#poorsumer

SuperMassiveBlackAshHole

1. In what form should we build? 

Supercargo depicts pre-existing objects, that are in some way objects of desire. Commodities, tech products, artworks. In terms of “art” that would mean a way of “speculative realism”, reflecting on global conditions. This is necessary because it is neither subjective nor relative. As this introduction by Jack Self states: “Postmodernism is increasingly complicit with the contradiction of late capitalist labour markets: it looks like we have infinite choice of lifestyle and career paths; in reality we are all subjects of a catastrophic restructuring of labour and forms of life to a homogenous, polarised, neo-feudalism.” This new realism mimics a material world of trade and consumption, which simply became uncertain, nervous in the informational age. We live in an era in which form is now only time-based, think of 3D printing, disappearing industries, entire workplaces now immaterial programs. How would a simple human, omitting globalisation make this object? The materials used should always reflect socio-economic realities: This poorsumer is rich of high speed internet, but poor of material possessions. The poorsumer makes use of free materials like waste and stone. 

http://jackself.com/pomo

2. Material is scared

One of the assumptions of Supercargo is that in the total simulation of the visible world (you can always apply “skins”) the physical world becomes visible for the first time. McLuhan described that phenomenon as “one medium becomes the content of the next medium”. When you have satellites, the planet becomes the content of this technology. When the internet absorbs television, TV shows suddenly become a form of art. In total simulation, the material is transformed into something “sacred” because it is the only thing that cannot be saved. Water, rare earths, organisms. This new materialism in our everyday life usually takes the form of the commodity, embedded in a global incomprehensible network of production, labour & marketing. It almost seems like magic as we have no insight of how these products and devices are “miraculously hatched”. The qualities of the object are revealed through the framework of the commodity as an unavoidable meta-material. There comes the sympathetic magic of the Cargo Cult: By imitation one can understand and cope with overwhelming forces, be it a new enviroment or techno-capitalism itself. In the technological singularity, we become our own exotic natives in a world colonised by corporatism. Solastalgia is a portmanteau of the words ‘solace’ and ‘nostalgia’. It’s a term coined by Glenn Albrecht that captures the particular form of psychological distress that sets in when the homeland that we love and from which we take comfort is radically altered by extraction and industrialization, rendering it alienating and unfamiliar. “It is the homesickness you feel when you are still at home.” as Bea Fremderman put it.

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/neo-materialism-part-two-the-unreadymade/

3. Deep Time and Athropocene. 

In the Anthropocene humans & technology can be seen as a global factor. With information technology it is possible to see for the first time that the only point of reference is the planet itself. The way i see it, we are living in a time governed by cybernetics alone. The human king is dead, hail the cloud! It was always in the interest of cybernetics to describe organisms and technology alike. To make a supersystem for processes be it biological or cultural. Maybe through cybernetic thinking we can realise that technology isn't artificial at all. We are just a material processing species, like bees producing honeycombs. This current condition of cybernetic governing (the invisible total of global algorithms) comes with this planetary world view. Its time is the deep time allowing instantaneous cross references between the ancient and the hypercontemporary. Devices as fetishes, logos as gods, manual labour as a sacred activity. This deep time, or “death of the future condition” is perfectly described by Bruce Sterling concept of the “Atemporal”. 

https://archive.org/stream/ArtInTheAnthropocene/Davis-Turpin_2015_Art-in-the-Anthropocene_djvu.txt

http://www.wired.com/2010/02/atemporality-for-the-creative-artist/

4. Why expolit yourself in the illusion of self expression? 

Giving up trying to become a subject and trying to ally with other participants in the social sphere such as inanimate objects, or processes of production, or data protocols seems more interesting at the moment. The subject, once the site of emancipation, is now seen as overburdened by subjection, the injunction to produce and perform yourself as a subject intensified to an untenable degree under conditions of global capitalism. Creativity is about the most worn-out, abused concept that used to mean something remarkable. Open up to a whole slew of strategies that are in no way acceptable to creativity as it’s formerly known. These strategies include imitation, plagiarism, mechanical processes, repetition. By employing these methods u can actually breathe life. And it may be that any form of agency, however ineffectual and illusory or self-denying, is preferable to the anxiety of individual helplessness in the face of overwhelming social as well as psychological forces. What comes next are symbolic gestures of Supercargo to merely survive in a global enviroment. It is an Ersatzculture.

https://www.adbusters.org/article/life-in-the-algorithm/

http://www.academia.edu/255777/Hauntology_Or_Capitalism_is_Dead_Lets_Eat_its_Corpse_

5. 21st Century Condition