Hi. This post lists and links to my first 50 posts on this blog, indexing 50 brief critical essays on contemporary media culture. Topics include The Leveson Inquiry, Occupy Wall Street, Privacy, Music, Food, Economics and more. Try one. 1. Happy Birth Day! my blog is born 2. Gifts and Books, Books and Gifts books as... Continue Reading →
A couple of weeks ago I was at Toronto Digifest. It's a festival I actually co-directed for several years in the early 00s but which has been dormant since 2005. It has now been started up again by its original founder, Luigi Ferrara. I was curious to see what it would be like and so... Continue Reading →
It fascinates me how often political arguments in the United States revolve around the words of America's 'founding fathers'. Of course it is not all their words that matter, just the ones that were written down. And specifically, Americans are obsessed with the words these fathers wrote in the founding documents of American nationhood, namely... Continue Reading →
Wall Street is Fort Monologue. It is an epicentre of literate capitalism, an ivory tower without ears to hear. It is a paper palace divorced from all experience, from suffering and compassion, from love and joy. It is rule of ledgers. Rule of policies and laws. Rule of dividends and debt, all defined on and... Continue Reading →
In a previous post and in my recent book, You Are Your Media, I describe the brutal impact of strapping an OS2 (literate) application like debt to the hyper-efficient rocketship that is OS3 (networked) technology and letting greedy self-interested financiers light the fuse. In post-literate capitalism - as in all networked culture - history ceases... Continue Reading →
Literate culture has mortgaged its future. Who will pay? In OS1 (oral) cultures, debt did not exist. Obligations existed. You can, for example owe someone your gratitude, or your allegiance, or your help or your vengeance in OS1 culture. But obligations in OS1 culture are defined by relationships between people. Whereas in OS2 (literate) cultures,... Continue Reading →
YOU ARE YOUR MEDIA 