The Next Universal

Dec 11 2015

Interview with Laboria Cuboniks by Rosemary Heather for the Kunsthalle Wien Populism Blog.

With the publication of their Xenofeminist manifesto this spring, the anonymous feminist collective Laboria Cuboniks sets the terms for a massively ambitious project. Their goal is to synthesize a new universalism, one that overrides the still-dominant paradigm that derives from the western white-male. Their collectively-authored text, subtitled A Politics for Alienation, is just a first step in a multi-faceted critique that will draw from the various strands of their respective disciplines. While building on the accomplishments of identity-based politics of the last century, the collective argue that the historical moment for this type of analysis has passed. Before reading the manifesto, the urgency of Laboria Cubonik’s program was not clear to me, but it now seems obvious. I look forward to the book they are now working to produce. We spoke through the medium of Google Docs over the past couple of weeks.