Next-Level Spleen JOHN KELSEYspi of everthing relational. The mutation ofthe artist continued to follow its ierevocable logic uti wweeventuallyareived at the fully wireless fully precarious, Adderallenhanced, manic-depressive, stor hypertlainal igure who is more networked than ever bu who presently exhibits signs of panic and disgust with a sped of connection that we ean no longer either choose or escape. Hyperrelational sstheis emerged between 9/1 and the credit erisis Sn so can be sarey situated in elation tothe co lapse ofthe neoliberal economs; or more acueately tothe situation of ts drawn-out living death, since neoliberalism continues provide both the eause and the only availabe care for its nn epic ilar No easible—or even recogizable—form of polit ical engagement appeses.o the bypertelatinal hor zon, and no real horizon ether, so we engage speed isl, attempting tooverio given spaces of pois ‘withthe dsrupie force ofthe leak relational art. sstheiized community itd sina decadent way reading Debord's Society ofthe Spectacle the con text of Thatcher “There no such thing as society” and Deleuze in advance of e-flu, For the postrela: tional artis, however, nothing is more detestable than smary, spreadable conviviality, because the ‘problem now is that togethernes can no Tonger be experienced outside of aesthetics, and there n0 ‘more avoiding the fact that isolation has been 5) tematially designed inco connectivity. Nowadays, networks are elerenced and theorized ad naunear, ‘butno longer with any utopian sentiments attached [ase year, we ead about Twitter revolutions inthe _msineream press atthe same tine tha we skimmed jouenal sch as Collapse and Sic, belated transla tions of Tiggum, and the sis novels of Maurie Dante post-World” senarios involving humans ‘coming modems, the terminal loss of language and Bodies). There was also Occupy, which seemed ike ‘teould have been anything—a vial insurrection, an agqressively peopled kind of ive-strean, general strke—untl it was surrounded by police and bogged ‘self down in democratic proces Stila permanent fault ine may have been produced in chat moment, ‘inasmuch a the retur to normal hast hen entirely convincing either The network disgust that experienced by even the most posiive minded artists aay is captured in ‘our continued abuse ofthe meme “LOL,” which hecomes ever more applicable in diect correlation tothe degree thar we overt and wear it out, Not ‘ven a word, the term sll performs the los of lan= fznage and of laughter, even, ls disembodied and ‘thus effccnly transmisible abbreviation of laughter ‘that ints repttion seems to evel both the estasy and the anxiety of our nonstop displacement within Social media. An overwritten, highbrow press lease about networks may be LOL Ora prec af a know ingly filed painting. But mostly LOL signals the !mputation of laughter from the body and ts reve Ingasthesilen,poison-dart like fight of postword wwthina necwork, The more we abuse, the more functionsas the postlaughter of wie minus bodies, lays somehow aimed ar the had faith of postcom ‘una conneciviy Back home after the opening of a summer group show about “networked painting” (at Zach Fever Gallery in New York), I'm stil gereing my head round the exhibition’ tile, “Context Message.” ‘Asie froma possible reference tthe Komtext Kus context ofthe early 1990s and to whatever fade, vaguely LOL echoes it may be producing in the cybernetic noacontext of Berlin-New York nos, ‘mostly 'm thinking, What else could the message he bur thar networks have decidedly replaced context, and that che only critical option remaining is prevent at today asa stomach digesting itself in pubs Hcy eal ime? Excepe chat the stomach sa network and theres no more publi, because cities ae just ‘conveniently imposible places tohang out while are pretends to finish itself of fr good. In other words, ita show about hyperreational decadence inthe age of high speed connects, with real paintings hy Michael Krebber, Merlin Carpenter, Jutta Koethes, Bjarne Melgaardy and RH. Quaytman, as well ashy the next generation gllerses and bloggers who keep these and other names vaguely vital while atthe ‘same time inflicting LOL degrees of insecurity on them, oF on the notion ofthe artist profile, mea ‘while casting serious daub on the possibilty of ostvely inhabiting something ikea context or ne ‘work (or city for that matter). The other LOL mes sage ere is that “network” is both a eitcal hot topic and ashamelesly witht way of selling pant ings inthis economic End of Days: Not only do you et this paimting-thing, you also get everyting ie Connected toa direct ink a something ike extin- sic value the “general intellect” ofan insisible post community. Ws ifficult to say which of these atin is ‘most favoealy positioned within the sel terrains, self-rolling spiderweb of "Context Message," hut the joke wee al n.on has to do with how paranoid and insecure the artist has become within the non context we've inherited from relational aesthetics, ‘he LOL thing to do with hiseling beng to reblog tas painting, Baudelairean