Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
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Derrida and WikiLeaks
In his article Archive Fever Derrida suggests that the desire to preserve information is in some way a symptom of an inbuilt and unavoidable desire to destroy it. Drawing on Freud’s concepts of the pleasure principle and the death drive, Derrida argues that an information store (archive) on the one hand involves a desire to … Continue reading
Quarantine and geometry
This forced quarantine should last forty days, and forty nights. “Forty” is apparently the highest number ever reached in Sesame Street counting lessons. It’s also the number of squares around a Monopoly board. Forty years is a good biblical number, not least as it gives a clear sweep between generations. It was 40 years before … Continue reading
Millennials and Morals
In the opinion of most people, millennials are tech-savvy, materialistic, selfish, lazy and arrogant — according to a 2016 Ipsos global trends survey. By way of contrast the same survey showed how the previous, baby boomer generation identifies itself as respectful, work-centric, community-oriented, well-educated and ethical. The Ipsos report provides some global evidence to correct … Continue reading
Politics as art
Art can bring into sharp relief aspects of life and the world to which people (some of us) previously paid little attention. Art can accomplish this through an ecology of signs — pointing stuff out i.e. by making direct reference. But art also informs by presenting the opposite to what we art lovers might expect as the object of … Continue reading
Derrida for stand-ups
It’s easy to get carried away with words, either written or spoken, especially if you’re good at stringing them together. I was reminded of this propensity at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with its programme category “Spoken Word,” indicating entertainments in which amusing writers like David Sedaris stand up and talk, and others sit and listen … Continue reading
Haunted by media
This is Dying Matters Awareness Week in the UK. We are a “death denying” society inept at dealing with bereavement, planning for the end of life, and making arrangements for after we are gone. On the other hand, thanks to television, films, video games and the Internet, we confront our mortality every waking moment of … Continue reading
Pictures devour reality
Most of us harbour the suspicion that being photographed removes something essential: if not our souls, then privacy, security, self image, the way we want to look. According to Susan Sontag the camera can “presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate” (Sontag, 1979, p.13) … and from a safe distance. … Continue reading
Secrets of writing for the web
Here are ten tips for writing with a leisure audience in mind, ie a mass audience, particularly if you are a scholar. Leisure readers like being let into a secret: the secret life of bees, Britain’s hidden architecture, the secrets of my success. The suggestion of exposure can come through the title, but also in … Continue reading
Wired-Up Words
An A–Z of Awkward Ideas for a Wired World (DRAFT in process, Admin) Introduction: Networks and Word Play The public platform of the Word Wide Web (sic) is populated with neologisms, portmanteau terms, the alleged language of the street, and bad puns — not to mention spelling mistakes. Writers for the web now have license to … Continue reading
Blog archive (and About)
What this blog site is about I draw on philosophy and cultural theory to help understand current affairs, architecture and developments in digital technology. These are not opinion pages, though my strongly held view that academic reflection really matters as we try to understand contemporary living may seep through. These posts are scheduled to appear … Continue reading
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