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Irit Rogoff

FREE

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Ð Who wants to know?

Ð I want to know.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Ð What do you want to know?

Ð I donÕt know!

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAt some point last year I proposed within myinstitution, Goldsmiths, University of London,that we develop a free academy adjacent to ourinstitution and call it ÒGoldsmiths Free.Ó Thereactions to this proposal, when not amusedsmirks at the apparently adolescent nature ofthe proposal, were largely either puzzled Ð ÒWhatwould we get out of it? Why would we want to doit?Ó Ð or horrified Ð ÒHow would it finance itself?ÓNo one asked what might be taught or discussedwithin it and how that might differ from theintellectual work that is done within ourconventional fee-charging, degree-giving,research-driven institution. And that of coursewas the point, that it would be different, not justin terms of redefining the point of entry into the

structure (free of fees and previousqualifications) or the modus operandi of the work(not degree-based, unexamined, not subject tothe stateÕs mechanisms of monitoring andassessment), but also that the actual knowledgewould be differently situated within it. And thatis what I want to think about here, about thedifference in the knowledge itself, its nature, itsstatus, and its affect.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe kind of knowledge that interested me inthis proposal to the university was one that wasnot framed by disciplinary and thematic orders, a

knowledge that would instead be presented inrelation to an urgent issue, and not an issue asdefined by knowledge conventions, but by thepressures and struggles of contemporaneity.When knowledge is unframed, it is less groundedgenealogically and can navigate forwards ratherthan backwards. This kind of ÒunframedÓknowledge obviously had a great deal to do withwhat I had acquired during my experiences in theart world, largely a set of permissions withregard to knowledge and a recognition of itsperformative faculties Ð that knowledge does

rather than is. But the permissions I encounteredin the art world came with their own set oflimitations, a tendency to reduce the complexoperations of speculation to either illustration orto a genre that would visually exemplify ÒstudyÓor Òresearch.Ó Could there be, I wondered,another mode in which knowledge might be setfree without having to perform such genericmannerisms, without becoming an aesthetictrope in the hands of curators hungry for thelatest ÒturnÓ?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHeads will surely be shaken! The notion ofÒfreeÓ is currently so degraded in terms of thefree market, the dubious proposals of the newÒfreeÓ economy of the Internet, and thehistorically false promises of individual freedom,that it may be difficult to see what it might haveto offer beyond all these hollow slogans.

e - f l u x j o u r n a l # 1 4 Ñ m a r c h 2 0 1 0 I r i t R o g o f f

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Student occupation of Vienna University AudiMax, ÒFree Student Places,Ó ÒOccupied,Ó October 2009.

Crowded streets of Vienna Ð 60,000 school students strike on April 24, 2009.



Nevertheless, the possibility of producing someinterrogative proximity between ÒknowledgeÓ andÒfreeÓ seems both unavoidable and irresistible,particularly in view of the present struggles overthe structures of education in Europe.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe actual drive towards knowledge andtherefore towards some form of expansion andtransformation seems far more important thansimply a discussion of the categories it operateswithin. In order to attempt such a transition Ineed to think about several relevant questions:ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ1. First and foremost, what is knowledgewhen it is ÒfreeÓ?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ2. Whether there are sites, such as thespaces of art, in which knowledge might be moreÒfreeÓ than in others?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ3. What are the institutional implications ofhousing knowledge that is ÒfreeÓ?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ4. What are the economies of ÒfreeÓ thatmight prove an alternative to the market- andoutcome-based and comparison-driveneconomies of institutionally structured

knowledge at present?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊEvidently, en route I need to think about thestruggles over education, its alternative sitings,the types of emergent economies that mighthave some purchase on its rethinking, and,finally, how ÒeducationÓ might be perceived as analternative organizational mode, not ofinformation, of formal knowledges and theirconcomitant marketing, but as other forms ofcoming together not predetermined by outcomesbut by directions. Here I have in mind someprocess of Òknowledge singularization,Ó which I

will discuss further below.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊObviously it is not the romance of liberationthat I have in mind here in relation to Òfree.ÓKnowledge cannot be Òliberated,Ó it is endlesslyembedded in long lines of transformations thatlink in inexplicable ways to produce newconjunctions. Nor do I have in mind the romanceof Òavant-gardeÓ knowledge, with itsoppositional modes of ÒinnovationÓ as departureand breach. Nor am I particularly interested inwhat has been termed Òinterdisciplinarity,Ówhich, with its intimations of movement and

