through europe

To Do and Do Not

Federico Campagna — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:35:42 +0000

Stuff

The supposed invasion of the being by the having has been a recurrent theme throughout the history of Western civilization. Long before the advent of capitalism, one’s material possessions and social status in the community were already deeply intertwined. It was not by accident that the mention of a king in the pages of the Iliad was often followed by the endless list of his possessions, as if the number of sheep and pigs one possessed helped in some way to express the personality of the individual.

As time went by, the crass simplicity of the lists of the Iliad, turned into a more sophisticated catalogue of belongings. As already noted by Suetonius, first, and by Sallust later, at the time of the Roman empire fashion had already entered the equation of material wealth and social subjectivity. Above a certain threshold of wealth, It wasn’t just the sheer amount of stuff that one owned that was used to define his (rarely her) social status, but it was what he owned. His possessions did not simply have to be opulent and abundant – they also had to be filtered by the whims of fashion.

This trend proved unstoppable even during the so-called dark ages, and when private wealth could not keep pace with a minimum level of sophistication, the Church stepped in by prodigally investing in the assertion of its hegemony over fashion. If, out of laziness, we did not want to look back to those remote times for proof, we would simply have to look at the obsession for fashionable opulence of the current Pope, Benedictus XVI, rightly considered by many as the reincarnation of a medieval Pope in present times.

Beirut

Franco Berardi Bifo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:37:31 +0000

yani

Nuovamente si spegne la luce. Quanto a lungo resteremo al buio questa volta? Mezzo minuto.

Ci sono queste brevi interruzioni dell’elettricità, nessuno ci fa caso. Ma ogni volta potrebbe essere la volta buona, you know what I mean. Yani. L’intercalare più frequente. Un attimo di sospensione. Un attimo prima.

Solo i computer non si spengono ai tavoli del bread republic, e ciascuno continua a digitare imperterrito la faccia illuminata dalla luce eterna del ciberspazio.

Mi sono svegliato presto stamattina alle sei e tre quarti in preda a un’eccitazione pericolosa, folle. Ieri sera al Time out con una siriana un indiano due palestinesi un’italiana tre libanesi una mezza inglese e mezza non so cosa a parlare dei Grundrisse, del general intellect, della poesia dell’esaurimento dell’energia fisica e psichica, e della demografia mondiale. Nessuno fa cenno a quello che sta succedendo in Siria perché tutti lo sanno benissimo. Duecento morti al giorno a un’ora di auto da qui, e la violenza pronta a esplodere in ogni istante all’angolo di strada per ragioni imperscrutabili. Come reagirà Hezbollah al possibile crollo del regime siriano? Come reagirà Israele alla possibile reazione di Hezbollah?

The Legend of a St.Entrepreneur

Paolo Mossetti — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:41:27 +0000

Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology — where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!

- 1984 (advertisement)

  "He lives! He lives! He lives!", those hashtags accompanying the virtual coffin of Steve Jobs seemed to repeat, like a white lie. You could have memorial candles left outside Apple stores, but #iSAD, #Thankyousteve and whatever else was trending in those hours of grief on Twitter were the true keywords following the dead, joining the endless wake where the body of the Martyr was carried from hand to hand, reduced in millions of pixels, re-tweeted from fingertip to fingertip. And as the corpse of the mahatma – “great soul” – was driven through the immaterial crowd, everybody tried to stretch a finger and make contact with him. Everyone had something to say: “You’ll be missed”, typed a 14-yr-old Chinese boy. “Gracias”, typed a Mexican girl studying in Chicago. “Merci”, typed a DJ from Senegal.

A Riot of My Own - trailer

Stefano Dorigo — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:40:49 +0000

Devo essermi perso, in un sonno senza sogni.
Li ho semplicemente chiusi. Gli occhi. Senza accorgermene. Accompagnando il battito del mio cuore al ritmo, intermittente, di quello del treno. Un dondolio meccanico, che appena si è arrestato mi ha riportato alla realtà. Ma siamo già qui?
Il treno è già a Chambery?

Ultima stazione. Prima di oltrepassare le Alpi e arrivare in Italia.
Finalmente potrò rivedere questo splendido paesaggio, dall’altra parte delle montagne. Per quanto tempo mi è stata preclusa la vista del versante Italiano?

Condannato una prima volta a sette anni e mezzo, con l’aggravante del “terrorismo”. Hanno così potuto utilizzare il moltiplicatore di pena del “2,5”: se ti becchi 3 anni te li moltiplicano per 2,5 cosicché alla fine prendi 7 anni e mezzo. Dopo altri nove anni dalla sentenza mi affibbiano un’altra condanna per gli stessi tipi di reato, con con l’applicazione di nove mesi in “reato continuato” … Dopo appena ventitré anni posso finalmente andare in estinzione di pena.
Ventitré.

