SonjaLavaertand PascalGielen of Art TheDismeasure

An interviewwith PaoloVirno

In his home town Rome,Italian philosopherPaoloVirno talks with philosopherSonjaLavaertand sociologistPascalGielenabout the relation between creativitY and about and today'seconomics, forms exploitationand Possible Virno is known for of resistance. his his analysisof Post-Fordism; of view that the disProPortion artistic standardsruns parallel to however,is new to communism, the philosophyof art. He believes and social resistance aesthetics meet in a questfor new forms. Political art or not, the contents hardly matter.
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Theart u,orldhes displaAed d arid intel.cst in yo10 1totko.t)e1lhe pastJelr !ed1s; 'c allrseLues arc het? to intetl)ie1r .!to Jot att aft magazifte.Yet!ou't)eInNIA lrTi1tcna lJthingc.tplicitly about or1. Wharedo lou lhiltk this inlerest in uour u)ot* coDLcs It's true. I sometimesget invited to talk about arl at confercnces or seminarsorganizedby art academies and that always embarrassesme a little, as if there has bcen sone mistake,becausemy knowledgeof modern aft is actually very limited. I think that people involved in art being interestedin my work has somethingto do with a concept I use,namely 'virtuosity'. In my opinion, this concepl is thc common ground betweenmy political and philosophicalreflec tion and the field ofart. Vifiuosity happensto the anist or performer lvho, after perfomring, does not leavea work of art behind. I have used the experienceof the performing,viftuoso artist not so rnuch to make statementsabout art, but rather to indicate what is typical of political action in general.Political action does not produce objects. It is an activity that does not result in an autonomousobiect. What strikes me is that t{xlay work, and notjust work for a publishing conpany, for televisionor for a newspaper,but all prcsentday work, including the work done in the Volkswagenfactory, or at Fiat or Renault,tends to be an activity thal does not rsult in an autononous'work', in a produced object. Ofcourse the Volkswagenfactory cranks out cars, but this is entirely subject to a systemof automatic mcchanizedlabour, while the duties ofthe individual Volkswagen factory workers consist ofcommunication that leavesno objects behind: of this t}.I)eofvirtuoso activity. I seevirtuosity as a model for post-l'ordist work in general.And there is morc: what strikes me is that the earliesttwe of virtuosity, the one that precedesall others,precedesthe dance,the concerl, the actor's performanceand so on, is t!?ically the acti\'ity of our human kind, namely the use of language. llsing human languageis an activily that does not result in any autonomousand renaining 'work'; it does not end in a matedal result, and this is the lesson De Saussure, Chomskyand Wittgenstein taught. Post-Fordistwork is virtuoso and il becamcviri.uosowhen it becamelinguistic and communicalive. wlral.do I think about an? The only art of which I have a more than superficial knowledgeis modern and contemporarypoetry. I think that the expeience of avanl-garde aft including poetry in thc 20th century is one of dispropoftion and of'excess', of lack of moderation.Grcat 20th-centuryavant-garde aft - and poetry in particular - from Celanto Brecht and Montale.has demonstrated
The D isineaslo'e ol Arl 7i)

