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Undead and abject, the zombie is uncontrollable

ambiguity.1 Slouching across the earth,


restlessly but with hallucinatory slowness, it is a
thing with a soul, a body that is rotten but
reactive, oblivious to itself yet driven by
unforgiving instinct.

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ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt follows that if the zombie is defined by
ambiguity, it cannot be reduced to a negative
presence. In fact, it could be a friend. So why
does it lend itself so easily as a metaphor for
alienation, rolling readily off our tongues?
Resorting to the zombie as a sign for mindless
persistence is unfair to this particular monster,
to be sure, but also apathetic and facile in the
perspective of the historical space we inhabit.
Lars Bang Larsen ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMy proposal, perverse or braindead as it
may be, is that the zombie begs a materialist
Zombies of analysis with a view to contemporary culture.
Such an analysis is necessarily double-edged.
The zombie is pure need without morality, hence
Immaterial it promises a measure of objectivity; we know
exactly what it wants Ð brains, flesh Ð because
Labor: the this is what it always wants. Abject monstrosity
is naturally impossible to render transparent, but
abjectness itself harbors a defined function that
Modern promises instrumentality (of a blunt and limited
kind, admittedly). In this way we may proceed to
Monster and address contemporary relations of cultural
production, at the same time as we reflect on the
Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death

the Death of analytical tools we have for doing so.


ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThus the following is an attempt at a
sociological reading of the zombie that draws its
Death necessity from the pressure that the
capitalization of creativity has exerted on artistic
practice and spectatorship in the recent decade.
But it is also the inevitable subversion of the
e-flux journal #15 Ñ april 2010 Ê Lars Bang Larsen

conclusions of such an analysis, as we begin to


return to artistic thinking.

1. Marxploitation of the Gothic


The zombie as a figure of alienation is the
entranced consumer suggested by Marxian
theory. It is Guy DebordÕs description of Brigitte
Bardot as a rotten corpse and Frederic
JamesonÕs Òdeath of affectÓ; and of course what
media utopianist Marshall McLuhan called Òthe
zombie stance of the technological idiot.Ó2 Thus
zombification is easily applied to the notion that
capital eats up the body and mind of the worker,
and that the living are exploited through dead
labor.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhen Adam Smith invoked the moral
operations of the Òinvisible hand of the marketÓ,
he had something else in mind than an
integrated world economy that recalls FreudÕs
unheimlich: ÒSevered limbs, a severed head, a
hand detached from the arm, feet that dance by
themselves Ð all of those have something highly
uncanny about them, especially when they are
credited with independent activity.Ó3 Under the

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globalized reinforcement of capital, the pessimistic dialectic of enlightenment that
independent activity of ghost limbs is shows how rationality flips into barbarism and
increasingly only apparent, yet no less gratuitous human bondage. Thus it is puzzling (or populist,
and unsettling. agitational) that Marx and Engels employ Gothic
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊEconomy and production have in this way metaphor related to the middle ages Òthat
often been dressed up in Gothic styles; just think reactionists so much admire.Ó5 The Gothic

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of William BlakeÕs Òdark satanic millsÓ of contraband in progressive politics is the notion
industrialization. It is doubtful, of course, that that fear can be sublime. It is as if the reader of
Marx would have endorsed the zombie as a figure the manifesto cannot after all rely on the Òsober
of alienation, inasmuch as it incarnates a senses,Ó but needs a little extra rhetorical
collapsed dialectics (between life and death, something to compel her to face her Òreal
productivity and apathy, etc.) that can only be conditions in life.Ó6 How did the excess of
recaptured with great difficulty. However, leafing counter-enlightenment tropes come to
through The Communist Manifesto of 1848 one prominence in processes of political
finds rousing Gothic metaphor. The power of subjectivation? As Derrida writes in Specters of
class struggle is famously likened to a ghost that Marx, ÒMarx does not like ghosts any more than
is haunting Europe Ð the Òspecter of his adversaries do. He does not want to believe in
CommunismÓ; we are also told that with the them. But he thinks of nothing else. . . . He
proletariat, the bourgeoisie has produced Òits believes he can oppose them, like life to death,
own gravediggers,Ó and that modern bourgeois like vain appearances of the simulacrum to real
society Òhas conjured up such gigantic means of presence.Ó7 Once it becomes clear that Marxist
production and of exchangeÓ that it is like Òthe ghost-hunting is already corrupted by a Gothic
sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the impulse, it allows for a reconstruction of Marxist
powers of the netherworld whom he has called critique; a new Òspirit of Marx,Ó as discussed by
up by his spells.Ó4 The Gothic, understood as the Derrida. In terms of traditional aesthetic
revival of medieval styles in the seventeenth hierarchies, the Gothic definitely belongs
century and since, is the theatrical amongst the underdogs of genres, to the
representation of negative affect that emanates embarrassing aesthetic proletariat. Maybe this is
from a drama staged around power; a what spoke through Marx, like spirits inhabitingh

Still from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978.

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Film still from George Romero, Dawn of the Dead, 1978.

Film still from George Romero, Night of the Living Dead, 1968.

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a medium, and helped shaped his formidable about existing society. To Moretti this indicates
literary intuition? false consciousness in the literature of fear; it
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn this perspective there is no political makes us side with the bourgeoisie. But by
reason to exclude the Gothic. The New York passing judgment on the literature of fear
artists collective Group Material were among the through a dialectic of reason and affect (Stoker
first to establish a link between the Gothic and a ÒdoesnÕt need a thinking reader, but a frightened

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Marxist line of cultural critique, before the oneÓ), MorettiÕs ideology critique joins the ranks
former became a curatorial trope.8 The flyer for of the destroyers of the monster and thereby, on
their 1980 show ÒAlienationÓ mimicked a cultural level, of those fictitious characters he
advertising for Alien, and the film program criticizes. In fact, Moretti kills the monster twice:
included James WhaleÕs Frankenstein (1931). In he doesnÕt question its killing in the text, and he
their installation Democracy (1988), a zombie has no need for it outside the text.
film was continuously screened throughout the ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊGeorge Romero analyses the conflict
exhibition: Dawn of the Dead, ÒGeorge RomeroÕs between the monster and its adversaries in a
1978 paean to the suburban shopping mall and similar vein. Crucially, however, his trilogy Night
its implicit effects on people.Ó The film was Òan of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead
especially significant presence . . . , one which (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985), reverses
indicated the pertinence of consumer culture to MorettiÕs conclusion, thereby turning cultural
democracy and to electoral politics.Ó9 space inside out. In Romero, antagonism and
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFranco Moretti makes it clear that you canÕt horror are not pushed out of society (to the
sympathize with those who hunt the monsters. In monster) but are rather located within society
his brilliant 1978 essay ÒDialectic of FearÓ he (qua the monster). The issue isnÕt the zombies;
notes that in classic shockers such as Bram the real problem lies with the ÒheroesÓ Ð the
StokerÕs Dracula and Mary ShelleyÕs Frankenstein police, the army, good old boys with their guns
Ówe accept the vices of the monsterÕs destroyers and male bonding fantasies. If they win, racism
without a murmur.Ó10 The antagonist of the has a future, capitalism has a future, sexism has
monster is a representative of all that is a future, militarism has a future. Romero also
Òcomplacent, stupid, philistine, and impotentÓ implements this critique structurally. As Steven

Emergency Zombie Defense Station.

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Still from I Walked With A Zombie, RKO Pictures, 1943.

Still from I Walked With A Zombie, RKO Pictures, 1943.

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Shaviro observes, the cultural discomfort is not alienation by using it to deliberately Òdramatize
only located in the filmsÕ graphic cannibalism the strangeness of what has become real,Ó as
and zombie genocide: the low-budget aesthetics anthropologists Jean and John L. Comaroff
makes us see Òthe violent fragmentation of the characterize the zombieÕs cultural function.15
cinematic process itself.Ó11 The zombie in such a Why would one want to do such a thing? As
representation may be uncanny and repulsive, Deleuze and Guattari had it, the problem with

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but the imperfect uncleanness of the zombieÕs capitalism is not that it breaks up reality; the
face Ð the bad make-up, the failure to hide the problem with capitalism is that it isnÕt
actor behind the monsterÕs mask Ð is what schizophrenic and proliferating enough.16 In
breaks the screen of the spectacle. other words, it frees desire from traditional
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBrian Holmes writes in ÒThe Affectivist libidinal patterns (of family and religion and so
ManifestoÓ (2009) that activism today faces Ònot on), but it will always want to recapture these
so much soldiers with guns as cognitive capital: energies through profit. According to this
the knowledge society, an excruciatingly complex conclusion, one way to circumnavigate
order. The striking thing . . . is the zombie-like capitalism would be to encourage its semiotic
character of this society, its fallback to excess and its speculation in affect. Capitalism
automatic pilot, its cybernetic governance.Ó12 is not a totalitarian or tyrannical form of
HolmesÕ diagnosis gets its punch from the domination. It primarily spreads its effects
counterintuitive tension between the notion of through indifference (that can be compared to
control and the zombieÕs sleepwalking the zombieÕs essential lack of protagonism). It is
mindlessness. Even our present cultureÕs not what capital does, but what it doesnÕt do or
schizophrenic scenario of neoliberal economy have: it does not have a concept of society; it
and post-democratic reinforcement of the state does not counteract the depletion of nature; it
apparatus cannot be reduced to evil. But if has no concept of citizenship or culture; and so
Holmes uses the monster trope to define a on. Thus it is a slave morality that makes us cling
condition of critical ambiguity, he follows Marxist to capital as though it were our salvation Ð
orthodoxy by setting this definition to work capitalism is, in fact, what we bring to it.
dialectically vis-ˆ-vis an affirmative use of the Dramatization of capital through exacerbation
manifesto format. The manifesto is haunted by and excess can perhaps help distill this state of
Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death

its modernist codification as a mobilization of a affairs.


collective We in a revolutionary Now. This code, ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe zombie isnÕt just any monster, but one
and the desire it represents, is invariably with a pedigree of social critique. As already
transparent to itself, as opposed to the opacity mentioned, alienation Ð a Marxian term that has
of the zombie. fallen out of use Ð is central to the zombie. To
Marx the loss of control over oneÕs labor Ð a kind
2. Monster of Mass and Multitude of viral effect that spreads throughout social
e-flux journal #15 Ñ april 2010 Ê Lars Bang Larsen

What most informs metaphorical applications of space Ð results in estrangement from oneself,
the zombie is perhaps the functional dimension from other people, and from the Òspecies-beingÓ
that its abjectness seems to lend to it. According of humanity as such.17 This disruption of the
to Julia KristevaÕs definition, the abject is what I connection between life and activity has
must get rid of in order to be an I.13 The abject is Òmonstrous effects.Ó18 Today, in the era of
a fantasmatic substance that must be expelled Ð immaterial labor, whose forms turn affect,
from the body, from society Ð in order to satisfy a creativity, and language into economical
psychic economy, because it is imagined to have offerings, alienation from our productive
such a likeness or proximity to the subject that it capacities results in estrangement from these
produces panic or repulsion. This, Hal Foster faculties and, by extension, from visual and
writes, echoing critical preoccupations in the art artistic production Ð and from our own
of the 1980s (the abject) and of the 1990s (the subjectivity. What is useful about the monster is
Òreturn of the realÓ), qualifies the abject as Òa that it is immediately recognizable as
regulatory operation.Ó14 The obverse of the abject estrangement, and in this respect is non-
is a hygienic operation that promises a blunt alienating. Secondly, we may address alienation
instrumentality of getting rid of Ð of expulsing, without a concept of nature; a good thing, since
excluding, severing, repressing. As we have seen, the humanism in the notion of Òthe natural state
things are not so clear. The abject sneaks back in of manÓ (for Marx the positive parameter against
as a supplement, subverting attempts at which we can measure our alienation) has at this
establishing hygienic categories. point been irreversibly deconstructed. In other
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊI will therefore hypothesize that the words: the natural state of man is to die, not to
zombieÕs allegorical (rather than merely end up as undead.
metaphorical) potential lies in trying to elaborate ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFranco ÒBifoÓ Berardi describes how Italian
and exacerbate the zombie as a clichŽ of Workerist thought of the 1960s overturned the

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dominant vision of Marxism. The working class objects, and perceptions interacting in slow
was no longer conceived as Òa passive object of motion, and with everything completely out of his
alienation, but instead the active subject of a control. In fact there was no control at all.
refusal capable of building a community starting Decision had no meaning, and conscious action
out from its estrangement from the interests of was an impossibility.21
capitalistic society.Ó19 For the estranged worker, ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe zombie can move around and carry out

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alienation became productive. Deleuze and tasks, but does not speak, cannot fend for
Guattari were part of the same generation of himself, cannot formulate thoughts, and doesnÕt
thinkers and overturned a traditional view of even know its own name: its fate is enslavement.
alienation, for example by considering ÒGiven the colonial historyÓ Ð including
schizophrenia as a multiple and nomadic form of occupation by France and the US Ð Davis
consciousness (and not as a passive clinical continues,
effect or loss of self). They put it radically: ÒThe
only modern myth is the myth of zombies Ð the concept of enslavement implies that
mortified schizos, good for work, brought back to the peasant fears and the zombie suffers a
reason.Ó20 fate that is literally worse than death Ð the
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe origin of the zombie in Haitian vodoun loss of physical liberty that is slavery, and
has an explicit relationship to labor, as a the sacrifice of personal autonomy implied
repetition or reenactment of slavery. The person by the loss of identity.22
who receives the zombie spell Òdies,Ó is buried,
excavated, and put to work, usually as a field That is, more than inexplicable physiological
hand. In his book The Serpent and the Rainbow, change, victims of voodoo suffer a social and
ethnobotanist Wade Davis tells the story of a mental death, in a process initiated by fear. The
man called Narcisse, a former zombie: zombie considered as a subaltern born of
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ[Narcisse] remembered being aware of his colonial encounters is a figure that has arisen
predicament, of missing his family and friends then out of a new relationship to death: not the
and his land, of wanting to return. But his life had fear of the zombie apocalypse, as in the movies,
the quality of a strange dream, with events, but the fear of becoming one Ð the fear of losing

The Zombies, circa 1967.

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control, of becoming a slave. appear in Invasion. Somebody who has clearly
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn pop culture the zombie is a twentieth- been body-snatched thus tells the main
century monster and hence related to mass character, played by Donald Sutherland, to not
phenomena: mass production, mass be afraid of Ònew conceptsÓ: imperatives to
consumption, mass death. It is not an aristocrat socialize and to reinvent oneself, shot through
like Dracula or a star freak like Frankenstein; it is with all the accompanying tropes of self-

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the everyman monster in which business as cannibalization (self-management, self-
usual coexists with extremes of hysteria (much valuation, self-regulation, self-consume, and so
like democracy at present, in fact). The zombie forth). Thus the body snatchers are a caricature
also straddles the divide between industrial and of ideal being, incarnating mobility without
immaterial labor, from mass to multitude, from nervousness.26
the brawn of industrialism to the dispersed
brains of cognitive capitalism. 3. ÒSolipsistic and asocial horrorÓ
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWith its highly ambiguous relationship to The necessity of a sociological reading of the
subjectivity, consciousness, and life itself, we modern monster derives, for our purpose, from
may hence consider the zombie a paradigm of the pressure that the capitalization of creativity
immaterial labor.23 Both the zombie and has in the past decade exerted on artistic
immaterial labor celebrate logistics and a practice and thinking. Art has become a norm, in
colonization of the brain and the nervous system. a different way than it was under the cultural
The living dead roam the world and have a order of the bourgeoisie. In short, within the
genetic relationship with restlessness: they are Òexperience economy,Ó artÕs normative power
Òpure motoric instinct,Ó as it is expressed in consists in commodifying a conventional idea of
RomeroÕs Dawn of the Dead; or they represent a artÕs mythical otherness with a view to the
danger Òas long as they got a working thinker and reproduction of subjectivity and economy.
some mobility,Ó as one zombie hunter puts it in ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTen years ago, management thinkers James
the novel World War Z by Max Brooks.24 The H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II launched the
latter, counterintuitive reference to the zombieÕs concept of the experience economy with their
intellectual capacity may be brought to bear on book The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre
the terms Òintellectual laborÓ and Òcognitive and Every Business a Stage. Here they describe
Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death

capitalism,Ó used to denote brain-dead Ð and an economy in which experience is a new source
highly regulated Ð industries such as advertising of profit to be obtained through the staging of the
and mass media. Or, the Òworking thinkerÓ in the memorable. What is being produced is the
zombieÕs dead flesh is an indication of the experience of the audience, and the experience
Marxist truth that matter thinks. As Lenin asked: is generated by means of what may be termed
what does the car know Ð of its own relations of Òauthenticity effects.Ó In the experience economy
production? In the same way, the zombie may it is often art and its markers of authenticity Ð
e-flux journal #15 Ñ april 2010 Ê Lars Bang Larsen

prompt the question: what does the zombieÕs creativity, innovation, provocation, and the like Ð
rotting flesh know Ð of the soul? As Spinoza said: that ensure economic status to experience.27
what the body can do, that is its soul.25 And the ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊGilmore and Pine advise manufacturers to
zombie can do quite a lot. tailor their products to maximize customer
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn Philip KaufmanÕs 1978 film Invasion of the experience, thus valve manufacturers could
Body Snatchers, a space plant that duplicates profitably increase the Òpumping experienceÓ;
people and brings them back as empty versions furniture manufacturers might correspondingly
of themselves spreads its fibers across the Earth emphasize the Òsitting experienceÓ; and home-
as if it were the World Wide Web. The body- appliance manufacturers could capitalize on the
snatched donÕt just mindlessly roam the cities in Òwashing experience,Ó the Òdrying experience,Ó
search of flesh and brains, but have occupied the and the Òcooking experience.Ó28 The
networks of communication and start a Òpsychological premiseÓ of being able to Òalter
planetary operation to circulate bodies, as if consumersÕ sense of realityÓ is a central theme.29
proponents of the great transformation from Gilmore and PineÕs mission is to highlight the
industrialism to immaterial labor, in which profitability of producing simulated situations.
production is eclipsed and taken over by a Their arguments will not be subverted by simply
regime of mediation and reproduction. This is our pointing out this fact: the experience economy is
logistical universe, in which things on the move beyond all ideology inasmuch as it is their
are valorized, and in which more than ever before declared intention to fake it better and more
the exchange of information itself determines convincingly. In the experience economyÕs
communicative form. The nature of what is ontological displacement towards an
exchanged recedes in favor of the significance of instrumentalized phenomenology, it becomes
distribution and dissemination. Exigencies of irrelevant to verify the materiality of the
social adaptation, by now familiar to us, also experienced object or situation. Memorable

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authenticity effects are constituted in a register augment their self-identity by consuming the
of subjective experience. In other words, oneÕs products of their own subjectivity. According to
own subjectivity becomes a product one Diederichsen, this phenomenon is a Òsolipsistic
consumes, by being provided with opportunities and asocial horror,Ó which reduces life to a loop
to consume oneÕs own time and attention we can move in and out of without actually
through emotive and cognitive responses to participating in any processes.31 Inside these

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objects and situations. Similarly, when the loops, time has been brought to a halt, and the
experience economy is applied to cultural traditional power of the cultural institution is
institutions and the presentation of art works, it displaced when audiences are invited to play and
revolves around ways of providing the public with participate in an ostensible ÒdemocratizationÓ of
the opportunity to reproduce itself as consumers art. In the loop, audiences ironically lose the
of cultural experiences. possibility of inscribing their subjectivities on
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is difficult not to see the consequences of anything besides themselves, and are hence
the experience economy as the dismantling of potentially robbed of an important opportunity to
not only artistic and institutional signification respond to the institution and the exhibitionary
but also of social connections. Thus the syllabus complex where art is presented.
for the masters-level experience economy course ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe zombie returns at this point, then, to
offered by the University of Aarhus explains how stalk a new cultural economy that is necessarily
consumers within an experience economy already no longer current; nor is it ever outdated,
function as Òhyper-consumers free of earlier because it cancels cultural time measured in
social ties, always hunting for emotional decades and centuries. The time of the
intensity,Ó and that students of the course are experience economy is that of an impoverished
provided with Òthe opportunity to adopt present.32
enterprising behaviours.Ó30
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊCultural critic Diedrich Diederichsen calls 4. The Death of Death
such self-consume Eigenblutdoping, blood There are several reasons why we need a modern
doping. Just as cyclists dope themselves using monster. Firstly, it can help us meditate on
their own blood, cultural consumers seek to alienation in our era of an immaterial capitalism

Gothic Shop in Japan.

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that has turned life into cash; into an onto- since the end of the Second World War there are
capitalist, forensic culture in which we turn no endgame narratives. Apocalyptic horizons are
towards the dead body, not with fear, but as a given amnesty. A planet jolted out of its
kind of pornographic curator (as testified to by ecological balance is a disaster, but not
any number of TV series about vampires, something important. In art, the mid twentieth
undertakers, and forensics). As Steven Shaviro centuryÕs Òdeath of the AuthorÓ and Òdeath of

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writes, Òzombies mark the rebellion of death ManÓ are now highly operational, and the Òdeath
against its capitalist appropriation . . . our of Art,Ó a big deal in the 1980s, is now eclipsed by
society endeavors to transform death into value, the splendid victory of Òcontemporary art.Ó This
but the zombies enact a radical refusal and in spite of the obvious truth that art, considered
destruction of value.Ó33 Shaviro sharply outlines as an autonomous entity, is dead and gone,
here the zombieÕs exit strategy from that replaced by a new art (a double?) that is directly
strangest of scenarios, the estrangement of inscribed on culture; a script for social and
death itself. But at the same time, one wonders cultural agency. There is nothing left to die, as if
whether it can be that simple. Immaterial we were caught in the ever-circling eye of the
capitalismÕs tropes of self-cannibalization render eternal return itself. As the blurb for George
it more ambiguous than ever whether the abject RomeroÕs Survival of the Dead (2009) goes:
is a crisis in the order of subject and society, or a ÒDeath isnÕt what it used to be.Ó This ought to be
perverse confirmation of them. In other words, a cause for worry. Endgame narratives have
beyond the destruction of value that Shaviro always accompanied new paradigms, or have
discusses, it all revolves around a riddle: if, negated or problematized the reproduction of
during our lifespan as paying beings, life itself received ideas.
has become capital, then where does that leave ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe zombie is always considered a post-
death? being, a no-longer-human, an impossible
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOne answer is that, in a world with no subject. But can we also think of it as a pre-
outsides, death died. We are now witnessing the being? Can we turn it into a child; that most
death of death, of which its overrepresentation is poignant embodiment of the monster and the
the most prominent symptom. For the first time ghost (the Òchild-player against whom can do

Julie Williams and Dylon Holroyd


tied the knot goth style.

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nothing,Ó as Spinoza put it), or at least allow it to Lars Bang LarsenÊis an art historian and curator based
indicate a limit of not-yet-being?34 That is, the in Barcelona and Copenhagen. He has co-curated
group exhibitions such asÊPyramids of
lack incarnated by zombie is also present at the MarsÊ(Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 2000, a.o.),ÊThe
level of enunciation in the zombie narrative. In Echo Show (Tramway, Glasgow
RomeroÕs films, the zombie apocalypse gradually 2003),ÊPopulismÊ(Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 2005,
recedes into the background and other Ð inter- a.o.), La insurrecci—n invisible de un mill—n de mentes

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human, social Ð problems become prominent (Sala rekalde, Bilbao 2005), and A History of Irritated
Material (Raven Row, London 2010). His books include
during the unfolding of the plot. The zombie,
Sture Johannesson (NIFCA / Lukas & Sternberg 2002)
always mute, is never at the center of the plot and a monograph about Palle NielsenÕs utopian
the way Dracula or Frankenstein are, hence its adventure playground at Moderna Museet in
presence cannot be explained away as a Stockholm, The Model. A Model for a Qualitative
mechanism for reintegrating social tension Society, 1968 (MACBA 2010). The series of pamphlets
Kunst er Norm, Organisationsformer and Spredt v¾ren
through fear. It is a strange, tragicomic monster
(ÕArt is NormÕ, ÕForms of OrganisationÕ and ÕDissipated
that displaces evil and its concept: the zombie beingÕ, published by the Art Academy of Jutland),
isnÕt evil, nor has it been begot by evil; it is a discusses the experience economy as a mutation in
monstrosity that deflects itself in order to show artÕs DNA towards a new normativisation of art. Lars
that our imagination cannot stop at the monster. Bang LarsenÕs research is supported by the Ph.D.
program at the Department of Arts and Cultural
It is irrelevant if you kill it (there will always be
Studies at Copenhagen University.
ten more rotten arms reaching through the
broken window pane). The zombie pushes a
horizon of empty time ahead of it; whether that
time will be messianic or apocalyptic is held in
abeyance. Or, the zombie represents the degree
to which we are incapable of reimagining the
future. So the question becomes: How can we
look over its shoulder? What future race comes
after the zombie? How do we cannibalize self-
cannibalization? The only way to find out is to
abstract the zombie condition.
Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSooner or later, the opacity of our


fascination with the zombie exhausts
sociological attempts at reading of it. There is
ultimately no way to rationalize the skepticism
the zombie drags in. A similar mechanism is at
work in art. Whereas sociology is based on
positive knowledge, art is based on the concept
e-flux journal #15 Ñ april 2010 Ê Lars Bang Larsen

of art and on cultureÕs re-imagining of that


concept. Beyond the experience economy, and
beyond sociological analysis of these, there lie
new artistic thinking and imagining. Thus we can
witness how it all falls apart in the end:
sociology, zombie as allegory, even the absence
of the end that turns out to be one. What is left
are material traces to be picked up anew.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×
Zombies of Immaterial Labor was originally presented in the
Masquerade lecture series, organized by the curatorial
platform If I CanÕt Dance I DonÕt Want To Be Part Of Your
Revolution, at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, January
25, 2010.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ

08.16.10 / 17:03:56 UTC


ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ26
I am grateful to Brian Kuan Wood See Julia Kristeva, Powers of In the Spanish translation the
for the title of this essay. Horror: An Essay on Abjection, body snatchers are ultracuerpos:
trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New ultrabodies, as if particularly
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2 York: Columbia University Press, well-adapted mutations.
ÒThe Playboy Interview: Marshall 1982).
McLuhan,Ó Playboy, March 1969, ÊÊÊÊÊÊ27
available at ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14 See also my Kunst er Norm
http://www.nextnature.net/20 Hal Foster, The Return of the (Aarhus: Jutland Art Academy,

12/12
09/12/the-playboy-interview- Real (Cambridge, MA: The MIT 2008).
marshall-mcluhan. I am grateful Press, 1996), 156.
to Jacob Lillemose for this ÊÊÊÊÊÊ28
reference. ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15 James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph
Jean and John L. Comaroff, Pine II, The Experience Economy:
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3 ÒAlien-Nation: Zombies, Work is Theatre and Every
Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny, Immigrants and Millennial Business a Stage (Boston:
trans. David McLintock (1899; Capitalism,Ó South Atlantic Harvard Business School Press,
London: Penguin Books, 2003), Quarterly 101, no. 4 (Fall 2002): 1999), 16.
150. 779Ð805. I am grateful to Kodwo
Eshun for this reference. The ÊÊÊÊÊÊ29
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4 allegorical impulse behind Ibid., 175.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, bringing the zombie back to the
The Communist Manifesto, trans. Marxian concept of alienation ÊÊÊÊÊÊ30
Samuel Moore (1848; London: derives from the dynamics of the See the Aarhus University,
Penguin Classics, 1967), 78, 94. zombieÕs ruinous (lack of) Faculty of Humanities, Web site,
existence. Thus George RomeroÕs http://studieguide.au.dk/kan
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5 famous trilogy is a sequence of didat_dk.cfm?fag=1062.
Ibid. allegorical variation: a critique of
racist America (Night), a critique ÊÊÊÊÊÊ31
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6 of consumerism (Dawn), and a Diedrich Diederichsen,
Ibid., 83. critique with feminist overtones Eigenblutdoping:
(Day). Selbstverwertung, KŸnstlerr
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7 omantik, Partizipation (Cologne:
Jacques Derrida, Specters of ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16 Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2008).
Marx: the State of the Debt, the See Gilles Deleuze and FŽlix
Work of Mourning, and the New Guattari: Anti-Oedipus: ÊÊÊÊÊÊ32
International, trans. Peggy Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Žižek discusses the zombie in
Kamuf (1993; New York: trans. Robert Hurley, Mark terms of suffering. Of RomeroÕs
Routledge, 2006), 57. Seem, and Helen R. Lane (1972; Night of the Living Dead, he
Minneapolis: University of writes: ÒThe ÔundeadÕ are not
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8 Minnesota Press, 1983). portrayed as embodiments of
I am thinking of Mike KelleyÕs pure evil, of a simple drive to kill
The Uncanny (1993; Cologne: ÊÊÊÊÊÊ17 or revenge, but as sufferers,
Walther Kšnig 2004), Christoph See also my introduction in the pursuing their victims with an
Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death

GrunenbergÕs Gothic: exhibition guide A History of awkward persistence, colored by


Transmutations of Horror in Irritated Material (London: Raven a kind of infinite sadness.Ó The
Late-Twentieth-Century Art Row, 2010). dead make their melancholic
(Boston: Institute of return because they havenÕt
Contemporary Art, 1997), and ÊÊÊÊÊÊ18 been properly buried Ð just like
Paul SchimmelÕs Helter Skelter: Karl Marx, ÒEstranged Labour,Ó ghosts, zombies return Òas
L.A. Art in the 1990s, ed. in Economic and Philosophical collectors of some unpaid
Catherine Gudis (Los Angeles: Manuscripts of 1844, available symbolic debt.Ó Žižek points out
Museum of Contemporary Art, at http://www.marxists.org/arch that Òthe return of the dead
1992), which had the subtitle: ive/marx/works/1844/manuscri signifies that they cannot find
Art of the Living Dead). pts/labour.htm. their proper place in the text of
e-flux journal #15 Ñ april 2010 Ê Lars Bang Larsen

tradition,Ó an insight that we can


ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ19 use for our own sociological
David Deitcher: ÒSocial Franco ÒBifoÓ Berardi, The Soul ends. Similarly, the experience
Aesthetics,Ó in Democracy: A at Work: From Alienation to commodity cannot find its place
Project by Group Material, ed. Autonomy, trans. Francesca in the text of tradition and
Brian Wallis (New York: DIA Art Cadel and Mecchia Giuseppina culture, inasmuch as this is what
Foundation, 1990), 37. (Deitcher (New York: Semiotext(e), 2009), the experience economy is
erroneously states that Dawn of 23. undoing. Slavoj Žižek, Looking
the Dead appeared in 1979; the Awry: An Introduction to Jacques
correct year is 1978. I have ÊÊÊÊÊÊ20 Lacan through Popular Culture
corrected this in the quotation.) Deleuze and Guattari: Anti- (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
Oedipus: Capitalism and 1992), 22Ð23.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10 Schizophrenia, 335.
Franco Moretti, ÒDialectic of ÊÊÊÊÊÊ33
FearÓ in Signs Taken for ÊÊÊÊÊÊ21 Shaviro, The Cinematic Body, 84.
Wonders: On the Sociology of Wade Davis, The Serpent and the
Literary Forms, trans. Susan Rainbow (New York: Simon & ÊÊÊÊÊÊ34
Fischer, David Forgacs, and Schuster, 1985), 80. Quoted from Gilles Deleuze and
David Miller (London: Verso, FŽlix Guattari: QuÕest-ce que la
1983), 84. ÊÊÊÊÊÊ22 philosophie. Minuit, Paris 1991,
Ibid., 139. p.70.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11
Steven Shaviro, The Cinematic ÊÊÊÊÊÊ23
Body (1993; Minneapolis: See also my article ÒBrainsÓ in
University of Minnesota Press, Muhtelif no. 4 (2008).
2006), 91.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ24
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12 Max Brooks, World War Z: An
Brian Holmes, ÒThe Affectivist Oral History of the Zombie War
Manifesto: Artistic Critique in (New York: Gerald and
the 21st Century,Ó in Escape the Duckworth, 2007), 96.
Overcode: Activist Art in the
Control Society (Eindhoven: Van ÊÊÊÊÊÊ25
Abbemuseum; Zagreb: What, See Berardi, The Soul at Work,
How & for Whom, 2009), 14. 21.

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