24 7 Terminal Capitalism & the Ends of Sleep

24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep explores some of the ruinous consequences of the expanding non-stop processes of twenty-first-century capitalism. The marketplace now operates through every hour of the clock, pushing us into constant activity and eroding forms of community and political expression, damaging the fabric of everyday life.

Jonathan Crary examines how this interminable non-time blurs any separation between an intensified, ubiquitous consumerism and emerging strategies of control and surveillance. He describes the ongoing management of individual attentiveness and the impairment of perception within the compulsory routines of contemporary technological culture. At the same time, he shows that human sleep, as a restorative withdrawal that is intrinsically incompatible with 24/7 capitalism, points to other more formidable and collective refusals of world-destroying patterns of growth and accumulation.

"The 24/7 phantasmagoria of digital exchange impresses the commodity deep into the body’s tissues, leaving only sleep as a partial respite. Jonathan Crary updates Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man with a vigilant critique of the totality of the seemingly eternal present of this pseudo-world." McKenzie Wark, author of < em=""> The Spectacle of Disintegration < m="">

"Crary’s polemic against the demands of 24/7 capitalism brilliantly illuminates the devastating effects of our changed temporality. Enjoined to constant productivity, we consume ourselves, our world, and our capacity collectively to imagine a common future. This is a crucial commentary on the format and tempo of contemporary life." Jodi Dean, author of < em=""> The Communist Horizon < m="">

Capitalism’s colonization of every hour in the day

Jonathan Crary is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University. His books include Techniques of the Observer and Suspensions of Perception.

24/7 explores some of the ruinous consequences of the expanding, nonstop processes of twenty-first-century capitalism. The marketplace now operates twenty-four hours of every day and demands our constant activity, eroding forms of community, political expression, and the fabric of everyday life. Jonathan Crary examines the way this interminable non-time blurs any separation between an intensified, ubiquitous consumerism and the strategies of control and surveillance. He argues that human sleep and dreaming provide exemplary, if elusive, models for other thresholds at which society might defend or protect itself.