On the Necessity of Art's Exit from Contemporary
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URBANOMIC 2014–2015 3 Since 2006 Urbanomic have played a crucial role in fostering new movements in contemporary thought and introducing them to a wider audience—including Speculative Realism, Object-Oriented Philosophy, Non-Philosophy, and Accelerationism. Since the publication of the rst volume of our acclaimed Collapse series, a rm commitment to cross-disciplinary thinking outside the academy has propelled Urbanomic beyond a traditional theory/philosophy readership, attracting a dedicated following.* We continue to publish Contact: works that assemble new audiences and forge Louise McDermott +44 (0)203 691 2791 new alliances in thought. [email protected] Urbanomic Media Ltd As well as Collapse, our catalogue includes the The Old Lemonade Factory Windsor Quarry groundbreaking series of publications produced Falmouth collaboratively since 2010 with Sequence Press TR11 3EX UK in New York; MONO, a new series of works by www.urbanomic.com emerging contemporary thinkers; and the new Distributor (UK, EU): Central Books, London. REDACTIONS series documenting and extending www.centralbooks.com the ‘research-in-progress’ ethos of Urbanomic’s + 44 (0)845 458 9911 US: Contact Katherine Pickard (Sequence Press) events programme. [email protected] 212.995.1774 Urbanomic is a trading name of Urbanomic Media Ltd, a limited company incorporated * Special thanks to our readers for the in England and Wales with registration number 8928468. Registered office: The Old Lemonade Factory, Windsor Quarry, Falmouth, TR11 3EX, UK. photographs featured in this catalogue. HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS Exploring the political heresy of accelerationism, Object-Oriented Philosophy—beyond the hype: from Marx to the contemporary scene. Realist revolution or metaphysical regression? #Accelerate Object-Oriented The Accelerationist Reader Philosophy Ed. ROBIN MACKAY & ARMEN AVANESSIAN The Noumenon’s New Clothes PETER WOLFENDALE with a postscript by RAY BRASSIER Available Now October 2014 See page 9 for details See page 15 for details An analysis of ‘Neoliberal Counter-Reformation’ Time to exit the paradigm of contemporary art to stand alongside Deleuze’s ‘Control Society’ and and its interminable logic of escape, in search of Foucault’s ‘Liberal Governmentality’. a new type of art theory and practice? To Live and Think On the Like Pigs Necessity of The Incitement of Envy and Art’s Exit from Boredom in Market Democracies GILLES CHÂTELET Contemporary Art with a foreword by ALAIN BADIOU SUHAIL MALIK November 2014 April 2015 See page 11 for details See page 17 for details 4 5 6 7 + Exploring the political heresy of accelerationism, from Marx to the contemporary scene. April 2014 #Accelerate Paperback 115 x 175mm, 544pp. £14.99 UK / $24.99 US The Accelerationist Reader ISBN 978-0-9575295-5-7 Ed. ROBIN MACKAY & ARMEN AVANESSIAN E-book 978-0-9575295-2-6 • First volume to address this important new Published in association with current in contemporary political philosophy and Merve, Berlin the energetic debate and controversy around it • Includes all the key thinkers who galvanized the An engaging, eccentric #accelerate movement anthology…it’s“ refresh- • Traces a genealogy of accelerationism through ing to encounter a ‘left’ post-68 French Theory and 90s Cyberculture, project for the future including texts never published before • Set to gain further visibility with several mon- that wants to reclaim the ographs and collections on accelerationism to be idea of technology, published in 2014–15 industry and Since the 2013 appearance of the ‘Manifesto for planet-scale thinking. Accelerationist Politics’, the term ‘accelerationism’ ArtReview ” has been adopted to name a set of new attempts to conceptualise non-capitalist futures outside of Including texts by: traditional marxist critiques and regressive or Karl Marx restorative solutions—a new politics that is invested Samuel Butler in grasping complexity, abstraction and futurity for Nicolai Federov its own ends, not ceding them to the enemy. Thorstein Veblen #Accelerate constructs a genealogy of acceler- Shulamith Firestone ationism, calling attention to early anticipations of Deleuze and Guattari accelerationism, and presenting new essays that Jean-François Lyotard document the emergence of new accelerationisms JG Ballard steeled against the onslaughts of ‘capitalist realism’, Nick Land and retooled for the twenty-rst century. Sadie Plant Iain Hamilton Grant Contributing to the energetic contemporary debate Mark Fisher around this disputed term, #Accelerate opens a Williams and Srnicek historical conversation about futurality, technology, Antonio Negri politics, enjoyment and Kapital. This is a legacy shot Tiziana Terranova through with contradictions, yet urgently galvanized Reza Negarestani today by the poverty of ‘reasonable’ contemporary Ray Brassier political alternatives. 