At the O-Zone Journal
The new O-Zone journal has a section called OO Frequency, for content that takes a form other than writing. A while ago they posted my short video for OOOIII, Seeing Things, which deals with the photographer Garry Winogrand and the website Dear Photography. More recently, they’ve posted a lovely new video from Robert Jackson, who is a doctoral candidate at the… read more
A response to Mike Thomsen
The New Inquiry published a review by Michael Thomsen of my latest book How to Do Things With Videogames. It’s just the kind of review an author hopes for: fair, thoughtful, based on a thorough reading, and full of new ideas and observations. I’m grateful to Thomsen for writing it. Thomsen raises an objection that I’ve been waiting for and… read more
Garry Winogrand, circa 1974
Tod Papageorge shared with me a talk Garry Winogrand gave at MIT in 1974, which he (Papageorge) introduced. An audio recording from the University of California Riverside’s archive captures much of the lively question and answer period, which included a wealth of fantastic material. Here are two of my favorites: A photograph has to be rational. It has to be… read more
Tod Papagorge on the Ontology of Photography
Apropos of two of Levi’s recent posts about materialism and fictions, I thought I’d share this excerpt from an interview with photographer Tod Papageorge. He’s responding to a question about the need for photography to have a moral responsibility, something Susan Sontag had suggested. It’s always been puzzling to me that capacious minds like Sontag’s, to say nothing of those… read more
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
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
Abstract for my SLSA plenary
The Society for Science Literature and the Arts annual conference is about to start up here in Atlanta. The program is online, and the SLSA folks have updated it with the abstract for my Friday evening plenary. I thought I’d reproduce it here for those of you who are interested in such things. In recent years, a small cadre of… read more
A stake in the ground
Even though we didn’t really talk much about philosophy, after visiting Graham Harman in Cairo two weeks ago, I was reenergized to think about philosophy in general and speculative realism in particular. In the short time since, a number of friendly bonfires have flared up around the web, most of them camps emanating from Graham’s blog and that of Levi… read more
From this year's Fiscal Fright jack-o-lantern series
I present the next installment of this year’s financially-themed jack-o-lanterns. First we had Mortgage Meltdown. Now I humbly offer Credit Crossbones. This one is a bit more subtle, perhaps, than the last. You get it though, right?
From this year's Fiscal Fright jack-o-lantern series
Jack-o-lanterns are serious business in my house. Yet, I knew it was going to be hard to top last year’s excellent Jack McCoy-o-Lantern. A political theme was possible, but it’s been done, and I’m hardly the kind to print a template from a website. So, we settled on a different theme: Fiscal Fright! Because honestly, what’s more terrifying than the… read more