#synchronicityofparasites: the Parasite of the Commons

donderdag 28 maart 2019

the Parasite of the Commons

the trap formation process and interaction between the nematophagous fungus and a barber's pole worm

The Parasite of the Commons: Digitalism and the Economy of ‘Free Culture’

"Ultimately, the immaterial parasite is an assemblage of semiotic, technological and biological strata that extracts an energy surplus (in the form of labour as well as money or libidinal investment)”

http://files.pad.ma/beirut/Archive_Reader/Parasite%20of%20the%20commons.pdf

In: Matteo Pasquinelli, Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam and the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2008.

Synchronicity or the happening by chance of two or more related or similar events at the same time, is often positioned within the realm of parapsychology and magical thinking, or with some kind of quantum effect crossing over into the classical world.

Synchronicity can appear to point towards some kind of hidden or unknown connectivity underneath events.

In the case of #synchronicityofparasites, parasites operating as pre-conscious perceptual filters, installing a bias for meaningful events, or parasites as biological or network tricksters hiding causal links out of sight of the scientific apparatus or categories, turn the concept into another effective parasitic strategy.

In a way #synchronicityofparasites itself acts as a parasite that embodies the hidden link between all those more or less isolated parasite projects in science, art and literature and turns them into a kind of decentralized para-culture.

Many of the posts refer to a series of academic papers on parasites, parasitically appropriated and printed to a zine format.

This to promote academic writing within the format of the zine and turn the zine into a tool for (self)-education and knowledge production. But also to lift this knowledge out of its academic niche and into an active social cultural network. I feel relatively free to do so because I think that anyone promoting a positive view on parasitism cannot be too rigid about being parasited upon without contradicting themselves: In a way, the parasite incorporates its own creative commons. At the same time the library also acknowledges the precariousness involved in parasitism. Our zines are not sold for profit, mass produced or randomly distributed.

#marc_van_elburg, www.zinedepo.nl

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