The Lotus Eaters

Federico Campagna — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:55:03 +0000

"I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-Eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars."
Odyssey, IX

The sun stops half way through its descent towards the abyss. He wonders where it will go, as he moves his eyes away from the dark horizon. Beyond it, somewhere in the night, his comrades are still rowing through the uncharted sea. By now, if everything had gone according to plan, they should have approached the island... The island... Which island? It was home, long ago, but now he can’t even remember its name. Doulos slips a finger between his belt and the cloth he has around his waist. Carefully, he extracts one soft, fleshy petal. He puts it on his lower lip, and with his tongue he moves it inside his mouth, feeling its smooth surface turning thicker, then slowly dissolving. When he first tried the flowers, the overwhelming sweetness coated his tongue, and it was only out of courtesy for his kind hosts that he had kept on chewing. But now, so many flowers later, now that nothing distinguishes him form his hosts, now... Now... Oh, it’s gone. That thought is gone. No point in chasing it. And his comrades, yes. His comrades at home, wherever it is. But they are not at home, he knows it. Without proof, he knows it for sure.

Occupy Everything! Reflections on why it’s kicking off everywhere

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:40:42 +0000

TODAY #3

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:24:25 +0000

TODAY #3: a publication by Through Europe.

Featuring articles by Franco Berardi Bifo, Federico Campagna, Amador Fernandez Savater, Paolo Mossetti, Aaron Peters, Robert Prouse.

Cover: Anna Galkina.

In English, Italian, Spanish. Freely available here.

The politics of adventure - part 1

Federico Campagna — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:58:55 +0000

It is surely not in vain that I myself am in need of thy words:

those of the future norms of strength,

those of the future norms of a valorous heart,

those of the future norms of fervor.

Nothing now, among all things, inspires my heart with valor.

Nothing now points me to the future norms of my existence.

Guarani prayer, as recorded and translated by Leon Cadogan (1966).

It I have often encountered a problem, when talking or writing about anti-work politics. While busy producing my proclamations against the dictatorship of Work’s ‘activity of repetition’, the strangulating theism on which it lies, the unforgivable sacrifice of one’s life which it imposes, and so on, I found that the alternative which I was able to offer did not match the narrative and environmental qualities offered by the ideology I was opposing.

Bio-image and General Intellect: can images transform bodies?

Francesca Martinez Tagliavia — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:15:12 +0000

This text results from KAFCA (Knowledge Against Financial Capitalism) conference, which was held in Macba, Barcelona, 1-3 december, 2011.

In spring 2011, hundreds of migrants arriving from revolutionary Tunisia to Paris opened a harsh conflict within the metropolis, reclaiming the right to circulate freely, and the right to have rights. In November 2011, the Central Tunisian Bank decides to state explicitly its independency in the lawconcerning public powers. « If we do nothing, it simply becomes the death of revolution », a Tunisian Comrade says.

But beyond the catastrophe, the « Occupy » global movement - starting from revolutions in Maghreb and Mashrek, until Spanish acampadas, and all the occupations that are taking place all over the world - teaches us, that we experience a new temporality : the temporality of crisis and the temporality of global becoming. How do the « occupy-bodies » struggle against their financial captation, and transform singular micro-politics of resistance in a common power to act against it?How do they re-appropriate, through bodies and images, their wealth and potency and that produced, generated, created by bodies, from within, but against financial capitalism ?

¿Cómo se organiza un clima?

Amador Fernandez-Savater — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:24:55 +0000

La pregunta rebota de aquí para allá: “¿dónde está el 15-M?” ¿Ha fallecido, tal y como dictaminan los medios de comunicación que sólo conceden existencia a lo que es espectacular y masivo, noticiable? ¿Se ha retirado a los cuarteles de invierno, esperando tiempos mejores (y temperaturas más altas) para reocupar su espacio natural: las calles y las plazas? ¿Se ha replegado a los barrios, fuera de la vista de los focos mediáticos y de la volátil “opinión pública”, pero construyendo al modo de las hormigas una base duradera para el cambio social?

A la comisión de Extensión Internacional de Sol, que tuvo un papel relevante en la preparación del 15-O, no le satisface ninguna de las respuestas, así que se ha declarado en huelga (!), invitando a detener la producción (los activistas también producen: activismo) para pensar a fondo lo que a su juicio es una crisis de la estructura organizativa del 15-M. En su declaración llaman la atención sobre tres problemas particularmente: la bajísima participación actual en asambleas y comisiones, la dispersión y división interna, y la burocratización de los comportamientos (automatismos, falta de imaginación).