Autonomous labor and its attendant values have now become familiar tools of neoliberal capitalism: work has become freelance, flexible, mobile, project-based, hybrid and temporary. If these conditions are novel to the general economy, this way of working is not new to artists, who began experiencing these precarious conditions long before Post-Fordism was a buzzword. The contributors to Mobile Autonomy, drawn from a variety of disciplines including art, political philosophy and sociology, examine the alternate working methods and economic models developed, in (...) theory and in practice, by artists and other creative professionals to make artistic work viable in contemporary social, economic and political conditions. (shrink)

Toward the end of his monograph The Craftsman, the American philosopher Richard Sennett describes two different ways of building a house.1 The designer of the first house is the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the designer of the second house is the architect Adolf Loos. Though both men embrace the same principles of the New Realism—"purity," "simplicity," and "honesty"—the results of these two builders are fundamentally different. Wittgenstein was not satisfied at all with his abode in the end. Though he says (...) it has "good manners," he accuses it of lacking a great deal of "primordial life." Therefore the Jewish philosopher will never build a house again, apart from his hut in Norway and his one house on the .. (shrink)

Play is becoming increasingly central to our society. This is not only confirmed by the excessive attention for sports in mass media. In the corporate world also, particularly in management, the importance of play is acknowledged, as well in, for instance, role training, meeting skills, and team-building. The annual “outward bound” business retreat often includes group play. Metaphorically as well, life and professional life have come to be viewed as a game. Without batting an eyelid, speculators play their virtual game (...) in the financial markets as if they were no longer aware that their actions also affect the real economy. More and more people increasingly lose themselves in play. Since the 1950s, play has also... (shrink)