Cultural Techniques of Cognitive Capitalism: Metaprogramming and the Labour of Code

Jussi Parikka

doi:10.5130/csr.v20i1.3831

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Published: Mar 19, 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v20i1.3831

Keywords:

cognitive capitalism, Boutang, collaboration, metaprogramming

Jussi Parikka

University of Southampton

Abstract

This article addresses cultural techniques of cognitive capitalism. The author argues that to understand the full implications of the notion of cognitive capitalism we need to address the media and cultural techniques which conditions its range and applications. The article offers an expanded understanding of the labour of code and programming through a case study of 'metaprogramming', a software related organisation practice that offered a way to think of software creativity and programming in organisations. The ideas from the 1970s that are discussed offer a different way to approach creativity and collaborative and post-Fordist capitalism. The author brings together different theoretical perspectives, including German media theory and Yann Moulier Boutang’s thesis about cognitive capitalism. The wider argument is that we should pay more attention to the media archaeological conditions of practices of labour and value appropriation of contemporary technological capitalism as well as the cultural techniques which include 'ontological and aesthetic operations' that produce cultural, material situations.

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 1 (2014): Coding Labour

Section

Coding Labour (Peer Reviewed)

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