Machinology

A big thank you goes to John Protevi for this interview that came out on the Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science (APPS) blog. We talk about Insect Media, and some of its contexts, and chapters — including the one on Roger Caillois, who I read as a media theorist. Not the Caillois we know from game studies, and as a typologist of different affective/genre-classifications of games, but as someone who through his writings on mimicry, the praying mantis and other surprising topics discussed spatiality, imitation and loss of individuality. Picking up Elizabeth Grosz’s thoughts, but continuing towards a slightly different direction of Post-Fordism and the contemporary affective capitalism of games, I find Caillois a great guide in thinking not so much cognitive capitalism, but the intensive affective capitalism working through media technologies such as gaming…

Another heads up: Insect Media was also the book of the week in the last week of February for P2P Foundation site. Also in that context I brand my book as an “Anti-McLuhan” take on media theory and history.