[iDC] Immaterial Civil War
Stmart96 at aol.com
Stmart96 at aol.com
Fri Oct 16 11:31:04 UTC 2009
Thanks for the Lazzarato on Tarde It is a great read. Patricia
In a message dated 10/15/2009 11:58:11 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jbeller at pratt.edu writes:
Hi all,
Thanks to Kristian Lukic for the great introduction as well as the mention
of the important work of Matteo Pasquinelli.
For some reason, often when I read posts by certain members on this list
who render theories of value without recognizing value's continued
imbrication in capitalist dynamics a little voice in my head intones the old dictim:
"you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." It seems so
clear to me that despite references to socialism and industrialization,
when it came to trying Marx, some of us didn't inhale. But Pasquinelli, who
has inhaled deeply, takes the reins and heads on down to the river of
dialectics once again.
At the risk of mixing metaphors I have excerpted here from his essay
"Immaterial War: Prototypes of Conflict Within Cognitive Capitalism" a fine
draught... or is it a toke. Partake at your own risk.
3. Lazzarato reading Tarde: the public dimension of value
Contemporary criticism does not have a clear perspective of the public
life of
cognitive products: it is largely dominated by the metaphors stolen from
Creative Commons and Free Software, which support quite a flat vision with
no notion of value and valorisation. For this reason, I want to introduce
a more
dynamic scenario following Maurizio Lazzarato and Gabriel Tarde that
explain how value is produced by an accumulation of social desire and
collective imitation. Lazzarato has re-introduced the thought of the
French
sociologist Tarde in his book Puissances de l'invention4 [Powers of
invention]
and in his article “La psychologie économique contre l’economie politique”
5.
To sum up in few lines, Tarde’s philosophy challenges the
contemporary political economy because it: 1) dissolves the opposition of
material and immaterial labour and consider the “cooperation between brains
”
a main force in the traditional pre-capitalist societies not only in
postfordism;
2) puts innovation as the driving force instead of monetary accumulation
only
(Smith, Marx and Schumpter did not really understand innovation as an
internal force of capitalism, a vision more concerned about re-production
rather
than production); 3) develops a new theory of value no more based on use-
value only, but also on other kinds of value, like truth-value and
beauty-value
(Lazzarato: “The economic psychology is a theory of the creation and
constitution of values, whereas political economy and Marxism are theories
to
measure values”6).
Tarde’s crucial insight for the present work is about the relation
between science and public opinion. As Lazzarato put it: “According to
Tarde,
a invention (of science or not) that is not imitated is not socially
existent: to be
imitated an invention needs to draw attention, to produce a force of ‘
mental
attraction’ on other brains, to mobilise their desires and beliefs through
a
process of social communication. […] Tarde figures out an issue crossing
all
his work: the constituent power of the public.”7 We could say: any
creative
idea that is not imitated is not socially existent and has no value. In
Tarde the
Public is the “social group of the future”, integrating for the first
time mass
media as an apparatus of valorisation in a sort of anticipation of
postfordism.
Moreover Tarde considers the working class itself as a kind of “public
opinion” that is unified on the base of common beliefs and affects rather
than
common interests.
The Tarde-Lazzarato connection introduces a dynamic or better
competitive model, where immaterial objects have to face the laws of the
noosphere – innovation and imitation – in quite a Darwinistic
environment....
But wait, if you've gotten this far, one good hit deserves another.
Cheers!
4. Enzo Rullani and the “law of diffusion”
Rullani was among the first to introduce the term cognitive capitalism8.
Unlike
most, he does not point out the process of knowledge sharing, but above
all
the process of cognitive valorisation. He is quite clear about the fact
that
competition still exists (is perhaps even stronger) in the realm of “
immaterial”
economy. Rullani is one of few people that try to measure how much value
knowledge produces and as a seasoned economist he gives mathematical
formulas as well - like in his book Economia della conoscenza [Economy of
Knowledge]9. Rullani says that the value of knowledge is multiplied by its
diffusion, and that you have to learn how to manage this kind of
circulation.
As Rullani puts it, in the interview with Antonella Corsani published on
Multitudes in 200010:
An economy based on knowledge is structurally anchored to sharing:
knowledge produces value if it is adopted, and the adoption (in that
format and
the consequent standards) makes interdependency.
The value of immaterial objects is produced by dissemination and
interdependency: there is the same process behind the popularity of a pop
star
and behind the success of a software. The digital revolution made the
reproduction of immaterial objects easier, faster, ubiquitous and almost
free.
However, as Rullani points out, “proprietary logic does not disappear but
has
to subordinate itself to the law of diffusion”11: proprietary logic is no
longer based
on space and objects, but on time and speed.
There are three ways that a producer of knowledge can distribute its uses,
still
keeping a part of the advantage under the form of: 1) a speed differential
in
the production of new knowledge or in the exploitation of its uses; 2) a
control
of the context stronger than others; 3) a network of alliances and
cooperation
capable of contracting and controlling modalities of usage of knowledge
within the whole circuit of sharing.
A speed differential means: “I got this idea and I can handle it better
than
others: while they are still becoming familiar with it, I develop it
further”. A
better understanding of the context is something not easy to duplicate: it
is
about the genealogy of the idea, the cultural and social history of a
place, the
confidential information accumulated in years. The network of alliances is
called sometimes “social capital” and is implemented as “social networks”
on
the web: it is about your contacts, your PR, your street and web
credibility.