ÒsharingÓ between disciplines, de facto leavesintact those membranes of division and logics ofseparation and containment. Nor, finally, and Isay this with some qualification, is my main aimhere to undo the disciplinary and professionalcategories that have divided and isolated bodiesof knowledge from one another in order topromote a heterogeneous field populated byÒbodiesÓ of knowledge akin to the marketingstrategies that ensure choice and multiplicityand dignify the practices of epistemologicalsegregation by producing endless newsubcategories for inherited bodies of named andcontained knowledge.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThere is a vexed relation between freedom,individuality, and sovereignty that has aparticular relevance for the arena beingdiscussed here, as knowledge and education

have a foothold both in processes ofindividuation and in processes of socialization.Hannah Arendt expressed this succinctly whenshe warned that

Politically, this identification of freedomwith sovereignty is perhaps the mostpernicious and dangerous consequence ofthe philosophical equation of freedom andfree will. For it leads either to a denial ofhuman freedom Ð namely, if it is realizedthat whatever men may be, they are neversovereign Ð or to the insight that thefreedom of one man, or a group, or a bodypolitic, can only be purchased at the priceof the freedom, i.e. the sovereignty, of allothers. Within the conceptual framework oftraditional philosophy, it is indeed verydifficult to understand how freedom andnon-sovereignty can exist together or, toput it another way, how freedom could havebeen given to men under the conditions of

non-sovereignty.1

And in the final analysis it is my interest to getaround both concepts, freedom and sovereignty,through the operations of Òsingularization.ÓPerhaps it is knowledge de-individuated, de-radicalized in the conventional sense of theradical as breach, and yet operating within thecircuits of singularity Ð of Òthe new relationalmode of the subjectÓ Ð that is preoccupying mein this instance.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAnd so, the task at hand seems to me to be

not one of liberation from confinement, butrather one of undoing the very possibilities of

containment.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhile an unbounded circulation of capital,goods, information, hegemonic alliances,populist fears, newly globalized uniformstandards of excellence, and so forth, are someof the hallmarks of the late neoliberal phase ofcapitalism, we nevertheless can not simplyequate every form of the unbounded and judgethem all as equally insidious. ÒFreeÓ in relation toknowledge, it seems to me, has its power less in

its expansion than in an ultimately centripetalmovement, less in a process of penetrating andcolonizing everywhere and everything in therelentless mode of capital, than in reachingunexpected entities and then drawing themback, mapping them onto the field of perception.

STRUGGLES

In spring and autumn of 2009 a series ofprolonged strikes erupted across Austria andGermany, the two European countries whoseindigenous education systems have been hardesthit by the reorganization of the Bologna Accord;smaller strikes also took place in France, Italy,and Belgium.2 At the center of the studentsÕprotests were the massive cuts in educationbudgets across the board and the revision ofstate budgets within the current economic


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climate, which made youth and the working classbear the burden of support for failing financialinstitutions.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe strikes were unified by common standson three issues:ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ1. against fees for higher educationÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ2. against the increasing limitation ofaccess to selection in higher educationÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ3. for re-democratization of the universitiesand re-inclusion of students in decision makingprocessesÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊNot only were these the largest and mostorganized strikes to have been held by schooland university students since the 1980s, but theyalso included teachers, whose pay had beenreduced and whose working hours had beenextended, which, after considerable pressurefrom below, eventually moved the trade unions totake a position.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe concerns here were largely structuraland procedural, and considering all that is atstake in these reorganizations of the education

