Death to Realism! 012
Death to Realism! 012
It's finally cool and crisp and Halloween pun display name season. If you need a refresher on the origin & nature of these bi-weekly updates, check out the first issue before reading on.
What's New?
How exciting, I have another new post on The Blog Proper! This one is kind of a combo book review and extrapolation of themes that have been coming up in my fiction writing, including Flesh/Circuit, as well as more about another short story I've been working on. It also revisits a lot of the research on automation that folded into my dissertation, especially looking at self-playing games and game spectatorship. I'm really excited for Sonia Fizek's forthcoming book on the topic, that I got to interview her about last year.
I also traveled out to Hebden Bridge to meet up with some fellow zonies, bitsyfolk, and so on, for the first time in almost 2 years! It was lovely, simultaneously relaxing and restorative and also exhausting (I'll go somewhere a bit more flat the next time I need a break) and I posted some pictures of some of the cooler sights.
Coming Soon
A new Domino Club anonymous jam is happening this month, so I'm hoping to make something for it, and even stretch myself to learn a new tool to do so. I also am going to attempt NaNoWriMo again this year (last year I produced a very, very rough draft of a VN game that I still haven't done much with besides fantasize) so I'm outlining characters and scenes for that. I'm also wrapping up some digital curating work that should be online within a month or so??? hopefully.
The Rec Room
I'm looking forward to this forthcoming online lecture examining the Britney Spears conservatorship from GZF
Chaoyang Trap is also starting off its second season, so it's a great time to subscribe for really fascinating cultural analysis, starting off with a longread on the Taiwanese/Chinese indie music circuit
Another newsletter, another flickguy to recommend, this time allowing you to make abstract and beautiful Cow Tools tableaux
Gregg Araki's Nowhere was a recent zone nite pick, and it blew my socks off. It's definitely the same genre of banal/weird sci-fi as Liquid Sky, Repo Man, Dark Star, etc.... basically all of my existing favorite movies.
I have also been catching up with Cate Le Bon's music while working recently and really enjoyed her newest album, Reward
I've Been Reading
Traveling to and being at zonemeet gave me a lot of time to read stuff I'd had sitting around. Fandom as Methodology (eds. Catherine Grant and Kate Random Love) is a collection on overlaps between art historical research and fandom. Like all collections of academic papers it can be a little uneven in terms of relevance to the stated topic and my own interest in it, but I was still able to pick out a lot of interesting thoughts on extending fannish analysis to arts and historical phenomena and the types of preservation, distribution and analysis structures fandom offers.
I borrowed Byung-Chul Han's book on Shanzhai from Candle while at the big house we stayed in, (they pulled a lot of the best quotes from it here). While it has a lot of limitations from being so short, it does offer some interesting thoughts on historical alternatives to intellectual property and artistic "originality." I wish it went more into the fascinating aesthetic qualities of the shanzhai mobile phones and appliances though! I also finished Wageless Life by Ian G.R. Shaw and Marv Waterstone, which presented a solid thesis with some concerning argumentation issues, which is what inspired the blog post linked above.
From there, I've started on Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson to synthesize my interest in experimental fiction and the wage labor system. The new Tom McCarthy novel is also intriguing, based on this review which cites a prominent scene about the logistics of space sex... well, I'm listening, but may wait for the paperback. Something I've noticed is that lately I feel like rereading novels I found really formative/enjoyable when I wouldn't have really thought to before, The Trial and The Third Policeman especially.
I found this article on tech company microwork and its relationship to refugee camps the day after posting my new piece, but it's a very thorough perspective on a clear example of the phenomenon I was discussing, so I recommend it! This essay is really interesting, offering a personal lens on a game platform I was previously unaware of. And, finally, not to be too obviously a fangirl, since I also recc'd one of his talks last week, but I also found this conversation with Max Haiven on the relevance of imagination and creativity to politics really valuable.
I think that's all I have this bi-week! For new subscribers who have signed on since the last newsletter, you can check out the archive of past issues at any time!
Thank you again for your support,
Emilie