In 2007 the conservative English historian Niall Ferguson and co-author Moritz Schularick wrote an article entitled 'Chimerica' and the Global Asset Market Boom, in International Finance, 10:3. A new text by Hung Ho-Fung gives a lot more depth to their analysis.

This excellent book by Harry Braverman revolves around the main thesis, that labour in the 20th century has become 'degraded'. The combined effects of mechanization, scientific management and other control techniques allowed management to wrest control from workers and enforce, under ever changing circumstances, alienating practices onto workers across all industries, including office and service jobs.

About four years ago, after the disastrous US elections in 2004, a group of us meeting at 16 Beaver Street in New York launched the idea of Continental Drift. The hypothesis: a coming "tectonic" shift in the geopolitical system, precipitated by the mismanagement of neoliberal globalization under the Bush-Blair regime. What we saw on the horizon was some kind of collapse of dollar hegemony -- "hegemoney," as Arrighi puts it -- and the rise of a multipolar order, with new possibilities and challenges for grassroots egalitarian movements around the world.

The Postmodern Condition, A Report on Knowledge, by Francois Lyotard, first published in French in 1979, was not the first book to carry the word postmodern in its title, but probably one of the most influential ones in the long term, with both its warnings and sometimes its overly optimistic assumptions about the future of knowledge in a computerised society. Reading it now what is perplexing is the rather one-sided reception it has got. While Lyotard's critique of meta-narratives and the proposed switch to language games has characterised the postmodern debate, his ambiguity about the development of science and the university under the condition of neoliberalism appears to have been given much less consideration by his followers.

Notes on Das Altern der Moderne1 by Peter Bürger. Peter Bürger, Professor emeritus for literature and aesthtic theory, author of the Theory of the Avant-Garde2, a seminal text in art theory of the 20th century, in this collection of articles written between 1983 and 2000, re-examines some of the main concepts already at the heart of his earlier work, such as the difference between Modernism and the avant-garde, the historic avant-garde's often repeated ambition of bringing art and life together, and what constitutes the failure as well as the success of those movements. While the hopes of the historic avant-garde of permanent transformations of the social world were not rewarded, avant-garde ideas, slogans, strategies and aesthetic methodologies of the Futurists, dadaists and Surrealists have found a permanent place in the cultural 'history' by having entered the endless recycling relationships of contemporary culture via popular culture. Slightly different the case, then with Modernism, because it never had, or purpoted not to have, such a strong social agenda, yet here the name of the art movement is identical with the name of an age: modernity. In this respect, Bürger asks the fascinating question about the aging of modernity and how we became postmodern (or not).

1. 1. Bürger P . 
   2001.  Das Altern der Moderne : Schriften zur bildenden Kunst.
   
2. 2. Bürger P . 
   1984.  Theory of the avant-garde.
   

In this text a collection of notes on the book Bauhaus (1999), by Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend (editors) and in particular the introduction Bauhaus - geschichtlich by Andreas Haus, is used as a starting point for further reasonings about the ideas and motivations of the historic avant-garde in general and Bauhaus in particular, and why that matters for contemporary practices. Key issues are the development of arts and arts and crafts within an increasingly industrial economy, art/-isanal working methodologies and relationships with science and new technologies, and the notion of the artistic or artisianal community as a driver of social change.

The phenomenon of "peer to peer", or "P2P" file-sharing over the internet is a transglobal expression of techno-social relations. We could say the same about other popular domesticised forms of internet usage, such as email, searches, blogging and photo sharing. However, P2P is different, like the 'special' child who doesn't really fit in with the rest of the family.

Writuals for Writing:

scents, sounds, objects - to help get into the zone