system, it is difficult to know what to privilege inour concern: the reformulation of institutionsinto regimented factories for packagedknowledge that can easily be placed within themarketplace; the processes of knowledgeacquisition that are reduced to the managementof formulaic outcomes that are comparableacross cultures and contexts; ÒtrainingÓreplacing ÒspeculatingÓ; the dictation of suchshifts from above and without any substantiveconsultation or debate. All of these aresignificant steps away from criticality in spaces

of education and towards the goal that allknowledge have immediate, transparent,predictable, and pragmatic application.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe long, substantive lines that connectthese struggles to their predecessors over thepast forty years or so, and which constituteÒeducationÓ as both an ongoing political platformand the heart of many radical artistic practices,are extremely well articulated in a conversationbetween Marion von Osten and Eva Egermann, inwhich von Osten says of her projects such asÒreformpauseÓ:

Firstly, I tried to create a space to pause, tohold on for a moment, to take a breath andto think Ð to think about what kinds ofchange might be possible; about how andwhat we might wish to learn; and why thatwhich we wished to learn might be needed.I guess, in this way, both Manoa FreeUniversity and ÒreformpauseÓ sharedsimilar goals Ð not simply to critique theongoing educational reforms and therebylegitimize established structures, butrather to actively engage in thinking aboutalternate concepts and possible change.

Secondly, there is a long history of studentstruggles and the question arises as towhether or not these are still relevant todayand, if they are, how and why? The recentstudent struggles did not simply originatewith the Bologna Declaration. Thegenealogy of various school and university

protests and struggles over the past fortyyears demonstrates that we live in an era ofeducational reforms which, since the1960s, have led to the construction of anew political subjectivity, the Òknowledgeworker.Ó This is not just a phenomenon ofthe new millennium; furthermore, manyartistic practices from the 1960s and 1970srelate to this re-ordering of knowledgewithin Western societies. This is one of themany reasons why we so readily relate tothese practices, as exemplified by

conceptualism and the various ways inwhich conceptual artists engaged withcontemporary changes in the concepts ofinformation and communication.3

All of this identifies hugely problematic and veryurgent issues, but we cannot lose sight of thestatus of actual knowledge formations withinthese. When knowledge is not geared towardsÒproduction,Ó it has the possibility of posingquestions that combine the known and theimagined, the analytical and the experiential,

and which keep stretching the terrain ofknowledge so that it is always just beyond theborder of what can be conceptualized.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThese are questions in which the conditionsof knowledge are always internal to the conceptsit is entertaining, not as a context but as a limitto be tested. The entire critical epistemologydeveloped by Foucault and by Derrida rested onquestions that always contain a perception oftheir own impossibility, a consciousness ofthinking as a process of unthinking somethingthat is fully aware of its own status. Thestructural, the techniques, and the apparatuses,could never be separated from the criticalinterrogation of concepts. As Giorgio Agambensays of FoucaultÕs concept of the apparatus:

The proximity of this term to the theological

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dispositio, as well as to Foucault'sapparatuses, is evident. What is common toall these terms is that they refer back tothis oikonomia, that is, to a set of practices,bodies of knowledge, measures, andinstitutions that aim to manage, govern,control, and orient Ð in a way that purportsto be useful Ð the behaviors, gestures, andthoughts of human beings.4

So the struggle facing education is precisely thatof separating thought from its structures, astruggle constantly informed by tensionsbetween thought management andsubjectification Ð the frictions by which we turnourselves into subjects. As Foucault argued, thisis the difference between the production ofsubjects in Òpower/knowledgeÓ and thoseprocesses of self-formation in which the personis active. It would seem then that the struggle ineducation arises from tensions betweenconscious inscription into processes of self-

formation and what Foucault, speaking of hisconcerns with scientific classification,articulated as the subsequent and necessaryÒinsurrection of subjugated knowledges,Ó inwhich constant new voices appear claimingthemselves not as Òidentities,Ó but as events

within knowledge.5 The argument that IsabelleStengers makes about her own politicalformation has convinced me that this is aproductive direction to follow in trying to map outknowledge as struggle:

