This year has been preserved in amber for me since about March. Spring feels like yesterday. I wonder if that’s because it was the one-year anniversary of the first lockdown. Time seems to have stalled since then.
All that aside, 2021 has still been strangely busy. It began with the physical publication of Postcapitalist Desire — the success of which has repeatedly surpassed all expectations. (I still can’t believe it was just going to be an ebook because we weren’t sure there was any demand for it; now it is on its fourth or fifth printing.) And yet, despite that first lockdown project going on to have this wild life of its own, I’ve continued to watch it all unfold from home.
The year has ended with the Spanish translation of my book Egress arriving from Caja Negra Editora, and I am looking forward to the New Year, when I’ll properly begin discussing the book in earnest with a new audience.
In the midst of all this, I spent time working on a few different book projects. One on psychoanalysis and adoption, one on accelerationism and another on narcissism. The first two are substantial projects that are going to require a lot more research, but I have spent the winter applying the finishing touches to Narcissus in Bloom, a politically charged counter-history of the selfie. I hope that will come out sometime next year. In the meantime, I’m also applying to PhDs to start late next year. (It’s about time — I keep putting it off with “independent research”, but I think it will make me very happy to have that time and not have to make research and writing a struggle to fit around day jobs.)
Beyond the finished projects and those still to come, there are some other pieces of writing I’m particularly proud of from this year: my introduction to the Spanish translation of K-punk, Vol. 3 and my post “Bad Queer” were particularly important for me, as well as various posts orbiting questions of “the new”, difference and repetition in popular culture, and also Deleuze’s approach to Stoicism have helped contextualise more meaty projects behind the scenes. Also, it’s almost time for the next edition of For k-punk, but can we all reflect on how insane the lineup for the 2021 For k-punk event was?!
But onwards we go…
I’m somewhat terrified about 2022. I turn 30 just before the new years and, standing on the cusp of a new decade, I think a lot is going to change. It is going to be difficult, but I think it is also needed. I’m probably going to move again and branch out on my own. Having clung to (and otherwise struggled to sustain) a small support network throughout my 20s, I’m going to start out my 30s somewhat isolated as I work through some stuff. I’ve never really had a plan in life, but I think I assumed I’d be more self-sufficient and settled by now. The realisation that I’m not is hitting me different. Though I’ve achieved things I never thought I would, as far as my daily existence goes, I’m not sure where I want to be. 2022 is going to be the year that I make some overdue decisions about what I want, I think.
I hope I can figure things out next year. For all the continuing creative endeavours, I feel like I’m going to have to build myself back from the ground up. Wish me luck.
Mark Fisher
— The Post-Capitalist Realism Generation: Notes on Students, BreadTube and Digital Psychedelia [04/02/21]
— The Spectre of Acid Communism [14/03/21]
— The Post-Vampire Castle Generation: Notes on Neo-Anarchy in the UK [17/03/21]
— Introduction to K-Punk, Vol. 3: English Language Version [12/06/21]
— Is There (Still) No Alternative: XG in Ljubljana [30/08/21]
— Capitalist Realism and the Eviction of Culture: Notes from Ljubljana [15/09/21]
— Total Recoil: Notes on the Body in Mark Fisher’s Feminism [15/12/21]
— T+U ACID: Launch at Trafó, Budapest (22/12/2021) [20/12/21]
For k-punk
— For k-punk 2021 [20/01/21]
— Test Dept: Mark Fisher Memorial Lecture 2021 [22/01/21]]
— “Why we started a club night for our teacher, Mark Fisher”: For k-punk in Huck Magazine [30/01/21]
