Capital

What does it mean to live under certain historical conditions, such as the current hegemony of the capitalist mode of production?What does it mean in terms of economic and social relations, in terms of political space and imagination?How does capitalism affect our nervous systems, subjectivities and desires?These are some of the questions we have tried to pose, if not answer, in the exhibitions - held between Oct 7 and Nov 6, 2005 at UKS in Oslo, Norway and from Jan 7 to Feb 19, 2006, at Kunstihoone, Estonia - and in the present book project, Capital (It Fails Us Now).In these pages a number of essays and projects take their point of departure in these specific models of (re)production and (re)distribution, and look at how production is changing in the Western countries, mainly from industrial production to immaterial labor, and in the East from state capitalism to a deregulated (post)industrialism with a new commodification and codification of the labor force, and thus of all social as well as economical relations. What are "new" economies, and what kinds of technologies of the self are they producing, and indeed, enforcing? Thus, in these pages you will find efforts to review the situation, asking what is to be done in this predicament of expansive global capitalism, corporatization of culture, the specularization of politics, and the marginalization, even criminalization, of the critical left.Discussions range from the spectral form of value, (self)precarization, deregulation and the privatization of the welfare state to the development of alternative economies and the establishment of various modes of critique and resistance, cartography and historiography, inclination and inquiry, and the politicization of subject positions.OE - about the series:oe is a series of critical readers into contemporary visual cultures; their emergences, contingencies and possibilities. The series is edited by Katya Sander and Simon Sheikh, artist and theorist. We are committed to theory, but not to discipline, and every reader thus revolves around a specific -notion or event, seen and discussed from various vantage points or positions. Through an analysis of visual cultures - art, film, tv, the net, the street and so on - different regimes of visuality can be located. The circulation, production, reproduction and interpretation of images is seen as crucial to an understanding of contemporary politics, not just of representation, but also of the imaginary. Analysis is therefore not only to be understood as reflective, but also as active or activating. It is proposition(s).CAPITAL (it fails us now) contains texts and project by:Simon SheikhBrian HolmesOleg KireevStephan GeeneIsabell LoreyKatja DiefenbachGerald RaunigTrude IversenFia-Stina SandlundElin Wikströmnatascha sadr haghighianOlafur GislasonMichael BlumJason SimonKnut Åsdamdold, foquet, gass, geene, kestingkatya sanderAshley Huntoliver ressler Copenhagen Free UniversityMaria EichhornAndrea CreutzSusan kelly & stephen mortonchto delat?