11.05.24 — Akirosa Palais, everyoneisagirl

Seducing Baudrillard: Ultrablack Aphrodite and the appearance of She-Herself in the Universe


89
 
This text was written for the second iteration of an eponymous zine made by London-based everyoneisagirl, a new project that is gaining ground quickly with its exploration of being a girl online. It is a piece that extends out of a combination of Achim Szepanski’s work on Baudrillard in his book In the Delirium of the Simulation (Becoming, 2024), as well as my own research and reading on Baudrillard that came as a part of the chapter I have written for a 2025 Zer0 Books publication. The theme of this zine was Seduction, which has been an important part of Baudrillard’s works for a long time, so given that we were already following everyoneisagirl, and already desiring to see myself publish with them, when they announced the theme, it was quite perfect. I wasn’t sure if the piece would be appropriate for the zine but to my delight it was, and this text can be found in the print, beautifully designed by the EIAG team. 

#virtual, #philosophy, #capitalism, #history #aphrodite, #mythology, #ultrablack, #baudrillard, #modernity, #nature, #desire, #non, #body, #feminism, #materialism

11.05.24 — Akirosa Palais, everyoneisagirl

Seducing Baudrillard: Ultrablack Aphrodite and the appearance of She-Herself in the Universe


89
 
This text was written for the second iteration of an eponymous zine made by London-based everyoneisagirl, a new project that is gaining ground quickly with its exploration of being a girl online. It is a piece that extends out of a combination of Achim Szepanski’s work on Baudrillard in his book In the Delirium of the Simulation (Becoming, 2024), as well as my own research and reading on Baudrillard that came as a part of the chapter I have written for a 2025 Zer0 Books publication. The theme of this zine was Seduction, which has been an important part of Baudrillard’s works for a long time, so given that we were already following everyoneisagirl, and already desiring to see myself publish with them, when they announced the theme, it was quite perfect. I wasn’t sure if the piece would be appropriate for the zine but to my delight it was, and this text can be found in the print, beautifully designed by the EIAG team. 

#virtual, #philosophy, #capitalism, #history #aphrodite, #mythology, #ultrablack, #baudrillard, #modernity, #nature, #desire, #non, #body, #feminism, #materialism

11.05.24 — Dana Dawud

“There is No Image of Palestine” PalCoreCore (2023)


88a
88b
 
We are presenting here a two-part tracing of the film PalCoreCore (2023), a work by Dana Dawud a.k.a DansDansRev, as well as a text she has written about the film. The text is pulled from the final manuscript of Becoming’s fifth book, Dialogues on CoreCore and the Contemporary Online Avant-Garde (Onty & OnMyComputer, 2024) 

“The notion that "We are all martyrs together" transcends its immediate context to touch upon a universal truth. In Arabic, the term martyr, or 'shaheed,' denotes witnessing, bearing testimony to the truth. Thus, each Palestinian face captured in these images serves as a living testament to their enduring struggle and resilience. As global onlookers, our engagement with these images through the remove of our screens does little to shield us from the stark reality of violence...”

88a — Palcorecore (2023) [film by Dana Dawud]
88b — Reflections on Palcorecore [excerpt from Dialogues...]
 
#corecore, #cinema, #crisis, #image, #virtual

29.04.24 — Onty & OnMyComputer

Opening Remarks to Dialogues on CoreCore & the Contemporary Online Avant-Garde
87

 
An introduction to the fifth book of Becoming, featuring 40+ contributors. 

“An arts student, a philosopher, a psychoanalyst, a TikToker, and a meme admin walk into a lecture hall : the premise of a contrived joke ; and the cohort of the event myself and Dylan Smith of On My Computer hosted in December of 2023 in New York’s School of Visual Arts. The event, which we dubbed (after Stirner) ‘All Things Are Nothing to Us’, was dedicated to the topic of “CoreCore”, the now-somewhat-passé metatrend of internet DIY cinema that dominated TikTok between 2021-2022. What follows is some notes and reflections from the night of the conference serving as a stage-setting for the book at large — bearing in mind, of course, that this is a matter of recounting, paraphrasing, summarizing ; and authors should be taken at their own word first and foremost...” — Onty (Ed.)

continue reading...

