the semio-something of communism

I should declare that I had a good time at the Italian Effect conference, and thus differentiate myself from predictably dour activist judgements of such things. But that’s as much as I’ll side with Ned Rossiter, whose whacky paper on “processual democracy” seemed like an unnecessarily theoretical elaboration of plain old reformism.

(Rossiter, with both this paper and his earlier arguments that Aboriginal people should seek sovereignty in the intellectual property rights arena because they’re not getting far in the human rights field, seems to be returning to the cultural policy morass of the 90s, in which theorists eargerly greased the wheels of government bureaucracies by reading Foucault in a completely depoliticised way. It was a docile fascination with the processes of governmental co-option, and about generating flashy new vocabularies for mundane things like betrayal. In any case, partisanship aside, I find the intellectual energy of such endeavours stunningly misplaced at the very least.)

Highlights? I loved Paul waving his hands in the air, raving about how Italy in the 1970s was “a really heavy scene, man,” and delivering hyperbolic slogans about the power of P38 pistols. Ilaria Vanni’s wonderful paper on San Precario, the Milanese “patron saint of precarious workers”, suggested some intensely interesting things to me about temporality, the Benjaminian relation of theology to historical materialism, and non-teleological notions of community’s arrival. I really do think that when Benjamin says, “every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter,” he’s actually talking about escaping the self-fulfilling prophecies of both Stalinist and social democratic temporality, towards an approach to activity in time that manifests the virtual, enabling new collectivities and subjectivities. By detourning religiosity through the playful creation of a new patron saint, the activists behind San Precario have created a system of symbols for which ideological readings are irrelevant. Despite the manifest content, San Precario’s appearances and interventions are neither about reviving religious traditions, nor a pointless joke, but point towards the generation of unknown futures — the real tasks of communism.

A great quote from Bifo: “When you’re walking down the street, or talking, you’re producing semio-… something.” But the best line all weekend was from Melissa Gregg: “I’m going to stand up to deliver my paper, so if you don’t really care about what I have to say, you can just check me out”.

It was lovely to finally meet people like Az and Steve, whom I’d only known online, and to catch up with so many comrades. You know, it really is true: when you face down mounted police together, there’s a connection forever. For me, at least.