Category: Politics
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C̶h̶a̶r̶m̶ offensive
Will Davies on Bozo’s ascent: Advertising, dating back to the late 19th century, brought a more scientific perspective to a similar challenge: how to produce an affective bond between a mass public and a product. A key difference is that advertising is primarily focused on the future (what will this product be like, what difference…
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“War cabinet”
If the Tory membership really believes it’s in a war right now, it should recognise that war as being waged upon its own children, by itself.
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The secret theft of private experience
All these images are illusions of progress or spaces where progress can be hosted. Just as suburbs were sold to postwar America as an idea of living, the smart city is a vehicle to sell a focus-grouped future. But these marketing images aren’t selling smart cities to you and me—they’re made to demonstrate that the…
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“The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society”: Levitas (2013), Utopia as method
Levitas, R. (2013). Utopia as method: The imaginary reconstitution of society. Springer. (Only annotating the (brief) intro of this one for now; very much want to dig into the detail of the rest, but hahahah OMG scheduling.) Levitas opens with H G Wells’s claim that “the creation of Utopias – and their exhaustive criticism –…
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UAV god-trick
There is something sublime and hypnotic about seeing the earth from above. Before drones, satellites and helicopters provided such views, but this God-like perspective was never so abundant, nor accompanied by such elegant silence. As I sat there, I fell into a kind of trance, such that the images began to seem removed not only…