Capitalism With a Transhuman Face

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2018, 7PM

Capitalism With a Transhuman Face

Ana Teixeira Pinto

HEAD – GenèveBoulevard Helvétique 9, 1205 Genève, seminar room 27, 2nd floor

Vaporwave, a genre that riffs on nostalgia, was appropriated by the white ethno-nationalist movement, spawning the subgenre fashwave. Fashwave combines images of Greco-Roman marbles with Tron-like grids, pastel colors and palm trees, tying the mythical origin of the white civilization to the American Dream and the tech industry.

The most salient feature of the far-right movement, which became known as the alt-right is its relation with IT, rather than with the diminished expectations of the post-industrial working class. This, I would argue, points to a new configuration of fascist ideology taking shape under the aegis of, and working in tandem with, neoliberal governance. If every rise of Fascism bears witness to a failed revolution[1], one could say that the rise of cryptofascist tendencies within the tech industry bears witness to the failures of the “digital revolution,” whose promises of a post- scarcity economy and socialized capital never came to pass. From this perspective the online cultural wars are a proxy for a greater battle around de-Westernization, Imperialism and white hegemony.

[1] This statement is usually attributed to Walter Benjamin, though it is at best an elision of his arguments and not a direct quote.