The Oil of the 21st Century - The Poverty of the Small Author
In the age of digital reproduction, the problem of the “small author” remains: as the problem of the Intellectual Proprietor and his or her material reproduction, but also, and more importantly, as a problem of a specific political mentality. Among the many possible modes of production and subjectivation, the figure of the “small author” - who is always already deprived from the fruits of his hard labor, either by “the industry” or by “the pirates” - may be the most unfortunate one. But for the masses who know that they will never be part of a thriving global middle class of Intellectual Proprietors, there are other options. Not to entrench themselves against technological progress, but to radically embrace it: to explore new forms of collaboration and production beyond traditional authorship, to employ the most advanced methods of digital reproduction, and to reaffirm the instability of property relations.
The Oil of the 21st Century / oil21.org
English / 01:48:42 / 813 MB / Ogg Theora