Author: Oli
-
The Big Breakfast: the first meal of Cool Britainnia
Yes I know, I’ve perhaps been reading too much of Mark Fisher of late, but I really do think he was on to something. Perhaps it’s because I’m a child of the 90s, maybe because my first ever proper job gave me a front row seat in the ever-accelerating juggernaut…
-
The (not so) original sin of Apple’s ‘Crush’ Advert
Apple have a bit of history with controversial commercials. The infamous 1984 cinematic ad directed by Ridley Scott won a sack full of awards, but many commentators highlighted how it signalled the birth of a kind of consumerist tech capitalism in which products’ branding and image were far more important…
-
Capitalism & Schizophrenia: A contemporary reading
It will not be a surprise to anyone who has attempted to read it, but Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s ‘Capitalism and Schizophrenia’ duology is a labyrinthine experience (to put it mildly). I have picked it up again recently after several years, and despite being wiser and grumpier in my…
-
Escaping 1997
Have you noticed that we’re stuck in the year of 1997? If you call recall that time, it was the apotheosis of neoliberalism with Bill Clinton securing a second term as US president and Tony Blair blustered into Number 10 riding the coattails of Cool Britannia culture and associated celebrities.…
-
The Bear: Gentrification & its discontents
The opening shot of the highly acclaimed TV show ‘The Bear’ sees the main character Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto staring down a caged brown bear in the heart of Chicago’s downtown. The motif, evidently a dream, nightmare or general vision rather than actual events, serves a telling mark not only of…
-
Exploring Blackness of the Inner City: A Review of Netflix’s “The Kitchen”
As an urban geography professor, there are some films that are so on the nose with regard the themes that pervade my teaching and research encounters that they demand a closer inspection: and Netflix’s The Kitchen by Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya is one such film. Set in a near…
-
Benjaminian Aura in the Age of Swift
Swift performs at Gillette Stadium on May 19, 2023, in Foxborough, Mass., during her Eras Tour. Scott Eisen/TAS23 via Getty Images My children are Swifties. I take this as an abject failure on my part to indoctrinate them with various hues of ‘dad rock’, but given that Taylor Swift has…
-
Hauntology: The Persistent Echoes of Lost Futures and Unfulfilled Promises
I sat down over the weekend to watch a Muppet’s Christmas Carol with the kids, and despite it being a tale a about a super-rich oligarch that is essentially guilt tripped into being a charitable entrepreneur, yet maintains his exploitative corporate enterprise but with just slightly higher wages in lieu…
-
Pixel 8’s ‘best take’ and the Digital Dystopia
By now, you will have no doubt seen adverts for the new Pixel 8 mobile phone. One of it’s key new innovative features is it’s AI-infused camera technology, notably ‘best take’ (advertised above, if you can stomach it). This feature, which the adverts are keen to show in a fun,…
-
Juxtaposition in the Capitalocene
One of the fundamental epistemological tenants of the Capitalocene can be analysed via a rather old-fashioned motif: a geographical, specifically, a scalar narrative. That is because our current conjuncture compels us to confront a stark and often discordant juxtaposition: one that chaotically zooms from the cosmological, the planetary, the national,…
taCity 