8 9 × An analysis of ‘Neoliberal Counter-Reformation’ to stand alongside Deleuze’s ‘Control Society’ and Foucault’s ‘Liberal Governmentality’. November 2014 To Live and Think Paperback 115 x 175mm, 201pp. £14.99 UK / $24.99 US Like Pigs ISBN 978-0-9832169-6-4 The Incitement of Envy and E-book 978-0-9832169-8-8 Boredom in Market Democracies Translation Rights: Éditions Exils GILLES CHÂTELET Châtelet saw clearly with a foreword by ALAIN BADIOU the“ dangers of a taste for ideas such as chaos and • Significant, previously untranslated work emergence, and antic- • Badiou’s foreword positions the largely un- known Châtelet as a key figure in French thought ipates the buzz around • A scathing, witty polemic and an original and big data, crowdsourcing, penetrating analysis of ‘market democracy’ thought-leaders, • An important contribution to debates on market democracy and neoliberalism and capitalist subjectivation even bespoke Brooklyn yogurt-makers. He is An uproarious portrait of the evils of the market and a technical manual for its innermost ideologi- a Juvenal or Jonathan cal workings, this is the story of how the perverted Swift for this disinte- legacy of liberalism sought to knead Marx’s ‘free grating spectacle that peasant’ into a statistical ‘average man’—pliant raw is the over-developed material for the sausage-machine of postmodernity. world. McKenzie” Wark, Combining the incandescent wrath of the betrayed comrade with the acute discrimination of the mathe- author of The Beach matician-physicist, Châtelet scrutinizes the pseudo- Beneath the Street scientic alibis employed to naturalize ‘market democracy’ and the ‘triple alliance’ between politics, GILLES CHÂTELET [1944–1999] economics, and cybernetics. was a mathematician and philos- opher and leading member of the Crucial reading for any future politics that wants to Front homosexuel d’action révo- replace individualism with individuation and libertari- lutionnaire (FHAR), professor at anism with liberation, this new translation constitutes University of Paris VIII and pro- a major contribution to contemporary debate on neo- gramme director at the Collège liberalism, economics and capitalist subjectivation. Internationale de philosophie. 10 11 12 13 MONO 002 Object-Oriented Philosophy—beyond the hype: Realist revolution or metaphysical regression? Object-Oriented October 2014 Paperback 115 x 175mm, 420pp. Philosophy £14.99 UK / $24.99 US ISBN 978-0-9575295-9-5 The Noumenon’s New Clothes Translation Rights: Urbanomic PETER WOLFENDALE with a postscript by RAY BRASSIER What Peter Wolfendale • First full-length critical work to examine the does“ in his detailed and philosophical claims of OOO/OOP forceful analysis is what • A concerted polemic backed by meticulous ref- Kant did to Swedenborg: erence to both analytic and Continental traditions • Impressive first major work by a writer recog- to dispel the mist of nised as a significant new philosophical voice vibrant (spiritualized) • Postscript from Ray Brassier, one of the original materiality. What Voltaire Speculative Realists, conducts an ‘autopsy’ on said about god should the movement and its legacy be repeated about this book: if it didn’t exist, we How does the patience and rigour of philosophi- cal explanation fare when confronted with an irre- would have to invent it. pressible desire to commune with the object and to Slavoj Žižek ” escape the subjective perplexities of reference, meaning and sense? The man Moving beyond the hype and the in²ated claims “ made for ‘Object-Oriented’ thought, Peter Wolfen- is relentless. dale considers its emergence in the light of the inter- Graham Harman” twined legacies of twentieth-century analytic and Continental traditions. Both a remarkably clear explication of the tenets of OOP and an acute critique of the movement’s PETER WOLFENDALE is an ramications for philosophy today, Object-Oriented independent philosopher from Philosophy is a major engagement with one of the the Northeast of England. most prevalent trends in recent philosophy. 14 15 MONO 002 Time to exit the paradigm of contemporary art and its interminable logic of escape, in search of a new type of art theory and practice? April 2015 On the Paperback 115 x 175mm, 130pp. £14.99 UK / $24.99 US Necessity of ISBN 978-0-9575295-8-8 Art’s Exit from Translation Rights: Urbanomic Contemporary Art SUHAIL MALIK • Polemical and accessible text irresistible to theorists and artists alike • Identifies and disassembles the governing para- digm of art over the past 60 years, opening a new idea and practice of art • Destined to become a necessary critical reference point, post-Relational Aesthetics Contemporary art’s shortcomings are increasingly