My own intellectual and political life hasbeen marked by what I learned from theappearance of drugs usersÕ groups claimingthat they were Òcitizens like everyone else,Óand fighting against laws that wereofficially meant to ÒprotectÓ them. Theefficacy of this new collective voice,relegating to the past what had been theauthorized, consensual expertiselegitimating the Òwar on drugs,Ó convincedme that such events were Òpolitical eventsÓpar excellence, producing Ð as, I discovered

afterwards, Dewey had already emphasizedÐ both new political struggle and newimportant knowledge. I even proposed thatwhat we call democracy could be evaluatedby its relation to those disrupting collectiveproductions. A ÒtrueÓ democracy woulddemand the acceptance of the ongoingchallenge of such disruptions Ð would notonly accept them but also acknowledgethose events as something it dependedupon.6

Knowledge as disruption, knowledge as counter-subjugation, knowledge as constant exhortationto its own, often uncomfortable implications, areat the heart of Òstruggle.Ó The battle overeducation as we are experiencing it now does notfind its origin in the desire to suppress these but

rather in efforts to regulate them so that theywork in tandem with the economies of cognitivecapitalism.

ECONOMIES

The economies of the world of knowledge haveshifted quite dramatically over the past ten tofifteen years. What had been a fairly simplesubsidy model, with states covering the basicexpenses of teaching, subsidizing homeschooling on a per capita basis (along withprivate entities incorporated in Ònot -for-profitÓstructures); research councils and foundationscovering the support of research in thehumanities and pure sciences; and industrysupporting applied research, has changed quitedramatically, as have the traditional outlets forsuch knowledge: scholarly journals and books,exhibitions, science-based industry, the military,and public services such as agriculture and foodproduction. Knowledge, at present, is not onlyenjoined to be ÒtransferableÓ (to move easily

between paradigms so that its potential impactwill be transparent from the outset) and to inventnew and ever expanding outlets for itself, it mustalso contend with the prevalent belief that itshould be obliged not only to seek out alternativesources of funding but actually to produce these.By producing the need for a particular type ofknowledge one is also setting up the means of itsexcavation or invention Ð this is therefore aÒneed-basedÓ culture of knowledge thatproduces the support and the market throughitself.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSo, when I speak of a ÒfreeÓ academy, thequestion has to be posed: if it is to meet all theabove requirements, namely, that it not be fee-charging, not produce applied research, notfunction within given fields of expertise, and notconsider itself in terms of applied Òoutcomes,Óhow would it be funded?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn terms of the Internet, the economicmodel of ÒfreeÓ that has emerged over the pastdecade initially seemed to be an intensificationor a contemporary perpetuation of what hadbeen called by economists, the Òcross-subsidyÓ

model: youÕd get one thing free if you boughtanother, or youÕd get a product free only if youpaid for a service. This primary model was thenexpanded by the possibilities of ever increasingaccess to the Internet, married to constantlylowered costs in the realm of digitaltechnologies.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA second trend is simply that anything thattouches digital networks quickly feels the effectof falling costs. And so it goes, too, for everythingfrom banking to gambling. The moment acompanyÕs primary expenses become thingsbased in silicon, free becomes not just an optionbut also the inevitable destination.7 The cost ofactually circulating something within theseeconomies becomes lower and lower, until costis no longer the primary index of its value.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA third aspect of this emergent economic


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Free International University event program for Documenta 7, June 1982. PressebŸro der Documenta GmbH Klaus Becker, Photo by DietmarWalberg, Bild-GFDL.



model is perhaps the one most relevant to thisdiscussion of education. Here the emphasis is ona shift from an exclusive focus on buyers andsellers, producers and consumers, to a tripartitemodel, in which the third element that entersdoes so based on its interest in the exchangetaking place between the first two elements Ð aninterest to which it contributes financially. In thetraditional media model, a publisher provides aproduct free (or nearly free) to consumers, andadvertisers pay to ride along. Radio is Òfree toair,Ó and so is much of television. Likewise,newspaper and magazine publishers donÕtcharge readers anything close to the actual costof creating, printing, and distributing theirproducts. They're not selling papers andmagazines to readers, theyÕre selling readers toadvertisers. ItÕs a three-way market.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn a sense, what the Web represents is theextension of the media business model toindustries of all sorts. This is not simply thenotion that advertising will pay for everything.

