The sound of empty space Adam Basanta, The sound of empty space If you happen to be in Montreal this week, drop by the Galerie B-312 where composer and sound artist Adam Basanta has installed a series of works that play with self-generating microphone feedback. Each of the 3 works in the gallery examines, in its own witty and transparent way, the idea of sound as a mutable product of interdependent networks of physical, cultural and economic relations. Amplifying and aestheticizing the acoustic inactivity between technological "inputs" and "outputs" - stand-ins for their corporeal correlates, the ear and mouth - the notion of a causal sound producing object is challenged, and questions are posed as to the status of the ʻamplifiedʼ. By building flawed technological systems and nullifying their intended potential for communication, the ear is turned towards the empty space between components; to the unique configurations of each amplifying assemblage. Adam Basanta, Pirouette Hi Adam! Adam Basanta, Vessel Thanks Adam!
Paul Mason - ‘A Martian Stranded on Earth’ I interviewed Paul Mason, economics editor of Channel 4 News, about his new book, Postcapitalism, for The Independent on Sunday last weekend. There was more in the interview than we had space for in the magazine, and it was all interesting, so here is more of it. In the book Mason defines neoliberalism thus: “Neoliberalism is the doctrine of uncontrolled markets: it says that the best route to prosperity is individuals pursuing their own self-interest, and the market is the only way to express that self-interest. I asked him if that is a view actually held by anyone. “I think there are two belief systems inside the neoliberal elite. Isn’t that just a disparaging description of traditional social democracy, I asked, as encapsulated in the German Social Democrats’ slogan, the market where possible, the state where necessary? We were not going to agree, so I asked why capitalism needs to be replaced. “Neoliberalism opened up a technological revolution but it has created a dead end. What?
A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse – David Graeber on “The Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs” Graeber’s argument is similar to one he made in a 2013 article called “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”, in which he argued that, in 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by the end of the century technology would have advanced sufficiently that in countries such as the UK and the US we’d be on 15-hour weeks. “In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshalled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. But what happened between the Apollo moon landing and now? Graeber believes that since the 1970s there has been a shift from technologies based on realising alternative futures to investment technologies that favoured labour discipline and social control. – From the Guardian article: David Graeber: ‘So Many People Spend Their Working Lives Doing Jobs They Think are Unnecessary’ Immediately after I read that, I found him on Twitter and began following. This is a very important point.
Butterflies Remember What They Learned as Caterpillars | Science When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, the transformation is so radical that it’s hard to believe they belong to the same species. But regardless of the new wings and body, the new diet and airborne lifestyle, butterflies remember what they learned as babies. In a study published yesterday in Public Library of Science ONE, Georgetown University biologists gave mild shocks to tobacco hornworm caterpillars while exposing the caterpillars to particular odors. After the hornworms built cocoons and emerged as moths — a process that involves the reorganization of both brain and nervous system — they still avoided the smells that once brought them shocks. The findings "challenge a broadly-held popular view of lepidopteran metamorphosis: that the caterpillar is essentially broken down entirely, and its components reorganized into a butterfly or moth," wrote the researchers. As they predicted, caterpillars that learned late to associate shock and odor kept the memory into adulthood. Indeed.
Radical New Economic System Will Emerge From Capitalism's Collapse At the very moment of its ultimate triumph, capitalism will experience the most exquisite of deaths. This is the belief of political adviser and author Jeremy Rifkin, who argues the current economic system has become so successful at lowering the costs of production that it has created the very conditions for the destruction of the traditional vertically integrated corporation. Rifkin, who has advised the European Commission, the European Parliament and heads of state, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, says: No one in their wildest imagination, including economists and business people, ever imagined the possibility of a technology revolution so extreme in its productivity that it could actually reduce marginal costs to near zero, making products nearly free, abundant and absolutely no longer subject to market forces. With many manufacturing companies surviving only on razor thin margins, they will buckle under competition from small operators with virtually no fixed costs.
