Lazzarato’s Political Onto- Aesthetics (original) (raw)

The original title was "Machines that Crystallize Time: Perception and Labor in Post-Fordism." The manuscript was then rewritten and published in Italian as Videophilosophy: The Perception of Time in Post-Fordism in 1997, the same year as his Immaterial Labor: Forms of Life and the Production of Subjectivity. 1 Of course, Lazzarato is best known internationally for his concept of immaterial labor. However, while this latter book is more a treatise on contemporary political economy, Videophilosophy is a book of speculative philosophy that can be understood as providing the conceptual ground for Lazzarato's work as a whole and, especially, for his recent forays into the politics of art. As such, Videophilosophy lies at the heart of Lazzarato's conceptual apparatus and is therefore the book that most clearly distinguishes him philosophically from his peers. His singular intervention into the recent conversations concerning post-Marxist political ontology as well as the politics of aesthetics is ultimately connected to his reliance on Henri Bergson and x