Stevphen Shukaitis on ‘Imaginal Machines’

Malav Kanuga — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:12:24 +0000

Our first TIF event in the new year and quite a celebration: At Bluestockings on Friday, JANUARY 8th at 7PM there will be a release party and book discussion for Stevphen Shukaitis‘ recently published Imaginal Machines: Autonomy & Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life. Stevphen explores the limits and possibilities of collective imagination in the age of spectacular recuperation. In what ways has ‘the power of imagination’, a radical bulwark for over forty years, been seized and corrupted by the image-commodity? Attending to this problem, Stevphen explores and mutates various autonomist political traditions with subversive avant-garde movements and many instances of self-organization in everyday life. In order to reorganize our radical imaginaries such that they (and we) remain a terrain of conflict and antagonism to capitalist subsumption, Stevphen invites us to think of our collective struggles as machines – ones that perhaps work best when paradoxically breaking down.

As Stevphen writes, “the task is to explore the construction of imaginal machines, comprising the socially and historically embedded manifestations of the radical imagination. Imagination as a composite of our capacities to affect and be affected by the world, to develop movements toward new forms of autonomous sociality and collective self-determination.”

This event also celebrates the recent militant publishing venture of Minor Compositions, a new project dedicated to inquiry into radical and movement histories, autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics, and revolutions of everyday life, as forms of research militancy useful to present organizing. More info can be found on thier website – http://www.minorcompositions.info/

Stevphen Shukaitis on “Imaginal Machines”

Malav Kanuga — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:28:09 +0000

On Wednesday, April 1st at 7pm, Stevphen Shukaitis will present his recently completed doctoral thesis entitled “Imaginal Machines, Movements, and Academic Enclosures.” In an effort to reimagine (and reappropriate) the academic processes through which doctoral degrees are granted, Stevphen will be presenting his work as a ‘movement-defense’ of his thesis. Joining him are George Caffentzis and Silvia Federici.

Electronic copies of Stevphen’s research is available here.

The event will take place at 16Beaver. Please see UPCOMING EVENTS for more info.

This Is Forever » Imaginal Machines

Stevphen Shukaitis on ‘Imaginal Machines’

Stevphen Shukaitis on “Imaginal Machines”