The Shape of Utopia to Come: Improvising Music and Nomadic Politics is the working title of a book I’m currently writing for Zero Books. Drawing on anarchist political philosophy; the works of Gilles Deleuze; the science of complexity; utopian literature and thought; and my own experiences as an improvising musician, the book introduces my concept of the nomadic utopia through the practice of collectively improvising music. Its main argument is that collective improvisation creates nomadic utopian spaces defined my immanence and nonhierarchy, but it considers the tendency for improvisation to ossify into hierarchy and repetition-without-difference. It asks whether ‘strategic’ forms of organisation might be conducive to keeping improvising groups open to the future. Finally it considers resonances with Zapatismo, popular education and debates surrounding different forms of organisation in contemporary revolutionary politics, and considers what these movements might learn from musical improvisation, and vice-versa.
Blog posts on issues related to the book can be found by clicking on the relevant category on the left, or just here.
