After the Future

After the Future explores a century-long obsession with the concept of the "future," starting with Marinetti's "Futurist Manifesto," tracing it through the punk movement of the early 70s, and into the media revolution of the 90s. The future, Bifo argues, has come and gone, the concept has lost its usefulness. Now it's our responsibility to decide what comes next.

Franco Bifo Berardi: Franco Berardi, better-known in the United States as "Bifo," is an Italian autonomist philosopher and media activist. One of the founders of the seminal Radio Alice, a notorious pirate radio station that became the voice of the student movement in Italy throughout the 1970s, Bifo is the author of multiple works of theory including the recently-published The Soul at Work (Semiotexte 2009) and "The Post-Futurist Manifesto."

Preface: The Transversal Communism of Franco Berardi, by Gary Genosko and Nicholas Thoburn Introduction by Franco Berardi 1. The Century that Trusted in the Future Futurism and the Reversal of the Future The Media Utopia of the Avant-Garde Zaum and Technomaya Activism Connection and Sensibility End of the Future Cursed Be the Prophet The Last Utopia Inversion of the Future 2. The Zero Zero Decade From Seattle to Copenhagen On the Brink of Disaster After the Dotcom Crash The Fuzzy Economy of Cognitive Labor Infolabor and Precarisation City of Panic 3. Baroque and Semiocapital Lumpen Italian Language and Poison The Italian Anomaly Shirkers Aleatory Value in Neo-Baroque Society Self Despise 4. Exhaustion and Subjectivity Precarious Future Exhaustion: Re-reading Baudrillard Necronomy Singularity Insurrection When Old People Fall in Love Happy End After Futurism Appendix: Interview with Franco Berardi Bibliography