Beside the introduction by Sandro Droschl and Denise Sumi the publication consists of a poem and a closing commentary by contemporary German author Jörg Albrecht. While “The Availability of Things“ is an endless stream about having, achieving, success, gain, possession, and so on, “How to Love Beyond Survival” tells us of the anxiety about the expiry of these things and dismantled relationships. The last text can be read as a metaphor for “network fatigue,” a certain aversion and tiredness of the availability of things.

As Jonathan Crary notes in his recent publication, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep, the transient flux of compulsory and disposable products within the contemporary technological culture should not be read as a sequence of significant, “revolutionary” turning points with the appearance of every new product. Rather, he sees this form of contemporary progress as the calculated maintenance of an ongoing state of transition, as a relentless capture and control of time and experience intended to manage and control human beings.

In the publication Timothy Barker has retained the discussion of a “So-Called User”. In an attempt to reconceptualize the user as “bodied forth” by his/ her connection to the world of new media technology, he starts with a quote from Alfred Whitehead to show how his speculative philosophy offers media theorists a way to re-think digital temporality and its repercussions for a “becoming” subject.

With the kind permission by philosopher Armen Avanessian and Andreas Töpfer we were able to include the book “Metanoia: Speculative Ontology of Language”, an excerpt of their fantastic poetic experiment “Speculative Drawing. 2011–2014.”

Besides, the publication includes the exhibition documentation and the Artist Inserts, which were commissioned specifically for this publication.

Here you can find the free online version of the publication