Imaginal Machines: Autonomy & Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life

Imaginal Machines explores with humor and wit the condition of art and politics in contemporary capitalism. It reviews the potentials and limits of liberatory art (from surrealism to Tom Waits) while charting the always-resurgent creations of the collective imagination. Shukaitis exhibits a remarkable theoretical breadth, bringing together the work of Castoriadis, the Situationists, and autonomous Marxism to define a new task for militant research: constructing imaginal machines that escape capitalism. Imaginal Machines is truly a book that makes a path by walking.? ? Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch: Women the Body and Primitive Accumulation ?If you have ever had someone say to you, ?okay it?s fine to criticize but what would you do?? this is the book for you. Shukaitis takes us on a raucous ride through actually existing alternative organizations that are anarchic, loving, fun, and best of all they work. We meet people and organizations who imagine a completely different way of being together in the world. And we are never far from a sophisticated theoretical travelogue as we walk these roads with the author. What would you do? Try this, and this, and this!? ? Stefano Harney, Chair in Strategy, Culture, and Organization, University of London