"In the late ’60s, Guy Debord—who was a situationalist—he looked again at the work of Edward Bernays, and saw that now what we called the media was starting to be joined by governments and by financial banking systems. And he called it the “integrated spectacle.” So we’re all living in this completely false reality that doesn’t really exist. The thing that’s so funny is that we’ve become the mouthpiece of this consumersism." Penny Arcade "The sage, holding onto the left half of the tally does not demand payment from others; the person with potency {de} takes charge of the tally; the person without potency looks to collecting on it." Lao Tzu "On the other side there are doubts … [Read more...]

"These sacrifice zones of the corporate state are expanding. The recent shooting of an unarmed young black man in Ferguson revealed the insidious disease of white supremacy and how easily U.S. cities can turn into a military occupied police state. With unprecedented persecution of whistle-blowers, the Obama administration continues to threaten press freedom and engage in extrajudicial killing through drone attacks for anyone who is on the receiving end of U.S. imperial foreign policy. The world is quickly becoming one big open-air prison." Nozomi Hayase “Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” … [Read more...]

"Just like the operations of the consciousness, these scriptural graves are defective: there is a fissure in the construction, a leak in the system. In an almost totemic way, historiography is infected by what it touches as the past always seems to overhaul the present. And thus the real not only reveals itself in discourse, it also makes a disturbing appearance when writing is confronted with its own limits or, in other words, when the factory of history suddenly has to face its industrial waste." Alex Demeulenaere "Strategies are undermined by unpredictability. Tactics make an ally of unpredictability." Stan Goff "Narration created humanity." Pierre Janet There is … [Read more...]

"Sincerity is the beginning and end of existence; without it, nothing endures. Therefore the mature man values sincerity above all things.” Zisi (Tzu Ssu)子思子 "One day the man demands of the beast: “Why do you not talk to me about your happiness and only gaze at me?” The beast wants to answer, too, and say: “That comes about because I always immediately forget what I wanted to say.” But by then the beast has already forgotten this reply and remains silent, so that the man keeps on wondering about it." Nietzsche Use and Abuse of History "Much of education and journalism has been captured and superseded by entertainment. Even public discussions have to be entertaining and are judged … [Read more...]

"The best place to teach architecture is in a simple box." Odile Decq "The political locus of tolerance has changed: while it is more or less quietly and constitutionally withdrawn from the opposition, it is made compulsory behavior with respect to established policies." Herbert Marcuse "Collegiate traditions and the preppy, Ivy League look were some of my earliest design inspirations and the starting point for our signature style.” Tommy Hilfiger. "As the US war machine increases the intensity of its bombing of Muslim fundamentalists and political extremists in various parts of the world, but especially in Syria and Iraq at the present moment, the official “workstations” of CNN … [Read more...]

"Challenged, the coherence of myth became the myth of coherence. Magnified by history, the incoherence of the spectacle turns into the spectacle of incoherence (eg, pop art, a contemporary form of consumable putrefaction, is also an expression of the contemporary putrefaction of consumption). The poverty of 'the drama' as a literary genre goes hand in hand with the colonization of social space by theatrical attitudes. Enfeebled on the stage, theatre battens on to everyday life and attempts to dramatize everyday behaviour. Lived experience is poured into the moulds of roles. The job of perfecting roles has been turned over to experts." Raoul Vaneigem "...let’s assume that there is a … [Read more...]

"Militarism is closely intertwined with the interests of U.S. capital. U.S. leaders are not misguided when they impose sanctions against some poor nation or launch a war. As dreadful as the consequences may be for the victims, such aggressive measures have been remarkably effective in achieving the aims of Western elites: control over the labor, resources and markets of other nations. No challenge to the political orthodoxy of the free market can be tolerated and no corner of the globe can be allowed to remain free of from plunder and exploitation by private interests." Greg Elich "The US’s psychopathology of strength, dominance, hatred of difference, driving America into a cul-de-sac of … [Read more...]

"But after all, it is perhaps to this inhuman condition, to this inescapable arrangement that we owe our nostalgia for a civilization that attempts to venture elsewhere than into the realm of the measurable” Jean Genet "The thinking that aesthetic presentation can open up for us is thus not meant to explain and, by extension, to explain out of existence, what in fact remains irreducible, singular, and resistant within the work. Rather, learning to think aesthetically, to think with and through the work of art, means learning to see what exactly the enigma or riddle is. Thinking means remaining open to what threatens to make thinking impossible." Gerhard Richter There was a debate … [Read more...]