There are dozens of ways that media companiesmake money around free content, from sellinginformation about consumers to brand licensing,Òvalue-addedÓ subscriptions, and direct e-commerce. Now an entire ecosystem of Webcompanies is growing up around the same set ofmodels.8

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe question is whether this model of aÒfreeÓ economy is relevant to my proposal for afree Òacademy,Ó given that in an economic modelthe actual thing in circulation is not subject tomuch attention except as it appeals to a large

public and their ostensible needs. Does thismodel have any potential for criticality or for anexchange that goes beyond consumption?Novelist, activist, and technology commentatorCory Doctorow claims that

thereÕs a pretty strong case to be made thatÒfreeÓ has some inherent antipathy tocapitalism. That is, information that can befreely reproduced at no marginal cost maynot want, need or benefit from markets as away of organizing them. . . . Indeed, thereÕs

something eerily Marxist in thisphenomenon, in that it mirrors MarxÕsprediction of capitalismÕs ability to create asurplus of capacity that can subsequentlybe freely shared without market forcesÕbrutality.9

The appealing part of the economy of ÒfreeÓ fordebates about education is its unpredictability inthrowing up new spheres of interest and newcongregations around them. It has some smallpotential for shifting the present fixation on thedirect relation between fees, training, appliedresearch, organization-as-management,predictable outputs and outcomes, and theimmediate consumption of knowledge. Thishowever seems a very narrow notion of criticalityas it is limited to the production of a surplus

within knowledge and fails to take on theproblems of subjectification. And it is the agencyof subjectification and its contradictorymultiplicity that is at the heart of apreoccupation with knowledge in education,giving it its traction as it were, what Foucaultcalled Òthe lived multiplicity of positionings.Ó TheInternet-based model of ÒfreeÓ does break thedirect relation between buyers and sellers, whichin the current climate of debates abouteducation, in the context of what Nick Dyer-Witheford has called ÒAcademia Inc.,Ó is certainlywelcome. But it does not expand the trajectory ofparticipation substantively, merely reducing theact of taking part in this economy of use andexchange. The need to think of a ÒmarketÓ for thedisruption of paradigms emerges as an exercisein futility and as politically debilitating. To thinkagain with Agamben:

Contemporary societies therefore presentthemselves as inert bodies going through

massive processes of desubjectificationwithout acknowledging any realsubjectification. Hence the eclipse ofpolitics, which used to presuppose theexistence of subjects and real identities(the workersÕ movement, the bourgeoisie,etc.), and the triumph of the oikonomia,that is to say, of a pure activity ofgovernment that aims at nothing other thanits own replication.10

What then would be the sites of conscious

subjectification within this amalgam ofeducation and creative practices?

SITES

Over the past two decades we have seen aproliferation of self-organized structures thattake the form, with regard to both theirinvestigations and effects, of sites of learning.11

These have, more than any other initiative,collapsed the divisions between sites of formalacademic education and those of creativepractice, display, performance, and activism. In

these spaces the previously clear boundariesbetween universities, academies, museums,galleries, performance spaces, NGOs, andpolitical organizations, lost much of theirvisibility and efficaciousness. Of course, virtuallyevery European city still has at least one if notseveral vast Òentertainment machineÓinstitutions, traditional museums that see theirtask as one of inviting the populace to partake ofÒartÓ in the most conventional sense andperceive ÒresearchÓ to be largely aboutthemselves (to consist, that is, in the seeminglyendless conferences that are held each year onÒthe changing role of the museumÓ). Theseinstitutions however no longer define theparameters of the field and serve more asindices of consumption, market proximities, andscholastic inertia.


