The Composition of Movements to Come: Aesthetics and Cultural Labor after the Avant-Garde

199 Pages·2016·3.919 MB·English

by  Stevphen Shukaitis

The Composition of
Movements to Come
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NewPoliticsofAutonomy
SeriesEditor:SaulNewman
In recent years, we have witnessed an unprecedented emergence of new
forms of radical politics—from Tahrir Square, Gezi Park, and the global
Occupymovement,toWikileaksandhacktivism.Whatisstrikingaboutsuch
movementsistheirrejectionofleadershipstructuresandtheabsenceofpolit-
ical demands and agendas. Instead, their originality lies in the autonomous
formsofpoliticallifetheyengender.
TheNewPoliticsofAutonomybookseriesisanattempttomakesenseofthis
new terrain of antipolitical politics, and to develop an alternative conceptual
and theoretical arsenal for thinking the politics of autonomy. The series
investigatespolitical,economic,andethicalquestionsraisedbythisnewpar-
adigm of autonomy. It brings together authors and researchers who are
engaged,invarious ways,withunderstanding contemporary radicalpolitical
movements and who approach the theme of autonomy from different per-
spectives: political theory, philosophy, ethics, literature and art, psychoana-
lytictheory,politicaleconomy,andpoliticalhistory.
TitlesintheSeries
SpacesofGovernmentality,byMartinaTazzioli
TheCompositionofMovementstoCome,byStevphenShukaitis
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The Composition of
Movements to Come
Aesthetics and Cultural Labor
after the Avant-Garde
Stevphen Shukaitis
London•NewYork
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PublishedbyRowman&LittlefieldInternationalLtd
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Copyright(cid:2)2016StevphenShukaitis
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyany
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withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptbyareviewerwhomayquote
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN:HB978-1-7834-8172-9
PB978-1-7834-8173-6
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Shukaitis,Stevphen,author.
Title:Thecompositionofmovementstocome:aestheticsandculturallaborafterthe
avant-garde/StevphenShukaitis.
Description:London;NewYork:Rowman&LittlefieldInternational,[2016](cid:2)Series:
Newpoliticsofautonomy(cid:2)Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2015034957(cid:2)ISBN9781783481729(cloth:alk.paper)(cid:2)ISBN
9781783481736(pbk.:alk.paper)(cid:2)ISBN9781783481743(electronic)
Subjects:LCSH:Politicsandculture.(cid:2)Aesthetics—Politicalaspects.(cid:2)Communist
aesthetics.(cid:2)Art—Politicalaspects.(cid:2)Criticaltheory.
Classification:LCCJA75.7.S542016(cid:2)DDC306.2—dc23LCrecordavailableathttp://
lccn.loc.gov/2015034957
(cid:3)(cid:3)(cid:4)
ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican
NationalStandardforInformationSciences—PermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibrary
Materials,ANSI/NISOZ39.48-1992.
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Let’sTaketheFirstBusoutofHere:AUser’sGuide ix
1 Introduction:ClassCompositionandtheAvant-Garde 1
Territories: Psychogeography
2 TheoriesMadetoDieintheWarofTime 25
3 MetropolitanStrategies,PsychogeographicInvestigations 47
Art/Work: Sabotage
4 CanCreativePracticeBreakBricks? 67
5 LearningNottoLabor 87
Institutions: Overidentification
6 FascistsasMuchasPainters 103
7 IconsofFuturesPast 121
Coda:TheCompositionofMovementstoCome 139
Bibliography 153
Index 171
AbouttheAuthor 177
v
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Acknowledgments
This book is a bringing together of work I’ve been carrying out since 2009.
Thus,notsurprisingly,ithasinvolvedawholeconstellationofdialoguesand
exchanges that have been integral to its development. Such discussions are
notsecondarytothelaborofthoughtbutareatitscore.Acknowledgingthese
debtsisdone notin hopesthattheywillbedispelled,forsomedebtsarenot
meanttobepaidback,butdeepenedandextended.
Thankstotheresearchinstitutesthathavehostedmeforkeypartsofdevel-
opingtheideasandargumentshere,includingCenterforCulture,Place,and
Politics at the City University of New York, where I was a visiting fellow in
2010(specialthankstoDavidHarveyandRuthGilmore-Wilson);theCentre
for Innovation and Structural Change at the National University of Ireland,
which hosted me in 2012; and Singapore Management University, which
provided space and support in 2013 (many thanks to Stefano Harney for
arrangingthat,alongwithmanywell-spenteveningsoverbeerandbooks).
Extra thanks to my wonderful colleagues from the School of Philosophy
and Art History and the Centre for Work, Organization, and Society at the
University of Essex, who have had to listen to me warble on about such
thingsforyears.Allofyourthoughtsandconvivialityflowthroughthebook,
