Category Archives: Theory

Bifo on the 1980s

Posted on 09/17/2013 by kunzelman

At the threshold of the 1980s, punk had proclaimed the abolition of the future. Humanity no longer had any reason for remaining together. This was the feeling, the premonition. Nevertheless, the politicians, journalists, intellectuals of the time all hastened to … Continue reading →

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Mark Gonzales on Not Speaking

Posted on 09/16/2013 by kunzelman

MG: I like it and I hate it. I don’t really like the marketing or the business of skateboarding…the sport by itself, I just like skateboarding, it’s fun, it’s a fun thing to do. You don’t like photosessions either? MG: … Continue reading →

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Dreamcast Worlds is Out!

Posted on 09/09/2013 by kunzelman

  I’m a huge champion of material/symbolic/ historical studies of games, and Zoya Street has just released a book that hits all of those notes for me. Dreamcast Worlds is a close study of the Dreamcast, its games, and the world that … Continue reading →

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Michel Foucault On Video Games–I Mean Neo-Liberalism

Posted on 09/05/2013 by kunzelman

I think that the uncoupling of of the market economy and laissez-faire policies was achieved, or was defined, at any rate, its principle was laid down, when the neo-liberals put forward a theory of pure competition in which competition was … Continue reading →

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Derrida Accidentally Wrote About The Power of the Selfie in 1981

Posted on 09/03/2013 by kunzelman

Time: the metonymy of the instantaneous, the possibility of the narrative magnetized by its own limit. The instantaneous in photography, the snapshot, would itself be but the most striking metonymy within the modern technological age of an older instantaneity. Older, … Continue reading →

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Frantz Fanon on Ontology

Posted on 09/02/2013 by kunzelman

As long as the black man remains in his home territory, except for petty internal quarrels, he will not have to experience his being for others. There is in fact a “being for other,” as described by Hegel, but any … Continue reading →

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Mark Fisher on Nick Land

Posted on 08/23/2013 by kunzelman

Land was our Nietzsche – with the same baiting of the so-called progressive tendencies, the same bizarre mixture of the reactionary and the futuristic, and a writing style that updates nineteenth century aphorisms into what Kodwo Eshun called “text at … Continue reading →

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Craig Perko on Bot Fandom

Posted on 08/14/2013 by kunzelman

Like any kind of automation, it’s not that the human is written out. It’s that the task of believing, of being a fanboy… is being augmented. Fewer humans can accomplish more of the “fanboy” task. The fanboy robot does not … Continue reading →

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Pettman on Marder’s Plant-Thinking

Posted on 08/08/2013 by kunzelman

This is one of the central claims of Plant-Thinking, and yet I had difficulty squaring it with my own (admittedly inexpert) knowledge of “actual” plants. No doubt vegetal life is in many ways “unity in flux.” But does that mean it … Continue reading →

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Sway Talks About Riff Raff

Posted on 08/06/2013 by kunzelman

If you’re up on your Critical Riff Raff Studies, you know that there is a now-infamous interview where a Hot 97 producer took Riff to task about embodying hip hop stereotypes as a white man. I wrote a bit about … Continue reading →

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