Revenge Capitalism | Max Haiven Interviewed by Marc Garrett

Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, & the Settling of Unpayable Debts, 2020, is Max Haiven's most recent publication to date. Capitalism is in a profound state of crisis. Beyond the mere dispassionate cruelty of 'ordinary' structural violence, it appears today as a global system bent on reckless economic revenge. Its expression is found in mass incarceration, climate chaos, unpayable debt, pharmaceutical violence, and the relentless degradation of common life. In Revenge Capitalism, Max Haiven argues that this economic vengeance helps us explain the culture and politics of revenge we see in society more broadly. Moving from the history of colonialism and its continuing effects today, he examines the opioid crisis in the US, the growth of 'surplus populations' worldwide, and unpacks the central paradigm of unpayable debts – both as reparations owed and as a methodology of oppression. For this conference, Marc Garrett, co-director of Furtherfield (UK), interviews Max Haiven about his book discussing how its themes, ideas, and social contexts, relate to our everyday and cultural experiences and what this means.

SPEAKERS

Max Haiven is Canada Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice at Lakehead University in Northwest Ontario and director of the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL). He writes articles for both academic and general audiences. He is the author of the books Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons (2014), The Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity (with Alex Khasnabish, 2014) and Cultures of Financialization: Fictitious Capital in Popular Culture and Everyday Life (2014). His latest book, Art after Money, Money after Art: Creative Strategies Against Financialization, was published by Pluto in Fall 2018. His book Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts will appear in May 2020.

Marc Garrett is co-director and co-founder, with artist Ruth Catlow of the arts collective Furtherfield, beginning on the Internet in 96. Furtherfield has two physical venues, a gallery and a Commons lab, both situated in the park, in Finsbury Park, London. Co-founder DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab, an arts, blockchain & web 3.0 technologies research hub for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now - http://decal.is/ Has curated over 50 contemporary Media Arts exhibitions, projects nationally and internationally. Curated the renowned major exhibition Monsters of the Machine: Frankenstein in the 21st Century, at Laboral, Spain. Main editor of the Furtherfield web site. Written for various books and articles about art, technology and social change. Two key Furtherfield publications include co-editing of Artists Re:Thinking Games with Ruth Catlow and Corrado Morgana 2010, and recently on Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain with Ruth Catlow, Nathan Jones and Sam Skinner 2017. State Machines: Reflections & Actions at the Edge of Digital Citizenship, Finance, & Art. Edited by Yiannis Colakides, Marc Garrett, Inte Gloerich. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2019. Will be publishing another book in 2020 called, Frankenstein Reanimated: Conversations with Artists in Dystopian Times. Just ended his Phd at the University of London, Birkbeck College.