Amateur mortality

ABSTRACT Near the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi published three short meditations on the possible, not probable, outcome of the pandemic. Due to the sudden imposition of isolation and concrete needs, Berardi suggests that death has re-entered contemporary discourse. As a consequence, he speculates that the capitalist postponement of joy may be replaced by time as enjoyment. This text critically accompanies Berardi in imagining the possible outcome of the pandemic by suggesting that it is not death but mortality that offers a pivotal use of time and enjoyment. Mortality, as Hannah Arendt defines it, extends beyond the temporality of survivalist labour and into durable works that contribute to the construction of a human world. Here it is argued that this world and its work is held together by love, in a robust philosophical sense, that is embodied by amateur practice, primarily developed in relation to the work of Bernard Stiegler. Through the work of Stiegler, Donna Haraway and Byung-Chul Han, this paper argues that, masked by professionalism and marketing, amateurism lurks in the possible ruins of pre-COVID life, ready to emerge in the key areas identified by Berardi’s texts.