Edited and with an introduction by Matt Colquhoun, this collection of lecture notes and transcriptions reveals acclaimed writer and blogger Mark Fisher in his element -- the classroom -- outlining a project that Fisher's death left so bittersweetly unfinished.
Beginning with that most fundamental of questions -- "Do we really want what we say we want?" -- Fisher explores the relationship between desire and capitalism, and wonders what new forms of desire we might still excavate from the past, present, and future. From the emergence and failure of the counterculture in the 1970s to the continued development of his left-accelerationist line of thinking, this volume charts a tragically interrupted course for thinking about the raising of a new kind of consciousness, and the cultural and political implications of doing so.
For Fisher, this process of consciousness raising was always, fundamentally, psychedelic -- just not in the way that we might think...
Matt Colquhoun is a writer and photographer from Hull, East Yorkshire. He is the author of Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher and blogs at xenogothic.com.
Designer, writer, and art director, working between New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Teaching @Yale and @Penn.
Probably a little too on the nose, but spending the weekend reading Mark Fisherās Postcapitalist Desire @RepeaterBooks and listening to the the new Sleaford Mods LP, Spare Ribs @sleafordmods
R&D. Alternatives @OneProject. Visiting Faculty @CalArts, @pnca. Governing Board @LeonardoISAST
I've been revisiting some of Mark Fisher's work as I prep curricula for a series of advanced interaction design workshops @PNCA, all themed on postcapitalism(!). His reading list for āPostcapitalist Desireā was truly a goldmine: https://t.co/zVxESYobFT š
Just read the first lecture from Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures by Mark Fisher and I highly recommend it btw
"Mark's unparalleled ability to infuse ideas with life comes across beautifully in these lectures. This series of talks finds Mark weaving his way through working-class history, countercultural libidinal movements, and high theory in an unwavering effort to find an escape from capitalism." - Nick Srnicek
"Mark Fisher has proven to be one of the most influential thinkers of our time. These lectures are a fantastic resource for those of us interested in consciousness, counterculture, and communism. To read them is to remember, once again, Mark's relentless appetite for the emancipation of desire from capital." - Helen Hester, author of Xenofeminism
"How can the libidinal infrastructure of capitalism be confronted and reconfigured for communism? These lectures, intimate and exploratory, don't have all the answers -- more vital than that, they show the necessity of this wrenching question in our catastrophic times." - Nicholas Thoburn, author of Anti-Book: On the Art and Politics of Radical Publishing