Friday, February 1, 2008
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A talk/audio performance by Johannes Grenzfurthner (monochrom)
The Innermost Unifier: Today it’s the Corporate Anthem
A talk/audio performance by Johannes Grenzfurthner, monochrom
(Vienna, Austria)
Monday March 17, 2008
8pm
FREE
Using different historical and current examples (especially from the area of the hardware/software-industry), Johannes Grenzfurthner gives a theoretical and applied – and not unamusing – overview on the musical genre of corporate anthems.
Come and sing along. Powernapping is welcome, too.
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The advancement of pre-capitalism (ie. the form of organisation for the social production of goods and of its distribution) to post-capitalism (ie. the form of organisation for all social relations in a particular economical ideology) is seldomly as apparent as in a modern company or enterprise, the most dominant type of organisation of the post-capitalist endeavor. The company has taken the place once inhabited by the factory. The factory thrived on the opposites of worker and owner. The modern company, however, is built around the core-idea of the post-antagonostic concept of work itself. The employees have become co- and sub-entrepreneurs. Yet of course they are not, which becomes evident when looking at who actually owns the means of production within the company. The employees however are being turned onto the illusion of being an active part, even a decision-making part of the “big family” (I love this company!).
The modern company wants to return to the pre-capitalist crisis of class-struggle. That means: Contradictions within, and indeed clashes of interest take a step back behind the curtain of the “community”. (A visit at the Google Campus in Silicon Valley illustrates this concept drastically). The return to old ideas of community also brings with it certain forms of rituals, like the usage of a corporate anthem. But there is no right feel-good in something that is wrong.
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