‘FE has been a kind of neo-liberal lab in which reforms that will be implemented in the rest of education have been tried out first…’ My piece on Further Education is in Socialist Worker this week. Source
The discussion of V for Vendetta – on Pinocchio Theory in particular – has been far more interesting than the film deserved. Yes, there is a certain frission in seeing a major Hollywood movie refusing to unequivocally condemn terrorism, but the political analysis in the film (as in the original comic) is really rather threadbare. … More DIS-IDENTITY POLITICS (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
A number of half-completed posts have been held up by my having to deal with the redundancy issue and with the reflexive impotents. But posts on Nigel Cooke, the Gothic Nightmares exhibition and class and subjective destitution should appear very early next week. In the meantime, my interview with Julian House is in the current … More MARKING TIME (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
I’m trying to write about something else, I’m trying to listen to something else, but at the moment, it’s all about Burial. The interview at Blackdown only adds to the intrigue (‘It’s good to have girls liking it’; ‘there’s no ‘musicianship’ in my sound, that’s the enemy of my tunes’). It’s Burial’s ability to hold … More DUB HOUSING (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
1. Owen brilliant on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. I’ve had this album for two decades, but Owen has made me hear it in a completely new way. Worth comparing with Cabaret Voltaire’s Voice of America and Red Mecca, and Front 242’s later ‘Funkghadafi’, the latter shamelessly and openly mining the mystique of … More PARISH ANNOUNCEMENTS (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
‘From the moment that human beings started communicating with electrical and electromagnetic signals, the ether has been a spooky place. Four years after Samuel Morse strung up his first telegraph wire in 1844, two young girls in upstate New York kick-started Spiritualism, a massively popular occult religion which attempted to fuse science and seance. […] … More LONDON AFTER THE RAVE (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
Why are French students out on the streets rejecting neo-liberalism, while British students, whose situation is incomparably worse, resigned to their fate? The answer to that question is partly, also, an answer to why a group like the Arctic Monkeys connect with British teenagers. It is a matter not of apathy, nor of cynicism, but … More REFLEXIVE IMPOTENCE (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
‘Catherine is older in this film and the situations are different – she’s challenging the whole psychoanalytic system…’ MadeinAtlantis.com ‘Heck, even the way she wears her clothes is fascinating. Her costume designer has given her a series of line-straddling outfits. At one point, one hand is gloved and the other ungloved, and several of her … More ‘EVEN WHEN SHE TELLS THE TRUTH, IT’S A LIE’ (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
The Economist’s response to the unrest in Paris is entirely predictable and intermittently hilarious but contains some points that need to be addressed. On Friday, in a paradigmatic statement of neo-liberal ideology, the Economist repeated the acerbic observation it had already made (at least twice) in its previous edition. Whereas the events of Paris 68 … More AGAINST IMMOBILIZATION, AGAINST NOMADOLOGY (kpunk.abstractdynamics)
EGRESS 