In the 1960s, artists, writers, and activists prefigured the wider discourse around automation and made it a central concern of their politics. Drawing upon James and Grace Lee Boggs’s notion of the cybercultural era, and examining the works of Martin Luther King Jr., Noah Purifoy, and the Black Panthers, Brian Bartell provides a crucial key to understanding the historical dynamics responsible for our technocapitalist, AI-driven present. Here, Bartell is joined in conversation with John Elrick.

Brian Bartell teaches courses on politics and aesthetics, media studies, and race and technology studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles and at the California Institute of Technology. Bartell is author of On the Eve of the Cybercultural Revolution: Black Power and Capitalism in the 1960s.

John Elrick is visiting assistant professor of geography at Vassar College.

EPISODE REFERENCES:

-From Counterculture to Cyberculture / Fred Turner

-“The Negro and Cybernation,” James Boggs, speech delivered at the First Annual Conference on the Cybercultural Revolution, 1964.

-Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution (AHC), The Triple Revolution (pamphlet), 1964.

-National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress, Report Vol. 1: Technology and the American Economy, 1966

-Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century / Grace Lee Boggs

-Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth, 1972

-Ten Point Program, 1966 and 1972 (presented at Community Survival Conference, Oakland, CA); particularly, “People’s Community Control of Modern Technology” and Huey P. Newton’s “The Technology Question” within.

-The Chosen Place, the Timeless People / Paule Marshall

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
"Incisive, original, and beautifully written, On the Eve of the Cybercultural Revolution exposes the interconnections between race, technology, and capitalism. Brian Bartell shows that the cybercultural revolution was central to the Black Power movement as it opened up avenues for envisioning freedom from the conditions of reproduction and labor under racial capitalism."
—Neda Atanasoski

"Highly relevant to the present moment, On the Eve of the Cybercultural Revolution presents a vital argument about the Black Power movement’s insights into the relationship between capitalism, technology, and racism. In so doing, Brian Bartell makes a fascinatingly original contribution to conversations about the role of automation in the ‘technocapitalist present.’"
—Jonathan Flatley

On the Eve of the Cybercultural Revolution: Black Power and Capitalism in the 1960s by Brian Bartell is available from University of Minnesota Press. Thank you for listening.