— “A teacher ‘who really gave a shit’”: For k-punk in The Art Newspaper [23/02/21]
— “The critical legacy of theorist Mark Fisher is a creative springboard for a new wave of musicians and thinkers”: For k-punk reviewed in The Wire [11/03/21]
— “Countercultural Bohemia as Prefiguration”: Time is Away on NTS Radio [24/03/21]
— Repeater Radio present: K-Punk Marathon [07/06/21]
— Solidarity at the Rave: For k-punk on Acid Horizon [23/08/21]
Postcapitalist Desire
— Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures of Mark Fisher — Hardback Out Now [12/01/21]
— Postcapitalist Desire, Melancholy, Psychedelia and Mark Fisher: XG on Interdependence with Mat Dryhurst and Holly Herndon [13/01/21]
— Post-Work with Will Stronge [18/01/21]
— Psychedelia with JD Taylor [19/01/21]
— Consciousness Raising with Hari Kunzru [23/01/21]
— Desire with Dr Isabel Millar [25/01/21]
— Postcapitalist Desire: XG in Conversation with James Butler — Now on YouTube! [17/02/21]
— “Giving Up the Ghost”: Postcapitalist Desire in the LA Review of Books [21/03/21]
— Postcapitalist Desire: XG on Hermitix [06/05/21]
Egress
— Badiou’s Platonic Exit: Egress Turns One [10/03/21]
— Communities of Loss: A Brief Reflection [14/04/21]
— Egress: Live on the Hermitix Podcast [05/08/21]
— Egress and Immanence: Hermitix Debrief [07/08/21]
— Egreso: Sobre Comunidad, Duelo y Mark Fisher — Out Now! [01/12/21]
— Diálogo con Matt Colquhoun: Discussing Egreso with Pepe Tesoro for the IECCS [13/12/21]
— A Note on “Egreso” [14/12/21]
Narcissus in Bloom
— Unconditional Love: A Note on Acid Narcissism [20/08/21]
— Narcissus in Bloom: Talk at Newcastle University [08/11/21]
— Observatory Crest: On Narcissus in Bloom [29/11/21]
Translations and Essays Elsewhere
— 一个无条件加速主义Primer I: Chinese Translation of the U/Acc Primer [08/01/21]
— The Geology of Malls: XG for Plaza Protocol [19/02/21]
Hauntology and Accelerationism
— The Philosophy of Salvagepunk: XG at the Association for the Design of History [07/01/21]
— Hauntology: Where Were You Before ’92? [15/01/21]
— Un-Popping the Bubbles of Pop: A Brief History of Anti-Hauntology [06/02/21]
— Anti-Hauntology: Where are the New Forms of New? [06/02/21]
— Anti-Hauntology: Further Notes on Temporal Specificities [09/02/21]
— A Moment of Renewal: Notes on Badiou/Acc [16/02/21]
— Badiou/Acc: A Response to Ed Berger [16/02/21]
— Badiou/Acc: Further Responses from Vince Garton and Ed Berger [17/02/21]
— Anti-Hauntology: Notes on Acid Horizon [18/02/21]
— Badiou/Acc: Terror and Parody with Ed Berger [20/02/21]
— The End of History 2: Stagnant Boogaloo (Snyder Cut) [02/03/21]
— Notes on Lenin and Accelerationist Meta-Terrorism [08/03/21]
— A Brief History of the new: Guest Lecture with Ctrl Network [17/03/21]
— The Slow Cancellation of… Sorry, What Were We Talking About? [29/03/21]
— The Slow Cancellation of… Sorry, What Were We Talking About?: Some Concessions and Further Notes [30/03/21]
— Next Week’s New [15/04/21]
— Third Actors: XG at the rA/Upture_2 conference, OFF-Biennálé Budapest [26/04/21]
— Children of /Acc: Waiting for a Post-Pandemic Politics [14/07/21]
— Orgies of Stupidity Fuck the Painful Present Away [23/07/21]
— Parameters of Change: Notes on Queer Accelerationism and Libidinal Materialism [13/08/21]
— A Brief History of the New: Recording Now Online! [22/11/21]
— “What was needed was accelerationism…”: A Note on Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities [30/11/21]
— Accelerationism and Ideological Breakdown: Notes on Recent Developments [23/12/21]
— Accelerationism and Ideological Breakdown: Further Comments from Ed Berger and Other [24/12/21]
Coronavirus
— Covid Libertarianism and Molecular Freedom [05/01/21]
— Covid Libertarianism and Capitalist Realism [06/01/21]
— Hype(rstition) and Unbelief: On GameStop and Coronavirus [27/01/21]
— Covid Libertarianism: Notes on Althusser and a Spanner in the Works of Ideological Reproduction [18/02/21]
— The Inertial Endogamy of Covid Capitalism [28/03/21]
— Regarding the Pain of Royals [18/04/21]
