Governance and the institution of the common

The Art of Rent is a cycle of 4 meetings that started in January at Queen Mary University of London. This series of public seminars was open to everyone: our experiment with academic structures to build a sort of open university. Open to London, to everybody who lives here or passes through this metropolis. We tried to take the word "metroversity" literally and experiment a metropolitan space inside the university's space itself.

Final seminar:
Governance and the institution of the common

Thursday 5 June, 4 to 7pm
Room 4.08, Francis Bancroft Building
Queen Mary University of London, Mile End

Website: http://www.generation-online.org/other/artofrent.htm
Readings: http://www.generation-online.org/c/c_rent.htm
Info: artofrent [at] gmail.com

STEFANO HARNEY - Queen Mary University of London

JUDITH REVEL - Sorbonne University, Paris

ALBERTO DE NICOLA - ESC atelier occupato, Roma (www.escatelier.net)

RAUL SANCHEZ - UniNomada, Madrid (www.universidadnomada.net)

The Art of Rent is a cycle of 4 meetings that started in January at Queen Mary University of London. This series of public seminars was open to everyone: our experiment with academic structures to build a sort of open university. Open to London, to everybody who lives here or passes through this metropolis. We tried to take the word "metroversity" literally and experiment a metropolitan space inside the university's space itself.

Working with researchers such as Vercellone, Marazzi, Martin, Lapavistas, Mezzadra, Wills, and Biao, we expanded on new research threads like: the "becoming rent of profit" and the new forms of rent within the knowledge economy; the subprime crisis and the financialisation of everyday life; and the political, temporal and spatial redefinition of the border dispositif in the era of globalisation.

With the fourth and final seminar we aim to outline a political research agenda around the new apparatuses of governance and the production and institution of the common. On the 5th of June, in an attempt to establish a European network, we will try to mix academic theory with concrete examples of new political institutions, such as Uninomada in Madrid and ESC Aterlier Occupato in Rome.

The Art of Rent series will have a follow-up in November 2008 with a two-day event on the question of the metropolis and immaterial labour. All the material, video and audio of these 4 seminars will be available on a free DVD. To receive a copy, contact: artofrent [at] gmail.com