the crisis of experientialunits of measure.It is as if the platinum metre bar kept in Paris to definethe standardlength ofa metre suddenlymeasurcd90 or ll0 centimetres.This emphasison immod_ eration, dispropoftion and the crisis in units of neasure is to be art and this is also where il edgesup credited greatly to avant-garde to communism.With regard to the crisis of measure,art is a lot like conrmunism, OII?JpoetrV. ol other afl as 10ell? Afi in general,I expect,but I kno$'poetry best lt is about dispro poftion. In addition to explainingthe crisis, poetry wants lo lind new and proporlion. Along the samelines the maior standardsof nreasure Italian poet and critic Franco Fortini has said that there is an obiecart and poetry and the tive common ground betweenavant-garde comnunist movelnent- and I do not use the term 'communist'in the senseofactual socialism.What'smore, I consideractual socialism as interpreted\r'ithin the communistparty and the SovietUnion as communism'sworst enemy. This emphasison the disproporlion or c sis of units of Nea-sure prescnt is in lhe communist movementand they are looking for new criteria, too. The expeience of the artist performer can provide us with a generalpost-Fordistmodel. Whatclogolt mcon bg 'ctisis oJ the rnit oJmeasurc'? It is as ifthe metre, the standardset to measurccognitiveand affective expcrience,no longer works. We seethe samecrisis in the fietdsof politics and history: social prosperity is no longer produced time, but by knowledge,by a geneml knowing, by 'geneml by laboLrr a result social prosperity and labout time are no intellect', and a-s longer dircctly connectcd.The new standardto measureprosperity and collabomtion. The is $'ithin the domain of intelligence,language problcn is that social prosperity is still measuredby the old standard oflabour time, while realities have changedand it is actually detcr_ mined by'general intellect'. Wc can see the samething happeningin of the okl standards the inadequacy ar1.It demonstrates 2Oth-century in the formal sphereand through the formal work of and suggests, poetry, new standardsfor the appraisalof our cognitiveand affec tive expedence.This is a point that brought lhe artistic avant-garde close to the ndical social nlovenrentand in this sensethere is a kind oI brotherhoodbetweenthe two: they would like to explain that the old standardsare no longer valid and to look for what might be new Another way to put the problem is: how can you locate a sl.andards. 74 P1e(afious Erislorce Open2009,OJo.17lA

ne$,public sphere,\4'hichhas nothing to do $'ith the state?Avantgarde art proved the impotence,the inadeqlla(y,the disproportion ofthe old standardsthrough a fornal investigation.The common ground of art and social movementsis never about content, Art that relatesto social rcsistanceis bcside the poini, or Ether arl expressing\dews on social resislan(e is not relevant,The radical movemenland avant gardepoetry touch on the fornlal invesligalion that yiclds an index of new fornls denoting new ways of living and feeling,which results in new standards.All this is far removedfrom a substantivcrclation. So Aou seconllJtt.lbnnal paml.l?l? I)o lJoulhi k lherc is a h.istoric enllllio i thisJonnal parullelisln and cotr tlLelcbc an?J inl?tac(ontent? lio beh|een and Jonn No, When it comesto (ontenl, there is no cornmonground.Them is only contact with regard to form and the quesl for forms. To me, it is purely a malter ofa formal investigation.Thc fomr ofthe poem is like the forn of a new public sphere,like the slruclure of a new idea. Looking for fornls in the ans is like looking for new standardsof what we nlay regard as society,power, and so on.

Yes,exactly, it's abollt new rules. This collapseofthe old rules and anlicipating neu' rules, evenif only formal, is where aesthetics and social resistancemeet:this is the common ground where a new society is anlicipated that is basedon'general intellect'and not on lhe sovereigntyof thc statc anymorc. I)o gou nrcan:'.riesta olganize thc standanl? It is a nutter of definingconcepts:lhe concept ofpower, ofwork, of ac(ivily and so on. [n connection$'ith aft I lr'ould like to add, and this perhapsgoeswithout saying,that after Benjaminwe cannot but wonder whal lhe fale of lechni(al ability to reprcduce is going to be- ln our presentcontext $'e need,aestheticallyand politically, a conceptof'unicity withoutthe aura'.You both know Bedamin's concepl of the unicity ofa work of art involving the 'aura',a kind of religious cult surroundingthe anwork as is for instanceevident in the caseoflhe Mo,rl /,lsrl. Beljamin points out that the aum is desl.royed by reproduction techniques:think about fillrl and photography. The problenl we face today is the problen of the singularity of experience,which has nothing to do with aum or cull. To grasp the Thc Dismcasutcel-Atl 7l'

