The Age of Computational Desire:
Towards a New History of Culture in the 2020s

Instructor: Kazys Varnelis Date & Time: May 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th 14:00-16:30 ET

DESCRIPTION: By 2005 “postmodernism” had outlived its usefulness as a theoretical concept for understanding the present time. Instead, others suggested “network culture” and “metamodernism,” as new frameworks to understand a period in which the Internet became central to everyday life, culture, and economy. By 2010, it was clear to thinkers interested in the subject that network culture would last a decade, after which a new constellation would take hold.

This Seminar sketches the technological outlines of the post-COVID era. Old corporate models of network culture, characterized by the five most prominent global technology corporations, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (FAANG) are decaying, cryptocurrencies are questioned and devalued as we see the rapid rise of various forms of Artificial Intelligence that, as yet, have no capacity for inherent cognition but uncannily predict the relationship of immediately-adjacent or related elements. This Seminar probes the consequences of these transformations, tracking how the very structure of networks transformed political forms and discourses. The Seminar asks, can a new political order be constructed around these shifting technological structures? What will this new era’s markets and economies look like?

Session 1: From Postmodernism to Network Culture. Marx, Jameson, and the concept of totality
Session 2: Network Theory. Social Networks, the perils of influence, and the promises of decentralization
Session 3: Artificial Intelligences and computational desire, or Hegel and singularity
Session 4: Jackpot Theory from Dark Accelerationism to Angelicism

IMAGE: DALL.E2, Prompt: a socialist humanoid transgender robot campaigning in a large stadium full of people to be the USA president in 2040, 2022

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