Shake and Stir: Think Tank Enthusiasm

Researcher at the Institute of Public Affairs, Chris Berg, drew my attention to a tweet by Simon Banks from Simon’s official Hawker Britton (lobbying/PR firm) twitter account: More proof that Think Tanks are Lobbyists: http://t.co/ZM2q9Kx and my article on why they should disclose their funding: http://t.co/dvbPEyj It is about the plan to create an industrial […]

Is this politics or poetry?

If politics is “the art of the possible,” what are we to make of moments when human beings living in modern societies believe that “all is possible”? We know with assurance that such moments occur, if only because those who experience them are acutely conscious of their unusual state. Speaking with tongues, they urgently record […]

Overcoming the Failures of Political Enthusiasm

Although my focus is on the composition of power relations that constitute a given scene of enthusiasm and the ways amateur labour is commodified, the other bigger project that I hope to eventually turn to (after doing my existing project justice) is the question of contemporary political enthusiasm. Hopefully this will explain why I am […]

Enthusiasm: The Existential Territory of the Challenge

For the development of “ploys” depends upon finding some method for distinguishing among practices to find those that are politically useful: how is it possible to separate out practices that “the system of products effects within the consumer grid” from those that are “art” or maneuvers by consumers in the room left to them by […]