Urbanomic

Mixtape compiled by ‘VM’, member of the Gruppo di Nun and chronicler of Rome’s dark twin city of Remoria, takes us back to the years 1990–1994, when a new brand of home-grown techno pumped a chronic strain of no-future energy into the peripheral zones of burned-out Empire. For the accompanying text by VM, and tracklist: https://www.urbanomic.com/document/dark-continuum/

In-depth discussion of the aesthetic, political, architectural, and passional dimensions of Yves Mettler’s work on urban spaces whose names invoke a multitude of concepts and visions of ‘Europe’, as documented in the Urbanomic book ‘Atlas Europe Square’. With Mettler and contributors Stephen Zepke, Teresa Pullano, Neil Brenner, and Reza Negarestani addressing the many dimensions of the project, and designers Emmanuel Crivelli and Ernesto Luna of DUALROOM about the process of transforming it into a book. Music from: Kraftwerk, ‘Europe Endlos’ Holly Johnson, ‘Europa’ Nena, ‘Das Land der Elefanten’ Europe, ‘The Final Countdown’ Asia, ‘Countdown to Zero’ David Sylvian, ‘Café Europa’ Noir Desire, ‘L’Europe’ Phantom Ghost, ‘My Secret Europe’ Gianna Nannini, ‘Ragazzo Dell’Europa’ Kate Tempest, ‘Europe is Lost’ Max Richter, ‘Europe, After the Rain’ Roxy Music, ‘A Song for Europe’ Steve Reich, ‘Different Trains’ — from the playlist/exhibition A Song for Europe, curated by Thibaut de Ruyter, designed by Büro Otto Sauhaus in Berlin, commissioned for Collecting Europe, by V&A and Goethe-Institut London. And: 'Ghetto’ by Jocker Black. Alan Faqir, excerpt from 'The Local Iranian Music' vol. 1

Author of Theory of the Solitary Sailor. Gilles Grelet sails across the channel to talk with translators Amy Ireland and Robin Mackay about his ‘antiphilosophical biography’ , with topics ranging from melancholy, silence, and formulaic writing to happiness, how to exorcise a boat’s deadname, writing and twitter, and why sailors never say ‘r****t’. With the voices of Lendl Barcelos and Angus Carlyle. Music: Robin Williamson (with Mat Maneri, Ale Möller, Barre Phillips), ‘Sir Patrick Spens’, from The Iron Stone (ECM, 2006). Kassel Jaeger, ‘Exposure Scales: Tide’, from Toxic Cosmopolitanism (Editions Mego, 2014). Debussy, La Mer (III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer). Leo Ferré, ‘La Mélancholie’ (1964) Extracts from the short film Un bonne manière de commencer, c’est de se donner un myth (Dojo Cinema, 2006). Theory of the Solitary Sailor is published by Urbanomic and is available as a book or e-book from our website: https://www.urbanomic.com/book/grelet-solitary-sailor/

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ TAKE THE RUFF WITH THE KUTE ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ Live amen-heavy kawaii sparkles from DJK Huysman’s afterparty set at BEK’s event ‘The Only Lasting Truth is Change’, Bergen, Norway, Saturday 20 Nov 2021.

To mark the publication of a new translation of Jean Cavaillès’s <a href="https://www.urbanomic.com/book/logic-theory-science/"><em>On Logic and the Theory of Science</em></a>, Robin Mackay is joined by Knox Peden and Matt Hare to provide an introduction to Cavaillès's philosophical project for the uninitiated, and to examine what is at stake in <em>On Logic</em>’s confrontation with Kantianism, logicism, and Husserlian phenomenology. Among the many subjects covered in this wide-ranging conversation: optimism, extreme protestantism, and Spinozism; Heidegger and Cassirer’s Davos debate; mathematics as a necessary dynamism; the virtues and vices of phenomenology; philosophical style and the ethics of concision; foucault, archaeology, and the historical a priori; life and rational activity; abnegation in life and in thought; Cavaillès’s philosophical legacy and how reading his work ‘fundamentally changes our understanding of 20th-Century French philosophy’. Music: ‘23’ from Newtables by SND (SNDSE2)

To celebrate the release of Chronosis, Keith Tilford and Reza Negarestani join Robin Mackay to talk about their collaboration and the ideas that fuelled the time-twisting plot of the comic. Creative tension and backchannel bickering, cat monks, Boltzmann brains, cosmic body horror, Bertrand Russell the armchair stoner, the Harold Lloyd theory of time-reversal, psychopaths, AGI monkeys, and <em>The Mortiloquist</em> all make an appearance. Music: ‘Dionysus’, by Herman Polsus aka <a href="https://soundcloud.com/drew-flieder">Drew Flieder</a>, and ‘Timeshift’ by Eschaton (<a href="https://soundcloud.com/omnimusicuk">Omni Music</a>) <a href="https://www.urbanomic.com/book/chronosis/">Get your hands on a copy of <em>Chronosis</em> now!</a>