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ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhat does knowledge do when it circulatesin other sites such as the art world?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs Eva Egermann says:

Of course, the art field was seen as a placein which things could happen, a field ofpotential, a space of exchange betweendifferent models and concepts and, in thesense of learning and unlearning, a field ofagency and transfer between differentsocial and political fields and betweendifferent positions and subjectivities. In away, the exhibition functioned as a pretext,a defined place for communication andaction that would perhaps establishimpulses for further transformations. So,the project functioned as an expanded fieldof practice from which to organize andnetwork between many different groups,but also to question and experiment withmethods of representation and distributionfor collective artistic research. We wanted

to disseminate our research for collectiveusage through various means, such as thestudy circle itself, a wiki, publications andreaders and through the model of a freeuniversity.12

Former member of the Situationist International poet Peter Laugesen talking atthe CFU, 2003.

More than any other sphere, the spaces ofcontemporary art that open themselves to thiskind of alternative activity of learning andknowledge production, and see in it not anoccasional indulgence but their actual dailybusiness, have become the sites of some of themost important redefinitions of knowledge thatcirculate today.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs sites, they have marked the shift fromÒIvory TowersÓ of knowledge to spaces ofinterlocution, with in between a short phase asÒlaboratories.Ó As a dialogical practice based onquestioning, on agitating the edges of paradigmsand on raising external points of view,

interlocution takes knowledge back to a Socraticmethod but invests its operations withacknowledged stakes and interests, rather thanbeing a set of formal proceedings. It gives aperformative dimension to the belief arguedearlier through the work of Foucault and Derrida,that knowledge always has at its edges theactive process of its own limits and its owninvalidation.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn setting up knowledge production withinthe spaces and sites of art, one also takes up aset of permissions that are on offer. Recognizingwho is posing questions, where they arespeaking from, and from where they know whatthey know, becomes central rather than, as istypical, marginal qualifications often relegatedto footnotes. Permission is equally granted tostart in the middle without having to rehearsethe telos of an argument; to start from Òrighthere and right nowÓ and embed issues in avariety of contexts, expanding their urgency; tobring to these arguments a host of validations,

interventions, asides, and exemplifications thatare not recognized as directly related or assustaining provable knowledge. And, perhapsmost importantly, Òthe curatorial,Ó not as aprofession but as an organizing and assemblingimpulse, opens up a set of possibilities,mediations perhaps, to formulate subjects thatmay not be part of an agreed-upon canon ofÒsubjectsÓ worthy of investigation. So knowledgein the art world, through a set of permissionsthat do not recognize the academic conventionsfor how one arrives at a subject, can serve both

the purposes of reframing and producingsubjects in the world.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFinally, I would argue that knowledge in theart world has allowed us to come to terms with

partiality Ðwith the fact that our field of knowingis always partially comprehensible, the problemsthat populate it are partially visible, and ourarguments are only partially inhabiting arecognizable logic. Under no illusions as to itscomprehensiveness, knowledge as it is built upwithin the spaces of art makes relatively modestclaims for plotting out the entirety of a

problematic, accepting instead that it is enteringin the middle and illuminating some limitedaspects, all the while making clear its drives indoing so.13

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAnd it is here, in these spaces, that one canground the earlier argument that the task athand in thinking through ÒfreeÓ is not one of

liberation from confinement, but rather one ofundoing the very possibilities of containment. Itis necessary to understand that containment isnot censure but rather half acknowledges acts offraming and territorializing.

VECTORS

In conjunction with the sites described above itis also direction and circulation that help inopening up ÒknowledgeÓ to new perceptions ofits mobility.