and without the ongoing paycheck for my academic labors I most certainly
wouldnothavefinishedthis.
Sections of this book have been presented at a series of conferences and
seminars,withcommentsandfeedbackintegratedintothetext.Attheriskof
creating an overly long list, thanks to Konrad Becker and the Institute for
New Culture Technologies (Vienna), everyone at the Centre for Philosophy
andPoliticalEconomyattheUniversityofLeicester,StephenDuncombeand
the Gallatin School at New York University, the Centre for Contemporary
Art (Glasgow), Schijnheilig Gallery (Amsterdam), Giuseppina Mecchia and
French & Italian Studies Department at the University of Pittsburgh, Tony
vii
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viii Acknowledgments
SampsonandJeremyGilbertfromtheUniversityofEastLondon,thePoliti-
cized Practice Research Group at Loughborough University, Geoff Cox and
the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University, Auto Italia
South East, Miran Mohar and the Academy of Visual Arts (Ljubljana), and
Greg Seigworth and the Department of Communication at Millersville Uni-
versity.Keypartsofthebookalsocomeoutofideasgeneratedforthe‘‘Truth
Is Concrete’’ festival in Graz and the transmediale festival at the Haus der
Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. And special thanks to everyone at the Depart-
ment of Social and Critical Political Studies at Vytautas Magnus University
(Lithuania),whowereblessedand/orcursedbythepresentationoftheentire
bookintheformatofaseminarinspring2014.
Muchthankstoalloftheauthors,artists,andpoetswhoseworkI’vefound
useful and inspired, and have borrowed morethen an idea or two from. And
special thanks to those who I’ve been lucky enough to get and argue about
suchthingswithincludingKenWark,AlexeiMonroe,GavinGrindon,Bruno
Gulli,andBrianHolmes.
Much of this book comes out of ideas developed in relationship to the
ongoing book series that I edit, Minor Compositions. Thanks to all of the
authors whose work has been published, as the close engagement with your
workhasbeenaconstantsourceofinspirationforme(aswellasanongoing
sourceofepicamountsoflabor).Thankfully,theentireseriesisavailablefor
freeonlineasPDFs(aswellasintraditionalprintform)andcanbefoundat
http://www.minorcompositions.info.
Thankstojournalsthathavegivenpermissiontorepublishpreviouslypub-
lished and reworked materials, including Rethinking Marxism, Culture &
Organization, Cultural Studies (cid:4)(cid:5)(cid:5) Critical Methodologies, Performance
Research,andSociologicalReview.
Nietzsche once said that if you have a why of life, you can put up with
almost any how. Special thanks to my friends and comrades who have been
so important in constantly creating and re-creating those whys, including
JackBratich,Anja Kanngeiser, RichardGilman-Opalsky,JoannaFigiel,and
VyvyLewis.
Andlast,butcertainlynotleast,allmylovetoGustav,themostwonderful
sonone couldeveraskfor.Thisbookisfor him, evenifhewon’t beableto
understanditformorethanafewyears.
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Let’s Take the First Bus out of Here
A User’s Guide
You are holding in your hands a book on political strategy, albeit quite a
strange one. ‘‘A book on strategy?,’’ you mutter to yourself. That can’t be
correct.Afterflippingthroughquickly,itseemtoincludeloadsofdiscussions
about various art movements, some currents of politically oriented cultural
production . . . but, surely, just bringing together some pretty pictures and
fancy-soundingtheorydoesn’tmakeabookonstrategy,doesit?Oddornot,
thisispreciselyit:abookthatattemptstorethinkandreworkthespacewhere
strategyoccursasanongoingsocializedprocess.Itisaprocessthattakesits
cues from artists and dreamers rather than from generals, politicians, and
other po-faced figures more commonly associated with the easier connota-
tions of strategizing. To this you might raise an objection: Why even talk
about strategy? Is it not the case, in the wake of the Occupy movements,
the proliferation of horizontal and networked forms of social movement
without top-down leadership, that strategy is an anachronistic concept, a
concept that’s better left behind? I have a bone to pick with that set of
assumptions.
This book comes out of reflecting on a set of experiences and political
encounters, starting from the rise of the antiglobalization movement in the
late 1990s. During this time it became quite common, one might even say
hegemonic,toarguefortheimportanceofadiversityoftacticswithinmove-
mentorganizing.1Thisnotioncontinuedtospreadandverymuchhasbecome
aformofactivistcommonsense.Thelogicofembracingadiversityoftactics
allowedforthemoreconfrontationalapproachesinprotestswithmorelegally
acceptable and permitted ones. In certain waysthis is quite logical, as it can
bequitesensibleto wantto createapluralformofantagonistic politicssuch
ix
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