Study of Systems | 16 - 17 oct
Exocapitalism is the idea that capitalism doesn't belong to us: that it works as a form, almost like an algorithm, and could keep working without us. The seminar runs through several of its core mechanisms – Lift and Fold – before turning to the concept of the Superdark Factory. Lift is capital's tendency to pull away from fixed costs, from the ground, from the sphere of human affairs. You can see it in an airline that no longer sells seats but positions in a queue, or in a telecom operator that sells its towers and keeps using them as a tenant. Fold is the process by which difference emerges without any change to the substrate – the lens through which we read the software economy. We close by introducing and discussing the Superdark Factory: a factory that determines its own objectives, the automation of automation – and what it means...