April 2009 on –empyre-
“Creativity and Postmodern Finance, or the Artifice of the 21st Century Global
Financial Implosion”
Plan on escaping the travails of finance and capital? Sure you do. We are all
creative in our orientation toward the artifice of capital. The decision to
survive requires employment of the arts of finance and capitalization,
regardless of one's subjectivity or preoccupation.
'Creativity,' from the Latin, 'crescere,' means 'I come to be,' 'I
increase,' 'I grow and expand,' etc. To be sure, some are endowed in one way or
another with more or less of something, creativity notwithstanding. And for
certain, some are more creative than others. Out of all this, what ‘comes to
be’ as humanity employs the arts of capital in the 21st century? What does our
creation obtain?
As of late, the human world is preoccupied with artisans of capital and
finance, and with good reason. Humanity is fearful that its future, we might
say, is being foreclosed upon by the uncontrollable forces of their trade. Many
cultural theorists feel that capital is an artifice. Capital is but our
creation, they say. So perhaps we need only recreate capital, and its terms, to
adjust for its errors, to render an ever better society. Others say capital is
the problem in itself. What have we caused to be, to be increased, or expanded
upon, that has led us to this spirited place?
How does our art, our artifice, from the Latin ‘armus’…art being that which
comes from our arm or shoulder…contribute to the problems or solutions of the
global meltdown? Who are the artisans? And who is the audience that goads them
onward?
Our guests:
Michael Angelo Tata is the author of Andy Warhol: Sublime Superficiality
(forthcoming in 2009).
Laurence Rickels is professor of German and comparative literature at the
University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include The Devil Notebooks
(2008), Nazi Psychoanalysis (2002) and The Vampire Lectures (1999).
Joseph Tabbi is professor of contemporary literature and technology at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Cognitive Fictions
(2002) and Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to
Cyberpunk (1995). He also edits the Electronic Book Review.
Jeff Pierce is an independent equity trader based in Canada. He is also the
editor of Zentrader.ca
Davin Heckman is Assistant Professor of English at Siena Heights University in
Adrian, Michigan. He is the author of A Small World: Smart Houses and the
Dream of the Perfect Day (2008).
Nicholas Ruiz III is a moderator of –empyre-. He is the author of America in
Absentia (2008) and The Metaphysics of Capital (2006). He is also the editor of
Kritikos.
Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D Editor, Kritikos http://intertheory.org
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