outside light

Sign in Subscribe

journal

utopian machine network things

While the idea of ‘utopia’ appears naive and even hysterical under capitalist realism, the pathologization and irrationalization of anti-capitalist longing presents an enduring threat. In the face of the hard-right global turn, these problems must come to the foreground of our struggles.

the weird and the eerie

…the weird is that which does not belong. This mode brings something to the everyday which does not belong there and cannot be reconciled with it. The form that is most appropriate to the weird is the montage; hence the preference within surrealism for the weird combinations. Modernist works of art/culture can often seem weird because we are in the presence of the new…

Fisher:…the weird is constituted by a presence — the presence of that which does not belong. In some cases of the weird (those with which Lovecraft was obsessed) the weird is marked by an exorbitant presence, a teeming which exceeds our capacity to represent it.

The eerie concerns the most fundamental philosophical questions: why is there something here when there should be nothing.

Fisher:…The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there is nothing present when there should be something.

…to exist on a map is to have value. … Beryl Markham: “A map .. is a symbol of confidence and trust. It is not like a printed page that bears mere words”.

Yuk Hui:…machine management of almost everything: drone killings, DDos attacks, deep packet inspection, etc. … it is important to avoid romanticising a human machine complex as “machine assemblages”.

Read next

Minus workshop 7, part 1: naturalism / gesture

Minus workshop 7, part 1: naturalism / gesture

The following was written when I was without power and what goes by the term connectivity—without power I had no easy access to water but could at least heat what I carried in pots from the smaller of our two tanks that collect rainwater from the roof—because a

Minus workshop 6, part 2: the power of being affected

Minus workshop 6, part 2: the power of being affected

is the power of affect more than that of affecting and being an agent of affect causing it. This I was thinking on my way to the workshop at Ellen Melville Centre. The thought grew from the perspective of David Lapoujade, in his small book Powers of Time, 2018 translated

Minus workshop 6, part 1: meaning

Minus workshop 6, part 1: meaning

In the workshop I did recently, run by author of Matter of Fact: Talking Truth in a Post-Truth World, 2018, Jess Berentson-Shaw for those who work in libraries (there is no guarantee anymore they are librarians) about countering false information, certain statements were made I wrote down that are the