Tag: Theory-Fiction
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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 […]
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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak – “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography” (1985) [OTF011]
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography” (1985), in The Spivak Reader, ed. by Donna Landry & Gerald MacLean (New York/London: Routledge, 1996), 203-235. A hyperstitional carrier is defined by the Hyperstition collective as a fictional figure or group serving as either an authorial voice or cited name with the appearance of authenticity that would […]
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Lessons of Darkness (1992) [OTF010]
Lessons of Darkness, dir. Werner Herzog (Canal+/Première/Werner Herzog Filmproduktion: 1992). Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins. Friedrich Nietzsche1 Facts do […]
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Antonin Artaud – “On the Balinese Theatre” (1938) [OTF008]
Antonin Artaud. The Theatre and Its Double [Le Théâtre et son Double], tr. Victor Corti (Richmond: Alma Classics Ltd, 2013 [1938]). One of the most influential texts on theatre in the twentieth century, Artaud’s The Theatre and Its Double decries the turn Western theatre had been taking for the best part of four centuries, namely, […]
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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 […]
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One Hour Photo (2002) [OTF007]
Mark Romanek (dir.). One Hour Photo (Killer Films/John Wells production for Fox Searchlight Pictures/Catch 23 Entertainment: 2002). Sy “The Photo Guy” Parrish (Robin Williams) works in the photo development studio and kiosk located at the back of the local SavMart store. His otherwise solitary life is dedicated to the underappreciated art of developing prints for casual shoppers and […]
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Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album (1996) [OTF006]
Aphex Twin. Richard D. James Album (1996: Warp Records). When I was a teenager, I suddenly developed skin allergies which still persist in a milder form to this day. I therefore needed 2 or 3 prescribed medications (nowadays down to 1) to deal with these sudden reactions, and found that I couldn’t use heavily perfumed products […]
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Neon Genesis Irangelion: XYZT by Kristen Alvanson review
Kristen Alvanson. XYZT (Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2019). I already knew that Iran was separated off from the world. Most Americans don’t go there – I’m not sure who does go there. And of course, I hadn’t really believed that it would work. But as soon as the bracelet tightens, I know what will happen. It all comes back to me as […]
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DJ Screw [OTF005]
In the 1990s and 2000s, the mythic depths of Southside Houston, Texas became the fertile grounds for an astonishing and totalising sonic fiction. Its originator, DJ Screw, gave his name to a genre-technique, and with it the soundtrack to an entire culture. “I started messing with the pitch adjusters on the turntables and slowed it […]
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Koyaanisqatsi (1982) [OTF004]
Godfrey Reggio (dir.). Koyaanisqatsi (Institute for Regional Education/American Zoetrope: 1982). Koyaanisqatsi is a film you’re probably familiar with, even if you haven’t seen it, as since its release it’s been cited, imitated, and parodied on many occasions. Watching it again today (especially for the first time) it may even seem unspectacular or passé, compared with any number of extraordinary footage […]