particularity of the experiencewe need a concept of unicity without aun, for that particularily or unicity no longer has the chamcter of an aura. Nowadaysit is all about finding the relation betweenthe highestpossiblc degreeofcommunality or gcnenlity and the highest possible degreeof singula ty. In art forms, 1oo,what mattersis Iinding the relation betweenthe most generaland the nlost pafiic ular. Art is a quesi for unicity without any aura. Art alld plLilosophy.lAcetlLesame probleu? Absolutely.Philosophyis supposcdto fotmulate a critique against the universalon behalfof the general.'The conceptsof'universal' slrtrl I lvrl'r\c if r'.sr.rses t and 'general'arc constantly being mixed Thp ul,. while rheyarc in fa.l oppusiles.
'co,r Ilrt e' or 'general' is not that which we encounl er in you, in him, in me but that s ol logn hL5 '' 'lDht rl|rmh r\el h's tansliiionzl m-r !'mo!rl tuMrrxs non.n olg.ffd iN.l

passes, us. Mybrai" ]i:1,,Illlll::,liil;liilll,l,iiillllili wlrich occurs, berween

is generalyet simultaneouslyparlicular nnrd rhar n Nh .tr\e. rhe logn'xl 'sfrtnL .ls. e.h..s rh. !jl'(lish becauseit is not like yours or his: only the universalaspectsarc. Aspectsthat are equallypresentin us all are universal.'General'refers to what exists or occurs in the borderland,betweenyou and me, in the rela_ tion betweenyou, him and me, and in that sensethere is a constanl rnovementbetweenthe particular and the general.Marx's concept of just ir-s 'generalintellect' is general, the English languageis general Language serves as a model for the generalthat and not unir-ercal. only exists within a community and that cannot exist apart from the community. Our mother tongue,the languagewe speak,does not exist apart from the relalion with a community each of us has individually, r'hereas our bifocal eye sight does exist in each of us indi\,'idually, aparl from the community. There are lhings that only exisl inside relationships.When Marx speaksof'general inl.ellect, he refers to collaborationand so to somethinglike that, which only exists in the in between.This conccpt of Marrr'srefers to the gcneral good. Now I think that in modcrnity, the generalin both art and philosophyis involved in a complcx emancipatoryslruggle to get a\,r'ay fron the uni\'?rsal.This is also how I interpret'other globaliza they representthe dimensionof the tion' or 'new global' movementsr generalthat criticizes the universal.Sovereignty, on lhe other hand, is a forn oflhe universal.So the questionwe now face is: What aestheticand political experiencescan we developto transfer from destroyingthe the univercalto the generalwithout consequently par.ticular? 76

