Anton Vidokle

Julieta Aranda

Brian Kuan Wood

The internet does not exist. Maybe it did exist only a short time ago, but now it only remains as a blur, a cloud, a friend, a deadline, a redirect, or a 404. If it ever existed, we couldn't see it. Because it has no shape. It has no face, just this name that describes everything and nothing at the same time. Yet we are still trying to climb onboard, to get inside, to be part of the network, to get in on the language game, to show up on searches, to appear to exist. But we will never get inside of something that isn't there. All this time we've been bemoaning the death of any critical outside position, we should have taken a good look at information networks. Just try to get in. You can't. Networks are all edges, as Bruno Latour points out. We thought there were windows but actually they're mirrors. And in the meantime we are being faced with more and more--not just information, but the world itself. Contributors Julian Assange, Franco "Bifo" Berardi, Benjamin Bratton, Diedrich Diederichsen, Keller Easterling, Rasmus Fleischer, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Ursula K. Heise, Brian Kuan Wood, Bruno Latour, Geert Lovink, Patricia MacCormack, Metahaven, Gean Moreno, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jon Rich, Hito Steyerl e-flux journal Series edited by Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle

The Internet Does Not Exist

Let's be clear about something: it is infuriating that most interesting artists are perfectly capable of functioning in at least two or three professions that are, unlike art, respected by society in terms of compensation and general usefulness. Furthermore, when the flexibility, certainty, and freedom promised by being part of a critical outside are considered as extensions of recent advances in economic exploitation, does the field of art then become the uncritical, complicit inside of something far more compelling? e-flux journal Series edited by Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle Contributors Franco "Bifo" Berardi, Keti Chukhrov, Diedrich Diederichsen, Antke Engel, Liam Gillick, Tom Holert, Lars Bang Larsen, Marion von Osten, Precarious Workers Brigade, Irit Rogoff, and Hito Steyerl

Post-Fordism, Precarity, and the Labor of Art

Are You Working Too Much?

Kaye Cain-Nielsen

Maybe it’s time to see how the sausage is made. Chances are that in the last couple years, your life has been turned upside down by a pandemic, a war, an economic meltdown, or some combination of these. And you may feel that whatever you were lucky enough to avoid may already be on its way to you. As the coming years are sure to bring more uncertainty, maybe it’s time to prepare? Let’s try to consider how our basic needs are met, as the individual and collective bodies that we are. Many of us have grown accustomed to an era in which a global logistical orchestra serves our needs and whims, bringing food to our mouths with surgical precision. Especially for cosmopolitan urbanites used to traveling, sampling exotic cuisine, or spending money freely, these delivery mechanisms may appear to have created the ultimate hostage situation. Is it time to bite the invisible hand that feeds us? This fragile political ecosystem has something in common with the fragility of the natural ecosystem when forced to supply illusions of abundance. Maybe it’s time to see how the sausage is made. In e-flux Food and Agriculture Reader, authors from around the world reflect on food and agriculture as foundational expressions of life—as sociality, history, and entanglement. By attending closely to something that is the bedrock of security and survival, a world emerges where power over production and consumption can be organized less like a hegemonic system and more like a daily routine. Attending more closely to systems of survival opens the door to another kind of abundance, one that always evades scarcity. Food is absolutely political, but food is also fundamentally pleasurable and social. Hannah Arendt allegedly asked her students about the difference between love and desire. She then answered her own question: If you desire strawberries, you eat them. If you love strawberries, you grow them yourself. Contributors Autonomous farming collectives, Genaro Amaro Altamirano, Mary Walling Blackburn, Carolina Caycedo, Sophie Chao, Lia Dostlieva, Alix Guibert, Mythri Jegathesan, Ou Ning, Christian Nyampeta, Elizabeth Povinelli, Enrique Del Risco, Martha Rosler, Vivien Sansour, Pelin Tan, Rachel Vaughn, and others. Copublished by e-flux journal

Brian Kuan Wood

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