Aesthetic Machines and the Production of Subjectivity: A postanthropocentric sociology of the aesthetic

This paper examines the entanglement of aesthetic and economic factors in contemporary capitalism. Sociological engagement with this problem has focused on commodifying processes, within a framework that is poorly suited to the deterritorialized character of capitalism. What we need to understand today is the aesthetic character of the production of subjectivity; for this, a differential and postanthropocentric ontology is needed. I argue that economic production is preceded by the creation and realization of the sensible. Here, aesthetic machines have an expressive function, involving the creation of possible worlds and the subjects they include. Building on the work of Lazzarato and Guattari, I suggest that humanizing processes are only one of the aesthetic apparatuses at play in the subjective economy. An attention to dehumanizing and desubjectivating processes is also necessary if we are to adequately understand the alignment of subjective forces with the momentum of capitalism.