>>Call for Papers
>>>>
>>>> Capturing the Moving Mind: Management and Movement in the Age of
Permanently
>>>> Temporary War
>>>>
>>>> An ephemera conference on the Trans-Siberian train
>>>> (Moscow-Novosibirsk-Beijing), 10-20 September 2005
>>>>
>>>> www.ephemeraweb.org/conference
>>>>
>>>> In September 2005 a meeting will take place on the Trans-Siberian
train from
>>>> Moscow via Novosibirsk to Beijing. The purpose of this meeting is a
'cosmological' one. We would like to gather a group of people,
researchers,
>>>> philosophers, artists and others interested in the changes going on in
society and engaged in changing society as their own moving image, an
image
>>>> of time. Spatially moving bodies and bodies moving in time
(through the
>>>> different time zones) could create an event, a meeting that not
really
'is'
>>>> but 'is going on'.
>>>>
>>>> Today it is impossible to restrict production to the closed time and
place
>>>> of the 'factory-office'. Production has become spatially boundless and
temporarily endless: the factory-office and its borders have
>>>> dissolved into
>>>> society, into a multitude of productive singularities whose
>>>> productivity
>>>> cannot be reduced to actual production, to any actual mode of
>>>> existence, to
>>>> any historical time. The labour force has rather increasingly
>>>> detached from
>>>> its spatial, physical and biological aspects and become a 'mental
category'.
>>>> The generic human capacities - intellect, perception and
>>>> linguistic-relational abilities - which make human beings
'humans', have
>>>> replaced machinery and direct labour in the core of value
creation. The
>>>> mental labour force does not have strict spatial and temporal
>>>> coordinates;
>>>> it rather moves in time and unrolls over the boundaries and
>>>> hierarchies of
>>>> space. To understand the changed dynamics of creation and the social
cooperation at its centre we must perhaps move beyond the borders and
beyond
>>>> the immediately visible.
>>>>
>>>> Yet the constitutive political problem in today's knowledge
society, or
>>>> knowledge economy, is not that different from what it was in
>>>> industrial
>>>> capitalism: how to govern, organize and control the labour force. But
it is
>>>> impossible to organize, control and locate cooperation between minds
through
>>>> the place it belongs to and through the deeds it does. The new
forms of
>>>> organization and control, like the permanently temporary war, arise
precisely from the insufficiency of power in a situation where
>>>> institutionalized modern forms of power confront 'unclassified'
people:
>>>> moving people, people in trains, singularities, individuals whose
actions
>>>> and orientation cannot be figured on the basis of their belonging to
this or
>>>> that community, or on the basis of performing this or that task;
that is,
>>>> when power confronts human beings as bare humans. To be able to
organize and
>>>> control human beings as bare human beings, the new forms of control
cannot
>>>> afford to be withheld or slowed down by any particular institution
and
their
>>>> particular tasks, but they must target the possibilities of life in
general
>>>> (both corporeal and incorporeal).
>>>>
>>>> By opposing traditional disciplinary conceptions of power and the
concept of
>>>> control, it is possible to say that power operates on particular
actions and
>>>> subjects in space. Its target is the physical or biological human
being.
>>>> Power seeks its justification from particular institutions and their
functions (the factory produces goods, the hospital takes care of
illness,
>>>> research is done in the university, the army takes care of war).
Control,
>>>> instead, operates on the bare conditions of action, on the
>>>> possibilities of
>>>> life in general. Unlike the modern logic of power, which always
needs an
>>>> institutional context and a normal state to justify itself, the new
form of
>>>> control avoids committing itself to any particular institution and its
particular task. It rather seeks legitimacy from public opinion and
the
>>>> ethically right: ethics and obscure 'public opinion' replace formal
law and
>>>> its institutions as the basis of legitimacy. Control does not have any
external reason to refer to, no fixed point of reference or
>>>> legitimacy (like
>>>> formal law or a particular task of an institution). It does not
have any
>>>> particular task or specific boundary (of an institution and its
task).
There
>>>> is rather 'no sense', 'no reason' in it: it is uncontrolled by fixed
reason
>>>> or faculty of judgment; it is lacking in restraint. It is full of
sound and
>>>> fury and signifies nothing.
>>>>
>>>> But there is method in this madness. Through this method, the
human body,
>>>> which constitutes the fundamental natural resource of the 'knowledge
society' and reproduces the productive power of human intelligence, is
used
>>>> and kept from moving by means freed from any political or legal
constraint.
>>>> Movement has always its corporeal aspects: movement is movement of
bodies
>>>> and bodies in movement. It is here that we may begin to understand the
exchange relation between a barrel of oil and a child killed in Iraq,
between privatisation and destruction of human community: the new
formless
>>>> form of war, the mad war, as a non-state, non-institutional form of
intervention, is the logical 'form' of organization and control within
an
>>>> economy that has become biopolitical. The permanently temporary
warfare and
>>>> its 'enduring freedom' constitute a new political economy that tries
to make
>>>> bodies usable as mere living organisms on a world scale. The
>>>> immaterialization of the labour force is intimately connected to
the raw
>>>> materialization of the human body.
>>>>
>>>> We call for proposals for papers, interventions, works of art and
other
>>>> ideas that try to cross fixed boundaries and are open to the
>>>> contaminating
>>>> influences of the continents we will be passing through during our
journey.
>>>> The experiment begins in Moscow where the current Russian
condition is
laid
>>>> before us in bare by some of the most critical Russian intellectuals.
This
>>>> will be followed by a three-day seminar on the Trans-Siberian
train as it
>>>> moves towards Novosibirsk, our next stop in Siberia, where the
meeting
will
>>>> be hosted by the department of Economics at Novosibirsk State
>>>> University for
>>>> one day. The party goes then on to Beijing where a final
roundtable with
>>>> Chinese social scientists will be held (the meeting is planned to
take
place
>>>> at Qinghua University, Beijing).
>>>>
>>>> Please submit proposals (500 to 1000 words) to Demola Obembe
>>>> ([log in to unmask]) by 31 January 2005. Notification regarding
acceptance
>>>> will be given by 28 February 2005. Unfortunately, the number of
participants
>>>> is limited due to the nature of this project. The participation fee is
estimated to be around 1000 Euros (including travel from Moscow to
Beijing,
>>>> accommodation and boarding in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Beijing).
Alternative
>>>> ways to participate in the project are possible and should be
>>>> discussed with
>>>> the organizers.
>>>>
>>>> For further information, please contact the organizers at
>>>> www.ephemeraweb.org/conference
>>>>
>>>> The conference is supported by:
>>>> ephemera: theory and politics in organization Ground Zero: Conflitti
Globali
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Carpentier Nico (Phd)
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Katholieke Universiteit Brussel - Catholic University of Brussels
Vrijheidslaan 17 - B-1081 Brussel - Belgium
>> T: ++ 32 (0)2-412.42.78
>> F: ++ 32 (0)2/412.42.00
>> Office: 4/0/18
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
>> Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
>> Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
>> T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.30
>> F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.28.61
>> Office: 5B.454
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
European Consortium for Communication Research
>> Web: http://www.eccr.info
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>> Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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