In these interviews dating from 1998, Châtelet amplifies the major themes of To Live and Think Like Pigs, discusses his method of dramatisation and the crucial importance of style; and touches on subjects from dialectics to dope smoking, from Yoplait to slavery, along the way introducing some of the book’s key concepts: cybercattle, the average man, the tapeworm-citizen, and of course the pitiful couple Cyber-Gideon and Turbo-Bécassine.

Things were mopey in the K-HOLE offices. Dystopia texts no longer made Sean *zing*. Greg was depressed because he didn’t feel like there was any imagination anymore. When Emily thought about what that meant, the only thing that came to mind was Disneyland. Chris refused to do any client work whatsoever. Dena had long since moved to Los Angeles…

What would it be like if one day everyone you encountered said that they were you. Would you let them assume your identification, knowing that ultimately they can only be themselves. These questions are what Carroll provokes us with in All the Men Who Think They Can Be Me.

What will the declining middle class mean for U.S. party affiliations in the near future? I speak with YouTuber and political commentator J.J. McCullough about his recent column in The Washington Post.

Assembling a Black Counter Culture is a general history of techno and adjacent electronic music with a focus on Black experiences in industrialized labor systems, and explores the development of on-the-ground culture in relation to a unique American art form. Revisiting Detroit’s techno roots through the 1980s, writer and musician DeForrest Brown, Jr. follows the extended thinking and techniques behind key early players and places them in conversation with the African American working class in the historically emblematic Motor City. From The Belleville Three to today’s international club floor, Assembling a Black Counter Culture illuminates the mechanics of American mainstream cultural ...

New Models speaks with Z, founder of the BLACK SOCIALISTS of AMERICA (BSA), an online channel turned IRL organization providing a forum and voice for black American leftists as well as education around the values of socialism (per Marx). In this episode, we discuss the inherent racism of the “American Dream” (i.e., capitalism), the promise of worker co-ops, identity politics’ tactical deficiencies in big stack activism, and how to leverage online traction to effect real world political change. This item is publicly available as part of the Library Stack Public Branch at NN Contemporary Art.

Civilizations at their peak present curious spectacles. They ooze wealth and pride, produce fantastic art and technologies, all while shredding the foundations of their prosperity. Their citizens seem to believe they eclipse mundane restrictions of time and space. The monuments their predecessors have left in Rome, on Easter Island, in Egypt, in Venice, littered like warning beacons elsewhere throughout the world, demonstrate such faith may not match reality. A rock thrown skyward must believe, at the top of its arc, fleetingly, that it is flying. When we admire our great cities, we find it hard to believe that they will ever ...

Sunday 25 March | Doors 7pm | Admission Free Louise-Michel, France (2008) 91mins directed by Gustave de Kervern & Benoît Delépine Laukaus tehtaalla AKA A Shot in the Factory, Finland (1973), 79 mins Directed by Erkko Kivikoski What to do when the workers of a factory have been laid off overnight? Louise has an original idea: why not pool the compensation money to… hire a hit man and to liquidate the boss? Motion accepted so Louise goes in search of the gem they need and unfortunately comes across Michel, a stinky security specialist. Michel, who is busted, gladly accepts the deal but proves so inept ...

Capital at the Brink reveals the pervasiveness, destructiveness, and dominance of neoliberalism within American society and culture. The contributors to this collection also offer points of resistance to an ideology wherein, to borrow Henry Giroux’s comment, “everything either is for sale or is plundered for profit.” The first step in fighting neoliberalism is to make it visible. By discussing various inroads that it has made into political, popular, and literary culture, Capital at the Brink is taking this first step and joining a global resistance that works against neoliberalism by revealing the variety of ways in which it dominates and ...

CAPS LOCK uses clear language and striking visual examples to show how graphic design and capitalism are inextricably linked. The book contains many case studies of designed objects related to capitalist societies and cultures, and also examines how the education and professional practice of (graphic) designers supports the market economy and how design practice is caught within that very system. The content of CAPS LOCK is structured in chapters with titles of professions that designers can occupy (such as Educator; Engineer, Hacker, Futurist, Activist, etc.). These titles respond to the importance of not just how designers make work, but also ...

Can capital be seen? Cartographies of the Absolute surveys the disparate answers to this question offered by artists, film-makers, writers and theorists over the past few decades. It zones in on the crises of representation that have accompanied the enduring crisis of capitalism, foregrounding the production of new visions and artefacts that wrestle with the vastness, invisibility and complexity of the abstractions that rule our lives.

Charles Mudede joins us from Seattle to read “White Knee, Black Neck,” published in the June 2020 issue of e-flux journal.