#art, #philosophy, #future, #cinema, #corecore, #image, #virtual, #technology, #subculture

07.03.24 — Achim Szepanski  

Nothingness, Emptiness, and Nihilism


An excerpt from In the Delirium of the Simulation §2
86

  A cutting from Chapter 2 of our latest book. Baudrillard, contrary to popular belief, was an anti-nihilist, not a nihilist. Yet, to defeat nihilism once and for all, he had to go right into the heart of its territory to understand the truth about it. So much time spent battling in those regions had Baudrillard becoming-nihilist.  

#virtual, #non, #philosophy, #psychology, #sociology, #art, #controlsocieties, #afrofuturism, #capitalistrealism, #marxism, #crisis, #economics,
#capitalism, #baudrillard, #modernity, #image, #quantum, #desire


25.02.24 — Achim Szepanski  

Simulation One


What exactly is a simulation?
85

As we get closer to the release of our latest book In the Delirium of the Simulation: Baudrillard Revisited, we are able to start disseminating the material, beginning with this longer excerpt from Chapter 2 (A Metabox of Terms), entitled Simulation One. We have received the test prints and the book is now fully in production, ready for release in a few weeks. So what is a simulation? and how can it be delirious? 

#virtual, #non, #philosophy, #psychology, #sociology, #art, #controlsocieties, #afrofuturism, #capitalistrealism, #marxism, #crisis, #economics, #capitalism, #baudrillard, #modernity, #image, #quantum, #desire


15.02.24 — Achim Szepanski & A!kira 

In the Delirium of the Simulation: Revisiting Baudrillard (2024)
84

We are extremely happy to announce the beginning of the presale period for the fourth book published by Becoming, this time in collaboration with NON: In the Delirium of the Simulation:

If you remember back to Becoming Magazine Issue Zero, the ghost issue that helped Becoming establish just enough presence to begin coalescing and affecting, it featured a section on Mille Plateaux that culminated in an Interview/Questionnaire with Achim Szepanski, a rather infamous theoretician and culture pioneer. Sometimes dubbed the European version of “Underground Resistance”, Szepanski’s myriad projects, labels and imprints (which, for convenience, we tend to roll up into “Force Inc—Mille Plateaux” and “NON”) are perhaps amongst the few music projects in the last thirty years that have tried so hard to practice and perform the kind of anti-fascist art and music that was envisioned by Frankfurt’s, where Szepanski dwells, most beloved ghosts, Walter Benjamin & Theodor Adorno.

#virtual, #non, #philosophy, #psychology, #sociology, #art, #controlsocieties, #afrofuturism, #capitalistrealism, #marxism, #crisis, #economics, #capitalism, #baudrillard, #modernity, #image, #quantum, #desire


09.02.24 — Mattin  

Introduction to Social Dissonance (2022)
83

Since meeting Mattin at the Mille Plateaux non-ference last November, we have wanted to share his work on Social Dissonance. With the appropriate permissions from him and the publisher, Urbanomic, we are happy to present here, on Becoming, the introduction of the book:

“This book develops and accompanies that ongoing project, developed and reworked over a decade, addressing the relation between the cognitive and aesthetic expectations of the concert situation and the social totality—and social contradictions—of which it is a part, but which it also encapsulates. The book comprises two parts: the first part theoretically traces back the concept of alienation in different ways and develops the concept of ‘social dissonance’. The second part presents and discusses Social Dissonance, an instructional score that explores these conceptual issues in practice.”

#music, #non, #sociology, #art, #psychology, #philosophy, #minimalism, #public, #marxism, #afrofuturism, #capitalism



30.01.24 — Mike Templeton

Becoming Absence after Cancer


“from nothing and with nothing in mind”
82

Mike Templeton is the author of recently published book The Chief of Birds (Erratum Press), a memoir reflecting on a life of addiction, incarceration and recovery. In the time that has passed since he published an essay with Becoming almost a year ago about dystopian despair in Ohio (54), Mike has come face-to-face with harsh reality once again, after being diagnosed with Cancer last year. We wanted to express our deepest regards to Mike, as a person and as an author; while the struggle is different this time around, he has written a text that reflects on being back in recovery again. We were touched to hear that he is doing well, and may live to suffer much longer

You can the details about The Chief of Birds here. 

#care, #depression, #philosophy, #psychology, #logos