E-flux – serie

Facing real threats of extinction and futurelessness, a search for new ground on which to build projects toward emancipationChaos and the Automaton is the first volume to collect Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s extensive collaboration with e-flux, which has become one of his primary English-language publishers since 2010. The selection of key essays collected here presents Berardi’s prescient interventions into more than a decade of social turmoil, offering a tour through the cataclysms that have rocked the foundations of the global order since the 2008 financial crisis, from European austerity, Occupy, the Arab Spring, and Anonymous through the ascendance of Pope Francis, Brexit, Covid-19, the Trump–Biden sequence, the U.S. Capitol riots, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine-as well as bizarre new cultural occurrences that were consequences. Berardi draws not only from current events but also movements and figures at the firmament of his thought, such as Guattari, Pasolini, and Italian street art of the 1970s. His essays represent a sustained and singular effort to reveal the psychic and material underpinnings of a society in which history came roaring back at the same moment as any vision of a sustainable future receded from sight. “I know that it is dangerous to write in simultaneity with events that nobody can precisely foresee, that can only be vaguely intuited,” he wrote on the eve of the 2020 American elections, “but the only way to imagine something about the becoming of the psycho-sphere is to run ahead of the dynamics of the disaster.”

In light of current discourses on AI and robotics, what do the various experiences of art contribute to the rethinking of technology today?Art and Cosmotechnics addresses the challenge of technology to the existence of art and traditional thought, especially in light of current discourses on artificial intelligence and robotics. It carries out an attempt on the cosmotechnics of Chinese landscape painting in order to address this question, and further asks: What is the significance of shanshui (mountain and water) in face of the new challenges brought about by the current technological transformation? Thinking art and cosmotechnics together is an attempt to look into the varieties of experiences of art and to ask what these experiences might contribute to the rethinking of technology today.

A philosophical consideration of Soviet Socialism that reveals the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporary anticapitalist discourse and theory This book, a philosophical consideration of Soviet socialism, is not meant simply to revisit the communist past; its aim, rather, is to witness certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted-the zones of countercapitalist critique, civil society agencies, and theoretical provisions of emancipation or progress-and to inquire to what extent those zones are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition. By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research is marked by a broad cross-disciplinary approach based on political economy, philosophy, art theory, and cultural theory that redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.

A philosophical consideration of Soviet Socialism that reveals the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporary anticapitalist discourse and theory This book, a philosophical consideration of Soviet socialism, is not meant simply to revisit the communist past; its aim, rather, is to witness certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted-the zones of countercapitalist critique, civil society agencies, and theoretical provisions of emancipation or progress-and to inquire to what extent those zones are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition. By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research is marked by a broad cross-disciplinary approach based on political economy, philosophy, art theory, and cultural theory that redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.

Facing real threats of extinction and futurelessness, a search for new ground on which to build projects toward emancipationChaos and the Automaton is the first volume to collect Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s extensive collaboration with e-flux, which has become one of his primary English-language publishers since 2010. The selection of key essays collected here presents Berardi’s prescient interventions into more than a decade of social turmoil, offering a tour through the cataclysms that have rocked the foundations of the global order since the 2008 financial crisis, from European austerity, Occupy, the Arab Spring, and Anonymous through the ascendance of Pope Francis, Brexit, Covid-19, the Trump–Biden sequence, the U.S. Capitol riots, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine-as well as bizarre new cultural occurrences that were consequences. Berardi draws not only from current events but also movements and figures at the firmament of his thought, such as Guattari, Pasolini, and Italian street art of the 1970s. His essays represent a sustained and singular effort to reveal the psychic and material underpinnings of a society in which history came roaring back at the same moment as any vision of a sustainable future receded from sight. “I know that it is dangerous to write in simultaneity with events that nobody can precisely foresee, that can only be vaguely intuited,” he wrote on the eve of the 2020 American elections, “but the only way to imagine something about the becoming of the psycho-sphere is to run ahead of the dynamics of the disaster.”

A dynamic contemporary examination of universalismGathering a selection of essays by influential theorist Boris Groys, Towards a New Universalism articulates his sustained engagement with the problem of universality under contemporary conditions shaped by globalization, institutional fragmentation, and digital mediation. Rather than defending classical universalism or abandoning it in favor of cultural particularism, Groys approaches universality as something produced within shared historical, institutional, and technological frameworks.These essays address topics spanning from identity politics to migration, museums, media, and artificial intelligence, examining how universal claims make their way into social and cultural contexts. Distinct from recent philosophical treatments of universalism, Towards a New Universalism situates the question within aesthetics, media theory, and institutional critique, offering an indispensable collection for anyone interested in the intersections of politics and art.Distributed for e-flux.