if hardt/negri’s assertion here is true, then it raises a few questions for me:
1) what is my responsibility as an immaterial laborer (graphic designer) to the common?
hardt also says that immaterial labor moves beyond economic to become social, cultural, political. these notions help me to recognize the multiple implications of the work that i produce. not that i’m changing the world, but contributing in small ways to people’s perceptions of their world. it helps to define what my larger societal role as a designer is and how i might expect to contribute to society. if i understand that what i produce has immediate social implications, then i can address those possibilities as part of the project. of course there is always the spectre of doubt. i certainly believe that a design artifact can be simultaneously political, social and cultural, but it seems nearly impossible to make something worthwhile what that kind of (self imposed?) pressure.

2) what does my internal desire to claim an idea as my own say about my relationship to the common?
i personally love and identify strongly with the ideas of both the multitude and the common that the multitude shares. at the same time, i recognize my internal desire for recognition, which stems from pride. even within a collaborative setting i sometimes find myself trying to recall who came up with the initial idea that generated the product, even as i recognize the uselessness and pettiness of that effort. it has been necessary to remind myself that it is not important who generated the idea, but that it was generated; it is out in the world ready to be taken in by others, mutated, improved, distilled into something more. we can recall meredith’s claim as to why a phd program is important -- that much new design knowledge is proprietary (i would say ‘belonging to empire’) and we need public knowledge (for the common). and hey, if meredith and michael hardt are on the same page, who can argue with that?

3) how and where does the common knowledge base intersect with empire’s ideas of intellectual property?
obviously a big topic and one that will keep cropping up. right now i feel that the desire to claim intellectual property rights is a product of pride -- my personal issue mentioned above. i am in disagreement with this policy not just because pride is bad, but because the notion of a proprietary idea seems to run counter to the notion of contributing openly to society. it amounts to token contribution, and tokens (money) are needed to access the idea, effectively rendering it unavailable to the underpriviledged. i admit much ignorance in this specific area, outside of these course readings, and perhaps i am polarizing and simplifying the debate too much. right now it seems like a major ideological chasm between empire and multitude.

4) what are the implications of a reduction in the qualitative divisions within labor?
my first thought on this is the notion of interdisciplinary collaboration, not unlike what michael schmidt discussed last week. but if you reduce qualitative divisions of labor, doesn’t that suggest that boundaries between jobs are blurring, that others will soon know more about design, that i will begin to learn more about other disciplines? i believe this is true, and is already happening. ncsu design undergrads are sometimes double majors, or have a strong minor at least. it seems smart to develop multiple interest areas that will facilitate collaborative environments.

The concept of multitude also influences traditional concepts of audience. Moving from an understanding of a group as many of the same to a group of unique individuals with common goals really forces designers to rethink design strategies or to rethink how design functions. Rethinking our voice, as arbitrator to the multitude or facilitator between groups should have some strong implications for how design functions. I am not sure right now how that changes design and design communication strategy but thinking of groups as disparate members with common goals seems pretty different than how many conceive of design today. The way I think design is largely practiced is thinking of audience as people or masses, not really as multitude. I’m curious to know how others think designing for multitudes changes the equation.

It's not that I can't appreciate the extremes to which the Yes Men are willing to visit to subvert the WTO and Corporate America—at least on some levels, but my skepticism shoots into high gear when the activism is so militant that it inevitably wreaks of hypocrisy just by way of having nowhere else to go. In addition to the shirt clip, there is also the (small) matter of the film having been funded by
UA and MGM, and the PCs being used for the construct of the powerpoint presentations. I like the subversive use of the very products one is commenting on as tools of the commentary, but it quickly becomes a blurry line, yeah?

BTW, there has been a thesis on the Yes Men
(source: IMDB.com)

However, if one is to find some positive end to this verrrrrrrry frightening expose on the inanity of our world/corporate leaders and their willingness to go along with the absurdity of what was presented to them, I guess it's found in the classroom in Plattsburgh, where the students spoke up very loudly in protest & opposition to what was being suggested to them. Perhaps the future isn't so bleak after all?

(In this post I will be responding to Hardt's article "Why We Need a Multilateral Magna Carta" http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/04/11/1722238&mode=nested&tid=8) along with some international news headlines.)

