[BTF-Announce] REMINDER: BtF reading group WEDNESDAY Jan 23 and other events

[Breaking The Frame]

1. Breaking the Frame/New Lucas Plan reading group Jan 23.

2. Jetpacks, Robots and the Radical Politics of 
Technology, A day workshop Jan 27.

Breaking the Frame reading group

The second in our series on Mike Cooley. We'll 
look at a couple of 
<http://breakingtheframe.org.uk/breaking-the-frame-reading-group/>chapters 
from his new book Delinquent Genius. Please note 
that the book is very easy reading, so don't be 
daunted. The reading group will be on the fourth 
Wednesday of the month, ie Jan 23, 7:30pm in the 
lobby at Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG 
(there are sofas in a quiet area outside the bar where we can meet).

Jetpacks, Robots and the Radical Politics of 
Technology, A day workshop – 11:00-16:30 Sunday 
27 January 2019, The Common House. Unit 5E, 5 
Punderson's Gardens, London E2 9QG


Technology appears as either promise or threat – 
the rise of the robots means either a fully 
automated luxury future without work, or 
basically the Terminator film franchise. Where 
the left was dominated by a pessimistic vision of 
technology in the not too distant past, the 
current moment is one full of visions of life 
after work as technology does all the toil and, 
to top it off, solves climate change without us 
having to change anything else. In both visions, 
technology is this thing out there, separate from 
us; either a machine to enslave us or one to liberate us.

But is this all there is to a radical politics of 
technology? How else can we understand the world 
and the complex of machines, algorithms and 
technologies we live with and through?

It is vital that we free our imaginations from 
the grip of capitalist realism (the idea that 
capitalism is the only option for organising 
society), and picture possible future worlds and 
the role that technology will play in them. But 
we must also keep our imagined worlds grounded in 
social and economic realities Not forgetting, for 
example, that we are living on a planet with 
limited natural resources, or that we have to 
consider how to make our imagined futures real.

At this one-day workshop of facilitated 
discussions we will explore some areas within the 
radical politics of technology: ways of 
understanding technology in the context of the 
labour process; how technology relates to 
ecological concerns; how it has been shaped by 
the social and economic relationships of 
capitalism and other hierarchical societies; and how we can shape it in future.

We will continue a discussion begun at an earlier 
event, Techno-Fantasies and Eco-Realities 
[<https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/techno-fantasies-and-eco-realities/>https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/techno-fantasies-and-eco-realities/] 
– although if you missed that one, don't worry, 
this one will have a stand-alone agenda. We 
intend to get down to specifics, with sessions on 
particular types of technology, some historical 
examples and some key debates within the politics of technology.


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