Here it is clear that a given idea produces value in a dynamic
environment challenged by other forces and other products. Any idea lives
in
a jungle – in a constant guerrilla warfare – and cognitive workers follow
often
the destiny of their brainchildren. In the capitalism of digital networks
time is
a more and more crucial dimension: a time advantage is measured in
seconds.
Moreover, in the society of white noise the rarest commodity is attention.
An
economy of scarcity exists even in the cognitive capitalism as a scarcity
of
attention and related attention economy. When everything can be duplicated
everywhere, time becomes more important than space.
from Matteo Pasquinelli, "Immaterial War: Prototypes of Conflict Within
Cognitive Capitalism." This essay and others available at
_http://matteopasquinelli.com/bibliography_
(http://matteopasquinelli.com/bibliography)
While one might want to insist contra-Lazzarato as cited above that
Marxism and political economy are also theories of the creation of value as well
as the measure of value (and that the shift in the protocols of production
are the material shifts that occasion a reworking of the categories of
value and valuation), the above synthesis is correct in seeing the
(contemporary) fusion of material and immaterial (industrial and psychological)
production. Pasquinelli's article, focusing on Harvey's work on the parasitism of
rent, also details certain strategies of capture that were alluded to in a
previous post by Andrejivic where he citied Clough:
It's hard, when looking at these developments, not to be struck by
Patricia Ticineto Clough's observation that, "this is a dynamic background, a
probablisitc, statistical background which provides an infra-empirical or
infra-temporal sociality, the subject of which is, I want to propose, the
population, technologically or methodologically open to the modulation of its
affective capacities. Sociality as affective background displaces sociality
grasped in terms off structure and individual; affective modulation and
individuation displace subject formation and ideological interpellation as
central to the relation of governance and economy" (from The New Empiricism:
Affect and Sociological Method, European Journal of Social Theory 2009). .
The article also, interestingly enough, proposes a theory of Immaterial
Civil War, a brief plan for forms of semiotic (and affective) activism.
Jonathan Beller
Professor
Humanities and Media Studies
and Critical and Visual Studies
Pratt Institute
_jbeller at pratt.edu_ (mailto:jbeller at pratt.edu)
718-636-3573 fax
On Oct 14, 2009, at 5:29 PM, Kristian Lukic wrote:
Hi all,
Trebor kindly asked me to introduce myself on the list, although Im
following and lurking for a several years now,
Im writer, curator, artist, curently working as curator in Museum of
Contemporary Art in Novi Sad, Serbia and also active in Institute for
Flexible Cultures and Technologies - Napon. Before I was working in New
Media Center kuda.org in Novi Sad as program manager (still
collaborating on some projects...).
The topic of the conference is quite close to something what I was
involved recent years. To the play/work/leisure I came mostly through
computer games (was and still active in Eastwood group, playing with
laws and natures of computer games...) and MMO worlds which is most
obvious relation between play and work.
Also in 2007 in Novi Sad, Serbia we organized exhibition and conference
called Play Cultures in 2007, and also exhibition and conference in
2008, Territories & Resources (about play/work connection in web 2.0 and
social networks).
_www.napon.org_ (http://www.napon.org/)
Currently Im finishing MA thesis at Theory of Art and Media at Belgrade
University of Arts (before that finished MA Art History at the same
University)
under the name "Commodified Play" which is mixture of lectures under
the same name that I had from 2006 on several conferences and events.
In 2007 together with Stealth group from Rotterdam we did a one semester
course at Piet Zwart Media Design postgradute students, that was about
MMO and virtual worlds called "meta.life", and one workshop about the
same topic in Laboral centre for arts in Gijon in Spain.
Im mostly interested in conepts of play as free activity definied by
Huizinga and Callois and today's problems with these definitions. Also
how play is becoming more and more commodified human activity, the
concept of agon apears to be "ruling" play element, especially in the
notion of Virno's Negation and Inovation and what Pasquinelli describe
as Immaterial Civil War. In young animals, play is mostly preparation
for survival, learning how to efficiently defend themselves or how to
efficiently attack prey. Its interesting for example how game industry
is counting on specifically this element / pure agon. Here is useful to
realize concept of animal spirits that Virno and Pasqunelli are
reffering too, where they regard inovation and culture as the constant
battle, (or Immaterial civil war) and prolongation of animal nature in
human. In that sense culture is not something opposite to "animal
spirit" but rather continuation or even amplification of animal nature
in humans. Situationists for examply clearly located problem of
competition aspect in play.
On the pure practical level its good to remind us how remote warfare is
becoming crucial in contemporary warfare (Reapers / Predators), and how
skilled youngsters with excellent reflexes in game playing (150-200
operations in minute) are becoming major task force in remote combats.
This activity is for sure blurred area between play and work, but it
interesting how its connected to massive training and recruitment of
youth throughout world (Currently 46 countries in the world are
developing remote warfare). Maybe It is quite time to analyze connection
between children/youth and militarism, the last connection on such a
scale was youth organization Ballila in Musolini's Italy, and its
infamous follower Hitlerjugend...
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/23/wus.warfare.pilots.uav/inde
x.html#cnnSTCVideo
although I will probably physically not attend conference its great to
follow discussion on IDC list and I'm looking forward to see the
outcomes of the conference!
many greetings,
Kristian Lukic
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