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Or take what philosopherscall the 'indiriduation principle , meaningthe valuation ofeverything that is unique and unrepeatable in oul lives. Speakingof indi\'iduation implies thal you considerthe individual a result, not a starling point. The individual is a result of a novement that is rooted in the 'commrmal'and yet is, or is becoming,parlicular. [t is Marx who, for'general intellect', usesthe term 'social individual'. We can postulatethat the geneml is sonethat exists thing pre-individual,a kind ofgeneral consciousness geneml form. This before indiliduals form, and from \ahich they pre-individualis a 'we' that exists before the different I s develop, so is ol the sum of all I's. This is also in perfect agreementwith the view on human developmentofthe Russianpsychologistand linguist Vygotsky,who was actually heavily influencedby Marrr:prior to anythingelse there exists a collective social context and only beyond and from that context doesthe child developinto a separale individual subject.Or renember the formidable discoveryof the which tells rls there is a kind 'mir-rorneurons' by lhe neurosciences, preccdes general the constitution of the sensing, an empathy that of separatesubject.The ltalian scientist Gallese,who contibuted to lhis discovery,speaksofa spacein which the'we'is centml. I think all these exprcssionsby Vygotsky,MaIx and Galleseare different ways to graspthe concept ofthe generalas opposedto the concept of the universal.I would like to highlight this contrast, which is a hard nut that both political movcmentsand arlistic researchwill have lo crack. The alliancebetweenthc generaland the singular opposesthe state and its machinery.Today, movementsthat side with the multitudes carefully anticipate this alliance:the multi_ maintain strong ties with tudes are individualswho nevertheless the general.On the other hand,the state and post Fordist society transform the generalinto the universal;they transform lhe general intellect into a sourceof financial gain and social collabomtion, and virl.uosityinto pattems and slmctures ofpost-Fordisl production. a attd politics: hou'do lJou Ret nting to the en|c(lIon betu,eett ttsto nce about 1r'hat B| i4n Holtnes cngoged art, i Jol .feelabonl Pislolettoa d ltis Ciltadclarle Fondoziotle doesot'Midtelongelo Pislolello?Ho11'do aoltJeeluboul art thal Idkesup o substanliDe politi(al slandy)inl as u'ell?Is it tel.erot ? In this context I would like to talk about lhe Situationistsand Debord,for they provide an exampleofan aftistic movement, tuming into a political I to'ttoliottale, Debordand ,5'ifura/iottiste art is an integral part ofpolitical move_ To nlc, engaged avanFgarde.
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ments,one ofits components.Political movementsuse a lot oitools, including meansof communicationlike the Internet, and politically engaged aft is one ofthose tools. It is a componentofmovements' political capital. Yet I would once againlike to underline that the most impotant effect ofart is set in the formal sphere.In that sense,even alt that is remote from political engagement touches upon the social and political reality. The two are not conflicting matters.They operateon different levels.The formal investigationproduces criteria, units of ofthe artist is a measure,whereasthe directly political engagement political specificform of mobilization. politi.cellA erqaged art is sti[Lpart Do Aou mean to saA that e1)erL connecledlo a oJ a Jon\al in1)estigation?Engagement is closeLg succes sJuLJot'mal i n Lt esti ga tio n? Yes.what I meanis that even artists who are remote from the political movementmay, through thefusearchfor new forms and expressionsand in spite ofthemselves,get in touch with the needs ofsuch a political movement,and may be used by it. Brecht as well as poets much more rcmote from social realities,like Montale,real ized a similar relation. The Situationistswere very important when they becamea political movement,but from that moment on they were no longer avant-garde aft: it's about two modes ofexistence. They clearly illustrate this double take. Before 1960they were an artistic movementrooted in Dadaismand Surrealism.afterwards making the samemistakesor they parlicipated in social resistance, gainingthe samemerits as other political activists.Another problem is that when language becomesthe main principle accordingto which social reality is organized,social reality as a whole becomes aesthetic. So rlhere r]ould lJou situate art roilhitt societgJrom a socioLogical pet spe.cline? Or pul. the olher u)aAarourtd,:What would happs i.I arl u,as cut t7r[a?J Jrorn societA? Whal sociaLroLedo Aou ascribe Io .fiction ilL societA? quip is appropriatehere. He sald Well, I think that Enzensberger's poetry is no longer found in volumes ofpoetry but scatteredover society like an effervescenttablet dissolvedin a glassof water. You will find art everywhere,even in commercials.There is no longer a monopolisticlocation for the production of art; the artistic experi' We also live in a time, the postence is molecularly disseminated. Fordist era- in which human nature has becomean economic stake.

