Where Lies the Problem?

On the Determination of Belief, Political-Libidinal Proletarianisation and Alter-Automation

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59490/footprint.19.1.7863

Abstract

The article addresses the relationality of automation and the political-libidinal literacy of citizens. After contextualising the problem of reactive subjectivity in the Global Northwest of a perpetuating Enlightenment dialectics, the role of technology in the political-libidinal mereology is revaluated. Drawing from Bernard Stiegler’s notion of tertial retention and Gregory Bateson’s cybernetic theory, the milieu is reconstituted as a plane of transversal desire production and collective anticipation. In times of intensifying multiscalar automation, a lacking attunement to surroundings and responsibility, and general proletarianisation, the article argues for the localisation and sense-ablisation of problems to produce didactic environments for trans-individuative politics. Drawing from an ethics of care as a relational mode of thinking-acting, acts of maintenance are investigated in their potential to modulate the increasing imbalance of investment and passivity in urban subjects to foster de-proletarianisation. Drawing from Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis, processes of un-doing and re-doing are argued to deterritorialise and schizophrenise over-concretised automatons, opening up material conditions to participatory, creative appropriation and repair (collectively referred to as ‘alter automation‘) to reintroduce critical reflection and political negotiation into our milieus.

Author Biography

Justus Schäfer, Independent researcher

Justus Schäfer is an independent researcher, designer and educator situated in Rotterdam. A graduate of the University of Applied Sciences, Erfurt, he has worked in multiple design firms in Germany and the Netherlands. Schäfer received his master’s degree cum laude from TU Delft. His research focuses on philosophy of technology, cybernetics, energetics and participatory practices in architecture. 

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Published

2025-06-20