For me, the revelation of the global becoming local is made evident in the images and stories of destruction and despair in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This tragedy has happened within our own borders, not but a few states away. In a city I have visited. (I always have sympathy for rest of world) but it is now so much more real when I see it at the local. Our governments bureaucracy and general indifference bears all responsibility for the excessive death-toll and super-dome chaos and I see no other excuse than its rampant march towards globalization and absolute free market policies.

And the media, is the willing coconspirator. For example, look to the skewed headlines of "looting" committed by African American's vs. the "finding of food" done by caucasians. An article in ZMag (http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=05/09/03/1346217&mode=nested&tid=8) articulated this racially biased and material oriented connection to globalization, stating "it was property before people, just like the free marketeers always want."

Often I project globalization out into the world. But I think Hardt's concepts on the multitudes is equally applied to our own boarders. The Hurricane aftermath has revealed to the rest of the world the true state of fragility in the US. The emperor has no clothes. The waters have revealed what the U.S. normally so adeptly keeps hidden from world view; that of her own desperately poor population and its general indifference to them. A reporter from Kenya's Daily Nation said "My first reaction when television images of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans came through the channels was that the producers must be showing the wrong clip. The images, and even the disproportionately high number of visibly impoverished blacks among the refugees, could easily have been a re-enactment of a scene from the pigeonholed African continent."

Katrina's aftermath (specifically the government's non-response to protect and take care of its people) is a manifestation of the neoliberal agenda. I see this agenda, not as a struggle of US over the 3rd world. But the power of capitalism over humanity. Corporations over the poor. In New Orleans, the poor were ill-served, locked up, ignored. Criticized for not heeding the warning. But I ask, how can you evacuate when you have no car? What hotel would they afford? To me this is a local visualization of Hardt's message that "economic exclusion and marginalization of large populations are indication(s) of the failure and unsustainability of the neoliberal regime." Thus, the imposition of the neoliberal regime has been made evident through the disposability of human lives (and land) in New Orleans. And still, even after this disaster, the US government continues with its "go it alone" attitude.

And lets not ignore the government's globalization crusade against the environment and its dire conseqences. The issues that normally reside in the macro sphere of global warming has once again reaped consequences all too local. In New Orleans the broken levies and eroded wet lands are a direct result of harmful environmental oversight and the intensity of the storm has direct correlations to warming ocean current. Yet the government continues to remain aggressively opposed to progressive measures like the Kyoto Treaty. It was known for years that the levies would not hold back a large scale Hurricane, yet legislation was never passed to reinforce it. In fact the government recently passed laws to "divert" funds. Hardt states that our global monarch is "unable to pay for its wars, maintain peaceful order and, moreover, provide the adequate means for economic production." As a reflection of Hardt's statement, last week Switzerland's Le Temps paper surmised that "The sea walls would not have burst in New Orleans if the funds meant for strengthening them had not been cut to help the war effort in Iraq and the war on terror..." A newspaper in Colombia commands, "It is now urgent that the world's leaders take heed of nature's warning, look at the evidence and realize that the climate, on a global scale, is changing. This is already known from scientific reports, but they continue to ignore it, to play it down, or not to care about it." The rest of the world sees the correlation, but not the US. After the storm, the government's primary concern was opening its oil reserves and lessening its environmental standards.

Could an immaterial workforce find it's metaphorical place in New Orleans? Providing the necessary "affective" and "intellectual" labor that is so necessary before- during- and after- these times of crisis? We now have proof that this global monarchy can not (or will not) protect the people in a time of crisis. The myth of homeland security is shattered. At this moment people are angry - but for how long I don't know. So I hope that if the "multitudes" truly are the future that this forced suffering will not be replayed in the aftermath of future natural and/or man-made disasters.

The notion of the people is like a series of dots (or data points, or molecules) constantly moving in sync in space. They're (it's?) like a supersolid in that way. The multitude, on the other hand, is a set of molecules all moving in various directions and with various velocities (and constantly changing).

From afar, the two will appear quite similar: a fairly even gray. You address too great a reality and must utilize averages. It's when you look closely that you can assess the instructive differences.

This hints at the importance of the scale at which you measure something. There is an anecdote that I've encountered when reading (I forget what, I think it was Stephen Jay Gould referencing another source)... The length of the coastline of Cape Cod is contingent upon the fineness of your measuring stick. If you take an accurate map, and calculate the length at scale, you will get quite a different result than if you were to focus in to the point that you're wrapping your line around individual rocks (or grains of sand). The latter measurement will profoundly exceed the former; yet both could be said to be true.

