Mapping Utopian Art: Alternative Political Imaginaries in New Media Art (2008-2015)
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Mapping Utopian Art: Alternative Political Imaginaries in New Media Art (2008-2015) VASILEIOS (BILL) BALASKAS Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art April 2016 This text represents the submission for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art. This copy has been supplied for the purpose of research for private study, on the understanding that it is copyright material, and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. i Abstract This thesis investigates the proliferation of alternative political imaginaries in the Web- based art produced during the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath (2008- 2015), with a particular focus on the influence of communist utopianism. The thesis begins by exploring the continuous relevance of utopianism to Western political thought, including the historical context within which the financial crisis of 2008 occurred. This context has been defined by the new political, social and cultural milieu produced by the development of Data Capitalism – the dominant economic paradigm of the last two decades. In parallel, the thesis identifies the “organic” connections between leftist utopian thought and networked technologies, in order to claim that the events of 2008 functioned as a catalyst for their reactivation and expansion. Following this analysis, the thesis focuses on how politically engaged artists have reacted to the global financial crisis through the use of the World Wide Web. More specifically, the thesis categorises a wide range of artworks, institutional and non-institutional initiatives, as well as theoretical texts that have either been written by artists, or have inspired them. The result of this exercise is a mapping of the post-crisis Web-based art, which is grounded on the technocultural tools employed by artists as well as on the main concepts and ideals that they have aimed at materialising through the use of such tools. Furthermore, the thesis examines the interests of Data Capitalists in art and the Internet, and the kinds of restrictions and obstacles that they have imposed on the political use of the Web in order to safeguard them. Finally, the thesis produces an overall evaluation of the previously analysed cultural products by taking into account both the objectives of their creators and the external and internal limitations that ultimately shape their character. Accordingly, the thesis locates the examined works within the ideological spectrum of Marxist and post-Marxist thought in order to formulate a series of proposals about the future of politically engaged Web-based art and the ideological potentialities of networked communication at large. ii Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. ix Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Mapping Utopian Art: Alternative Political Imaginaries in New Media Art (2008-2015) 10 Chapter 1 | Creating (in) Data Capitalism: New Art for a New Economy? ....................... 16 Towards a New Economic Paradigm ........................................................................................................ 16 The Rise and Fall (?) of Data Capitalism .................................................................................................. 19 Art of the Revolution and the Revolution of Art .................................................................................. 26 Crisis 2.0: Art Alert! .......................................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2 | Utopia Distributed: The Organic Connections of the Internet with Communist Thought ......................................................................................................................... 40 In and Out of Communism: Theorising New Worlds ......................................................................... 40 From the “End of History” to the End of Utopia ................................................................................... 45 From the End of Utopia to Another “End of History” ........................................................................ 47 Searching for the Nature of Revolution ................................................................................................... 51 Kantian Justice and the Repudiation of Possession ............................................................................ 54 Benjamin’s Revolutionary Art Object ....................................................................................................... 57 Deconstructing the Aura: Deconstructing Time .................................................................................. 60 The Fluid Temporality of Contemporaneity .......................................................................................... 65 Grand Narratives: Joining the Pieces ........................................................................................................ 69 Art in the Age of Online Reproduction ..................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 3 | Diagnosing the Crisis: Deconstruction and Protest ......................................... 78 Formulating the “Telekommunist” Agenda ........................................................................................... 78 The Systems of the System: Making Sense of Data Capitalism ...................................................... 85 Deconstructing the flow ............................................................................................................................................. 87 Labour as domination ................................................................................................................................................. 95 The rediscovery of the proletariat ...................................................................................................................... 104 Cutting culture in a culture of cuts ..................................................................................................................... 108 From Occupying the Square to Reclaiming the Commons ........................................................... 117 The hackers of the streets ...................................................................................................................................... 124 Chapter 4 | The Rise of Radical Institutions: Towards Alternative Modes of Socioeconomic Being ...................................................................................................................... 128 From Public Space to Hackerspace ......................................................................................................... 128 The Currency of Capitalism and the Death of Currencies ............................................................. 134 iii “Liberating” speculation ......................................................................................................................................... 137 Bitcoin and its legacies ............................................................................................................................................ 143 Exchange beyond money ........................................................................................................................................ 148 Between the “Community” and the “Commune”: Reimagining the State .............................. 152 From the Web to the ground (and back) ......................................................................................................... 156 Chapter 5 | Between Myth and Reality: The Limits of the Political Web ....................... 169 “It’s the Economy, Stupid” .......................................................................................................................... 169 Post-Internet Art and the Fable of the Apolitical Web ................................................................... 172 Expanding Online: The Web as a Marketplace .................................................................................. 179 Art as Data as Profit ....................................................................................................................................... 188 From Globalisation to Googlization: The Rise of New Monopolies .......................................... 195 Institutional Control, Legal Constraints and the Limits of Online Freedom ......................... 203 Chapter 6 | Changing a Changing World: Art Within Endless Crisis ............................... 214 The Manifesto Criterion ............................................................................................................................... 214 Exploring the Shades of “Red” .................................................................................................................. 218 From the Ideology of Networks to the Ideology of the Multitude ............................................. 225 Procedural Sublimity and the “Society of Non-Spectacle” ............................................................ 232 From Abstraction to the “Unstable Equilibrium of Compromise” ...........................................