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ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHow can we think of ÒeducationÓ ascirculations of knowledge and not as the top-down or down-up dynamics in which there isalways a given, dominant direction for themovement of knowledge? The direction of theknowledge determines its mode ofdissemination: if it is highly elevated andcanonized then it is structured in a particular,hierarchical way, involving original texts andcommentaries on them; if it is experiential thenit takes the form of narrative and description in amore lateral form; and if it is empirical then theproduction of data categories, vertical andhorizontal, would dominate its argumentstructures even when it is speculating on thevery experience of excavating and structuringthat knowledge.14

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhile thinking about this essay I happenedto hear a segment of a radio program called The

Bottom Line, a weekly BBC program aboutbusiness entrepreneurs I had never encounteredbefore. In it a businessman was talking about his

training; Geoff Quinn the chief executive ofclothing manufacturer T. M. Lewin said he hadnot had much education and went into clothingretailing at the age of sixteen, Òbut then Idiscovered the stock room Ð putting things inboxes, making lists, ordering the totality of theoperation.Ó15 He spoke of the stockroom, with acertain sense of wonder, as the site in whicheverything came together, where the bitsconnected and made sense, less a repositorythan a launch pad for a sartorial world ofpossibilities. The idea that the ÒstockroomÓ could

be an epiphany, could be someoneÕs education,was intriguing and I tried to think it out a bit . . .part Foucauldian notion of scientificclassification and part SimondonÕs pragmatictransductive thought about operations ratherthan meanings Ð the ÒstockroomÓ is clearly aperspective, an early recognition of the systemicand the interconnected, and a place from whichto see the Òbig picture.Ó While the ÒstockroomÓmay be a rich and pleasing metaphor, it is also avector, along which a huge range ofmanufacturing technologies, marketing

strategies, and advertising campaigns meet upwith labor histories and those of raw materials,with print technologies and Internetdisseminations, with the fantasmaticinvestments in clothes and their potential torenew us.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTherefore what if ÒeducationÓ Ð the complexmeans by which knowledges are disseminatedand shared Ð could be thought of as a vector, asa quantity (force or velocity, for example), madeup of both direction and magnitude? A powerfulhorizontality that looks at the sites of educationas convergences of drives to knowledge that arein themselves knowledge? Not in the sense offormally inherited, archived, and transmittedknowledges but in the sense that ambitionÒknowsÓ and curiosity ÒknowsÓ and povertyÒknowsÓ Ð they are modes of knowing the world

and their inclusion or their recognition as eventsof knowledge within the sites of education makeup not the context of what goes on in theclassroom or in the space of cultural gathering,but the content.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊKeller Easterling in her exceptionallyinteresting book Enduring Innocence builds onArjun AppaduraiÕs notion of Òimagined worldsÓ asÒthe multiple worlds that are constituted by thehistorically situated imaginations of persons andgroups spread around the globe . . . thesemixtures create variegated scapes described asÒmediascapes and Òethnoscapes.Ó Which, saysEasterling, by Ònaturalizing the migration andnegotiation of traveling cultural forms allowsthese thinkers [such as Appadurai] to avoidimpossible constructs about an authenticlocality.Ó16 From EasterlingÕs work I have learnedto understand such sites as located forms ofÒintelligenceÓ Ð both information and stealthformation. To recognize the operations of ÒthenetworkÓ in relation to structures of knowledge

in which no linearity could exist and the directrelation between who is in the spaces oflearning, the places to which they are connected,the technologies that close the gaps in thosedistances, the unexpected and unpredictablepoints of entry that they might have, the fantasyprojections that might have brought them there Ðall agglomerate as sites of knowledge.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWe might be able to look at these sites andspaces of education as ones in which long linesof mobility, curiosity, epistemic hegemony,colonial heritages, urban fantasies, projections

of phantom professionalization, newtechnologies of both formal access and lessformal communication, a mutual sharing ofinformation, and modes of knowledgeorganization, all come together in a heady mix Ðthat is the field of knowledge and from it wewould need to go outwards to combine all ofthese as actual sites of knowledge and produce avector.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHaving tried to deconstruct as manydiscursive aspects of what ÒfreeÓ might mean inrelation to knowledge, in relation to my hoped-

for-academy, I think that what has come about isthe understanding of ÒfreeÓ in a non-liberationistvein, away from the binaries of confinement andliberty, rather as the force and velocity by whichknowledge and our imbrication in it, move along.That its comings-together are our comings-together and not points in a curriculum, ratheralong the lines of the operations of ÒsingularityÓthat enact the relation of Òthe human to aspecifiable horizonÓ through which meaning isderived, as Jean-Luc Nancy says.17 Singularityprovides us with another model of thinkingrelationality, not as external but as loyal to alogic of it own self-organization. Self-organization links outwardly not as identity,interest, or affiliation, but as a mode ofcoexistence in space. To think ÒknowledgeÓ asthe working of singularity is actually to decouple


