De/syn/chrono/biopolitics

Precarious Present,(Un)certain Future(s)

Abstract

This essay argues that current neoliberal regime is primarily characterized by synchronicity as its main mode of temporality. My claim is that despite the apparent impression that the imperative of synchronicity enhances the subject’s capacity to act in time and therefore shape her future, it instead hinders it. This observation leads to a critical re–examination of the dominant mode of temporality and necessitates the development of a new conceptual apparatus that accounts for both synchronical production of subjectivity and intrinsic to it (bio)political implications. I offer the synthetic notion of synchronobiopolitics as a means to look closely at how contemporary biopower synchronizes with subject’s productive affects and, vice versa, makes her synchronize with it. The essay starts with the analysis of precarious socioeconomic conditions of production and then moves to the exploration of epistemontological premises of synchronobiopolitics, so as to provide a detailed account of the affective mechanics of the latter. Particular attention is paid to the problem of the future, its construction under synchrobiopolitical conditions, and possible ways to resist synchronization and thus participate in the production of alternative future(s).