— Post-Covid Horizons [22/07/21]
Palestine
— A Deleuzian View of Palestine (Contra Israel) [13/05/21]
— Zionist Realism: What If We Had a Strike for Palestine and Everyone Came? [17/05/21]
— Zionist Realism: Is There No Alternative? [18/05/21]
Politics
— The End of Trump or the End of History [09/01/21]
— Cutting the Knot of Incompetence [11/01/21]
— National-Identity Politics: On the Contradictions of New New Labour [03/02/21]
— What is an Institution?: On the Thoughts of the Police [15/03/21]
— Kill the Bill: More on the Thoughts of the Police [23/03/21]
— Ecologies of Class: Prince Philip’s Conservationist Politics [09/04/21]
— Our Zany Ministers: On Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson, the Personal and the Political [30/06/21]
— Olympic Refusal: Simone Biles and Herbert Marcuse [29/07/21]
— Communism Within, Communism Without: The Paranoia of Capitalist Realism [12/08/21]
— Reflective Centrism [04/10/21]
— Toothless Critique: Free Speech in the Vampire Castle [28/10/21]
— Elections on Acid: Notes on Boric and the Left for T+U [23/12/21]
Philosophy
— Junk Capital: On the Anti-Burrovian Trajectory of Nick Land [04/01/21]
— AI is Good Actually: Notes on Commie Grimes and Intelligence & Spirit [03/06/21]
— AI is Good Actually: A Further Note from Hypnosifl [27/06/21]
— Learning and Trauma: The Sharp Object of Ideology [07/07/21]
— Postmodernism and Gender Realism [21/07/21]
— RIP Jean-Luc Nancy [24/08/21]
— Actual/Virtual [11/09/21]
— Discipline is a Double-Edged Sword: Notes on the Misuse and Abuse of Foucault [19/11/21]
Personal Reflections
— Richard Humble (1925-2021) [05/03/21]
— Bad Queer [16/04/21]
— Nine [09/05/21]
— Under the Blood Moon [31/05/21]
— Rest in Power, Dawn Foster [16/07/21]
— Notes on Adoption [02/12/21]
— A Note on Cold Rationalism [13/12/21]
— An Adoptee’s Anchor [20/12/21]
— 30 [26/12/21]
Music
— DOOMscrolling [01/01/21]
— They do not live nature as nature, but as a process of production: On Lenz and Lorde’s Desiring-Productions [21/08/21]
— DONDA [30/08/21]
— Still Sucks: Transitory Music in the 2020s [02/11/21]
— Merry Xmas Everybody [25/12/21]
— 2021 Playback: Selected Earworms [28/12/21]
Literature
— Long Live The New Flesh: Notes on Madame Bovary [28/05/21]
— Stronger Than Death: A Note on Poetry and Grief [17/06/21]
— Interiority (After Sebald) [20/10/21]
Film & TV
— Framing Adam Curtis [23/02/21]
— How to Gener8 a Movement [29/04/21]
— Mare of Easttown: 2021’s One True Cop Show [09/06/21]
— Cruella [10/06/21]
— The Tomorrow War [10/07/21]
— Pierrot le Fou [06/09/21]
— Happy Hallowe’en [31/10/21]
— What Was Forgotten: Notes on The Shining, Doctor Sleep and Hauntological Stoicism [08/12/21]
Gaming
— Peak Boring Dystopia: On the Legacy of FarmVille [02/01/21]
The Blogosphere
— Knowing the Unknown Knower [13/04/21]
— Blogging as Infinite Conversation: Preamble [26/06/21]
— Blogging as Infinite Conversation: Lately I’ve Been Feeling Like Arthur Rimbaud [04/07/21]
— In Defence of Pop Philosophy: Notes on Philosophistry [09/11/21]
— A Further Defence of Pop Philosophy: Comments from Terence Blake [11/11/21]
NFTs
— Solidarity and Cryptocurrency: Notes on NFTs [19/02/21]
— Are NFTs Frigid Stars? [07/10/21]
Memes
— Memeing History [30/06/21]
— Memeing Politics [01/07/21]
— Imagine You Have Two Memes…: On Memetic Negativity [23/07/21]
— The Met Gala [14/09/21]
— (Funko) Pop Modernism? [23/10/21]
Repeater and Zer0
— Repeater Takes Over [24/10/21]
— Against Individualizing: Personal Beef or Group Critique? [01/11/21]
— Perpetual Yawn: More from the Ex-Zer0 Set [10/11/21]
— Spiked: Notes on Psychedelic Fascism in the UK Media Landscape [13/11/21]
— Repeater Takes Over… Tariq Weighs In… [27/11/21]
— A Pure War?: Late Dispatches from the Authenticity Olympics [07/12/21]
— What’s Next From Zer0 Books?: A New Series from Buddies Without Organs [10/12/21]
— An Inexplicable Reference… [11/12/21]
— Accessibility and Post-Punk: Thoughts on the Difficulty of Pop Philosophy [12/12/21]
— New Missives from the Cranks [17/12/21]
