In the past ten years, a crisis has begun to emerge that is almost as significant as the one caused by the advent of cybernetics and immaterial labor. Just as the pioneers of the idea of cognitive capitalism (such as Antonio Negri, Silvia Federici, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Maurizio Lazzarato, and Mario Tronti, among others) realized that the then coming digital economy would have serious consequences for labor and the production of subjectivity, so too will the imminent transition from the information economy to full-blown neural capitalism in which the material brain is at the center of capitalist commodification. This transition requires a new epistemological understanding with which to unpack, expose, and resist the consequences of this coming age. Activist neuroaesthetics is one such methodology. Activist neuroaesthetics attempts to make the processes of digital dominion and governmentalization—which are becoming more and more prominent in late-stage cognitive capitalism (or neural capitalism)—opaque, visible, and known. In this way, activist neuroaesthetics is a form of consciousness-raising that endeavors to subvert positivist neuroaesthetics’ attempts to co-opt the very neural basis of autonomous action and normalize it.
—Warren Neidich
An Activist Neuroaesthetics Reader is the first of two volumes of documentation presented by Verein zur Förderung von Kunst und Kultur am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz e.V. for Activist Neuroaesthetics, a festival of events curated by Warren Neidich, Susanne Prinz, and Sarrita Hunn celebrating the 25th anniversary of artbrain.org.
An Activist Neuroaesthetics Reader
Contributions by Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Elena Agudio, Ina Blom, Yann Moulier Boutang, Juli Carson, Yves Citton, Cécile Malaspina, Anna Munster, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Warren Neidich, Reza Negarestani, Dimitris Papadopoulos, Luciana Parisi, Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Tony David Sampson, Tiziana Terranova, Anuradha Vikram, Elisabeth von Samsonow, Charles T. Wolfe, Slavoj Žižek
Proofreader
Sarrita Hunn
Copy editor
Bonnie Begusch
Graphic Design
Sara Marcon, Archive Appendix
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Bianca & Volta Milano Italy