Figure/Ground Interview with Gary Genosko

As you see, I’m bad at giving advice. I can barely recommend readings. Books are toolboxes. They help to solve problems, answer questions, ask the right questions. They can be read in any way you can invent. They can be emptied out and reorganized. Lately I’ve been dreaming about books that are not ebooks but consist of chapters available for download on an ibooks site. But not just chapters of books (not as preludes or samples to wholes); maybe just choice passages. Maybe even footnotes. Or lines. Or a few concepts, rich turns of phrase. I would mash-up a book consisting of a deliriously edited smattering of Bifo, Tiziana Terranova, and Maurizio Lazzarato.

I would download sound files of the entire published works of Birmingham school cultural studies read by unlikely celebrities. I challenge my earphone wearing audio book listening students to put the texts to music, to play them, to jam with them. Once in Helsinki at the Baltic Theatre festival I saw a book of mine on Guattari used as a prop on stage in a performance. I was thrilled. I recently saw a book of mine on sale online by a US reseller for 5,000 dollars – only an idiot would pay that much! But what a glorious idiot!

Gary Genosko at Figure/Ground

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