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Speculation as a Mode of Production
Forms of Value Subjectivity in Art and Capital
Series: - Historical Materialism Book Series, Volume: 176
Author:
In Speculation as a Mode of Production: Forms of Value Subjectivity in Art and Capital, Marina Vishmidt offers a new perspective on one of the main categories of capitalist life in the historical present. Writing not under the shadow but in the spirit of Adornoâs negative dialectic, her work pursues speculation through its contested terrains of philosophy, finance, and art, to arrive at the most detailed analysis that we now possess of the role of speculation in the shaping of subjectivity by value relations. Featuring detailed critical discussions of recent tendencies in the artistic representation of labour, and a brilliant reconstruction of the philosophical concept of the speculative from its origins in German Romanticism, Speculation as a Mode of Production is an essential, widescreen theorisation of capitalâs drive to self-expansion, and an urgent corrective to the narrow and one-sided periodisations to which it is most commonly subjected.
Marina Vishmidt is a writer and editor. She teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is the co-author of Reproducing Autonomy (with Kerstin Stakemeier) (Mute, 2016).
'Breaking with the boosterism and banality that so often accompany discussions of art and capital, Marina Vishmidt brings an impressive command over contemporary debates and a truly dialectical sensitivity to bear on the transformations that artistic practice has undergone in our speculative times.'
-- Alberto Toscano, Reader in Critical Theory, co-author of Cartographies of the Absolute
'An astonishingly lucid account of the way in which neoliberalism operates, inscribing the logic of a barely mediated labour-capital relationship into the intimate recesses of subject formation.'
-- Jaleh Mansoor, Associate Professor of Art History, The University of British Columbia
-- Alberto Toscano, Reader in Critical Theory, co-author of Cartographies of the Absolute
'An astonishingly lucid account of the way in which neoliberalism operates, inscribing the logic of a barely mediated labour-capital relationship into the intimate recesses of subject formation.'
-- Jaleh Mansoor, Associate Professor of Art History, The University of British Columbia
Preface Acknowledgements
Introduction: Speculation as a Mode of Production in Art and Capital â1âIntroduction â2âSpeculation as Method â3âHow Does Art Speculate? â4âIs There a Speculative Mode of Production? â5âChapter Outline
1 Speculation: The Subjectivity of Re-structuring and Re-structuring Subjectivity â1âSpeculation in the Negative â2âSpeculative Subjects â3âFetishism and the Production of Subjectivity â4âSpeculation or Real Subsumption â5âTo Human is Capital â6âHuman Capital and Art â7âSpeculation and Abstract Labour: An Abstract â8âSelf-Appreciation? â9âFrom Self to Species-Being â10âValue Equals Zero
2 Topologies of Speculation: The Tenses of Art, Labour and Finance â1ââCounterproductiveâ and Abstract Labour â2âAutonomy in Generalised Speculation â3âSpeculation and Contingency â4âWhat is an âAbsolute Contingencyâ? â5âFutures and the Future â6âArt as Counterproductive Labour â7âInvisible Labour â8âVisible Finance â9âConclusion
3 Aesthetic Speculations and Antagonisms â1âIs Art Working? â2âReal Subsumption â3âNegative Composition â4âThe Specialist of Non-Specialism â5âNegate Here â6âThe Critique of the Power of Judgement and the Critique of the Powers of Art: Kantian Interlude
4 Whatever Indicator: Indeterminacy, Judgement, and Putting the Speculative to Work â1âIntroduction â2âThe Name of Art â3âTo Be Done with the Judgement of Art â4âCounter-Artistic Production â5âWhatever Indicator â6âReproductive Potentiality â7âSubhuman Capital â8âArtist Placement Group â Incidental Person, or Negation of the Artist? â9âExcursus on Use-Value â10âArtistic Communism â A Speculative Gesture â11âArt â Departure or Destination?
Conclusion: Whither Speculation? â1âOne More Time If You Would Be Useless â2âTrajectories of the Generic â3âPrognostic Coda
Bibliography Index
Introduction: Speculation as a Mode of Production in Art and Capital â1âIntroduction â2âSpeculation as Method â3âHow Does Art Speculate? â4âIs There a Speculative Mode of Production? â5âChapter Outline
1 Speculation: The Subjectivity of Re-structuring and Re-structuring Subjectivity â1âSpeculation in the Negative â2âSpeculative Subjects â3âFetishism and the Production of Subjectivity â4âSpeculation or Real Subsumption â5âTo Human is Capital â6âHuman Capital and Art â7âSpeculation and Abstract Labour: An Abstract â8âSelf-Appreciation? â9âFrom Self to Species-Being â10âValue Equals Zero
2 Topologies of Speculation: The Tenses of Art, Labour and Finance â1ââCounterproductiveâ and Abstract Labour â2âAutonomy in Generalised Speculation â3âSpeculation and Contingency â4âWhat is an âAbsolute Contingencyâ? â5âFutures and the Future â6âArt as Counterproductive Labour â7âInvisible Labour â8âVisible Finance â9âConclusion
3 Aesthetic Speculations and Antagonisms â1âIs Art Working? â2âReal Subsumption â3âNegative Composition â4âThe Specialist of Non-Specialism â5âNegate Here â6âThe Critique of the Power of Judgement and the Critique of the Powers of Art: Kantian Interlude
4 Whatever Indicator: Indeterminacy, Judgement, and Putting the Speculative to Work â1âIntroduction â2âThe Name of Art â3âTo Be Done with the Judgement of Art â4âCounter-Artistic Production â5âWhatever Indicator â6âReproductive Potentiality â7âSubhuman Capital â8âArtist Placement Group â Incidental Person, or Negation of the Artist? â9âExcursus on Use-Value â10âArtistic Communism â A Speculative Gesture â11âArt â Departure or Destination?
Conclusion: Whither Speculation? â1âOne More Time If You Would Be Useless â2âTrajectories of the Generic â3âPrognostic Coda
Bibliography Index
All interested in contemporary art, theories of capital, philosophical approaches to speculation, the politics of finance and subjectivation.