Matt Colquhoun's Blog, page 53
February 25, 2021
Hull and the Bomb
In researching my recent essay for Plaza Protocol, “The Geology of Malls”, I ended up thinking quite a bit about Hull’s strange post-war nihilism. It is a city that has a very peculiar relationship to its own destruction. There, I wrote that “Hull’s creativity is inextricably tied to the history of its own destruction”, highlighting […]
February 23, 2021
Framing Adam Curtis
The reviews are in. Adam Curtis’s latest documentary series, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, has been described as “dazzling” and “overwhelming” (in a good way), as well as “dazzling” and “incoherent” (in a bad way). Apart from the occasional lukewarm review, however, the critical reception has been very positive. But, as anyone on […]
“A teacher ‘who really gave a shit'”: For k-punk in The Art Newspaper
Many thanks to Kabir Jhala, who interviewed Natasha Eves and I for an article about this year’s For k-punk event at the ICA. You can read it here. This nearly five-hour-long “digital afterparty” is “part virtual club night, part lecture and an expression of collective grief”, says the writer Matt Colquhoun, who edited Postcapitalist Desire and, along […]
February 22, 2021
Buddies Without Organs — Episode #04: The Geology of Morals
In case you missed it, the newest episode of Buddies Without Organs went live on Monday! We read the “Geology of Morals” chapter of A Thousand Plateaus and were also joined by our new buddy Corey J. White. Go check it out over on the website here, follow us on Twitter and wherever you get […]
February 20, 2021
Badiou/Acc: Terror and Parody with Ed Berger
Ed with another whopper of a comment on the last post: I’ve found myself wondering if some of these things become clearer when we consider not only the post-2008 ‘Accelerationist debate’ not only through this subterranean Nietzschean-Maoist frame, but also through a return to what has been retroactively inscribed as the ‘accelerationist moment’ of the […]
Winter Walks VII
Photographs from numerous walks around Marsden, West Yorkshire, taken in December 2020.
February 19, 2021
Solidarity and Cryptocurrency: Notes on NFTs
Following a recent episode of the Interdependence podcast on “non-fungible tokens” — or NFTs — my Twitter timeline has been a buzz with enthusiasm and cynicism in equal measure. I can’t proclaim to be that well-informed on the comings and goings of cryptocurrency. I have a wallet of my own, and prefer to invest in […]
The Geology of Malls: XG for Plaza Protocol
The folks at ŠUM have a new project, co-produced by Projekt Atol, called Plaza Protocol. It’s an amazing platform exploring an unfinished and disused shopping mall on the outskirts of Ljubljana. Plaza Protocol is developing new formats and plots for and from an unfinished construction site of an underground shopping mall on the outskirts of […]
February 18, 2021
Covid Libertarianism: Notes on Althusser and a Spanner in the Works of Ideological Reproduction
An irony in three parts: The UK Home Office recently released a video advising the public that all “gatherings” are currently illegal. Parties, raves, baby showers, etc. It’s all against the law. What’s disturbing about the video is its strange suspension between reality and fantasy. It very obviously apes the anti-piracy adverts that generations were […]
Anti-Hauntology: Notes on Acid Horizon
For all my banging on, somewhat speculatively, about a kind of conversation to come, where we can talk about cultural newness in the terms of the present and actually do justice to how pop-musical developments provide glimmers of a now we’re often too caught up in things to appreciate, this conversation held on the Acid […]
