“And: Phenomenology of the End”

Join us on Friday, September 30 at 7:30pm at e-flux for the lecture “And: Phenomenology of the End,” by Franco “Bifo” Berardi.

Everywhere we see signs of exhaustion and collapse. The end is everywhere, but this is only an illusion, because things never stop concatenating, so the end is replaced by the endless replication of the “and.” Simultaneously however, conjunction is replaced by connection. This shift from conjunctive to connective sensibility is the subject of Berardi’s recent book, and of this lecture. What happens to the aesthetic and erotic perception of the world as experience is replaced by simulation? How does this connective mutation reframe the legacy of history

Franco “Bifo” Berardi is a contemporary writer, media-theorist and media-activist. He founded the magazine A/traverso (1975–81) and was part of the staff of Radio Alice, the first free pirate radio station in Italy (1976–78). Like other intellectuals involved in the political movement of Autonomia in Italy during the 1970s, he fled to Paris, where he worked with Felix Guattari in the field of schizoanalysis. He has been a contributor to Semiotext(e), Chimerees, Metropoli, Musica 80, and Archipielago, and he’s currently writing for the monthly LINUS.

Berardi’s publications include Le ciel est enfin tombé sur la terre (Paris, 1978), Mutazione e Ciberpunk (Genoa, 1993), Cibernauti (Rome, 1994), Felix (Rome, 2001, and London, 2009), Generacion Postalfa (Buenos Aires, 2007), Skizomedia (Rome, 2005), La fabrica de la infelicidad (Rome, 2000, and Madrid, 2004), and El sabio el guerrero el mercader (Madrid: Aquarela, 2006), The Soul at Work (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2009), After the future (Oakland: AK Press, 2012), and The Uprising (Semiotext(e), 2012), and the recent books HEROES (London: Verso Futures) and AND: Phenomenology of the end (Lost Angeles: Semiotext(e)), both published in 2015. 

Berardi teaches Media Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, and has lectured in many universities around the globe.

We look forward to seeing you on East Broadway. For those of you unable to join in person, the event will be broadcast live here.

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.