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Every aspecl of hunun nature (ihat wc are linguistic beings,the elfect of en\ironment on the hunan species)constitutesraw mato rial for produclion. The debale about hunan nature ihat took place bet\,!eenFoucault an(l ('holrsky in Eindhovenin 1971$'as very inportant to me. This debatewas at the heart of the social lrlove merrts'delibemtionsfrom lhe moment its translationwas published in Italy. You could say both parlies $'ere &rong. Fo[cault dcnied (lhom $'herea-s there was any such thing as innate human mature, sky's concepl of this innate human nature was so rigid and detelnlill istic that he thought he could dedtlcea political progranlmefron it. I bclier this disctlssionought lo becomethe subiect of rcneu'e(l study and that wc need lo haveit again,to find new answersto contemporarf/qllestionsaboul the rclation betweenhuman nature and politics, You see,today aspectsof htm:rn natule have become One exampleis flexibility. Anthropologists sociok)gicalcategories. like Gehlcntcach that the hallmark ofhuman nature is the absence of specializedinstincts: we are the specieswithout a specific milieu Anthropolos/ usesnotions such as natural,unchangingtruth'but, parlicularly in our day and age,such natural truths havebecorne sociologic(l trulhs and the phenomenonof flexibilily and subphenomena, like migration,along with them. Another exarnple:we human beingsalways remain children. we hold on to certain child like aspectsour cntire lives, wc are chronically childlike. This, too, has always been truc but only now has lifelong learningbecomean that we are issue.Yet another examplc:the rI|eiahistoricalzrspecl highly potential creatures.ln the presenl c(}Iriext,this potential has bccornelabour power. Fron1this perspcttive \!e can spcak of biopolilics, becausebiological featureshavebccome a sociological(alegory - that is lo say, a sociologicalcategoryof capitalism.I no $'ay do I nlean to say that flexibility and capitalismare sociologicallaws got to bc organizedin ofnature. Nolhing stipulateslhat society ha-s this way, on the contrary. There is an acstheti( basecomponentin human naturc which, in thc prese l context, has be(ome an aspe(l of ccononricprodtction. Thal is why matters have to be dealt with on a f[ndamental level. The concept of labour power also includes an aestheti( component,besidea communicaliveand a linguistic a-spect. The problem ofand for arl, both intrinsi(rallyand formally, is to show this aestheti( component()[ lhe production process Does contenDorary ar.tindeed represcntthis widesprcadaeslheticdimension ofpresent-dayproduction?I cannot ansuer this question,but I componenl, (lo think it needs Humannaturc,aesthelic to be asked. post Fordism. labour power: the discussionabout ar1needslo be
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held in this conceptualconstellation.What is left of aestheticsin present day production in the collaboration and in the commumcation that havebecomeproduction power? Somethingtransformed the extraordinaryposition ofthe aestheticexpeience within society' for it is no longer extraordinary,singular and separatebut has, conversely,becomean integral part ofproduction quip (rnd the place uhere Let's go bocka litlle, to Enzensberyet''s dopssuntP lh ig t ; k P n t lis t ic o u lo n o mA P ris l ot l is produrP rl. p ln r? s p r' ic ll on g ntorr,'Do orlisli.dllu oulo n o n t o u s I think so. but not as many as there usedto be So is it still possible Jot art to remain ilisengaged?Cdn art be ,'esistcltce arLderodus? I think it can. Linking the terms I usedbefore to this question: the land of the pharaoh,from which the exodus takes place,is towards the the universal.The exodus is away from the univer"sal genenl, however this occurs among the phenomenaofthe present context. The exodusinvolves the transformationofthose very Nothing is external' there is no outside The presentphenomena. exodus occurs within post-Fodist prcduction where linguistic production and collaboration,as labour and production power' createa public dimensionthat is not identical to the dimensionof the state.It is an exodus away from the stale and its machineryand towards a new public spacethat makesuse of generalintellect and generalknowledge.During the exodus the generalintellect no longer has the power to prcduce profit and surplus valuesbut becomes a political institution. What comesto mind is the spacein which a c;ntral 'we' is a realistic basis for a new political institution l think the pre-individualdimensionand the featuresofhuman nature that post-Fordismput to work and convertedto cash (flexibility, chronigive cally childlike, no instinctive orientation or specificmilieu) also lo bul in a manneropposile us lhe upponunityIo crealenelt fol-lns. provides what what happensin today's institutions an exodusthat we can seehappeningin post Fordism with a new form' Flexibility therefore,but intelpreted as freedom The chronically childlike as prospcrily on condilionlhat il slofs lranslorming un.lerslood into the necessityto leam lifelong as describedby Richatd Sennett An exodus within the presentlandscape. lhat post'Fo|distu'$ breakthrough d$ slooaL It i6 generallA und.et a gbbal prodttctiott pri/t(iple took place in the 1960sftnd 1970s

