Category: Mark Fisher
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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From Le Guin to Afrofuturism via Fisher: Decolonising revolutionary futures
The late, great American science fiction and anti-capitalist novelist, Ursula K. Le Guin said in 2014 these now oft-quoted words: “Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the…