Open 17
A Precarious Existence
Vulnerability in the Public Domain

For a few years now there has been an international discourse surrounding the notion of ‘precarity’ or ‘precariousness’, boosted by European social movements and philosophers such as Paolo Virno. Precarity refers to the relationship between temporary and flexible labour arangements and an existence without predictability and security, which is determining the living conditions of increasingly larger groups in society. Precarity occurs simultaneously at many places within society as a consequence of the neoliberal, post-Fordist economy with its emphasis on the immaterial production of information and services and continuous flexibility. The same is true of the creative sector: flexible production and outsourcing of work, typical aspects of the service economy, can also be seen in businesses devoted to art, culture and communication.

This issue of Open addresses precariousness in a cultural and social context and deals with such matters as the functioning of the art scene and the conditions of the precarious city and public space.

With contributions by Nicolas Bourriaud, Brian Holmes, Ned Rossiter/Brett Neilson, Jan Verwoert, Paolo Virno, Pascal Gielen/Sonja Lavaert, Gerald Raunig, Recetas Urbanas en Merijn Oudenampsen.

Contents Open 17, A Precarious Existence. Vulnerability in the Public Domain

Jorinde Seijdel
Editorial
A Precarious Existence
Vulnerability in the Public Domain
Online article

Pascal Gielen
The Art Scene
A Clever Working Model for Economic Exploitation?
Online article

In sociology, the ‘scene’ is barely taken seriously as a form of social organization, but sociologist Pascal Gielen sees the scene as a highly functional part of our contemporary networking society and thus worthy of serious research. Were the current success of the creative industry to result in the exploitation of the creative scene, however, the level of freedom enjoyed could quickly become a lack of freedom.
Online article

Nicolas Bourriaud
Precarious Constructions
Answer to Jacques Rancière on Art and Politics

In the following essay, Nicolas Bourriaud reacts to Jacques Rancière’s claim that his ‘esthétique relationelle’ is little more than a moral revival in the arts. According to Bourriaud, the significance of the political programme of contemporary art is its recognition of the precarious condition of the world. He elaborates this theme in his recently published book The Radicant.1

Jan Verwoert
I Can, I Can’t, Who Cares?
Online article

From a personally felt necessity, Jan Verwoert calls on artists to search for a new form of ethics in this pamphlet-like text. An ethics that makes it possible to adopt a different position concerning the current demand to perform that characterizes today’s culture. Acknowledging that you care about something makes it easier to make conscious decisions about whether or not you want to participate.
Online article

Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter
Precarity as a Political Concept

The emergence of precarity as an object of academic analysis corresponds with its decline as a political concept motivating social movement activity, according to Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter. But precarity as an experience has not disappeared. By interrelating its various registers and boundaries, precarity can be seen as an aspect of a common space.

Matteo Pasquinelli
The Art of Ruins
The Factory of Culture through the Crisis

Now that the financial world seems to be collapsing, writer and researcher Matteo Pasquinelli thinks the time is ripe to think about how the creative city and its gentrification processes will develop in the coming years. It’s important that this debate goes beyond the position of the art scene and the cultural industry and that it includes the ruins that the immaterial accumulation of value has left behind.

Interview
Sonja Lavaert and Pascal Gielen
The Dismeasure of Art
An interview with Paolo Virno
Online article

In his home town Rome, Italian philosopher Paolo Virno talks with philosopher Sonja Lavaert and sociologist Pascal Gielen about the relation between creativity and today’s economics, and about exploitation and possible forms of resistance. Virno is known for his analysis of post-Fordism; his view that the disproportion of artistic standards runs parallel to communism, however, is new to the philosophy of art. He believes aesthetics and social resistance meet in a quest for new forms. Political art or not, the contents hardly matter.
Online article

Column
Gerald Raunig
Speed!
Online article

Contribution by Recetas Urbanas

Brian Holmes
Marcelo Expósito's Entre Sueños: Towards the New Body
Online article

In the past few years, Spanish artist Marcelo Expósito realized a series of videos entitled Entre Sueños – his testimony of a new social conflict. Art and culture critic Brian Holmes analyses these videos and shows that, besides carrying an activist message, they illustrate the history of its artistic expression.
Online article

Merijn Oudenampsen
Precariousness in the Cleaning Business

Cleaners as the Vanguard of a New Trade Union Revival
Working conditions in virtually all sectors of the labour market are under pressure at the current time. Focusing on the developments in the cleaning industry, sociologist Merijn Oudenampsen shows how, following the American example, cleaners have successfully started to mobilize in the Netherlands and have thus given a new impulse to the revival of trade unionism.

Books

Willem van Weelden
Benda Hofmeyr (ed.), with contributions from BAVO, Hito Steyerl, Benda Hofmeyr, Erik Swyngedouw, Daniël van der Velden, The Wal-Mart Phenomenon: Resisting Neo-Liberal Power through Art, Design and Theory (Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Academie, 2008) ISBN: 978-90-72076-29-8, 160 pp, € 19.00.

Dieter Lesage
Markus Miessen (ed.), East Coast Europe (Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2008) 352 pp, ISBN 978-1-933128-49-8, € 12.00.

Gijs van Oenen
Michiel Dehaene, Lieven De Cauter (eds.), Heterotopia and the City. Public Space in a Postcivil Society (London: Routledge, 2008) ISBN 978-0415-42288-8, approx. € 100.00.

Ilse van Rijn
Daniel Birnbaum, Isabelle Graw (eds.), Canvases and Careers Today: Criticism and Its Markets (Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2008) ISBN 978-1-933128-47-4, 148 pp, € 15.00.