Tag: politics
-
Benjamin Bratton – The Revenge of the Real (2021) [OTF012]
Benjamin Bratton. The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-pandemic World (London/New York: Verso, 2021). Written hastily and timely during the initial weeks of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Benjamin Bratton’s essay The Revenge of the Real can be read, from the author’s point of view, as a document of multiple, interconnected, systemic failures. Failures…
-
Reality Capitalism, or, the Cultural Logic of the Upside Down
After human capital, social capital, cultural capital, and algorithmic capital, I would like to propose reality capital as another contemporary object of exchange. Reality capitalism describes the state in which competing visions of reality – or even realities in themselves – are produced, bought and sold on futures markets, displayed through the refractions of multiple…
-
Writing as Work
It’s often been said (not least on this blog) that for many of us, work plays a central role in our lives. Sometimes there is a close relationship between the words “work” and “livelihood”. The idea of engaging in work in order to live is quite common but disarmingly complex. According to the physical laws…
-
Reversibility and Intimacy in and Beyond the Master’s House
I presented an abridged version of this paper as part of The Reverse Side: Guattari, Deleuze and Institutional Thought, a series of events which ran from 8th-10th July 2019 at Royal Holloway, University of London. In part a response to the concurrent, much larger International Deleuze and Guattari Conference 2019, The Reverse Side sought “to…
-
“An unprecedented aestheticisation of everyday life”: Acid Communism
k-punk, the new collection of the late Mark Fisher’s blog posts, interviews, and unpublished writings, arrived at my doorstep last Thursday. It’s a big beast, at over 700 pages, and I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with many of these brilliant insights (and catching up with those I previously missed) over the coming weeks. Seeing…
-
The Work Ethic and “Postwork Imaginaries”: From Max Weber to Kathi Weeks // Part 2
This is the second of a two-part essay. Part 1 can be found here.
-
The Work Ethic and “Postwork Imaginaries”: From Max Weber to Kathi Weeks // Part 1
This is the first of a two-part essay. Part 2 can be found here. The Culture of Work and Its Problems A work-based economy presents several problems to individuals and collectives, and whilst there is a strong historical precedence for challenges made against the conditions of work, rarely is the notion of work in its…
-
There Is An Alternative: A Tribute to Mark Fisher
It was a great sadness to hear about the passing of Mark Fisher this weekend. As both a cultural critic and theoretician, Mark’s writing was at once highly engaging, original, and accessible to his many audiences. A founder of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (Ccru) during his years studying at the University of Warwick during…
-
Mandela Effect, Truth Affect
One increasingly popular internet meme/conspiracy theory doing the rounds is something known as the “Mandela Effect.” Its origins lie in the claims of “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome, who began to gain popularity shortly after the widely publicised death of South African president Nelson Mandela in 2013. In a series of internet comments, Broome claimed to…