Land of the Free… to Pick Your Own Reality

How the Left and the Right Select Their Own Facts

Yet, given how plainly xenophobic the rhetoric of the Trump campaign was, how happily it flirted with white supremacist groups, and how unapologetically put forward fascist proposals, the racist element cannot just be waved away. As many have put it in the aftermath of the election, maybe not all Trump ...
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How A Conservative Rural Country Defeated A Far-Right Presidential Candidate

The 2016 Austrian Presidential Election

On the same day, Austrians also voted in the final round of their presidential election. There, center-left candidate Alexander Van der Bellen (Green Party) defeated far-right candidate Norbert Hofer (Austrian Freedom Party, FPÖ) 53.8% to 46.2%. Austria is a small country, but the outcome of this election has international significance ...
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Rape Jokes

The disruptive speech act

This post is part of the Bodies, Gender, and Domination OOPS Series. When I first heard that the writer and attorney Vanessa Place had written a performance piece entitled “Rape Jokes,” I was intrigued. Within feminist discussion, the concept of “the rape joke” was always batted down as morally repugnant and triggering, and ...
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Does the Russian Hack Matter?

When the Facts Get Sacrificed to Politics

From the left, I was accused of “left McCarthyism” for thoughtlessly invoking the old, tired stigma of Russian communism; and from the right, I was sent hate mail about how I was resisting Donald Trump as a credible candidate. I got whip-sawed. It remains contested whether Putin, Russia, Russians from outside ...
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Design+Media Theory

GLIB 5610 | Media + Design Theory Syllabus | Spring 2017 | v 5.0 | Our focus will be on key thinkers across the fields of media, design and technology. The course starts our everyday experience of designed and  mediated environments, whether as creators or regular users (1-3). It then moves ...
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Design+Media Theory

The Stack to Come

On Benjamin Bratton’s The Stack

What I like most about Benjamin Bratton’s The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (MIT Press, 2015) is firstly its close attention to what I would call the forces and relations of production. We really need to know how the world is made right now if it is ever to be ...
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The Stack to Come

Book notes from 2016

These are the books I read and got around to working up notes on in 2016. Some will appear in much revised and edited form in: McKenzie Wark, General Intellects (Verso, 2017): https://www.versobooks.com/books/2446-general-intellects  Some are lecture notes from 2016 classes, some for future classes in Liberal Studies at The New School: http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/liberal-studies/ Judith Butler, Notes ...
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Book notes from 2016

Real Power? Real Money?

A reflection on Participatory Budgeting in New York

On a recent evening in New York City, I met with eight other people in my City Council Member’s local office, down the block from City College in Harlem. We were the community delegates tasked with discussing over 150 projects proposed at neighborhood assemblies. Our assignment was to score the ...
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Real Power?  Real Money?

Psychogeography and Speculative Design v2.1

Another City for Another Life: Here is v2.0 of a possible course on psychogeography and speculative design. What follows is an effort to gather materials and ideas for such a course. Many thanks to everyone who proposed materials, much of which has been incorporated. (Special thanks to Dunne + Raby) Suggestions still ...
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Psychogeography and Speculative Design v2.1

Adventures in Hillaryland

High expectations. Unexpected failure.

I vote in Brooklyn. When I heard that Hillary’s election night watch party would be in the Javits Center on the Hudson River, I thought that somewhere in that 1.8 million square feet arena there might be room for me. In all the Presidential elections I’ve worked in, I’ve never been ...
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Adventures in Hillaryland

Karski’s Tragedy

Introduction of Nicholas Kristof at the Spirit of Jan Karski Award Ceremony

On November 1, 2016, in Tishman Auditorium of the New School, I had the honor to introduce Nicholas Kristof, this year's honoree at the Spirit of Jan Karski Award Ceremony. My introduction was informed by the works of Hannah Arendt and Erving Goffman, as they speak to each other and ...
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Karski’s Tragedy