Mil máquinas

by Gerald Raunig

Tal y como afirma Maurizio Lazzarato en el epílogo a este libro, Mil máquinas logra anudar de forma innovadora el concepto de máquina (puesto en circulación por Deleuze y Guattari) con la tradición marxista que se expresa desde hace varias décadas en el pensamiento postobrerista. Emulando el clásico Mil mesetas y haciendo un uso singular de la crítica del arte y el análisis fílmico y textual (desfilan en el libro Flann O?Brien, Alfred Jarry, Franz Kafka, Vittorio de Sica, Themroc y Jacques Tati), Gerald Raunig se remite a los orígenes semánticos de una idea de «máquina» que amalgama técnica e invención, política y nomadismo, arte y teatralidad. Dicha genealogía, al modo foucaultiano, recorre las insólitas máquinas de guerra y las tácticas bélicas del engaño en la Antigüedad, el deus ex machina del teatro griego, las agresiones al naturalismo de la representación clásica burguesa ejercidas por las vanguardias históricas politizadas (ejemplificadas en el tándem Eisenstein/Tretiakov) o la deriva histórica del concepto de general intellect, para desembocar en una plétora de prácticas recientes: MayDay, PublixTheatreCaravan, Chainworkers, Noborder y bordercamps, las contracumbres del movimiento global, Yomango, Critical Mass, LadyFest y un largo etcétera. Lo que en definitiva motiva así este libro es la urgencia por indagar en las concatenaciones y agenciamientos maquínicos, en las formas creativas de organización y de acción adecuadas para poder enfrentarnos a las condiciones flexibles e inestables que caracterizan nuestra era de la precariedad.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Politics

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2008

About the author

Gerald Raunig is a philosopher and art theorist. He works at the Zürich University of the Arts, Zürich and the eipcp (European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies), Vienna. He is coeditor of the multilingual publishing platform Transversal Texts and the Austrian journal Kamion. He is the author of Art and Revolution, A Thousand Machines, and Factories of Knowledge, Industries of Creativity, all published by Semiotext[e].

Reviews

[Bernardo Moreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livro ótimo com um tópico ótimo.
Raunig é quase impecável: sua articulação com o teatro e o cinema são incríveis, as pontes entre a teoria das máquinas em D&G será extremamente importante pra minha pesquisa, as exposições sobre a máquina de guerra e as máquinas abstratas são muito bem feitas, adoro as discussões sobre a máquina teatral clássica e soviética. Outro ponto muito bom são as discussões sobre o precariado a luz do pós-estruturalismo/autonomismo em reflexão crítica com as leituras sobre o lumpen em Marx e questões de unidade de classe.
A única coisa que me impede de dar 5/5 é que, apesar de belos desenvolvimentos teóricos sobre máquinas revolucionárias, os exemplos de práxis são meio fracos. Raunig é até crítico aos efeitos das experiências que descreve, mas termina o livro louvando práticas que tem bons pontos de partida mas efeitos pouco relevantes; a práxis acaba caducando um pouco.
Mas é um ótimo livro e recomendo bastante, ainda mais como complemento do ótimo livro de Virno que li há pouco (e dei 5/5).

[Zach Irvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exploration and application of the concept of machinic production from Deleuze and Guattari. Raunig utilizes fiction, film, art, and social movements to display the multiple modes of expression of the machine and how they assemble and produce themselves. Specifically, Raunig focuses on a social group called the precariat. Workers whose world’s are precariously balanced due to economic instability, the nature of their labor, or their position in relation to the rest of society. I particularly liked the last chapter, titled ‘Abstract Machines’. It was an interesting and clear expression of what an abstract machine is and how it functions through the real life example of the precariat.

[baby · Rating 3 out of 5]

i only read the second half this book because it was for a project but it was cool and maybe ill read the beginning sometime. i dont really care about art or social movements but particularly enjoyed the chapter on abstract machines.

“I am ultimately aiming for a specific form of composition that flees, avoids, and betrays the concepts not only of the state apparatus, but also of the community. Initially this means taking up a motif here again that is found in a continuity of the terms for the composition: the machine—and this is the conventional modern notion, also Wolff’s—as compositio, as a (cunning, artificial) composition of parts that do not necessarily belong together, but at the same time also the machine according to Vitrvius’ definition from antiquity as continense material coniunctio, in other words as continuum and concatenation, as an assemblage in which parts are imagined as neither a priori isolated from one another, nor robbed of their singularity in a unit.”