To celebrate a year of lockdown lunacy, in this special anniversary show we invite survivors from the very first PlaguePod to come back and tell us what their COVID highlights have been. Reza Negarestani, Miguel Prado, Shaun Lewin, Amy Ireland, and Xenogothic are among the guests. DJK Huysmans is in the house to provide Hariboid sounds. Plus snack testing, Chaney's Czech-in, and the Inexplicable Scots from Beyond. Support the cause https://ko-fi.com/readthiswtf Get your PlaguePod T-Shirt at https://www.urbanomic.com/product/plaguepod-t-shirt/

Highly advanced AI reads Nick Land, ‘Hypervirus’, from Fanged Noumena https://www.urbanomic.com/book/fanged-noumena/ As featured in Urbanomic PlaguePod Live New Variant Day 3 The backing track is (1) Untitled shruti transform by Mark Fell (2)‘Zero Fucks’ by Special Request

We’re back in lockdown again. So we’re back on air. Pete Wolfendale discusses online personas and exo-selves, Keith Tilford and Iceland Bob give their all-time top ten list of comics, and there are readings from Fanged Noumena and archive recordings of talks by Ray Brassier and Mark Fisher.

We’re back in lockdown. So we’re back on air, with some guests, some tunes, some book news, and…some other stuff. Reza Blades and Kilford, along with Iceland Bob, join us to talk comics and Boltzmann Babies, there are X-Risks with Thomas Moynihan, a reading from Gabriel Catren’s forthcoming ‘Pleromatica’, plus a suspect audio package from Hyperdub’s Steve Goodman aka Kode9, and pro publishing conversation from Lower East Side celebrity and Sequence Press editor-about-town Captain K. Pickard.

One last blast from the COVID bunker before the second wave hits. Tunes from DJK Huysmans, chat from around around the world, and T-shirt advertorials (get your PlaguePod T-Shirt here: https://www.urbanomic.com/event/conceptwear-2/)

It's not over til it's over! Your favourite car crash of a podcast returns one last time for a sunny Sunday afternoon with a special solar-powered remote broadcast from End of the World Garden, with a UK Garage set from DJK Huysmans, phone-ins from across the globe, and finally a CoronaQuest victory!

As the COVID era segues into something far more cursed, in this exclusive communiqué Anthony Nine drops a poetic-occultural dubplate mapping the fundamental lines of contemporary struggle in a world of politricksters. With a timely advocacy of the power and discipline of real magical practice against the insidious enchantments of ‘meme magic’ and the uncontrolled consequences of its tawdry cons, this impassioned reading touches on memory, the powers of bewilderment and misdirection, and our relation to life and death, past and future. Essential listening for survival in 21st Century Babylon. Anthony Nine is a writer and artist from the UK now based in Miami. His work explores intersecting themes of occultism, African Diaspora traditions, psychogeography, music and culture. The extended text version of 'Guns of Brixton' with additional content will be published in ‘Conjure Codex 4’ by Hadean Press this summer. He is the author of ‘Space Weather Report’, a colouring book account of the world of spirit, available from Revelore Press. His first novel, Dub Seance, a story of lived magic set in London, New Orleans and Miami, is forthcoming. He is also a contributor to Urbanomic’s book Audint—Unsound:Undead (2019). Follow Anthony Nine on Twitter @spaceweather9 With thanks to Allison Brice, Hewson Chen, and Davis White for technical help. Tracklist: Round Five, Barrington Levy/Scientist - Scientist King Tubby's Rockers - Roots Radics/King Tubby Braces Tower Dub - Augustus Pablo/King Tubby Rock a Dub - Al Campbell/Scientist Pulsar - Scientist Destruction Sound Battle - Prince Far I Dub With a View - King Tubby M16 - Roots Radics/Scientist The Mummy's Shroud - Scientist Tapper Zukie in Dub - Tapper Zukie/Philip Smart Dub the Right Way - Soul Syndicate/King Tubby Guns of Brixton - The Bug/Spaceape

PlaguePod returns to take a look at Crack-Ups and Lockdowns, with readings of real-life and fictional breaking points, plus a return to the subject of mental health in weird COVID times with Matt Colquhoun aka Xenogothic. We have Mark Fell joining us to chat from deepest Rotherham with some extremely tidy tracks, and welcome Agnès Gayraud as our guide on a journey into ‘impossible’ French pop.

Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh, author of Omnicide, enumerates 11 important principles for understanding coronachan as a demon. Extracted from PlaguePod Day 41. More details: https://www.urbanomic.com/book/omnicide/

Inigo Wilkins reads from his forthcoming book Irreversible Noise – extracted from PlaguePod Live Day 34. More details: https://www.urbanomic.com/book/irreversible-noise/

A truly next-level Princely Persian Mayday PlaguePod as we bring together Omnicide author Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh and our favourite Geistig Lego™ AGI engineer Reza Negarestani. Lisa Blanning joins us with a special selection of COVID tracks, Amy Ireland jacks in from the Pandemonium Matrix to discuss viral demonology, and we talk coronamania and oil futures, and find out what our guests’ favourite Britney tracks are. With a taste of a poison paradise, could this be the night that someone—while being considerate to their housemates—finally defeats CoronaQuest…?

PlaguePod Live: Cope Edition. What's going on? It's been over a month in lockdown, the epistemological conundrum of coronavirus has been solved (no one knows anything) and we are bored, deranged, chronically anxious, and have no idea what to talk about. But there is fresh junglism, there is CoronaQuest, and there are guests: Enrico Monacelli and Laura Tripaldi report back from Italy, Shaun Lewin continues the search for rare jaffa cakes and COVID/corvid crossovers, and Edinburgh's finest Proc Fiskal brings some tunes and lockdown updates from the Heart of Lothian.

Readings from the collection Audint—Unsound:Undead (published by Urbanomic, https://www.urbanomic.com/book/unsoundundead/) as featured in PlaguePod Day 26. 0:00 Lisa Blanning, ‘Ghost In The Machine: Hikikomori And Digital Dualism’ (music: DVA [Hi:Emotions], NOTU_URONLINEU, on Hyperdub) 9:53 Steve Goodman, ‘Dossier 37: Unidentified Vibrational Objects on the Plane Of Unbelief’ 25:00 Lendl Barcelos, ‘2014: The Visual Microphone’ 32:35 Shelley Trower, ‘Peripheral Vibrations’ 38:22 Erik Davis, ‘Resonance’ 49:20 Charlie Blake, ‘Sonic Spectralities: Sketches for a Prolegomena to Any Future Xenosonics’ (Music: Haswell and Hecker, ‘Blackest Ever Black’ on Warner Classics) 55:50 Eleni Ikoniadou and Carolin Schnurrer. ‘The Lament’ 1:11:22 Nicola Masciandaro, ‘Purgatory’ (music: Bach, Wölfgang Rübsam, Prelude and Fugue in C Minor/Wo Soll Ich Fliehen hin, on Naxos) 1:23:37 Agnès Gayraud, ‘Glossolalia/Xenoglossia’ (closing music: Christophe, ‘Voix sans issue’, on Disques Motors). Check out our other Audint podcast, ‘Unsound Methods’ too.

In this action-packed PlaguePod we present a series of readings from Audint—Unsound:Undead, plus some extra special additions from the Audint Crew and from Kode9, we invite listeners to call in to our brand new feature, the challenging dystopian adventure game CoronaQuest, and with guests Thomas Moynihan and Shaun Lewin we talk existential risk, Hydroplutonic Kernow, spinal catastrophism and, most crucially, lockdown snacking—tackling some fundamental questions: Which snacks are optimal for lockdown conditions? And is it possible to develop a definitive speculative ontological schema capable of encompassing the dynamism of the entire mouthfeel continuum? Lewin teams up with DJK Huysmans to drop some sucrose-laden snack tracks.

To discuss time and the templexical effects of the global pandemic, we welcome Vince Garton, Anna Greenspan, Amy Ireland, Nick Land, and Ben Woodard. Plus music, noise, and readings.

Special emergency apocalypse-fatigue relief edition of PlaguePod featuring music, readings, and call-ins, with a no hardpants policy and a strict ban on any discussion of the spiky boi.

In this edition of PlaguePod, we try to look away from the dying embers of the West. Guests in to discuss differing responses to the coronavirus crisis, sinofuturism, and post-soviet accelerationism include Bogna Konior (Hong Kong), Vince Garton (London), Dino Ge Zhang (Wuhan, just out of quarantine), Gabriele de Seta (Taipei/Italy), Amy Ireland (Sydney), and Brandon Cheong (Singapore). Plus the Reza Remix Competition!

Extracted from PlaguePod Day 9, tales of extreme isolation and madness to sooth you during coronavirus lockdown. Readings from three stories of domestic withdrawal and quarantine by JG Ballard, ‘The Enormous Space’ (1989), ‘Having a Wonderful Time’ (1978), and ‘The Intensive Care Unit’ (1977), plus a passage on breadmaking from Michel Tournier’s ‘Friday, or the Limbo of the Pacific’ (1967) and two extracts from Simon Sellars’s ‘Applied Ballardianism’ (Urbanomic, 2018). Read by Robin Mackay, Amy Ireland, and Simon Sellars.

