My sprawling review of the Goldsmiths Art MFA Degree Show, 2011
Originally published by Groupe d’Etudes Interdisciplinaires en Arts Britanniques

The labyrinth. Turning; coiling. An allegory of improbable human journeys. Physical; mental; spiritual. Beyond; behind; within. But underneath the mythos and symbolism labyrinths are simple structures. The maze is corners, mere corners. Unfurl them all and the labyrinth becomes a cul de sac; a doorless hallway; a vanishing point leading nowhere.

Browsing an MFA final show can… ]]> Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:03:25 -0700 http://www.geiab.org/GEIAB_DEUX/index.php?lang=eng&revue=showit&rn=4&article_id=91#begin http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false Most of the time Google does not actually have the answers. When people say, “I looked it up on Google,” they are committing a solecism. When they try to erase their embarrassing personal histories “on Google,” they are barking up the wrong tree. It is seldom right to say that anything is true “according to Google.” Google is the oracle of redirection. Go there for “hamadryad,” and it points you to Wikipedia. Or the Free Online Dictionary. Or the Official Hamadryad Web Site (it’s a rock band, too, wouldn’t you know). Google defines its mission as “to organize the world’s… ]]> Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:17:11 -0700 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS7QvOX8LVk&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Thu, 19 May 2011 01:51:45 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS7QvOX8LVk&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/slavoj-zizek/good-manners-in-the-age-of-wikileaks So far, the WikiLeaks story has been represented as a struggle between WikiLeaks and the US empire: is the publishing of confidential US state documents an act in support of the freedom of information, of the people’s right to know, or is it a terrorist act that poses a threat to stable international relations? But what if this isn’t the real issue? What if the crucial ideological and political battle is going on within WikiLeaks itself: between the radical act of publishing secret state documents and the way this act has been reinscribed into the hegemonic ideologico-political field by, among… ]]> Tue, 18 Jan 2011 05:01:42 -0700 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/slavoj-zizek/good-manners-in-the-age-of-wikileaks http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/22/finding-the-neandert.html Like a disowned half-brother the Neanderthals keep hammering on our door, forcing us to face inconvenient truths.

In the nineteenth century, fossil remains of powerful, thickset, short-necked human-like creatures with massive skulls and protruding brow ridges were found in Europe and recognized as belonging to an extinct species very closely related to us.

It turns out these "Neanderthals" (named after the German valley where the first examples were excavated) left the human homeland in Africa about 300,000 years ago. They migrated north into Europe and had sole possession of our continent for 250,000 years… ]]> Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:12:00 -0700 http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/22/finding-the-neandert.html http://www.scribd.com/doc/38073480/J-G-Ballard-reviews-Chris-Marker-s-La-Jetee This review appeared in New Worlds in 1966 and as far as I can tell is currently unavailable anywhere else. ]]> Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:38:00 -0700 http://www.scribd.com/doc/38073480/J-G-Ballard-reviews-Chris-Marker-s-La-Jetee http://m.io9.com/5644435/five-scientists-tell-us-about-the-most-accurate-science-fiction-in-their-fields What do scientists think about seeing their fields of research pulverized by science fiction? We asked researchers from diverse fields to tell us whether any science fiction gets it right.

Several of the scientists we contacted were simply at a loss when I asked whether they could think of any science fiction that was accurate when it came to their field of study. UC Santa Barbara geochemist David Valentine, who recently published a paper on the natural gas plumes from the Deepwater spill, asked us to let him know if we found any accurate geochemistry in SF.… ]]> Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:07:00 -0700 http://m.io9.com/5644435/five-scientists-tell-us-about-the-most-accurate-science-fiction-in-their-fields http://www.tnr.com/blog/john-mcwhorter/77631/dont-believe-the-hype-about-aborigines-yiddish-or-ebonics Judging from how the Times magazine’s excerpt from Guy Deutscher’s new book has been one of the most read pieces in the paper for over a week now, the book is on its way to libating readers ever eager for the seductive idea that people’s languages channel the way they think--that is, that grammar creates cultural outlooks.

“Oooh-mmmm!” I heard in a room once when a linguist parenthetically suggested that the reason speakers of one Native American language have prefixes instead of words to indicate mixing, poking, and sucking on food is because they are “culturally” attuned… ]]> Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:05:00 -0700 http://www.tnr.com/blog/john-mcwhorter/77631/dont-believe-the-hype-about-aborigines-yiddish-or-ebonics http://www.curatormagazine.com/sorinahiggins/what-is-posthumanism/ Perhaps you have had a nightmare in which you fell through the bottom of your known universe into a vortex of mutated children, talking animals, mental illness, freakish art, and clamoring gibberish. There, you were subjected to the gaze of creatures of indeterminate nature and questionable intelligence. Your position as the subject of your own dream was called into question while voices outside your sight commented upon your tenuous identity. When you woke, you were relieved to find that it was only a dream-version of the book you were reading when you fell asleep. Maybe that book was Alice in… ]]> Mon, 13 Sep 2010 03:19:00 -0700 http://www.curatormagazine.com/sorinahiggins/what-is-posthumanism/ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/books/review/Egan-t.html There are many stories Tom McCarthy chooses not to tell in “C,” his tour de force new novel encompassing the short life of one Serge Carrefax, born at the turn of the 20th century on a rural English estate. Serge’s father, a manic tinkerer with early wireless technology, runs a school for the deaf but seems oblivious to his own deaf wife, Serge’s mother, who’s so blinkered on opium (supplied by a mute gardener who grows the poppies himself) that she nearly lets Serge drown in a creek at age 2. Serge’s beloved older sister, Sophie, becomes sexually involved with… ]]> Sat, 11 Sep 2010 04:07:00 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/books/review/Egan-t.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/04/artificial-ape-technology-timothy-taylor There has been a rash of books on human evolution in recent years, claiming that it was driven by art (Denis Dutton: The Art Instinct), cooking (Richard Wrangham: Catching Fire), sexual selection (Geoffrey Miller: The Mating Mind). Now, Timothy Taylor, reader in archaeology at the University of Bradford, makes a claim for technology in general and, in particular, the invention of the baby sling – not, as you may have thought, in the 1960s but more than 2m years ago.

All these theories and speculations are in truth complementary facets of an emerging Grand Universal Theory of… ]]> Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:20:00 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/04/artificial-ape-technology-timothy-taylor