Hard Clicking, Soft Clicking

More Cow Clicker on national Australian Television

I’d previously shown you Leo Burnett Sydney CEO Todd Sampson advertising a popupar Australian TV show called The Gruen Transfer, about advertising techniques, while wearing a Cow Clicker t-shirt. Here’s a shot of Sampson on last week’s episode, in which he proudly dons the shirt. You can watch the whole episode online for another week or so. Tune in at… read more

Seeing Things

My talk at the Third Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium

Here’s my short talk from the Third Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium (Sept 14, The New School), on the photography of Garry Winogrand. As I’ve already mentioned here, I had to miss the symposium because I was in China, so I submitted this short video instead of giving a presentation in person. While a video presentation isn’t very far afield from a… read more

Seeing Things

Video and transcript of my talk at the Third Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium

Below is the video for my talk at the Third Object-Oriented Ontology symposium, which I delivered remotely by video. I intended the video as the way to experience the content, but upon request I’ve also posted a transcript of the material for those who prefer to read it that way. For a larger sized video, watch on Vimeo or select… read more

Two Brief OOO Notes

First, Levi Bryant’s treatise on object-oriented ontology, The Democracy of Objects, is now available to read online. Print and PDF editions forthcoming. Congrats to Levi for its unveiling. Second, the third object-oriented ontology symposium will take place tomorrow (14 Sept) at the New School. As I mentioned earlier I’m in China at the World Economic Forum, but I’ve left a… read more

A Tip of the Cow

Facebook likes Cow Clicker

While they’ve never said so in public, it seems Facebook has always been a silent fan of Cow Clicker. I’ve been tipped off about it several times, including via this shot of a Cow Clicker doodle on the whiteboard “wall” at Facebook HQ. A wider view of the wall cow included, later appeared in an issue of Wired. But given… read more

Cowpocalypse Now

The Cows Have Been Raptured

Yesterday evening, the countdown timer atop the Cow Clicker pages finally elapsed, and as per the prophesy, the cowpocalypse was summoned. Despite the players’ cowllective intelligence in solving the Cow ClickARG, despite their numerous supplications to the bovine gods in response to the threat of moo-msday, nevertheless the Cowpocalypse has come. All cows were raptured to their heavenly pastures. Even… read more

OOOIII

At the New School

The third object-oriented ontology symposium will take place on September 14 at The New School in New York City. This event follows the first two symposia, held at Georgia Tech in April 2010 and at UCLA last December. Special thanks to McKenzie Wark for hosting it. I’ll be in China that week, missing both the week of speculative realism in… read more

El Empleo

A short film about people and objects

This a charming and fascinating short film that should be of interest to those of us interested in people, objects, technology, and related matters. (via D.E. Wittkower)

How to Do Things with Videogames

A fresh look at computer games as a mature mass medium with unlimited potential for cultural transformation.

This book is available in digital or physical format. Buy from Amazon In recent years, computer games have moved from the margins of popular culture to its center. Reviews of new games and profiles of game designers now regularly appear in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and sales figures for games are reported alongside those of books,… read more

Cold, Grey Dirigibles

Brief thoughts on Steve Jobs's Resignation

Steve Jobs is a fascist. That’s what everyone loves about him: he tells us what he wants, and he convinces us we are going to like it. And we do, not because he’s right (despite popular opinion), but because it’s so rare to get such definitive, brazen, top-down, abusive treatment in this era of lowest-common-demoninator wishy-washiness. It doesn’t matter if… read more