Raqs Media Collective

There are many theses of "vanguards" playing on the ambiguity of modernity. But here i propose a thesis on "rearguard". This should be seen as a cultural-practical conceptualization that is working on an idea of history that takes the residue seriously and has the ability to see the fire of a pyre, not just the ash and burnt wood.

"Rearguard" takes the offensive of capital as given. The mad and dynamic expansion and intensification is given. It is not amazed or disoriented by it. Nor does it need corpses and debris in higher numbers to prove that same point over and over again. It takes the world of euphoria and cruelty for granted. It knows that it is important to not only interpret but also to change the world and also that an unexamined life is not worth living. It works between these knowledges. It acknowledges both these impulses and then decides how to act and think.

(Scratchy notes, being still thought through)

Three meanings of the word Incremental from the dictionary:
# The process of increasing in number, size, quantity, or extent.
# Something added or gained: a force swelled by increments from allied armies.
# A slight, often barely perceptible *augmentation*.

Here, proceeding from augmentation:
Augmentation: Barely perceptible and then the question of force swelled.
There are a few more similar words like accession, accretion, accrual, accrument.

We have, on the one hand, a kind of an acceretive process - a growth. But there is also a sudden force of appearance - an imperceptible yet sudden visibility. (it will be important to probe into this suddenness of appearance, this slight paradox of impercebtible/visible)

Lets take this as one end of a polar point. The other end of the pole can be seen as the plan - a design before growth, a footprint before the foot.

Over the last years, a lot of discussion has happened around information, new technologies and social deployment - together assuming a narrative of information ecology. The North is supposed to be info rich and South info poor. The term 'digital divide' becomes a self evident term.

On the one hand contemporary reality is of increasing brutalities. Rising counts of suicides, dislocations, and evictions. On the other, these images (and here). I would think that slowly a new way of 'being' in highly un-equal social realities and arrangements is taking shape. A new psychological profile is emerging. Also, we are witnessing a dismantling of some earlier held assumptions.

Recently we were part of the Leonardo/SFAI Digital Salon where we spoke of "The Strange Destiny of Open Source in the Nation State" and Steve Cisler talked of Piracy.

Some thoughts that have arisen after the quite impassioned discussion that evening around piracy, how it is constituted and how to think it beyond a simple anxiety of the loss of property: