[ecrea] New Book on the culture and politics of cloud computing: CLOUD TIME: THE INCEPTION OF THE FUTURE (Zero Books)

CLOUD TIME: THE INCEPTION OF THE FUTURE
Rob Coley and Dean Lockwood

Published by Zero Books
ISBN 978-1-78099-095-8 (Paperback, £9.99)
ISBN 978-1-78099-096-5 (eBook, £4.99)

'It’s not only your head that is in the Cloud, but your whole body in its desires, actions, reactions, hiccups and errors too. Coley and Lockwood show in their strong theoretical take on cloudy media cultures that the more invisible control becomes, the more we need to develop fresh theoretical tools to open it up. Cloud Time offers a much-needed analysis of contemporary capitalism as a perverse form of informationalization and quantification of life to which we happily, voluntarily contribute.  Even Microsofts Steve Ballmer has admitted to the difficulty involved in clearly defining the Cloud – and yet, Coley and Lockwood give us excellent clues.'

~ Jussi Parikka, Author of 'Insect Media' and 'Digital Contagions'

'A most welcome antidote to uncritical techno-utopianism. The thesis that our ability to navigate the cloud is subtly shaped and guided by those who have created and continue to own its structures is compelling. Coley and Lockwood's emulation of Zizekian rhapsody is dizzying and impressive'

~ The Oxonian Review

This book maps capitalism's mobilization of cloud computing in its bid to archive and enclose the future. The Cloud, hailed as a new digital commons, a utopia of collaborative expression and constant connection, actually constitutes a strategy of vitalist post-hegemonic power, which moves to dominate immanently and intensively, organizing our affective political involvements, instituting new modes of enclosure, and, crucially, colonizing the future through a new temporality of control. The virtual is often claimed as a realm of invention through which capitalism might be cracked, but it is precisely here that power now thrives. Cloud time, in service of security and profit, assumes all is knowable.  We bear witness to the collapse of both past and future virtuals into a present dedicated to the exploitation of the spectres of both.


Rob Coley is a Doctoral research student at the University of Lincoln.
Dean Lockwood is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media at the University of Lincoln.



----------------
ECREA-Mailing list
----------------
This mailing list is a free service from ECREA.
---
To unsubscribe, please visit http://www.ecrea.eu/mailinglist
---
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Postal address:
ECREA
Universit�ibre de Bruxelles
c/o Dept. of Information and Communication Sciences
CP123, avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, b-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
----------------