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CAPS LOCK is a book by Ruben Pater that retraces the relations between graphic design and capitalism. It is an inspirational book full of sources for design students, educators, and visual communicators all over the world.
Capitalism could not exist without the coins, notes, documents, graphics, interfaces, branding, and advertisements; artefacts that have been (partly) created by graphic designers. Even anti-consumerist strategies such as social design and speculative design are being appropriated within capitalist societies to serve economic growth. It seems that design is locked in a system of exploitation and profit, a cycle that fosters inequality and the depletion of natural resources.
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Discussion of capitalism is not off the table any longer. Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy launches with the aim of doing everything it can to promote and deepen this conversation. Our focus is, as our title suggests, to develop a theory and strategy with capitalism as its target — both in the North and in the Global South. It is an ambitious agenda, but this is a time for thinking big.
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The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from libertarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.
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Guy Debord's best known works are his theoretical books, The Society of the Spectacle and Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. In addition to these he wrote a number of autobiographical books including Mémoires, Panégyrique, Cette Mauvaise Réputation..., and Considérations sur l'assassinat de Gérard Lebovici. He was also the author of numerous short pieces, sometimes anonymous, for the journals Potlatch, Les Lèvres Nues, Les Chats Sont Verts, and Internationale Situationniste. The Society of the spectacle was written in an "interesting prose"[clarification needed], unlike most writings in that time or of that nature. For Debord, the Spectacle is viewed as false representations in our real lives. The Spectacle is a materialized worldview. The spectacle 'subjects human beings to itself'.
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Mark Fisher (11 July 1968 – 13 January 2017), also known under his blogging alias k-punk, was an English writer, music critic, political and cultural theorist, philosopher, and teacher based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. He initially achieved acclaim for his blogging as k-punk in the early 2000s, and was known for his writing on radical politics, music, and popular culture.
Fisher published several books, including the unexpected success Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009), and contributed to publications such as The Wire, Fact, New Statesman and Sight & Sound. He was also the co-founder of Zero Books, and later Repeater Books. He died by suicide in January 2017, shortly before the publication of The Weird and the Eerie (2017).
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Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of Pandora's Box (1992) marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of sociology, psychology, philosophy and political history.
His style has been described as involving, "whiplash digressions, menacing atmospherics and arpeggiated scores, and the near-psychedelic compilation of archival footage", narrated by Curtis himself with "patrician economy and assertion". His films have won four BAFTAs.
The Century of the Self : A Fascinating BBC Documentary About the Rise of Consumerism and Democracy
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace : Adam Curtis on How Technology Limits Us
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Byung-Chul Han (born 1959) is a South Korean-born philosopher and cultural theorist living in Germany. He was a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and still occasionally gives courses there. Books published by MIT PRESS.
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Jacque Fresco (March 13, 1916 – May 18, 2017) was an American futurist and self-described social engineer. Self-taught, he worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design.
Fresco wrote and lectured his views on sustainable cities, energy efficiency, natural-resource management, cybernetic technology, automation, and the role of science in society. He directed the Venus Project and advocated global implementation of a socioeconomic system which he referred to as a "resource-based economy".
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Verso Books is the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world, publishing one hundred books a year.
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Pluto Press is a radical political publishing house. Founded in 1969, one of the world’s oldest radical publishers, focusing on making timely interventions in contemporary struggles; anti-capitalist, internationalist and politically independent.
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The F1 cellular phone from Sunbeam Wireless gives you and your family the tools you need, but without the distractions and potential dangers of most modern devices.
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The Librem 5 is a Security and Privacy Focused Phone. It represents the opportunity for you to take back control and protect your private information, your digital life through free and open source software, open governance, and transparency.
Influencer Creep : Self-documenting and self-branding are becoming basic to all forms of work.
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Client Red Flags : How to spot the warning signs of a toxic creative relationship
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False Futurism : The metaverse is just another way to “go online”
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Social Media is not self-expression.
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Pirated e-book site z-Library vanishes.
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The Primitive Accumulation of Cool
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Utopia, not Futurism : Murray Bookchin, 1978
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