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1Hannah Arendt, ÒWhat isFreedom?Ó Chapter VIÒRevolution and PreservationÓ inThe Portable Hannah Arendt, (ed.Peter R. Baehr) (Penguin,London:, Penguin, 2000), p.455.

2See Dietrich LemkeÕs ÒMourningBolognaÓ in this issue, http://e-flux.com/journal/vi ew/123.

3Marion von Osten and Eva

Egermann, ÒTwist and Shout,Ó inCurating and the EducationalTurn: 2, eds. Paul OÕNeill andMick Wilson (London: OpenEditions; Amsterdam: de Appel,forthcoming).

4Giorgio Agamben, ÒWhat is anApparatus?Ó in What is an

Apparatus? and Other Essays,ed. and trans. David Kishik andStefan Pedatella (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 2009),12.

5Michel Foucault, ÒTwo Lectures,Óin Power/Knowledge: SelectedInterviews and Other Writings,1972Ð1977, ed. Colin Gordon,trans. Colin Gordon, LeoMarshall, John Mepham, andKate Soper (London: Harvester,1980), 81.

6IsabelleÊStengers, ÒExperimenting with Refrains:Subjectivity and the Challenge ofEscaping Modern DualismÓ inSubjectivity 22 (2008): 38Ð59.

7This is Chris AndersonÕsargument in Free: The Future of aRadical Price (New York:

Random House, 2009).

8See http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free.

9See Cory Doctorow, ÒChrisAnderson's Free adds much toThe Long Tail, but falls short,ÓGuardian (July 28, 2009),http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jul/28/cory-doctorow-free-chris-anderson.

10Agamben, ÒWhat is an

Apparatus?Ó 22.

11See for example:

Copenhagen Free University,http://www.copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk/freeutv.html

Universidad N—mada,http://www.sindominio.net/unomada/

Facoltˆ di Fuga,http://www.rekombinant.org/fuga/index.php

The Independent Art School,http://www.independent-art-s

chool.org.uk/

Informal University inFoundation, http://www.jackie-inhalt.net /

Mobilized Investigation ,http://manifestor.org/mi

Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt/,includinghttp://www.cyfranogi.com/,http://groups.yahoo.com/group/backtotheroot/, http://www.onevillage.biz/

Pirate University,http://www.pirate-university.org/

Autonomous University ofLancaster,http://www.knowledgelab.org.

uk/wiki/AUL/Main_Page

Das Solidarische Netzwerk fŸroffene Bildung (s.n.o.b.),Marburg (Germany),

The Free/Slow University ofWarsaw,http://www.wuw2009.pl/

The University of Openness,http://uo.twenteenthcentury.com/

Manoa Free University,http://www.manoafreeuniversity.org/

LÕuniversitŽ Tangente,http://utangente. free.fr/

12Von Osten and Egermann, ÒTwistand Shout.Ó

13See Irit Rogoff, ÒSmuggling Ð AnEmbodied Criticality,Ó availableon the Web site of the EuropeanInstitute for Progressive CulturalPolicies,http://eipcp.net/dlfiles/rog off-smuggling.

14See Lisa Adkins and Celia Lury,ÒWhat is the Empirical?Ó

European Journal of SocialTheory 12, no. 1 (February 2009):5Ð20.

15Geoff Quinn, interview by EvanDavis, The Bottom Line, BBC,February 18, 2010, availableonline athttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qps85#synopsis.

16Keller Easterling EnduringInnocence: Global Architectureand its Masquerades(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,2005), 3.

17Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 2000), xi.


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