Delusional Cause is an ongoing long term artistic research project within the theoretical framework of Alfred Sohn-Rethel's critique of epistemology. The texts, videos and performances are interruptions in a cumulative and reiterative study which aims to work toward a method or model to adequately visualize capital. The project is expanding towards a speculative exploration of the real abstraction and its aesthetics in today's digital age. Delusional Cause is an attempt to create a stylistic structure whose internal tensions are a metaphor for the internal tensions and structural tendencies of a social 'body' moving by a revolutionary path toward its own 'form'. DC #1 is a master thesis.

Abstract

The contemporary world seems more complex than ever. Through high frequency trading massive amounts of capital circle the globe within milliseconds. Computerized algorithms regulate our financial markets. Factories are subcontracted to countries with extreme poverty where working conditions are unattainable. Derivative markets have grown far beyond the real economy and the 2008 financial crisis shows us that the geopolitical as well as the economic security are at risk.

At the same time all contemporary art looks the same. Or to be more precise, it is either idealist or sceptical. Whether to limit its negative effects and contain its ambitions or to oppose it with an antagonistic logic, in both cases capitalism is approached from without.

A more adequate cultural and representational practice would identify the problem of capital as an aesthetic problem. If we find a way to figure or represent the unintelligible we might be able to identify any levers or weak links from within the suppressive properties of capital. That is by embracing its very conditions and letting go of some fetishes of the intellect.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Exchange Abstraction
2. The Evolution of Coined Money
3. The Conversion
4. The Postulates
4.1 Separation of Use and Exchange
4.2 Ownership and Solipsism
4.3 Exchangeability and Oneness of Existence
4.4 Immutability and Abstract Time and Space
4.5 Immutability and Substance and Accidents
4.6 Equality and Abstract Quantity
4.7 Abstract Movement
4.8 Atomicity and Abstract Divisibility
4.9 The Concept of Value
4.10 Strict Causality
4.11 Transcendence
5. Automation and Affirmation
6. Art and the Aesthetics
7. The Invisibility in the Representational
8. Conspiracy Theory as Method
9. Ventriloquism
Conclusion
Reference List

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