It seems to me that when Hardt refers to biopolitical production apart from that which is generated by the “state of exception”, inherent in and fundamental to this production of resistance is a shift in our way of thinking. If this is the case, I ask how can we move beyond our current, limited understanding of what is implied by the word “freedom”, for example. One could argue that, in light of the feebly contested reauthorization of the Patriot Act, there are many who will cling to a hollow concept, even as all evidence indicates that the rhetorical use of that concept has been misleading. Those who might see themselves within the multitude, instead remain comfortable within a culture of fear.

Although Hardt states that Multitude is not a utopian vision, it nonetheless seems a highly optimistic one. The greatest obstacle to this vision is not the spirit or content of the message, but discovering a viable way of disseminating the message. When we speak of Mao, for example, are we considering the intentions of the person, the little red book, or the less than desirable outcomes of the cultural revolution? My point is that any idea can be misunderstood or misused, especially when it is reduced to a buzz-word. I’m sure Hardt dreads the day “Multitude for Dummies” appears on bookstore shelves. Yet how else will an awareness of the possibility of Multitude reach people of drastically different educational backgrounds?

Unfortunately, the kind of distorted patriotism we see today is attributable, in part, to the work of immaterial laborers. There will always be forces which serve to create divisions between those who look to network outside of existing, conventional systems, forces which seek to prevent immaterial laborers from becoming aware of commonalities between them. Furthermore, immaterial laborers themselves will continue to do their part in perpetuating myths of exaggerated difference. Hardt points out that we begin to look at all social relations through the matrix of war when we live in a society which is perpetually engaged in war. Yet, there is also the historically transmitted presence of fear. Only effective education dispels irrational fear and replaces it with awareness.

How will networking become something different than the kind with which we are most familiar—that which occurs within the strata of class? After all, if i only put my words on-line to communicate my ideas, i have narrowed my audience significantly. If I use a broad vocabulary, i have narrowed it even further. I correlate education and class here because the two are so often closely related. The book Multitude will be discussed more among those who have the time and the ability to read it, for example.

Again, all of my statements here are based on the assumption that the project of the Multitude necessitates a shift in our way of thinking. Continuing with that assumption, are there those who would cynically attempt to exploit the project of Multitude, even while understanding its greater purpose? My cable internet provider comes to mind… Beyond accessibility, there is also the issue of choice. Will those who are comfortably enjoying the fruits of their investments ever make a decision to reacquaint themselves with what Hardt refers to as the poverty of labor?

Having posed these somewhat cynical questions, I am in agreement with most of what I have read thus far. The prospects for graphic designers within Multitude seem exciting. We have to carefully consider the role that we play, however, as Hardt proposes that “the subordinated are often the most creative agents of a linguistic community, developing new linguistic forms and mixtures and communicating them to the community as a whole”.

certainly a "hot" issue in practice these days is less-hierarchical, collaborative process. the "network" is also showing up in design writing/content -- with blogs, wikis, etc; even published writing has taken on a "thought experiment" tone which seems to include the reader. this influence also speaks to the unpopularity of the Rand-mold Art Director in progressive practice, the death/decline of the Big Idea school, and the proliferation of events like "roundtables" and "breakout sessions" at conferences.

this would seem to be an organic shift in professional values that is interesting not so much in terms of how design affects the global, but an abstract reverse. as will put it, "we are the fish who do not know we are wet."

meredith is fond of saying that design has long appropriated the language of war; i find it interesting that (structurally at least), the profession is mirroring the recent evolution of military structures outlined by hardt/negri. i don't mean to suggest anyone has directly appropriated these structures(*). physics teaches us that similar forces on similar objects will yield similar location; the same "global" forces are having effects not just on economic/political/military structures, but on the very nature of our profession, and the structures, tools and methods we use.

during our discussion to date, we have tended to frame the "global/local" in empirical terms, looking at services, products and consequences more than structures; how design can behave/make more responsibly and ethically to affect Massive (or Micro) Change. to those ends, perhaps there is something to learn from studying the unconscious behaviors which may already be in motion.