Work and Pleasure: Theodor Adorno on the Psychology of “Gadgeteering” and How the Cult of Efficiency Limits Our Happiness Few thinkers have advanced our understanding of the machinery we call popular culture more than the great German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist, and media critic Theodor Adorno (September 11, 1903–August 6, 1969). In the 1950s, Adorno embarked upon a rather unusual project: He began analyzing the horoscopes published in the Los Angeles Times as an inquiry into “the nature and motivations of some large-scale social phenomena involving irrational elements … fused with what may be dubbed pseudo-rationality.” From these investigations, eventually published as The Stars Down to Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture (public library), sprang expansive and enduring insight into many of the myths that bedevil modern culture and still limit our lives on a daily basis. In a magnificent essay titled “Work and Pleasure,” Adorno dissects one of the most perilous such modern myths — the tyranny of work/life balance. Labor-saving devices … are invested with a halo of their own.
Krakatoa Krakatoa, or Krakatau (Indonesian: Krakatau), is a volcanic island situated in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. The name is also used for the surrounding island group comprising the remnants of a much larger island of three volcanic peaks which was obliterated in a cataclysmic 1883 eruption, unleashing huge tsunamis (killing more than 36,000 people) and destroying over two-thirds of the island. The explosion is considered to be the loudest sound ever heard in modern history, with reports of it being heard up to 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from its point of origin. In 1927 a new island, Anak Krakatau, or "Child of Krakatoa", emerged from the caldera formed in 1883 and is the current location of eruptive activity. Historical significance The most notable eruptions of Krakatoa culminated in a series of massive explosions over August 26–27, 1883, which were among the most violent volcanic events in recorded history. Etymology Geographical setting 416 AD event
Neoliberalism's Over So What Happens Next? The western financial crisis of 2007-8 was the worst since 1931, yet its immediate repercussions were surprisingly modest. The crisis challenged the foundation stones of the long-dominant neoliberal ideology but it seemed to emerge largely unscathed. The banks were bailed out; hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes; and the price of their behaviour was duly paid by the taxpayer. Subsequent economic policy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, has relied overwhelmingly on monetary policy, especially quantitative easing. It has failed. After almost nine years, we are finally beginning to reap the political whirlwind of the financial crisis. The first inkling of the wider political consequences was evident in the turn in public opinion against the banks, bankers and business leaders. It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. A not so dissimilar picture is true of the UK.
Zygmunt Bauman interview: Zygmunt Bauman: “Social media are a trap” | In English Zygmunt Bauman has just celebrated his 90th birthday and taken two flights from his home in the northern British city of Leeds to get to an event in Burgos, northern Spain. He admits to being tired as we begin the interview, but he still manages to express his ideas calmly and clearly, taking his time with each response because he hates giving simple answers to complex questions. Since developing his theory of liquid modernity in the late 1990s – which describes our age as one in which “all agreements are temporary, fleeting, and valid only until further notice” – he has become a leading figure in the field of sociology. His work on inequality and his critique of what he sees as the failure of politics to meet people’s expectations, along with a highly pessimistic view of the future of society, have been picked up by the so-called May 15 “Indignant” movement in Spain – although he has repeatedly highlighted its weaknesses. QUESTION. ANSWER. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A.
10 Bizarre Hypothetical Forms Of Government Politics We have been ruled by kings and queens, emperors and empresses, theocrats, fascists, authoritarian dictators, faceless bureaucrats, howling mobs, aristocratic elites, and, allegedly, the popular will. Nevertheless, there are some forms of political organization that have been discussed, but never actually implemented. 10 Technocracy The Industrial Revolution brought wonderful, labor-saving machines and techniques, but most people have remained stuck in the manual drudgery of industrial capitalism. Some opposed this economic status quo, such as Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen. Howard Scott (pictured above) became inspired by these ideas after attending a series of lectures by Veblen in the mid-1920s. The Great Depression saw a boom in interest in Technocracy, which competed with Marxist Communism to provide an alternative vision to the existing system. Franklin D. 9 Proletarian Democracy 8 Perfect Commonwealth 7 Jeffersonian Democracy 6 Geniocracy 5 Futarchy 2 Demarchy