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logethc|u,ilh lhe stud?nt|e\olls and th(, Fial stikes. Da Voll thirk thal priot to that tirne therc retc aft:os L0l tenked (s kinds aJsocial labotnto es lbr tlli.spraductionpt.ocess? yot! rcukl so!l that irnmalcr[ol labout (amn.ertced 1t,h.en Duc]tlttTp entet'cd his urinal i the Ne 'yot.k c.rltibition.Would.!o.u sulrpat.t tlLehlJpothesisthot th? laboQtories of tlle pft.s?nt post Fot(lis t att to beJbundin artistic produdion i.tsell, pa|.ticulajl! i eatl! nTod(rn rcadyfnade orl? Max Web?t shotl,cdthat the spit.il ql capilelism is (Leeplu.rooted in pl.otestanlisrtr. Cah uo.uintlicole locali.ons (of d artisli(:, rctillious ot subcull t.t1l nol.t1t.e) in socicl!/,i1t this Webcrian ar histolical sens.', pr.epat.ations 1rherc a1?b(ing rnade JiD post For.dis,tas a mental stt.u(lurc? You mean a genealogy of post,l'ordism?I !!.ouldbe very inter ested in a genealogical pempe(tir-edaling back further than the Mti0s and 1970s. I think we could regard the culture inclustq,of thc l!130s and 1940s and onwards as the laboratory for post Fordist production that anticipatedthat which was embodiedin industry in gencral in the l9E0s. What rould ?Jo1r consider exenfles o.l the lgj1s (ult:lt1? irtrlustt..ll? Radio,film . . . to me, they anticipatepost-Fordismfor tcch_ nlcal reasons:at that time, the unexpectedbecomesan indispen sableelemenl in the culture industry. The unexpectccl, which later De(omcslhe pivot ofpost,l'ordist production in the form of theJasa i,r-ai'[? invcnlory strategy.There is no culturc industry without an outside-ofthe-programne faclor. AId lhat renlinds me of \4,hat the two great philosopher so(iologists Horkheimerand Aclornowrotc in their chapter on cullure induslq, of their, ialektik d?t. Aldkl(it.uIg, culturc, ioo, becane an ind stdal se(tor and a capitalist assembly line bul one wilh a handicap,for it $as not fully rational yet. It is this handicap,not bcing able to Ioreseeand organizeevcrylhing,$,hich tums the culture industry into a post-Fordistlaboratory. The culture incluslrvis the antechamberof prescntday production techniques. For u'hal escapes programmesis, indeecl, that elcnlent of flexibility. And o[ ( ou6e I also see that anli( ipation becausethe cu]ture indus_ try's basematerialsare languageand irDaginal.i()n. TodalJ. u,asce efiisti( ?.t:pt?ssions dltd aditities simplll b(,ing s uatcd ol lltc cenl)eof posl-|.'t)rdist e(:anou.!J. TlLinkebout,.l()t. i nsl a n( e, a t l i sl i ( e,r?fessiors ill ( om Drc t.(i aIs ar (1.-e11 i s i ng bul oLso afu)uIlhc ino'ccliblc groltth el thc cultul.ator(l (,l.catit)e iltdustries.At.t,ot ttt leestctcatiuit!, has not b?ensocialllJ Ih.eDisn( asutc el-At't

