Die Ich-Ressource – Zur Kultur der Selbst-Verwertung
2003

Volk Verlag
German, softcover, 192 pages, 14,2 x 21 cm
ISBN 3-937200-03-7

- sold out -

Edited by Jan Verwoert
Texts by Ulrich Böckling, Gabriele Fischer, Andrea Komlosy, Alexander Meschnig, Angela Schmidt, Wolfgang Ullich, Jan Verwoert, and Ulf Wuggenig
Designed by Michael Thomas


Our attitudes towards work are changing and with it society. The state is withdrawing. The free market is supposed to regulate the social sphere. The main protagonist of this new performance culture is the individual as an entrepreneur or as a so called Ich-AG: dynamic, flexible, creative. Someone who makes no distinction between work and leisure. The freedom that promises flexible working conditions often turns out to be a compulsion to constantly improve and evaluate one's own performance. "Be special, or you will be singled out" is the motto. Why is society developing in this direction? What are the consequences of this development? What alternatives are there?
To these questions the volume Die Ich-Ressource – Zur Kultur der Selbst-Verwertung gives answers. Seven authors formulate criticism of the existing conditions and point out perspectives for their change.

Jan Verwoert studied cultural studies and philosophy in Hildesheim and London. He is Sputnik (consultant) at the Kunstverein München and guest professor for contemporary art and theory at the Academy of Umeå.