simondon criticized Norbert Wiener’s theory of cybernetics, arguing that, “Right from the start, Cybernetics has accepted what all theory of technology must refuse: a classification of technological objects conducted by means of established criteria and following genera and species.” Simondon aimed to overcome the shortcomings of cybernetics by developing a “general phenomenology” of machines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Simondon#Individuation_and_technology

Alain Badiou, who has written that Meillassoux’s first book Après la finitude (2006) introduces an entirely new option into modern philosophy, different from Kant’s three alternatives of empiricism, scepticism, and dogmatism | correlationism = humans cannot exist without the world nor the world without humans => BUT Meillassoux claims that mathematics is what reaches the primary qualities of things as opposed to their secondary qualities as manifested in perception | there is no such thing as causal necessity at all + it is absolutely necessary that the laws of nature be contingent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Meillassoux

The long deconstructionist era was followed with a period dominated by Deleuze | It might be hard to find many shared positions in the writings of Badiou, DeLanda, Laruelle, Latour, Stengers, and Zizek, but what is missing from their positions is an obsession with the critique of written texts | the new currents of continental philosophy depart from the text-centered hermeneutic models of the past and engage in daring speculations about the nature of reality itself.
http://www.anthem-group.net/2009/07/04/the-speculative-turn/

# Connectivity – the capacity to aggregate by making connections at any point on and within itself. # Heterogeneity – the capacity to connect anything with anything other, the linking of unlike elements # Multiplicity – consisting of multiple singularities synthesized into a “whole” by relations of exteriority # Asignifying rupture – not becoming any less of a rhizome when being severely ruptured, the ability to allow a system to function and even flourish despite local “breakdowns”, thanks to deterritorialising and reterritorialising processes # Cartography – described by the method of mapping for orientation from any point of entry within a “whole”, rather than by the method of tracing that re-presents an a priori path, base structure or genetic axis # Decalcomania – forming through continuous negotiation with its context, constantly adapting by experimentation, thus performing a non-symmetrical active resistance against rigid organization and restriction
http://capitalismandschizophrenia.org/index.php/Rhizome

Agonists believe that we should design democracy so as to optimise the opportunity for people to express their disagreements. However, they also maintain, we should not assume that conflict can be eliminated given sufficient time for deliberation and rational agreement. In other words, conflict has a non-rational or emotional component. These two positions mean that they are opposed to aspects of consociational and deliberative theories of democracy. The former, because it wants to mute conflict through elite consensus, the latter because it gives a rationalist picture of the aspirations of democracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agonistic_pluralism

I use the concept of agonistic pluralism to present a new way to think about democracy which is different from the traditional liberal conception of democracy as a negotiation among interests and is also different to the model which is currently being developed by people like Jurgen Habermas and John Rawls. While they have many differences, Rawls and Habermas have in common the idea that the aim of the democratic society is the creation of a consensus, and that consensus is possible if people are only able to leave aside their particular interests and think as rational beings. However, while we desire an end to conflict, if we want people to be free we must always allow for the possibility that conflict may appear and to provide an arena where differences can be confronted. The democratic process should supply that arena.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article563.html

The Charter of the Forest assumes a notion of the ‘commons’ or a practice of subsistence commoning in the hydrocarbon energy resources of the time. | they refer to those classes of people whose goal in economic life is the consumption of uses rather than the accumulation of money. In short, they refer to the Many not the Few | Subcommandante Marcos provided the voice of the Zapatistas and the indigenous people of Chiapas calling for the return of Article 27 and the ejidos, or common land, while reminding us of the Magna Carta. As the Many demand water, energy, and wherewithal against the surplus value hogged by the Few
http://www.metamute.org/en/Charters-of-Liberty-in-Black-Face-and-White-Face-Race-Slavery-and-the-Commons

user is not only consumer, but always-already also creates a value; financial crisis (2008) ~ collapse of system of consumerism; Stiegler’s “associated media” (web2) ~ new form of capitalism (not end of it); old school consumerism = dissassociated media (financial crisis is also effect of the end of this kind of world); CC – new form of intellectual property; “process of transindividuation”; co-individuation – we exchange music files and thus transform our musical taste / we produce metadata / produce links / produce attractor, which becomes meta-stabilisation (eg musical fashion); it’s both bottom-up (peer-to-peer) and top-down (owned by companies) = this is the CONFLICT ~ role of philosopher is to produce critique of top-down logic (not denialisation, because we need this logic); we need power developed through “critical apparatuses”; interests of bottom-up VS top-down are not the same (like workers VS capital), but they need each other (workers need get work from capital)