= = = = = = = = = = =

*: though, i'd bet their origins can be traced to the Wired/Fast Company view of "new" business in the 90's, which thomas frank might argue did consciously take much from rebellion.

Questions:
1. Is this process organic or synthetic? Is it conscious and planned or does it just exude of its own accord, according to logics that can’t easily be mapped ahead of time? What role would design play, if any, if design implies rationality, planning and an authoritative response? Obviously these are leading questions.

Is it not difficult to “make” authoritatively as a designer, without having a foundation to which one must retreat to maintain that authority? This foundation would seem to necessitate the taking of sides, either within or beside, lest ones goals become ambiguous and one’s position ambivalent.

2. Thoughts on this?

Questions:

3. Thoughts on our potential post-subversive period in design, the visual culture political activism?

4. Leaving aside my first question above, how would one design for this “beside” space?

5. Given Michael Schmidt’s admission two weeks ago that his new role as “Designer as Facilitator” is shaped largely by new digital technologies, what is the computer’s place in constructing this space of beside “already” for designers?

6. How does the computer, having in some ways, already “beaten us” to this new political frontier get at the larger issue of cybernetics and prosthesis that Michael Hardt brings up in his Immaterial Labor online article cited by Amber above?

I’m going to posit that Will’s term “beside” refers to the affective, cultural, and therefore immaterial “products” or rather “potential” that every corporation generates (in addition to their physical/rational gadgets, gizmos, doodads and so forth). And this being said, the category of “beside” is larger and more important that the physical “excess” that a corporation generates which makes the “beside” more of a real and consequential contribution to society.

I wholeheartedly believe that the example of film-maker who comments on the value of the shirt-makers product by promoting its’ use in his/her film, is a phenomenon that is completely organic. This belief is ABSOLUTE to me, even if both of these seemingly disconnected bodies are owned by a huge conglomerate like Viacom that forces cross-promotion among all of it’s children companies. If Viacom forces Paramount to promote the new SpongeBob car trinket in the current kids’ movie, it doesn’t mean the public will desire it any more or any less.

See, the shirt maker company can strive to reach as much of the market as possible, but it can in no way design whether the product will be respected and then remediated successfully, authentically, striking a chord among the consumer population. And further, the “shirt” story could devolve and no one would or could plan that either. What I mean is that the shirt, via the movie exposure, could become so high in demand, that the factory can’t accommodate for its’ spiked sales, which in turn, could cause total consumer rage, which would then be satirically documented by any number of authoritarian periodicals destroying all equity and all allegiance to the shirt maker and his/her body of products.

This association between the two variables can be good or bad. But it is in my opinion, a roll of the die.

Where does design fit in all of this? Can this process be rationalized? Honestly, I feel like those questions are akin to asking, can response to product be controlled? And see, people like Al and Laura Reis would like us to think so. But come on! We (the 12 of us) smirk with derisive laughter at such outlandish claims! I don’t fault their enthusiasm for going global, not at all. But even I find fault with their colonial-style manifesto that reads like a list of assumptions, simplifications and empty promises. I like what they are saying about branding and such, but not how they say it. The how in this case, is the design…

One last idea about this organic, mutating “besideness”… involves kids. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about them for thesis and I’m positively convinced that they know more about networking, fractioning, riffing, spliffing, mixing, matching and other various “beside” issues than any of us could ever hope to understand. They don’t really produce anything, instead they comment, critique, conform, ignore, distribute, repeat, etc…And for them, it’s purely organic. I’m not talking about products and advertising, I’m talking about communicating. One person is in fact many people in one crossing many boundaries many times. And today, more than ever before, “beside” is no design, it’s survival.

Some excerpts that I found relevant follow...

Sorry to take so long to enter the blog. I found our discussion a few weeks ago really interesting. I've continued to think about design and how it relates to immaterial labor more generally. In fact, last weekend I was having a similar discussion with graduate students at York Univ in Toronto and I was trying to explain to them how designers are the paradigmatic workers of immaterial production, how they directly create experience. All that just to say, our discussion has stayed with me.

I read through what you all had written in the blog, some of it before I came over to Raleigh. I found it really interesting, from Katrina and the Yes Men to William Morris. But I didn't immediately have any direct responses.

Have you continued to think about it?

Tomorrow I'm going up to DC for the anti-war demonstration and I'll be back in a few days.

Michael