In Defence of Serendipity by INC affiliated researcher Sebastian Olma

In Defence of Serendipity is a lively and buccaneering work of investigative philosophy, treating the origins of ‘serendipity, accident and sagacity’, as riddles and philosophical concepts that can be put to a future political use.

Taking in Aristotle, LSD, Tony Blair, techno-mysticism and the sharing economy, Olma challenges the prevailing faith in the benevolence of digital technology and rejects the equation of innovation with entrepreneurship. He argues instead that we must take responsibility for the care of society’s digital infrastructure and prevent its degeneration into an apparatus of marketing and finance. The alternative is a situation in which the only kind of freedom that remains to us is the freedom to be exploited.

Sebastian Olma is professor for autonomy in art and design at Avans University for Applied Sciences in Breda and Den Bosch, The Netherlands. He lives in Amsterdam.

The book is published by Repeater Books.

Review of Iedereen een Kunstenaar by Ruben Jacobs

By Inte Gloerich, December 15, 2014

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Whatever Happens to Musicians Happens to Everybody by Bruce Sterling

By Katía Truijen, December 3, 2014

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