Kingston-Upon-Hull
— Hull and the Bomb [25/02/21]
— Hull and the Rise of Neoliberalism [14/06/21]
Podcasts
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #03 [19/01/21]
— An Introduction to Eerie Aesthetics: Now on Mixcloud! [14/02/21]
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #04 [22/02/21]
— Extinction, Apocalypse and Desire: XG with Thomas Moynihan on the MIT Press Podcast [09/03/21]
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #05 [22/03/21]
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #06 [12/05/21]
— Literary Ley Lines: XG in the Liminal Lounge [19/06/21]
— After the Maestro [23/06/21]
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #07 [02/07/21]
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #08 [13/09/21]
— In Conversation with Liara Roux: Live on Instagram [28/09/21]
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #9 [27/12/21]
Photography
— Brontë Country IV [06/02/21]
— Winter Walks VI [13/02/21]
— Winter Walks VII [20/02/21]
— Winter Walks VIII [27/02/21]
— Winter Walks IX [06/03/21]
— Winter (Acid) Walks X [13/03/21]
— Winter Walks XI [20/03/21]
— Winter Walks XII [27/03/21]
— First Lambs [29/03/21]
— Winter Walks XIII [02/04/21]
— Burning Heather [06/04/21]
— Winter Walks XIV [10/04/21]
— Encounters with Photography and Community: Alumni Talk at the University of South Wales [21/04/21]
— Untilted #23 (With Notes on a Migrated Archive) [28/04/21]
— Untitled #24 [04/05/21]
— Untitled #25 [20/05/21]
— Untitled #26 [16/06/21]
— Untitled #27 [03/07/21]
— Untitled #28 [17/07/21]
— Untitled #29 [31/07/21]
— Untitled #30 [14/08/21]
— Untitled #31 [28/08/21]
— Untitled #32 [04/09/21]
— Untitled #33 [25/09/21]
— Untitled #34 [09/10/21]
— Untitled #35 [23/10/21]
— Untitled #36 [06/11/21]
— Untitled #37 [20/11/21]
— Untitled #38 [04/12/21]
— Untitled #39 [05/12/21]
— Untitled #40 [11/12/21]
— Untitled #41 [12/12/21]
— Untitled #42 [18/12/21]
— Untitled #43 [19/12/21]
— A Persistent Stitch: Winter Walks 2021 [29/12/21]
Patreon Posts
— XG Reading Group 2.0: Without Further Badiou [10/01/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #5 (01/02/2021) [01/02/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.1: Much Badiou About Nothing [12/02/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.2: Brassier’s Critique of Transcendental Materialism [26/02/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #06 (01/03/2021) [01/03/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.3: Situationist NFTs and the Intensification of the Commodity Form [12/03/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #07 (01/04/2021) [01/04/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.4: A Grift in Space-Time [03/04/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.5: Narcissist Realism [16/04/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.6: Capitalism’s Transcendental Mirror Factory [30/04/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #08 (01/05/2021) [01/05/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.7: Bad Actors [27/05/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #09 (01/06/2021) [01/06/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.8: Interlude [11/06/21]
— XG Reading Group 2.9: The Social [18/06/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #10 (01/07/2021) [01/07/21]
— XG Reading Group 3.0: Revenge of the Real [30/07/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #11 (01/08/2021) [01/08/21]
— XG Reading Group 3.1: Post-Pandemic Patchwork [15/08/21]
— XG Reading Group 3.2: Trust is Key [25/08/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #12 (01/09/2021) [01/09/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #13 (01/10/2021) [01/10/21]
— XG Reading Group 3.4: The Sensing Layer [22/10/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #14 (01/11/2021) [01/11/21]
— XG Reading Group 3.5: Positive Objectification [05/11/21]
— Blogger’s Digest #15 (01/12/2021) [01/12/21]
— XG Reading Group 3.6: Agamben and Neo-Anarchy [03/12/21]