Matt Colquhoun's Blog, page 74
June 6, 2020
The Games Industry: Accelerationism and the Hauntological in Microcosm
I’m currently doing a load of research into accelerationism — when am I not — for a new thing. I’ve been digging far back into the blogosphere to try and accurately trace its development from its 2007 beginnings to the present, but without all the distracting retconning of various philosophers who have at one time or other expressed an accelerationist opinion. (I found a very early Benjamin Noys post where he offers a few examples of accelerationist positions and one was a quote from Roland Bart...
June 3, 2020
Ignore the Neurosis
Clarifying my thoughts about and my intentions with Egress is undoubtedly an unnecessary endeavour that reveals far more about my own neuroticism than it reveals about the book itself.
The present obsession with defending the presence of Bataille and Blanchot feels wholly ill advised and boarding on obsessive, and I’d take it all down if it wasn’t actually really useful for getting my own head straight.
Unfortunately, as of late, I have allowed the book to become wholly defined by its read...
First Step; Next Step. (I Was Moved.)
whatever criticisms I might have of Colquhoun's book I think it's a very constructive first step & will hopefully make the right people mad online
— Dan Barrow (@satinisland) June 2, 2020
I’m still reeling from Dan Barrow’s article in Tribune, published online the other day — but in a good way. My previous post about it may have read slightly glibly — and I edited it multiple times after first publishing it to try and get the tone right — but in the process of thinking about the article, aft...
June 1, 2020
“Mark Fisher Beyond the Cliché”: Dan Barrow on ‘Egress’ for Tribune Magazine
An interesting write-up on Mark Fisher and my book Egress in the latest issue of Tribune magazine: “Mark Fisher Beyond the Cliché”, penned by Dan Barrow.
It’s great to see a swift appraisal of Mark’s writings that contends with his bizarre posthumous reputation. Barrow writes:
On the margins of academia and “Very Old Media”, [Fisher’s] work was informed by a training in ultra-libertarian cybertheory, as a co-founder of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, and a tradition of music journal...
May 31, 2020
“I Can’t Breathe”
There’s a sick sort of doubling occurring at the moment, exacerbating our global distress and malaise.
“I can’t breathe” once again becomes a way for protestors to identify with the deceased, but it now cuts through two forms of diminished life, whether that be citizens suffocated by police or by disease.
Our present (all too personal) problems, that have defined the last few weeks of lockdown — selfish, noisy neighbours, and the constant banging from a nearby building site; freelance pre...
May 29, 2020
More Theology of the Seething Cosmic Void: Notes on Scaling from Spinoza to Negarestani
As part of the XG Discord reading group, we’ve been reading (and reading around) Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia.
In week one, we talked about how the text is written, its since-removed online origins, and its chaotic references, contradictions, and plot holes, all of which allows the text itself to germinate and pollinate like Nerium Oleander — that strange and toxic plant seemingly without origin, spotted by Kristen Alvanson in the back of a taxi on her way to meet S.
Cyclonopedia is, i...
Front Window #10: Storm Chasing in Surrey
Following the previous week‘s very successful walk through the woods in Surrey, we headed out that way again for another secluded couple of hours in nature.
The day had been shifting back and forth between bright heat and dark showers. It was another strangely psychedelic day in the deserted countryside, walking along the very edge of an enormous storm, navigating an edge of rain like existing in some weather-exclusion zone in an unending sound studio, whilst not pushing our luck by spending ...
May 28, 2020
Fragment on Riotous Subjects and Riotous Objects
As Minneapolis burns, I spent a bit of time thinking about this tweet from Nick Land today:
A 'protestors or rioters?' Rorschach blot is the best possible left / right perspective check.
— Outsideness (@Outsideness) May 28, 2020
Suspending the actual rhetorical purpose of this classic @Outsideness shitpost, on the face of it, ‘protestors or rioters’ seemed like a flawed formula to me. Because what even is protesting anymore? A “protest” — at least of the large-scale variety — and especial...
May 26, 2020
Les débordements adolescents du True Norwegian Black Metal: XG in Audimat
My old series of posts on True Norwegian Black Metal, “Cascading Adolescence”, recently got a little polish before being stitched together and translated into French. The final product has been published in issue #13 of Audimat, available here, alongside essays by Simon Reynolds, Dave Tompkins, Dan Dipiero, Fanny Quément, Catherine Guesde, and George Prochnik.
The intro for the essay on their website is very nice and made me blush. It captures the thrust of the essay beautifully — an essay a...
May 24, 2020
A Lacanian-Spinozist Theology of the Seething Cosmic Void: Ed Berger on Fisher and Bataille
A really fucking excellent comment from Ed, responding to my earlier post on Fisher and Bataille, that fills in a bunch of gaps in my understanding of the context of the original anti-Bataille lecture Mark is commenting on. Ed draws the same conclusions but from a much broader historical perspective than I’m in possession of.
As ever, I’d hate for this to languish “below the line” — because who reads comments here apart from me? — so here it is in full for your pleasure:
I’ve thought abou...
