“Why Are You so Bad, Bro?”: Theory of the Avatar

Freedom is an online performance by Eva and Franco Mattes. Its setting is the infamous FPS video game Counter-Strike. Eva, as Continue reading →

Taylor Swift and Totalitarianism

The system is broken. The celebrity is brighter than the sun. Only she can decide when it is day. There’s Continue reading →

Reflections on the Death of Music Journalism

News of the mass of layoffs by Condé Nast, as well as discourse on the decline of music journalism and Continue reading →

James Joyce’s Real-Life Hero

Leopold Bloom is the fictional hero of Joyce’s Ulysses but it was Paul Léon who embodied heroic qualities for real Continue reading →

Semiotics of the End: The Backrooms

On October 12, 1492, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus landed on the American continent. On July 20, 1969, American astronaut Neil Continue reading →

What Is Solarpunk?

Green capitalism is the hottest new thing. A sunny valley with advanced technology, a robot farmer picking strawberries with grandpa Continue reading →

Remembering Baudrillard’s Contaminated Discourse

The parasite serves as a useful simulacrum for post-modernism. Post-modernity engages us with a kind of viral discourse, which seeks Continue reading →

Weird Fictions & Neoliberal Horrors: The British Urban Imaginary

Every morning, first thing, I flick on my phone for a dose of mass death. War-images and propaganda dance on Continue reading →