spleen—or disgust asa poetic channel—was always connected to an idea of mod «ern beauy, was maybe even its preferred medium. ‘Any channeling of beauty today would have to cur {relation to crisis and the sublime of viral nsec: sty. The outmoding ofthe stadio and posbly even ‘ofthe anit heels we deliver our human capac ties over to network speed provides the strange new conditions unde which any coming aesthetics mst, ‘merge. So we wll ave ro make poety of the fact. that language does not survive speed, Wasnt Paul Viriio already approaching something ike an are ‘of speed and catasteophe in hooks such a8 The ‘Aesthetics of Disappearance (1980) and The Accident ‘of Art (2005)? The poststadio has become the non site of production a circulation, with some sor of Arist plgged nto. Via this connection the Fire ofthe artist herself demateraizes, becomes a pro ‘lo—vial, blggable,frendable and definable Iher most abstract work being herself, or her own connectivity. And theze’s no way to separate the ‘mobilization ofthis abstract, disappearing artist from the wider, systemic (and some would say anthropological crisis we ae living ehrough now: “Therwo phenomena ae linked the same automa. isms installed within the same ftueless note of cybernerworks. We wonder whether aes possible after Facebook and, for chat mater, whether even Facebook is posible after Facebook). Ifthe artistNext-level spleenis the affective register of undecidable friendship within the hyperrelational networks thatenmeshus so ex-intimately today, inthis panicked, postlaughter momentof blogger terror. today isa sort of “friend,” she always already inclus the possibly of being nonin ora bad friend, Nextlevel spleen in other words, is also linked tothe threat of defining that’s implicit in friending I's the affective register of undecdable friendship within the hyperelational networks that cenmesh us so ex-intimately today inthis panicked, postlaughter moment of logger terror. Networks arethemselesdelrions, paranoid structures; weal know tha they can bea mdi for teal, 00. ‘Some recent mosis deploy characters who could be stand-ins forthe postrlational artist. There is Michael Fassbender’s depressive sexaholc in Shame, who connects with all New York women while reteating into ever sore harrowing exper ‘ences of remoteness and narcissistic exile. There are the high-spced couples of las years nearly identical rom-coms Friends with Benefits and Ni Attached, who detach order t ciently, constructing a handy (Couple within the hnotime of the metropolitan interface, Theres ao Charlize Theron’ alcoholic teen zomance weiter in Young Adult, who, when she ventures aut ofthe solitary confinement of her high-rise home ace, is Confronted with the fac that eal-ife connection is no longer available to her: She (or the word, oF ‘dulthood} is already to far gone. Allo these cases inolve sucessful professionals exile i the midst. ‘oftheir own hypertlacional activities, who've lost, the posit of experiencing otherness excepein the banal Hlttened-out terms of the screen prof, ho can only interface and data oam, whether online or ined The abstraction of the body wihin the sre Tike void of the social is performed by actors who scm to Skype thei gestures and tweet their lines, Feformating acting for the windowike tages of Net space. These are performances of distibuted affect. Tio work and communicate a artists today is 0 extend this yhercapitalist desolation and contribu tothe dis-ease of mettopoltan togethers, it seems inovtale that we've areved at asplenctc experience ‘of abstraction, Whatever community we share now isthe one that constantly sabotages sels the ant community of networked souls Franco Berardi and thers have writen about a depressive epidemic that’s both ympromatic of and stractraly teal ro capitalism's development as an info-sphere, 0 ‘economic deregulation under conditions of high Speed exchange. The posthuran sped of culation mean that the world now escapes our capacity for stention and that we've Tos wartime for otherness, and therefore for ourselves, Under the present is pensation, connection is defined as the functional ssh betmeen formatted material or comp nets. Via networks, human elation ate reformat: ted to the pure syntax ofthe operating system. In ther words, bodies become desingulaeized as time and artention are exteate racked rom the ving person. Andas defensive reflex, we disconnect in che Inds of communication, meaning we depress ur selves, shutdown, make time. The eof Berards book The Sout at Work (2008) suggests seul Te Soul on Strike, in which indvidvalired depressions would ink up to form channel or medium for 3 Tadic interruption, Occupy depression The networked artist start frm the fact of being a human mem for metropolitan cieulation anda ‘modem for largely ungovernable eybercapitalist processes, Normally, when everything's running Smoothly, media disappear on us, etreating into their own efficiency, but in times of criss they become strangely perceptible again. Systemic criss could bea mirror for hallucinating the artistas