Research Colloquium on ‘Crowd Dynamics and Financial Markets’

Research Colloquium on  ‘Crowd Dynamics and Financial Markets’

Seminar with Anna Gibbs, University of Western Sydney

‘Rhythm and Algorithm: Affect Contagion in the “24/7” of Cognitive Capitalism’

9 September, 3–5 pm, Porcelaenshaven 18B, Room 3.135

Jonathan Crary identifies one of the key features of cognitive capitalism as the disruption of diurnal rhythms and their replacement with a seriality that mitigates any form of sociality, and argues that this is continuous with a shift from production to financialisation. Examining the relationship between the concept of rhythm, the idea of the refrain, the problem of attention and the orchestration of affect contagion, this paper explores the nature of rhythm in the age of the algorithm and speculates about the changing forms of subjectivity and sociality that accompany the shift (if it is one) from a society of discipline to one of control.

Anna Gibbs is Associate Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Focusing on affect theory, her work traverses the fields of textual, media and cultural studies, and takes creative as well as scholarly forms. Her current Australian Research Council funded project, ‘Creative Nation: Writers and Writing in the New Media Cultures’ (with Maria Angel, UWS and PI Joseph Tabbi, University of Illinois, Chicago), is establishing a database of Australian digital media writers and writing, and, through the CELL consortium, working to achieve interoperability between similar databases worldwide.

Organised by Professor (mso) Christian Borch, cbo.lpf@cbs.dk