8t

mafgi.nal, ujhiclL lras tto*^ Michel (te Cerledu sau then Jor a long (:tcdtlxe space Iime. yet e1)ei Witlgenslein attd lJou lJourseuplace in themaryin ot as gou call it, ort o siddtack' Miglrl the discl'ep anc!!betueenma|gin and ce tre nol be obsolele? I see creativily as diffuse, without a pdvileged centre As a no'matter what creativity, under weak leadershipifyou call call it that, havingno specificlocation, connectedto the fact that we humansare linguistic beings:art is anybody's DoescreetixitA tronsJo|m 'hen it is at the cenlre of lhe post Forrlist proiLuction sgstem?Or, rnore conclele: is there a dilfeta o'eatir)e thi .ker or afiist on(I d ueb designet'or a ence ltetT[eerL publicitl c1:pertat the centre o.flhe econonic process?Are these ttt:o kirtis o.f creatixit!, or is it about the same kind oJ 'rcatilJita? This is a complex dialectic. First' it is important to post_Fordist capitalismthat creativity developsautonomously,so it can suDsequently catch it and appropriateit. Capitalismcannot organize reflection and creativity, for then it would no longer be creativity' The form applied here is that ofthe ghetto: 'You go on and make new music, and then we will go and commercializethat new music' It is imporlant for creativity to have autonomy,becauseit forms in the oppositeof the collaborationthat is generaland consequently universal.Creativityfeeclsoff the general l would like to elucidate this through the distinction Marx madebetweenformal and real subsumptionor subiection.In the caseof formal subsumption'the capitalist appropdatesa prcduction cycle that already exists ln produc the caseof real subsumption,the capitalist organizesthe tion cycle momenl by moment Now it seemsto me that the existent post-Fordismin many casesinplies th't we have retumed to tbrmal subsumption.It is importanl for social collaborationto produce its intelligenceanclcreate its forms. Afterwards' that intelligenceand those forms are capturedand incorporatedby the capitalist' who only has no choice but to do so ifhe wants to acquirethat which can grow outside of him or outside his organization So the capitalists -want to seizeautonomouslyand freely producedintelligenceand fornrs:to realizea surplus value of course,not to realizegreater freedom tbr the People. and thereA certain degreeofautonomy or freedom is necessary fore permissible.Socialcollaboration has to bc somethingwith a in order to be productive in a certain degreeof sclf-organization capitalist manner.If the work was organizeddirectly by the capitalist, it would be unprofitable To yield a profit and be useful liom

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ihe perspcctive of the capitalist, the work needs to some extent t{) be established through solf organization. It is ditlicult to grasp this con\tex dialcctic by using thcoletical categodcs. That which is rcally produ(tive from an econonic point ol vieu. is not the sum of lhe indivirlual labourers' output, but lhe context of collaboration an(l intcraclion - provided that it lolb1r's its own logi(. of grolrth. inlcs tigalion and invcntion lo so e cxtcnt. In otherwords, theprocessis subjcct to olrr own initiativc. I1 is a (.ondition tbr my exploitation that I prqhlce intelligcnce and collabomtion, and I can only do so when I am, to some degree, frcc. So I nee(l to be granted a certain degrce of alrtonomy in order to be exploitcd. Catt lh? nlth o.f thc aulononous arlisl bc see es a (apitalist

