From Biomechanics to Biopolitics On Contemporary Ways of Being -The Productive, the Urban, the Boring, and the Theatrical in the Citizen's Conformation with the Environment
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Abstract
The contemporary ways in which we operate, in an eminently urban environment, lead me to wonder whether there might be another horizon—something other than time-worn neoliberalism, the stagnant bureaucratized state, and the catalyzing vertigo of hyper-commodification. The revolutionary ways of being, both industrial and artistic, that took hold in the urban environment during the Russian avant-garde and that rendered the transformation of the political environment possible, are presented here as a model whose emancipatory potential was repressed by the USSR and, later, engulfed by the society of capital. This brief survey of four ways of being that I consider particularly relevant is conveyed through four brief biographies of Russian figures that show their relationship to the times in which they lived and provide a glimpse of the questions that, even today, they raise. The core issue here is the relationship between the citizen, in their ways of being—productive, urban, boring, and theatrical—and their dynamic co-formation with the environment.