hydrarchist writes

"The Spaces of a Cultural Question"

E-mail interview with Brian Holmes by Marion von Osten in preparation of
"Atelier EUROPA. A small post-fordistic drama." opening at 2nd of April
2004 in the Munich Kunstverein.

Marion: You are editing the next issue of Multitudes on cultural and
creative labor. Can you explain why and out of what perspective you look
on cultural labor and creative work, i.e. do you think it is possible to
explain the inner dynamics of post-Fordist production modes due to this
specific form of work and its conditions?

Brian: Actually we have prepared what is called the "minor" of Multitudes
15 on the theme of "creativity at work." The basic notion of immaterial
labor is that the manipulation of information, but also the interplay of
affects, have become central in the contemporary working process even in
the factories, but much more so in the many forms of language-, image- and
ambiance-production. Workers can no longer be treated like Taylorist
gorillas, exploited for their purely physical force; the "spirit of the
worker" has to come down onto the factory floor, and from there it can
gain further autonomy by escaping into the flexible work situations
developing on the urban territory. These notions have made it through to
mainstream sociology, and several authors have taken artistic production
as the model for the new managerial techniques and ideologies of
contemporary capitalism, with all its inequality, self-exploitation and
exclusion. The most recent example is Pierre Menger's "Portrait de
l'artiste en travailleur" ["Portrait of the Artist as a Worker"]. We don't
see it exactly that way. Of course the individualization of innovative
work practices exposes people to flexible management; and linguistic and
affective labor is vital to the capitalist economy in terms of shaping the
mind-set in which a commodity can become desirable. But we also focus on
the real autonomy that people have gained. This is why we have devoted the
"major" of the issue to activist art practices, and the theme of "research
for the outside." We're also very interested in the ongoing struggle of
the part-time cinema and theater workers in France, concerning the special
unemployment status which they have won since 1969, which provides a
supplemental income making it possible to live an artist's life in an
efficiency-oriented capitalist society. The right-wing, neoliberal
government of Raffarin wants to dismantle this unemployment regime,
because they know that those who benefit are actively producing another
ideal of society.

"For A Justice To Come:

An Interview with Jacques Derrida"

Lieven De Cauter

[The Brussells Tribunal is a commission of inquiry into the “New Imperial Order”, and more particularly into the “Project for A New American Century” (PNAC), the neo-conservative think tank that has inspired the Bush government’s war logic. The co-signatories of the PNAC “mission statement” include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The programme of this think tank is to promote planetary hegemony on the basis of a supertechnological army, to prevent the emergence of a rival super-power and to take pre-emptive action against all those who threaten American interests. The Brussells Tribunal was held in Brussels from April 14 through 17, 2004. Jacques Derrida, who suffers from cancer and was unable to attend the tribunal, invited the project’s initiator, Lieven De Cauter, to his house for an interview.]

Lieven De Cauter: While thanking you for your generosity — why have you decided to grant us this interview on our initiative, the “Brussells Tribunal”?

Jacques Derrida: First of all I wanted to salute your initiative in its principle: to resuscitate the tradition of a Russell Tribunal is symbolically an important and necessary thing to do today. I believe that, in its principle, it is a good thing for the world, even if only in that it feeds the geopolitical reflection of all citizens of the world. I am even more convinced of this necessity in light of the fact that, for a number of years now, we have witnessed an increased interest in the working, in the constitution of international institutions, institutions of international law which, beyond the sovereignty of States, judge heads of State, generals. Not yet States as such, precisely, but persons responsible for, or suspected of being responsible for, war crimes, crimes against humanity — one could mention the case of Pinochet, despite its ambiguity, or of Milosevic. At any rate, heads of State have to appear as such before an International Criminal Court, for instance, which has a recognised status in international law, despite all the difficulties you know: the American, French, Israeli reservations. Nonetheless this tribunal exists, and even if it is still faltering, weak and problematic in the execution of its sanctions, it exists as a recognised phenomenon of international law.

"Splendid Little War; Long Bloody Occupation:

Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson"

William Loren Katz, April 28, 2004

Weapons of mass distruction, a slam-dunk war followed by a
no-end-in-sight occupation? We've been here before when a century ago
the U.S. first sent an army overseas to accomplish regime change and
liberate a resource-rich land from tyranny.

