[-empyre-] networks of catastrophe + terror/capital

[Sean Cubitt]

A catastrophe in its ordinary running, and a crisis-prone catastrophe.

Fifteen years ago, or maybe twebnty, Jimmie Durham noticed that the invading
white men accused the native Americans of rape, scalping, gratuitous
slaughter of whole villages . . .  But that of course it was the other way
round. Who still believes violence is repressed in liberal capitalist
democracies? It is the everyday rapes, pillage and murders by which
capitalism manages to profit from its own catastrophic nature. The unending
terror that began with Calvin still populates the very heart of commerce
(and the state is its executive branch)

The problem now can be phrased like this: The world is split between Evil
(regimes, terrorists . . .) and Innocent (civilians, victims . . . ). There
is no room left for the Good. What art can do uniquely is to speak of the
Good, that is of the very thing that does not exist in or for contemporary
capitalism

sean




On 29/11/08 10:21 AM, "Verena Conley" <vconley at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:

> Excellent point. Of course, terror is endemic to capitalism. Though we still
> have to define it.
> Also, since earlier we spoke of catastrophes, it seems fairly safe to say that
> free market capitalism the way it was practiced since 1989 but especially 2000
> is the real catastrophe.
> 
> Verena
> 
> On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 5:05 PM, simon <swht at clear.net.nz> wrote:
>> Does this mean - the following - the following (too late), which my
>> earlier post was an attempting to articulate: that capital encodes
>> terror? makes use of it in its flows of symbolic exchange? as if having
>> reached a critical velocity, the accident of history is given to
>> returning endlessly?
>> 
>> Or conversely has there been some sort of symbolic phase shift whereby
>> the simulacrum, the coded world, that Image of
>> thought-as-representation, now only runs by circulating, through the
>> circulation of, acts/networked nodes of terrestrial and extraterrestrial
>> terror? Is capital now entrained in the duration of terror? (As we are
>> entrained in the durations of its spectacular technological means.)
>> 
>> Simon Taylor
>> 
>> www.squarewhiteworld.com <http://www.squarewhiteworld.com>
>> www.brazilcoffee.co.nz <http://www.brazilcoffee.co.nz>
>> 
>> 
>> Nicholas Ruiz III wrote:
>>> > As a reflection of the transparency of evil (Baudrillard), the whole
>>> > lot of it, Mumbai, etc.--is commerical art...and the millions of
>>> > downloads, transmissions and commentaries are its market, paid for in
>>> > broadcast fees, cable and satellite subscriptions and financed by
>>> > advertisers: with media art critics and all!  We are enveloped by a
>>> > postmodern Roman media coliseum, where gladiatorial urges are elicited
>>> > and fulfilled, where spectators take part in the war games, which are
>>> > repeated endlessly and archived for posterity on the Network.
>>> >
>>> > NRIII
>>> >
>>> > Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D
>>> > Editor, Kritikos
>>> > http://intertheory.org
>>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 
> 

Prof Sean Cubitt
scubitt at unimelb.edu.au
Director
Media and Communications Program
Faculty of Arts
Room 127 John Medley East
The University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3010
Australia

Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667
Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494
M: 0448 304 004
Skype: seancubitt
http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/
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Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series
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