Power Play

I awake from a dream of my boss reading my notes. I remember feeling violated, but it was okay, they said, because they have the right to. And while I knew that soon no one would have any privacy or autonomy, everyone was continuing on, feeding more information into the datasphere.1

(Bend. Stretch. Reach. Repeat the exercises of your days, like this, like this, like this. Hand over fist. Relay Breath. Gesture, Letter openers probe the slit, extract our accrued lives. Bend. Stretch. Like this. Like this. That’s right. Looking good.)

Anxious to Make. Twenty-five drawings of the Sharing Economy by Citizens of Oakland, CA, USA. The Future of Work. 2016.

My mind goes all vacuous and empty.

I wonder, is this is the worst case scenario?

What is the best case scenario?2

*

I have dinner with my dearest friends. We gossip, we discuss literary criticism and social theory. We plan our weekend getaways.

After dinner, I walk through the city along Ponsonby and Karangahape Road. Toy flowers blow up cartoon streets. Crepuscular light creeps through the trees and paints the path with pool light veins.

I think about my freedom to walk through the streets of Auckland City.

I think about those who are languishing in prison.

I think of my sister in state care, before she died, age fifteen.

I think about my family and friends who are working three jobs just to pay the interest on their loans.3

I think about how 2050 New Zealand will be one giant cybernetic prison funded by the Department of Corrections. Ecosystems may collapse, and the cities will be Reduced to Dust.4

Tiqqun. This is Not a Program (Semiotext(e), 2011). 17.

Why is it easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine changing the world?

*

I work for a billion dollar tech company.

My labour is outsourced. Most others who I work with are predominantly immigrants or people of colour.

All the bosses are Pākehā.

After work I walk up Lambton Quay and the Terrace. Faceless suits are coming towards me from every direction. I see one of my bosses, who nicknames the only young, blond colleague in the office “Lunchbox”. He smiles at me and my insides crawl. All the store fronts are clad in plastic flowers and Christmas tinsel.

Is this the best that we can do?

A friend told me there was a little light on their computer that flashed every time they went on social media at work.

Anxious to Make. Precarious Life 2.0, 2017.

We grow so paranoid and our frame of mind becomes so overwhelmed that it is difficult to see from behind this fog.

*

What is something you have done for money?

Shame is what I feel when I lose control.

Shame is what I feel when I don’t reach my quota.

Shame is what you feel after being fucked on quaaludes by some artworld cohort who’ll pretend it never happened. Shame is what you feel after giving blowjobs because your friend wants coke.5

“Prestige stands between the masses and a revolt against their class enemy. The aura of magic, glamour, luster and splendid performance covers the fascists like a protective layer of fat.”6

Disgust is a marker of how people maintain a level of social acceptability

And i felt dirty

*

I had a dream I was named Brian Townsend and everyone took me seriously.

I reckon you could be the CEO of a company. They will just hand you the keys lol #privilege

“Do you ever wonder who among us will go to prison? Who will be relegated to informal, precarious labor? Whose benefits will be cut, whose food stamps canceled or insufficient? Who will be evicted? Who will be unable to get health care, to get hormones or an abortion?”7

When you refer to structures, to systems, to power relations, to walls, you are framed as blaming others for the situation that you have got yourself into.

Why is it that we can understand something only if we can see ourselves in that position?

“To have a body and be a member of some groups can be a death sentence.”

“You should have tried harder.”

The violence of this sentence.

This sentencing.8

*

“TO BECOME A POLITICAL SUBJECT EACH BODY MUST SUBMIT TO THE MACHINERY THAT WILL MAKE IT AS SUCH: it must begin by casting aside its passions, endowing itself instead with interests, which are much more presentable and, even better, representable. In order to become a political subject, each body must first carry out its own autocastration as an economic subject. The political subject will thus be reduced to nothing more than a pure vote, a pure voice.”9

TO CREATE THE ULTIMATE DEPOLITICIZED SOCIETY.

The violence that we face daily on our way to work, on our way home, and in our home has been internalised and neutralised.10

Because the men who hold power will never willfully relinquish from it. They will defend it by every means possible. Because those in power will never relinquish it, it needs to be removed from them.11

A fire set inside a smashed shop window in Manchester during the London Riots.

As Audre Lorde reminds us, THE MASTER'S TOOLS WILL NEVER DISMANTLE THE MASTER’S HOUSE.

*

Collectivisation is a political process. If heteronormativity, colonialism, capitalism and patriarchal values form the material of a wider system of oppression, we must work together in order to dismantle them. This is to crush everyone under the weight of this reality. BECAUSE WE CANNOT ISOLATE OUR POSITION WITHIN STRUGGLES, we need to foster and establish collectives that stem, not from our backgrounds or disposition, but out of our experiences.

EVERYTHING WE WRITE WILL BE USED AGAINST US12

This does not matter. The artist simulates reality, and crushes the system under the weight of its reality. We thought that they would protect us. We were told to say yes. We thought that we deserved this. We were accused of lying.

It seems we are yet to become human. But this is not a rehearsal.

They have described this moment so many times before.

And now we can live it.

Notes

Bryant, Tisa. “Home Training to Crash Pad.” In Kraus, Chris, and Sylvère Lotringer. (eds) Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2001.
Wang, Jackie. “2015 PEN World Voices Festival Opening Night: The Future is Now”. 2015. Accessed 11/04/2018 →
Ibid.
Ibid. Appropriated from Jackie Wang’s PEN Series talk to the context of New Zealand.
Kraus, Chris. “The Exegesis”. In I Love Dick. Semiotext(e). 1997.
W & TCH. “On the Recent #Occupations ” LIES: A Journal Of Materialist Feminism. 2012. 118. →
Ahmed, Sara. “Selfcare as Warfare”. feministkilljoys. 25th August 2014. Accessed 6 April 2018. →
Jackson, George 1990. Blood in My Eye. Black Classics Press. Baltimore, MD. 47.
Tiqqun. This is Not a Program (Semiotext(e), 2011).
Gibson, Jasmine. “Fire This Time ” LIES II: A Journal Of Materialist Feminism. 2015. 154. →
Tiqqun, Galloway, Alexander and Smith, Jason. Introduction to Civil War. (Semiotext(e), 2010).
LIES Collective. “Editorial Note”. LIES: A Journal Of Materialist Feminism. 2012. 11. →

Bibliography

Ahmed, Sara. “Selfcare as Warfare”. Feminist Killjoys. Accessed 6 April 2018. →
Anxious to Make. The Future of Work. V2_Lab for the Unstable Media. 2016.
Anxious to Make. Precarious Life 2.0. 2017. Accessed 6 April 2018. →
Bryant, Tisa. “Home Training to Crash Pad.” In Kraus, Chris, and Sylvère Lotringer. (eds) Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2001.
Gibson, Jasmine. “Fire This Time ” LIES II: A Journal Of Materialist Feminism. 2015. 154. →
Jackson, George 1990. Blood in My Eye. Black Classics Press. Baltimore, MD. 47.
Kraus, Chris. “The Exegesis”. In I Love Dick. Semiotext(e). 1997.
LIES Collective. “Editorial Note”. LIES: A Journal Of Materialist Feminism. 2012. 11. →
Tiqqun. This is Not a Program (Semiotext(e), 2011).
Tiqqun, Galloway, A. and Smith, J. Introduction to Civil War. (Semiotext(e), 2010).
W & TCH. “On the Recent #Occupations ” LIES: A Journal Of Materialist Feminism. 2012. 118. →
Wang, Jackie. “2015 PEN World Voices Festival Opening Night: The Future is Now”. 2015. →