It began in February, 1898 when an explosion sunk the U.S. battleship
Maine in Havana harbor. Since Cubans lived under a cruel Spanish
colonialism, a pro-war U.S. press felt free to claim that Spain
unleashed a weapon of mass destruction, and to whip up "Remember the
Maine" fever. No weapon was ever found — it was a boiler explosion that
sank the Maine — and though Spain agreed to President McKinley's main
demands, Congress declared war with a promise to free Cuba.

"Patriarchy, Civilization and the Origins of Gender"

John Zerzan, Green Anarachy #16 (Spring 2004)

Civilization, very fundamentally, is the history of
the domination of nature and of women. Patriarchy
means rule over women and nature. Are the two
institutions at base synonymous?

Sergio Benvenuto Interviews Cornelius Castoriadis (1)

Psychomedia

Benvenuto: You are a philosopher of politics, but you are also a practicing psychoanalyst. Does your profession of analysis have an influence on your philosophical concepts?

Castoriadis: There is a very strong bond between my concept of psychoanalysis and my concept of politics. The aim of both is human autonomy, albeit via different processes. Politics aims at freeing the human being, making it possible for him to accede to his own autonomy through collective action. The prevailing concept during the 18th and 19th centuries (including that of Marx), according to which the object of politics was happiness, is a mistaken, even catastrophic, one. The object of politics is freedom. And politics is collectiveconscious and consideredaction, aimed at transforming institutions into institutions of freedom and autonomy.

hydrarchist writes:

London Demo Cancelled
Comments by Some Members of the Mayday Collective

Following a meeting held in mid-January the London Mayday
Collective decided not to proceed with plans for an anti-capitalist
event this year. This will be the first time in 5 years that there has
not been an event of its kind in London and we hope what follows
will help to explain the reasoning behind the decision and perhaps
begin some discussion into the prospects for planning future Mayday
events, keeping in mind what has gone before. What follows is a personal
reflection from a couple of participants in this year’s collective
rather than a statement issued by the group as a whole.

"Organized Networks"

Ned Rossiter, Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster

[Presented at The Life of Mobile Data: Technology, Mobility and Data Subjectivity conference, April 15-16, 2004, University of Surrey, England

Abstract

This paper is interested in how networks using ICTs as their primary
mode of organisation can be considered as new institutional forms.
The paper suggests that organised networks are emergent
socio-technical forms that arise from the limits of both tactical
media and more traditional institutional structures and architectonic
forms. Organised networks are peculiar for the ways in which they
address problems situated within the media form itself. The
organised network is thus one whose socio-technical relations are
immanent to, rather than supplements of, communications media. The
paper argues that the problematics of scale and sustainability are
the two key challenges faced by various forms of networks. The
organised network is distinct for the ways in which it has managed to
address such problematics in order to imbue informational relations
with a strategic potential.

Despised in their Own Country

Gideon Levi

How is it that Mordechai Vanunu is regarded as an admired hero in Western Europe, and in Israel he is slandered, cursed and despised by all? And if some public debate has risen around him - even though no significant part of the public regards him as a hero, as might have been expected from a genuine left - why is it that only a screaming, uniform chorus opposes the international peace activists and the handful of Israelis trying to stop the separation fence with their bodies: both literally and figuratively, lying along the fence on its current route in an effort that many in the world consider justified? Why isn't an alternative voice of appreciation being heard for these opponents of the regime, these dissidents?

sugarlover writes "Hi, I recently got out of prison, isn't that just wonderful...anyway, I find it interesting that I am a college student now and have found myself in psych, soc, and business classes and not for one moment does anyone ever speak of prisons. I would not speak there anyway, but our society has really developed this amazing legal machinery, and so much of our resources go into putting people behind bars... You would have to go to understand what it does to you. The effects of
incarceration. I never hear that term ever mentioned, in all my ten years there, reading books and newspapers. How do people change?
What happens when you put a bad check writer there and the person loses their family, home,
etc. Is what you do to that person equal to them
obtaining a few hundred dollars. When people go
to prison they lose everything. You could sit there and say "that's fair", but what you are really ending up with is a real angry person capable of doing much worst. It is just human nature. Not many people come out of there being better people. Trust me, I am not talking about
Christian Longo and Ward Weaver types, mostly
50 year old women that took money to help their
families, etc. Everyone should look at Vermont
and let those sort of people do yard work for the elderly, and other community service."

"Faith & Sanctuary"

Brian Burch

I was pleased to be asked to speak for a bit to provide some personal
reflections, historical and biblical, on the providing of sanctuary. My
remarks are inherently
from a Christian perspective, but there are similar views expressed by people
from other faith perspectives.