Symphony of the Surplus/Value : Notes on labour, valorization and sabotage in the metropolitan factory

This essay is a reflection on how art produces value using the work of Arseny Avraamov, Heath Bunting, and debates around cultural labour. It argues that art produces value not through exchange itself or through labour as traditionally understood, but in how it renders value out of the labours of circulating ideas, images, and affects. Drawing from this perspective, and informed by autonomist theories of class composition, it then considers possibilities for the sabotage of value within circuits of artistic value production, such as in the regeneration of cities through an arts based economy. © 2012 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.