/lit/ - Literature

>>12865736
>Can I be comfy and metal?
i don't know, maybe. the thought that comes to mind is comfy amongst metal, which doesn't conform to my idea of comfy in the slightest.

>Being and Event is mind-blowing tho. Metapolitics, Ethics, Theory of the Subject is crazy too.
even without understanding half of B&E i agree, Badiou is time well spent, and again because he does seem to have some kind of edge over Deleuze in weird places. which is a good scene all around, especially since Full Deleuze - even if he is right about everything, and he probably is - nevertheless also gives me all the stuff i can't stand either. but i'm probably not doing him right.

>Byung-Chul Han is a fun weaver of theory as you rightfully recommended
Shanzhai is a cool little book. and i just think Chinese philosophy was never explained well enough by Derrida et al, but there are other French Sinologists, like Francois Jullien, who can fill in the pieces.

Reza is good also, if Land didn't exist i'd be more in on him. but the Crypto-Current book...i don't know, i just feel like everybody is playing catch-up to him. no doubt it's part of where my own interests are, but i feel like it's just so tidy to suggest that if the market is the unconscious of the socius, then the AI-machines are the unconscious of the market, and Land is the only guy who can approach that problem in the right way and with the right background in all of these other guys. BTC isn't capital in the same way that capital is for Marxists of an earlier generation, i'm convinced. it only makes sense in terms of intelligence production, and there is nothing else to root for going forward other than that, he's really right about this. everything else is just the same politics, over and over again, amplified louder and louder.

in addition to Roffe's Abstract Market Theory (which is good, if dry), i'll recommend another good recent read, pic rel. much less dry and super-interesting. many parallels i think between then and now.

>The modern individual, living in an era of high-speed technology, international travel and an increasingly worldwide community, may be surprised to learn that there have not always been only four time zones in the continental United States, or that there existed a era when having one’s picture taken was an anomalous, threatening experience. Stephen Kern’s fascinating book, The Culture of Time and Space, investigates these and other radical changes that occurred in people’s temporal and spatial reality at the turn of the twentieth century. Kern calls time and space the universal, “essential” realities through which humans perceive, experience and live life, and he uses them to understand historical change.

>According to Kern, the forty years between 1880 and 1918 were a period of unprecedented cultural renovation and refiguring, when changes in perceptions of speed, space, form, distance and direction broke down traditional hierarchies and reconstructed conventional values and understandings. The proliferation of technological advances such as the telephone and the telegraph altered perceptions of time by allowing individuals in one place to experience simultaneous events in another for the first time. The result was a “thickening” of the present as events occurring in different places convened in a single moment. At the same time, advances in transportation created a “cult of speed,” as bicycles, trams and railroads allowed people to travel at faster velocities than ever before.

>While technological advances altered traditional understanding of time, cultural trends in art and philosophy challenged classical perceptions of space. New artistic movements such as Impressionism and Cubism broke down the illusion of three-dimensional space displayed on the two-dimensional canvas by presenting multiple perspectives to the viewer. These multiple points of view reflected the growing pluralism and confusion of the modern age. New philosophical trends such as Perspectivism also supported ideas about plurality and the subjectivity of personal experience by challenging the notion of an absolute, homogeneous reality.

>Through the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated cultural and scientific phenomena, Kern successfully draws conclusions about broader social changes occurring across Europe and the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The Culture of Time and Space is a captivating read for a wide audience. Kern’s broad and sweeping, yet detailed, discussion of new trends in art, philosophy and architecture will thrill lovers of material culture, and science and technology buffs will lose themselves in Kern’s explanation of the profound impact of new technological advances on individuals’ perceptions of the world.