This was luck: I was invited me to contribute a text to the exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor, which examines the relationship between art and cybernetics and their intersections in the past and present, and the fantastic title gave me the chance to explore a topic that fascinates me since quite a while: The idea of technology as a way out of this world, as a tool toward a fairer, more just version of it. This comes up again and again in left-leaning theory and practice, from Walter Benjamin’s writings on art in the age of its reproducibility (in which the new technology of cinema allows the masses to understand themselves) to Afrofuturism, and, most recently, accelerationism. However, the role technology plays in anti-racist Black struggle is especially interesting. What the world can learn from Black theory and its takes on technology, is what the text Cybernetics as a Way Out of This World explores.
The catalogue Cybernetics of the Poor is about to be published as a paperback and I highly recommend it – there are some excellent texts in there from Diedrich Diederichsen, Oier Etxeberria, Alexander R Galloway, Harun Farocki, Sabeth Buchmann, and others.
English version here.
German version here.
Mercedes Bunz 