Where Does A Body Begin? Biology's function in contemporary capitalism by MYB (2nd edition)

Well? Did anyone figure it out yet?

This book offers at least two very valuable contributions: first in its account of the relationships between Biology (as education, research, institutions etc.) and Capital (in such forms as Research grants, Industries & Corporations etc.), and second in its more philosophical work. The book stems, as a good book often does, from the author’s discontents with Biology, as experienced through years of exposure to academic institutions which, as the book makes clear, are deeply interconnected with, for example, Pharmaceutical companies. 

The book was prefaced by anonymous artist and researcher of javascript, bodies, and hormones, i0 xen0, and contains artwork and illustrations by Rachel Lilim

CONTENTS: 

• When is a Body? by i0 xen0
  
• Where does a Body begin? by MYB 
  Chapter 0: Introduction
  Chapter 1: Ontology
  Chapter 2: Utility
  Chapter 3.0: Cybernetics I: An Ontological Order
  Chapter 3.5: Cybernetics II: A Political Order
  Chapter 4: Systems Biology 
  Chapter 0.00.1: Postscript: Neural Networks and AI 

BIOS:

Meltdown Your Books (MYB), the pen name, was made as a portmanteau of the seminal essay Meltdown by Nick Land, and the landmark film Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets by Shuji Terayama. I chose the name, almost 3 years ago now, to reflect the political and digital black hole I saw hovering at the edge of contemporary media experience, and to present my work without the muddy veneer of personal identity. It has remained, since its inception, an anonymous project in only the loosest terms. The dedicated could always find my real identity, and some have, and so its anonymous character existed primarily as an element of presentation. Its anonymity existed to emphasize its deindividuated character. The things I discuss and emphasize under the MYB label are not items with definitive characteristics, they are collective experiences. MYB is something I cherish beyond self. 

i0 xen0 is an artist, writer, and transexual based in Berlin. It has an academic research background in science and technology studies; its visual and performance art focuses on how people understand and imagine the internal structures and processes in their bodies, including through technologies of voluntary and involuntary bodily surveillance. All aspects of i0 xen0's academic and artistic work are informed by embodied contemplative practice. Its multidisciplinary research on how people collectively comprehend hormonal experience has been published with HumDrum Press, and contains practical invitations for individual and collaborative building of body knowledge (http://bask.guide/hormones). The content, framing and spirit of i0 xen0's foreword on MYB's book owes much to Ellen Samuel's "Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time" (2017).

DETAILS: 
Authored by Meltdown Your Books 
Prefaced by i0 xen0
Edited by Nicholas E. Powers
Illustrated by Rachel Lillim
CAT #BECOMING003
ISBN: 978-9925-8118-4-7 (Print)
ISBN: 978-9925-8118-5-4 (Digital)
11 x 18cm, Softcover, 111 pages
Second Edition, October 2024

TO BE CITED AS:
Meltdown Your Books (2024) Where Does a Body Begin? Biology’s function in contemporary capitalism. Berlin/Nicosia: Becoming.