“Richard Florida’s exotic city, his creative city, depends on ghost people, working behind the scenes. Immigrants, people of colour. You want to know what his version of creative is? He’s the relocation agent for the global bourgeoisie. And the rest of us don’t matter.” | the creative class notion gaining traction. “I watched how, in consulting, these ideas took off and became trends,” she said. They suggested an easy fix to increasing urban ills, served with a smile. “It’s palatable, interesting and fun. It’s hard to compete with that.” | new era of socially tolerant capitalism. “But really, it’s a very celebratory and safe way of looking at capital accumulation,” she says. “People like cool places, sure; they’re positive stories. But there are people that get dispossessed, or removed, or erased in these narratives. If you’re a hospital worker, or a child care worker, you’re just erased completely” | “skilled people” – not artists, by any measure – “are key to urban success.”
http://www.thestar.com/article/656837

Under the conditions of late capitalism, the best art, and politically the most effective, so thoroughly works out its own internal contradictions that the hidden contradictions in society can no longer be ignored. The plays of Samuel Beckett, to whom Adorno had intended to dedicate Aesthetic Theory, are emblematic in that regard. Adorno finds them more true than many other artworks.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/#4

National TV, radio, and newspapers under state control. Text messaging is blocked, web sites filtered | Decisions are made centrally by Mousavi and Karoubi and their campaigns, and are published on their websites, eg. Kalemeh and Ghalam news | Mousavi’s FB calls for demonstrations, every message reaches 65,000+ supporters in his FB group directly | Karbaschi, top adviser to Karoubi, tweets about his activity (@gkarbaschi, in Farsi). Only here Twitter is actually being used to organize protest inside Iran and again, this is centralized organization coming from the campaign of a reformist candidate. @gkarbaschi has 4,700+ followers but is not following feeds of any other users. He is using social media to broadcast to a domestic audience, not to interact | People in Iran are using Twitter as an important broadcast (rather than organizing) tool to report events, slogans, and protest movement + upload videos on YouTube and int’l mainstream media use these in their Iran coverage
http://www.digiactive.org/2009/06/20/iran-beyond-headlines/

When it comes to social media sites (and particularly those that involve photo-sharing), you might want to also account for 1) the people who are forced to spend all day every day with politicians, attorneys general, and policy makers in every state and every country; 2) the hundreds of people who sit and sift through photographs/video looking for illegal content; 3) the round-the-clock staff who field calls from FBI and police; 4) the large teams who battle spam, phishing and hacking; 5) the legal team who has to deal with everyone and then some suing them over issues of safety, porn, etc.
https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2009-June/003646.html

BRIC on 5 June in St Petersburg: We have reached our limit in subsidizing the United States’ military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies, stocks and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth. | “The artificially maintained unipolar system,” Mr. Medvedev spelled out, is based on “one big centre of consumption, financed by a growing deficit, and thus growing debts, one formerly strong reserve currency, and one dominant system of assessing assets and risks.”2 At the root of the global financial crisis, he concluded, is that the United States makes too little and spends too much. Especially upsetting is its military spending, such as the stepped-up US military aid to Georgia announced just last week, the NATO missile shield in Eastern Europe and the US buildup in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13969

Member states have been given two years to introduce the legislation to their own legal systems and parliament has asked the EC to review the rules after three years to judge its impact, particular on the digital market. | Directive is now being held up in the Council of Ministers awaiting further debate on the issue. | Artists commonly get between five and 15 percent of sales, with music companies traditionally taking the rest to pay for CD production and distribution. But with CD sales in decline and digital distribution increasing many challenge whether labels deserve to benefit on the same terms for an extra 20 years. Or as Bill Bragg told AP, “Now that they no longer have to (make CDs), that money will go straight into their bottom line.” | “Parliament’s vote will be music to the ears of the big record companies and top-earning artists”
http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-euro-parliament-ups-music-copyright-term-from-50-to-70-years/

The divide is between those nations which are still embedded within the dollar system, including countries in the Eurozone, versus those emerging economies—especially the BRIC—Brazil, Russia, India, China—where new economic markets and regions are rapidly replacing their over-dependence on the United States as prime export market and prime source for investment finance. | BRIC have demographic advantage. | Interesting to recall is that the hidden story of the pre-1914 German ‘economic miracle’ was based on a similar ‘secret’—rapid and dynamic young and growing population, while that of Great Britain and France was stagnant or in decline after the British Great Depression of 1873 which led to huge emigration of population to the USA.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13926

inspirovany real banking skandalom v 91 | MI5 had learned in 1987 that Abu Nidal had been using a company called SAS Trade and Investment in Warsaw as a cover for ANO business deals, with the company director, Samir Najmeddin, based in Baghdad. All SAS’s deals went through BCCI in Sloane Street, where the balance in the SAS account always hovered around ₤50 million, and consisted largely of selling guns, night-vision goggles, and armored Mercedes-Benz cars with concealed grenade launchers, each deal often worth tens of millions of dollars. Bank records showed ANO arms transactions with many Middle Eastern countries as well as with East Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(film)