Noticed McKenzie Wark’s review (or should we say, series of notes) under Letters in Public Seminar section of Arts and Design: From OOO to P(OO). Wark’s work is usually succinct and pungent, informed by a Marxian vision that one can take or leave. From his early Hacker Manifesto with its formalist nod; to Gamer Theory that reads more like an instruction manual for the nerd in us all; to his inner history of the Situationist movement spanning the secret nerve center of our late modernity Wark leads us through the ruins of our belated era like a pilot without a rudder seeking the epistemological nuggets of some forgotten vein of truth rather than gold. Learned and observant, Wark appraises without a calculated estimation; targets but leaves us with the circumspect and peripheral rather than the bulls eye. For all that his mind is sprightly and gracious to a point, giving us the survey if not the details of the land and map; at once loquacious and insightful he opens a thought without finally closing it down.
In his review (letter?) of Timothy Morton’s Hyperorbjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Minnesota, 2013) he tells us he has some problems with it as theory and will try his best to outline where his own thinking and Morton’s “overlap and diverge”. I’m not going to reiterate the long rambling notations of his critique in this post, but rather highlight certain points.
The Dark Fantastic: Literature, Philosophy, and Digital Arts 