CHRONICLES OF WORK – LECTURE BY MAURIZIO LAZZARATO

Since autumn 2011, the Akademie Schloss Solitude has been addressing the theme Chronicles of Work, centered around an extensive interdisciplinary discussion on changes in modern and contemporary work organization and their consequences for society. From January until June 2013, four internationally renowned scientists from the fields of economy, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and sociology will approach these issues in their lectures. 

Following the first two successful lectures by Akseli Virtanen (theorist of new political economy) und Alan Bass (psychoanalyst) around the main topic Chronicles of Work, the sociologist Maurizio Lazzarato will talk about the working and living conditions of freelance journalists, artists and stage technicians. 

Thursday, March 21, 2013, 8 pm
Maurizio Lazzarato, Paris/France
»Sur les formes de travail a-typique et précaire à partir de l’expérience des Intermittents du spectacle« (About the atypical and precarious forms of the work of freelance artists)

»In that respect we don’t acknowledge any distinction between ordinary time and work time.  Such distinctions are alien to us. « Franz Kafka, The Castle

»Nowhere else had K. ever seen one’s official position and one’s life so intertwined as they were here, so intertwined that it sometimes seemed as though office and life had switched places.«  Franz Kafka, The Castle

In his presentation, Maurizio Lazzarato talks about the working and living conditions of freelance journalists, artists and stage technicians, who are in constantly interrupted employment relationships. His insights are based on the research he conducted in France for the group Coordination des intermittents et précaires d’Île de France from 2009 until 2011. The talk deals with time management and the need to be constantly reachable, the proletarianization and the intrusive control exercised by the institutions that manage unemployment benefit and the Revenu de Solidarité Active* (RSA) as well as the special situation of freelance artists and journalists that sometimes need to live from RSA. According to Maurizio Lazzarato, those precarious facts offer a much more accurate picture of todays work and working conditions than the statistics released by official institutions.

* Revenu de Solidarité Active (literally: income by active solidarity) is a social contribution in France. This minimum income amounts to a little more than 400 Euro per month and is distributed to unemployed people who do not receive unemployment benefits.

Maurizio Lazzarato is a sociologist and philosopher. He works as a free researcher on the themes immaterial work, fragmentation of the working society, ontology of work, cognitive capitalism and postsocialistic movements. Furthermore, he participates in the actions and reflections of freelance artists of the group Coordination des intermettents et précaires d’Île-de-France (CIP-IDF) and leads a research project on the status of freelancers. He is co-founder of the journal Multitude and published Umherschweifende Produzenten. Immaterielle Arbeit und Subversion (1998) together with Antonio Negri and Paolo Virno.

Contact: Patrick Ritter, +49-(0)711-99619-134, par@akademie-solitude.de
Admission: 8 Euro /  6 Euro reduced