Brussels Event Day 1 - Timenergy and The Commons
Brussels Day 1 - now available on both the Theory Underground podcast AND YouTube channel - Why we do this + 3 ways Timenergy Theory Evolved in THIS Event
Yesterday I published part one of the two days just outside of Brussels (not Bruges*).
By the time it was premiering though I had several things pull me away so I never had my chance to properly promote it - which is what I’m doing now!
Posting this is, like so much of the content at Theory Underground, quite literally algorithmic suicide. Algorithmic suicide means long-form content that people wil,l on average, only watch for twelve minutes. The algorithm takes notes and then de-prioritizes our content for most people.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Because we are using the medium against itself. We’re doing more than what it encourages us to do. We’re doing it for ourselves and for those of you who resist the worst tendencies of the medium, which is basically the Tik-Tok-ification of our brains.
The Tik-Tok-ification is, in a nutshell, the tendency towards short and flashy content meant to stimulate and simulate whatever keeps us distracted and superficial. Even if you don’t use Tik Tok, your brain has likely been Tik-Tok-ified because other platforms have adopted the reel-model of entertainment.
Adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, etc., it’s all about neuro-hacking us.
Events like the one that took place in Brussels are meant to get us even further outside of the attention economy - so why record? Our big Others are somehow part of the online spectacle, even if we are offline. The internet has permeated the offline world. By bringing the recording equipment into a space, we make explicit what would otherwise remain too easily ignored, i.e. there is no outside to the cyber net.
But besides how it changes things for those who are actually present in the physical space, perhaps what is most important to Nance and I is that recordings like this make it possible for you all to come along for the ride. Too many of our fellow travelers and students are unable to join, due to obligations and financial obstacles.
The point of posting this GIANT event in its fullness is that we think it matters. On average only one out of of fifty of you will listen to the whole thing, and only one out of three hundred of you will re-listen later… but we’re doing this for those obsessive burnouts who are spiritually WITH US on this tour.
For those who really seek to understand what transpires in the context of this tour’s unfolding, which is to say, how we evolve in how we communicate our approach, assumptions, and theory, these two events really are canon.
Neither would have been possible without Joris and
. Thank you so much to their respective outstitutions: The Multiversity and Philosophy Portal, for making this possible..We hope that the small handful of you who watch these events through to completion will find our efforts worthwhile.
3 Ways Timenergy Theory Evolved at THIS Event
The theme of day one was on Timenergy and The Commons. In the same way that Žižek talks about how a concept can evolve just in how it gets applied to something, likewise I would say that timenergy theory evolves in this event because of three factors:
1. New audience (it always takes on some new clarity with new audiences),
2. Bringing it expressly into dialogue with the commons, which I have never tarried with… I do get into it elsewhere, but never in a sustained engagement… the particularity of this audience, specifically the work that Joris is doing, helped me clarify the difference between The Commons and a commons. Conceptualizing timenergy in relation to The Commons as opposed to a commons is a fruitful contradiction I look forward to getting into more in the future. Especially how I quilt the whole thing by saying that necessary labor is part of the commons.
3rd, and lastly, Owen Cox and Raven of the
were there. This was only seven or so hours after I had published my response to Cox’s manifesto titled The Paglian Right. So while timenergy and the commons is the explicit theme, this making myself intelligible to Owen and Raven in light of their engagement with our talks becomes a big part of the rest of this event and the following day.What is it we are doing? How does it relate to things people care about now? Why is Theory Underground so hard to make sense of within the existing framework of assumptions embedded in political subjectivities today?
For delving into such questions you won't find anything better than these two videos.
Quick point of order from
: the sound got messed up for the first hour… Cadell and Dave both re-recorded their talks… which sucks because it cuts out the laughing and clapping and various back and forth banter with the audience, but it is what it is.We thought about not publishing it at all… but we needed to, because this matters. So Dave and Cadell both re-recorded just to show you how much we care.
We hope that even if you cannot finish the whole video, you'll at least watch the first hour. Then just leave it playing in the background, for the algorithm, you know…
Hope you find this useful. Check the tour schedule - we may be coming to a city near you!!!
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