Excerpts from Alessandro Delfanti and Ned Rossiter, ‘La sfida del lavoro al tempo della rete [The challenge of working at the time of network: Interview with Ned Rossiter]’, Il Manifesto, 1 May, 2008. Full interview here. Italian version here.

“In many respects communication conditions the possibility of new political organizations. We could say that ‘the political’ of network societies is comprised of the tension between horizontal modes of communication and vertical regimes of control. Just think, for instance, of the ongoing battles between Internet and intellectual property regulators such as WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) and pirate networks of software, music or film distribution. Collaborative constitution emerges precisely in the instance of confrontation. In this sense, the horizontal and vertical axes of communication are not separate or opposed but mutually constitutive. Moreover, how to manage or deal with these two axes of communication is often a source of tension within networks. Here, we are talking about the problem of governance, and there are no universal models to draw on. More often than not, networks adopt a trial-and-error approach to governance. But it is better to recognize that governance is not a dirty word, but one that is internal to the logic and protocols of self-organization.

Practices of collaborative constitution are defined by struggle. There is no escape from struggle and the tensions that accompany collaborative relations. This is the territory of the political – a space of antagonism that in my view is much more complicated than Schmittian friend/enemy distinction. Again, it is the work of translation that reveals the multiplicity of tensions. As Naoki Sakai and Jon Solomon have written, translation is not about linguistic equivalence or co-figuration, but rather about the production of singularities through relational encounters. But let’s get a bit more concrete here. What is a relational encounter? It occurs through the instance of working or being with others. Of sharing, producing, creating, listening. Sustaining a range of idioms of experience is a struggle in itself – one that is rarely continuous, but rather continually remade and reassembled. This in turn is the recombinatory space and time of new institutions.

Let me try and briefly unpack this idea of new institutions and their relation to precarity. If we say that precarity is a common condition – one that traverses class and geocultural scales – then we can ask: what is the situation within which precarity expresses itself? The situation (concept + problem) will define the emergence of a new institution. Situation, here, consists of virtual/networked, material, affective, linguistic and social registers. We are of course always in a situation, but how to connect with others? The point of connection brings about tensions – the space of the political – and the ensemble of relations furnishes expression with its contours.”