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Firsl and foremost I ihink about thc autonomy that is functional in creating surplus value, the autononly lhat is essential to innovation and to lhe optimization and developmcnt of collab()ration. This is a patented and themfore a regulatcd autononly, *.hich is absolutely vital when labour hds becoNe linguisli( and communicative. Al that time, speaker workers must be pemritted aulonomy. In Witt gensteinian terms il is a matter of'language gancs' being used as a source ofprocluction. Language games do not.iusl exist, thcy nced 1()be devcloped and ihal is impossible wilhin a rigid structure wil.h all scntences and dialogues pre-recorded and scriple{1. Language gaNes presumc sollr degree o[ frcedorr or.aulortomy. Howevcr, I do n{)t sharc the view lhal lhe present conlexl inchldcs ntore fieedonr and prospedtv. A grinding poverly reigns in post-Fordisnt. The \4orst p{)verty you can inlagine, for it is communication skills ihenlselves that are claimed, exploited, and as capital, too. Nt) tha t 1t? a ft l a l k i n g a boul c.lpl o i l u t i() pc|haps trc n i lthl add)ass llt( ttu.slion ofhot[ lo litthl il. TodaU in Roni, v sau' postc)s displaU?d bU lh? optosition.l|alltt i g th( sbgdn 'll lanrc )tubilito. 1l ppru) iato o'. Whclh?t ar not thatc is nobilillJ i l(tboltt tclnains lo b? sk|, bul u'eall ag]c(, lhal I//. precadat is e (a dition ta at\)id, a q)itulittg c.tl[oilatio . Wc rg?ntllJ n?p(I .lb|rns ol t(sistunn,, dcrclolx'd blJ ( d lbt 'lrccariaus 1t.o)k?ts'o) prec:rri. Wrdl is lJaur lak? oI st!(lt.lamts el t?sislorrc? At.?thell, i)t kacping u.ilh irhal uou said eatli?t. lbrn6 o.l li.l.? Can thclj ht attistIc ?.tpt?ssionsas u.ell? Co lJou (onc]clizc lhis! Let's take fhe ei{an\)le of soncone who \t()rks for Italian television and radioi thousands ofpeople \!.ith an unclcar and insecure

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status . . . are being exploited. They form a so-called precarior. They have to work a lot, work hard, be inventiveand focusedall the time. They do not make a lot ofmoney, are employedfor three months and then unemployedfor six more. How can thesepeople organize? Not in the workplace:now you seethem therej now you don't. As a rule, TV and mdio'sprecdri are well-educated creative people with a lot ofcultural baggage, a dch cultural and social life: tlpical postFordist workers. However,what appliesto them also appliesto any exampleofaprcdriot, including Alitalia's. Developingforms of resistancefrom, for and by the precdd mears doing so within the very brcad context in which they live their lives. It meansinvolving every aspectoftheir lives, their place of residence, the placesthey spendtheir leisure,their communicationnetworks. You cannot organizetelevisionpeople without involving the districts they live in. You cannot abstractfrom the theatresthey visit. In short, the whole problem concernsso many aspectsand vital dimensionsthat developing a form of resistancemeansinventingnew institutions. How should I concretizethis? How do we invent new institutions? What can the forms ofresistance of the precori look like? This is of course the big X on the Europeanpolitical scene.Politics in Europe meansfinding the pr?cQ?'iolforms ofrcsistance. There is a precedent,an exampleperhapsfor this problem, in the IWW, Indust al Workers ofthe world. At the beginningofthe 20th century no one knew how to organizethe mobile migrant labourersin the USA, either. They were highly scattered,very mobile and their resistance did not look as ifit could be organized.Yet for about ten years the IWW managedto put up their seeminglyimpossiblestrugglewith some success. Their importancetherefore should not be underrated, Perhapstoday, even if they did lose in the end and get massacred. we ought to look in the samedirection, to a new kind ofunion that will find a new form of resistance. The strike no longer works. We need new lorms that are much more linguistic and creative,much more collaborative.The precori are the extreme product of the big city er?erience and ofpost-Fordist capitalism.That is why they are a foothold for the onset of reflection.Organizingthem meansorganizing lives and there is no model for that. It cannot be done without investigatingthe districts they move around in, their circuits of cultural consumption,their collective habits.The precdrj are actually the social individual, therefore they are always more than one, they are the counterpaft ofthe'general intellect'. But organizingthe social individual is very hard for, as I said, they are more than one, scattered,a brittle faction. We need research.Philosophy,including 84
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the philosophy of language, has to concem itself with the issue of what resistance forms may be developed staxtingfrom the precari. This is not a technical pioblem, on the contrary, it is an ethical matter and also an axtistic matter. It is an institutional problem. Orgax.izingthe precani witl mean flnding new institutions in the broad sense of the word and the opposite of state sovereignry. The measure of resistance today depends precisely on dedication to this m4or objective.
This is m abrtdgd vBion ol tne i.bPiew wiih Paolo Vimo. The .onpleb texr is lvailable at

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