Pedro Costa's films belie both the cinematic exploitation of suffering and the documentary urge to record truth and fix recognition. Ana Balona de Oliveira sifts through the bones and ruins of Costa's Fontaínha trilogy, set in a disappearing Lisbon slum

If the government is to be believed, we are undergoing a streak of freakily bad luck. First the credit crunch, then astronomical fuel price hikes and now a global food crisis. Could all these by any chance be connected?

Variant, one of the few magazines covering the grim process of stealth privatisation of Glasgow's cultural assets, appears to have been specifically targeted by one of the very privateers it criticised, and who has banned its distribution at Tramway gallery, in a highly defensive abuse of power:

As the US subprime mortgage crisis plays out, the ‘dual morality’ of its victims' treatment becomes stark. But, Randy Martin explains, bailing-out the banks while leaving defaulters to rot is just the latest in a 30 year campaign of ripping off the American working class

In July last year Mute published Dmytri Kleiner's critique of copyright and its 'radical' copyleft alternative, presenting a reformist programme based on Ricardo's 'iron law of wages'. But Marx demolished this analysis 140 years ago, argues Stefan Meretz. Time for FLOSS to catch up?

The recent London performance of Luigi Nono's composition for orchestra and live-processing, Prometeo, was presented as an apotheosis of the Italian composer's work. John Wollaston essays a paraphrase of this complex 'super-capsule' of the untransmittable

As the UK creative economy flags, the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA)'s corrective is 'innovation'. But without investment, is this any more than a word? James Heartfield reports

This year’s Futuresonic festival in Manchester attempted to spark an alternative vision of social networking software. Matthew Fuller, software critic and participating artist, recognises its urgent necessity

The UK's health and social services have become tools of surveillance and control, with working class women the most vulnerable to state intervention. Madame Tlank reviews the State's policies, targets, and projects, and uncovers the warped logic and fragmenting effects of marketised welfare

Well Jeff, ... the fact is that you have the luxury of knowing that you will never ever ever ever EVER be faced with the government bossing you around like a child, simply because you have a parasite living in your body.

The comic 'Staabucks Fukkee is Your Enemy' ran between articles by John Cunningham and Stewart Martin in the print edition of Mute Vol 2 #8

Taking issue with the argument that, after decentralisation, control is embodied within the protocols of networks, Harry Halpin gives a historical account of the all-too-human actors vying for power over the net. Not technical standards but immaterial aristocrats rule cyberspace and their seats of power are vulnerable to revolutionary attack