[Aaron · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s fairly clear that Raunig has thought a lot about manual labor, and especially read a lot about what other writers have written about manual labor, but he hasn’t actually done much manual labor. This is very clear early on when he, relying on quotes from Marx, suggests that machines are not conceptualized for (or used for) decreasing the labor efforts of the worker, but rather as a means for producing surplus value.” Having done my share of technology-dependent manual labor, I believe Raunig has tunnel vision, and his movements through his self imposed tunnel are backward. I regularly upgrade or consider what upgrades that will both produce surplus value and ease my labor efforts (and that of my coworkers). In his strict adherence to Marxist thinking, Raunig either can’t or has never considered the thoughts of actual laborers.

[Noam Levinsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was given to me by my high school debate coach, a great friend who radically changed how I think. It's a nice little connection between straight up D&G and cybernetics. I really appreciate the reccuring imagery of a bicycle and its liberatory potential. Bicycles, while great on a practical and ecological level, are also introduced as war-machines, vehicles of nomadism that bubble with political potential. While this book didn't change my life, it made me think, and I appreciate the act of thinking.

[Jay Mathias · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know DnG texts are always obscurantist and jargony, and I usually have a tolerance. However, this one really stretched my suspension of disbelief and tried my patience.

The whole book is about ‘machines’ - the word appears on every page - but imo it took until page 92 / like 115 for a really valuable definition of what one is, what they are.

Definitely got better towards the end! & the theatre chapter was stellar, though opaque and listless at times.

[Yağmur]

Türkçe çevirisi kasten yaralamaya teşebbüs ediyor gerçekten. Ölmeden önce son cümlem “o değil de pürtüklendirme ne ya” olacak.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting discussion of machines as assemblies of social groups and the extent to which these may be used to inhibit or liberate individuals and communities. It's a Marxist analysis--so the majority of the argument deals with traditional Marxist analyses of alienating and enslaving Industrial Revolution-era machinery, and expands that analysis to highlight the ambiguous role of "knowledge work," which is creating a dispersed, unprotected labor force working at computers, but a work force that can use those same computers for organizing social protest and other activities. As a result, knowledge labor has the potential to disrupt state powers and the sense of community--collective responsibility falls at the hands of individual liberty. For better or worse.

[Cody VC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this on a whim because the first few pages hooked me and it was cheap. Maybe if I had bothered to read Foucault the book would have been more accessible, but Norbert Wiener and some others provided a sufficient background. With that caveat made, chapter three (on post-revolutionary theater in the Soviet Union) was the only one that really made me space out when it moved away from commenting on ancient Greek theater. Chapter four (on the precariat) was hard to get into as well. But the rest provided some great ideas and perspectives to mull over.

Don't read this unless you're prepared for seriously philosophical writing, however; it's dense.

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good recent secondary text for Deleuze and Guttari's (anti-oedipus + thousand plateaus). Raunig develops and historicizes the development of machines and man-machine hybrids culminating in a dicussion on abstract machines, social forms and immaterial labor from an comtemporary operismo perspective . The chapter on Theatre Machines and 20's Russian theatre is interesting as is the roman conception of War Machines in the second chapter.

The only weak point is his chapter on the identity of Precarity and specifically the development of the Euromayday protest movement in the 2000's.

[David Carrasquillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I don't totally buy the argument of machines as a social thread, this book has real depth and good arguments to respond to the work of Deleuze abd Guattari. But, when it comes to subject-creating societies, I think the author ignores important literature like Herbert Marcuse. I still am at it in this debate.

[Leo Mischle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle may well be the best part of the book. Enticing. Chapters 3 and 4, though, the least "concise" and, in my opinion, the most interesting ones, add some historical content and detail to the Deleuzian nomenclature that otherwise leads Raunig's analyses on all too known paths.

[John Deltuvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The topic may be interesting, but it is too full of elitist social science jargon, combinedwords, and made-up words to be of any use to the people they want to reach. Typical of the radical-academic set who then wonder why the average person doesn't trus

[Erdem Tasdelen · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK, now I get what Deleuze & Guattari meant by "abstract machine"... Funny how this was a mystery.