[-empyre-] April 2009 on –empyre-

[Nicholas Ruiz III]

April 2009 on –empyre-

“Creativity and Postmodern Finance, or the Artifice of the 21st Century Global Financial Implosion”

Plan on escaping the travails of finance and capital? Sure you do. We are all creative in our orientation toward the artifice of capital. The decision to survive requires employment of the arts of finance and capitalization, regardless of one's subjectivity or preoccupation.
    'Creativity,' from the Latin, 'crescere,' means 'I come to be,' 'I increase,' 'I grow and expand,' etc. To be sure, some are endowed in one way or another with more or less of something, creativity notwithstanding. And for certain, some are more creative than others. Out of all this, what ‘comes to be’ as humanity employs the arts of capital in the 21st century? What does our creation obtain?
    As of late, the human world is preoccupied with artisans of capital and finance, and with good reason. Humanity is fearful that its future, we might say, is being foreclosed upon by the uncontrollable forces of their trade. Many cultural theorists feel that capital is an artifice. Capital is but our creation, they say. So perhaps we need only recreate capital, and its terms, to adjust for its errors, to render an ever better society. Others say capital is the problem in itself. What have we caused to be, to be increased, or expanded upon, that has led us to this spirited place?
    How does our art, our artifice, from the Latin ‘armus’…art being that which comes from our arm or shoulder…contribute to the problems or solutions of the global meltdown? Who are the artisans? And who is the audience that goads them onward?

Our guests:

Michael Angelo Tata is the author of Andy Warhol: Sublime Superficiality (forthcoming in 2009).

Laurence Rickels is professor of German and comparative literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include The Devil Notebooks (2008), Nazi Psychoanalysis (2002) and The Vampire Lectures (1999).

Joseph Tabbi is professor of contemporary literature and technology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Cognitive Fictions (2002) and Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to Cyberpunk (1995). He also edits the Electronic Book Review.

Jeff Pierce is an independent equity trader based in Canada. He is also the editor of Zentrader.ca

Davin Heckman is Assistant Professor of English at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan.  He is the author of A Small World: Smart Houses and the Dream of the Perfect Day (2008).

Nicholas Ruiz III is a moderator of –empyre-. He is the author of America in Absentia (2008) and The Metaphysics of Capital (2006). He is also the editor of Kritikos.


Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D Editor, Kritikos http://intertheory.org