[-empyre-] Response to Anna: Nick Knouf, MAICgregator

Sat Sep 17 11:16:42 AEST 2016

"...creation of networks, or, as they are called in the internet world,
communities of consumers, who coproduce innovation, diversification, and
identification with the brand, on the basis of open source’ (from the
Violence of Financial Capitalism, p. 56).

Marazzi takes this further to suggest that it is  ‘living-labour’ (by which
he means work covering all forms of life including working as and in
leisure, sleep time, life administration etc AND all the services required
to keep this living labour alive such as the health and education
industries) that sustains the ‘innovation’ necessary for financial capital
to deliver value for its shareholders. (this is a very reduced version of a
complex argument!). Financialisation creates value (since it has no other
mode of productivity) byparasitising on the creativity of living labour
(which it also co-produces)..."

Hi Anna, unless I misunderstand what he is saying, Marazzi has it
backwards. In the Google model, the only thing Google produces is eyeballs.
In other words, from the financial angle, we the users are not the
consumers but the product. Google monetizes itself by selling use to the
advertizers. It appears to me that is the scariest part of the net. We are
complicit in our becoming pure data. Perhaps the situation is clearer in
social media like Facebook, but it is equally true with Google.

"parasitising on the creativity of living labour"
The living labor that is being parasitized is ourselves.

In the net, is there  any "innovation" any more that is more than a
"condition reflex" ruse to increase our participation in this vicious cycle
of production?

Ciao,
Murat

On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 6:17 PM, Anna Munster <a.munster at unsw.edu.au> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Yes I agree Christiane, it does depend on how you define ‘finance’…and
> this is perhaps the interesting thing and one reason I thought it would be
> a great place to begin a discussion on ‘now’ and ‘then’ in net.art….
> I’m referring more to the idea of ‘financialisation’ as descriptive of
> contemporary capitalism. This goes further than the idea that it is the
> finance sector that both creates both capital (wealth) and crisis in
> contemporary capitalism - this is pretty much standard economic theory.
> Rather I am thinking off the back of theorists such as Christian Marazzi
> who tie financialisation directly to new ‘models’ of production and
> consumption or ‘the Google Model’. To quote Marazzi: 'The creation of
> networks, or, as they are called in the internet world, communities of
> consumers, who coproduce innovation, diversification, and identification
> with the brand, on the basis of open source’ (from the Violence of
> Financial Capitalism, p. 56).
>
> Marazzi takes this further to suggest that it is  ‘living-labour’ (by
> which he means work covering all forms of life including working as and in
> leisure, sleep time, life administration etc AND all the services required
> to keep this living labour alive such as the health and education
> industries) that sustains the ‘innovation’ necessary for financial capital
> to deliver value for its shareholders. (this is a very reduced version of a
> complex argument!). Financialisation creates value (since it has no other
> mode of productivity) by parasitising on the creativity of living labour
> (which it also co-produces)
>
> This then places ‘net. art’ in a very precarious and paradoxical position.
> Many of the early ‘nettime’ discussions from around 1997 were about the
> ways in which ‘net.art’ superseded and subverted an art market or ‘art on
> the net’ (the use of the web to promote art by the GLAM sector). Net art
> cut out middle people, bypassed curators, blurred the distinction between
> artist and audience/participant/artwork etc. BUT this is exactly the same
> mode of production Marazzi is talking about as ‘the Google model’….to what
> extent, then, is net art not simply an extension of financialisation (and
> of course at the other end, Nick’s post precisely shows the extent to which
> living labour is required to maintain net art).
>
> So, then, yes… I think eToy is a really interesting example because it
> has since 1994 pushed this relation of the network to living labour to an
> extreme by, as they say, ‘twisting values’….a very clever ‘corporate’ logo!
>
> cheers
> Anna
>
>
>
>
> Anna Munster
> Associate Professor,
> Faculty of Art and Design
> UNSW
> P.O Box 259
> Paddington
> NSW 2021
> Australia
> a.munster at unsw.edu.au
> http://sensesofperception.info
>
>
> > On 17 Sep 2016, at 3:13 AM, Christiane Paul, Curatorial <
> Christiane_Paul at whitney.org> wrote:
> >
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > It depends on how you want to define and delineate network and finance
> --  the ToyWar ultimately was a project very related to finance / the stock
> market, and eToy of course early on used a revenue model based on shares.
> > GWEI (https://www.paolocirio.net/work/gwei/) and Paolo Cirio's Loophole
> for all (https://paolocirio.net/work/loophole-for-all/) also are
> networked finance projects....
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at lists.
> artdesign.unsw.edu.au] on behalf of Stephanie Rothenberg [
> rothenberg.stephanie at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2016 11:34 AM
> > To: soft_skinned_space
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Response to Anna: Nick Knouf, MAICgregator
> >
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> > http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
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