This book, which is released in two weeks, might interest some of you.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/infrastructural-brutalism
Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure
"In this book, Michael Truscello looks at the industrial
infrastructure not as an invisible system of connectivity and mobility
that keeps capitalism humming in the background but as a manufactured
miasma of despair, toxicity, and death. Truscello terms this
“infrastructural brutalism”—a formulation that not only alludes to the
historical nexus of infrastructure and the concrete aesthetic of
Brutalist architecture but also describes the ecological, political,
and psychological brutality of industrial infrastructures.
Truscello explores the necropolitics of infrastructure—how
infrastructure determines who may live and who must die—through the
lens of artistic media. He examines the white settler nostalgia of
“drowned town” fiction written after the Tennessee Valley Authority
flooded rural areas for hydroelectric projects; argues that the road
movie represents a struggle with liberal governmentality; considers
the ruins of oil capitalism, as seen in photographic landscapes of
postindustrial waste; and offers an account of “death train
narratives” ranging from the history of the Holocaust to
postapocalyptic fiction. Finally, he calls for “brisantic politics,” a
culture of unmaking that is capable of slowing the advance of
capitalist suicide. “Brisance” refers to the shattering effect of an
explosive, but Truscello uses the term to signal a variety of
practices for defeating infrastructural power. Brisantic politics, he
warns, would require a reorientation of radical politics toward
infrastructure, sabotage, and cascading destruction in an
interconnected world."
"From the sea of books that are published each year, every once in a
while something truly brilliant washes ashore and radically changes
the way we think about the world. Infrastructural Brutalism is one of
those books. Truscello has produced a visionary critique of
infrastructure, positioning it not as mere connection or capillary,
but as a noxious reflection of the cruelty of capitalism and the
dissonance, despair, and death that it delivers."
Simon Springer, Professor of Human Geography, University of Newcastle,
Australia; author of The Anarchist Roots of Geography and Violent
Neoliberalism
Michael Truscello
Associate Professor
Department of English
EA 3118
Mount Royal University
4825 Mount Royal Gate SW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T3E 6K6
4034408513
[log in to unmask]
www.michaeltruscello.com
Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure
(September 2020)
MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/infrastructural-brutalism
I acknowledge that MRU is located on the hereditary homelands of the
Niitsitapi (the Blackfoot Confederacy: Siksika, Piikani, Kainai), the
Îyârhe Nakoda, and Tsuut'ina Nations.
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