it was good to see Naomi's article - and that it is up on the alytusbiennial site - it expands on the debates around the art strike and looks to ways forward which is very much welcomed by us.

we have some thoughts on this - and on the similarities and differences between us and Tiqqun.

instead of "similarities" and "differences" maybe we should say points of WAHDAT and KATHIRAL.

in fact Tiqqun would say "singularity" and "multitude" where we would say "union" and "multitude".

we have of course argued against the idea of singularities when addressing Bifo previously
http://antisystemic.org/SW/AntiFuturist.pdf

i should add that we use "we" in the same way as tiqqun - as a position. but for me the slipage between i and we must be allowed to be made as we move in the trimension of Class, from Letter to Name to Nation/narration and to Situation.

but the main point i want to make is about the idea of invisibility and disapearence. Naomi looks mainly i think at documentation and its comodification. but it must be added that "performance art" and indeed recent developments of cybernetics have shown that even without documentation there is comodifiction. of every essence of humanity.

what Tiqqun and the concept of Human Strike cannot do is dissapear themselves before they make their call to dissapearence. just like the Lettrist manifesto heralds the end of words through words - ie the manifesto itself never makes it to the level of pure letters – Tiquun appear in order to appeal to dissapearence.

We can call this the cult of personality. many times in political and indeed artistic contexts we are urged not to take this personally.

an article on Wu ming covers the methods of attacking this cult of personality - charting the use of the general intelect by Bordiga to Luther Blissett:
http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/ConquerTheAnonymous.pdf

However we must add that by concentrating on the art strike and not the union of workers, Naomi ends up repeating the myths of cultural capital that also Wu Ming fall prey to.

We hold the position that it is only by organising as workers across all industries that we can overcome Capital. therefore our own adoption and inventions of our own names of workers unions is neither a strategy of anonymity, disapearence or capitalisation.

our intention is to create workers power. and unlike Tiqqun this is not to be restricted to locality in space. Tiqqun's failure to address time and class in their organising (talking only of localism in space) means that they (maybe not consciously so ) attempt to universalise in time and class. for us workers power is to be global in space, time and class.

The human strike therefore requires organisation in class – by reproductive workers unions - as well as in time - by linking up with the future as well as the past struggles. only then can it be realised also locally in space as well as in union with other workers all over the world.


Damtp X

I greet Naomi with the approach and I see human strike rather as striking the very core of the capitalist alienation well expressed in the slogan rised by eurocentric bourgeoisie as it sounds: „we are all humans“ (or famous „everybody is an artist“). I see the myth of cultural Capital to be based on those foundations. Proletarian strike makes troubles for Capital while bourgeoisie has nothing to strike except their own level of commodification (but indeed they treat the later as becoming a human). So we call for the General strike against treatment of human as abstraction and in a form of workers multitude what erodes Capital and hurts bourgeois mentality in singularities.

DAMTP-ABRACADABRA-C