For this PlaguePod, we’re joined by guests including Simon Sellars, author of ‘Applied Ballardianism‘, DJ producer and UIQ label boss Lee Gamble, and author and blogger Matt Colquhoun (Xenogothic) to talk about the psychological effects of the Coronavirus crisis and the ever more alarming prescience of Ballard’s tales of isolation and quarantine, social breakdown, inner space, and the psychologically debilitating yet possibly liberating liberating effects of living through catastrophe. With soothing ASMR readings from Sellars, Ballard, and others, crisis music, listener phone-ins, a reading from Reza Negarestani’s ‘Mortiloquist‘, and an exclusive unlive recording of the 2009 Urbanomic gig by Russell Haswell.

PlaguePod returns with guests including Shaun Lewin, Laura Tripaldi, and Reza Negarestani to talk speculative virology, herd immunity, food security, and much more, plus a diverse range of grime, jungle, juke, and other bangers, a feature interview with Tony the Greengrocer, and an exclusive unreleased track by Florian Hecker. The most diverse coronacontent out there.

Live lockdown mix of abstract jungle and other socially-distanced music, readings from Urbanomic publications, phone-ins from around the world, and noise from Urbanomic HQ

In this live and chaotic podcast, socially-distanced Urbanomic-adjacent guests from across the planet join us from their respective lockdown cells to share personal and speculative views on the Coronavirus era. Plus some great jungle tunes. With Matt Colquhoun (Xenogothic), Amy Ireland, Nyx Land, Shaun Lewin, Robin Mackay, Mattin, Enrico Monacelli, Thomas Moynihan, Reza Negarestani, Katherine Pickard, Miguel Prado, Laura Tripaldi. CONTENT WARNING: FOUL LANGUAGE, DEGENERATE PHILOSOPHERS, COGNITIVE TURPITUDE, ACCELERATIONISM

In this recording of the November 2019 launch event for Agnès Gayraud’s book ‘Dialectic of Pop’, published by Urbanomic, Robin Mackay and the author discuss the problematic and major themes of the book. Music from the album Vie Future by La Féline: https://soundcloud.com/la-f-line https://www.urbanomic.com/book/dialectic-of-pop/

Robin Mackay is joined by Amy Ireland to talk to Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh about his book ‘Omnicide: Mania, Fatality, and the Future-in-Delirium’, lullabies, nerds, mysticism, assassins, sorcery and hyperstition, practical magic, and more…. https://urbanomic.com/book/omnicide/ Music used in the podcast: ‘Gerye Miayad Mara’ by Homayoun Shajarian Track from ‘Baluchestan Music—The Local Iranian Music’ cassette by unknown artist ‘Beman’ by Aida Shahghasemi

Unheard since its 1996 ‘performance’ at a conference at The Hacienda in Manchester, this recently rediscovered cassette tape of the audio version of ‘Swarmachines’, with the voices of Sadie Plant, Angus Carlyle, Mark Fisher, and Nick Land machinically integrated with some premium mid-90s jungle, is a very early production of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU). The text is available in Urbanomic’s collection #Accelerate. More details: https://www.urbanomic.com/podcast/swarmachines-rewind/ ‎

In this epic osteogeographical podcast recorded entirely on location, we go back to the future and take a tour around Cornwall with author Thomas Moynihan to discuss his book Spinal Catastrophism: A Secret History. In the last section Shaun Lewin joins us at Plymouth station to talk railway spines, worms, and vultures. https://www.urbanomic.com/book/spinal-catastrophism/ This is followed by a recording of the launch event in London in October 2019. Full details here : https://www.urbanomic.com/podcast/spinal-landscape/ Featured track ‘No Spine’ by Gabu : https://soundcloud.com/gabuofficial/

Audio Trailer for the book ‘Audint—Unsound : Undead’, edited by Steve Goodman, Toby Heys, and Eleni Ikoniadou, published by Urbanomic. https://www.urbanomic.com/book/unsoundundead/ Track listing here: https://www.urbanomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/unsoundmethods.pdf

Exclusive Applied Ballardianism soundscape compiled by Philip Sanderson and mixed by DJ Huysmans. Created for the Ballardian Breakfast Briefing 21 July 2018 https://www.urbanomic.com/event/ballardian-breakfast-briefingmidnight-seance/

Synthetic Fundamentalism for 4-year olds and damaged adults

An idiosyncratic mixtape based on an impromptu listening seminar held at Labour Camp, part of Paul Chaney’s Critical Camps series at Kestle Barton, traces the relationship between work and eroticism through popular song. More details at https://www.urbanomic.com/podcast/songs-labour-pleasure/

François J. Bonnet talks about ‘The Order of Sounds: A Sonorous Archipelago’, his book on the philosophy of sound and listening, explaining the motivation behind its examination of modes of listening and its mapping of plural sonic ontologies, and expanding on some of the concepts he introduces in order to take account of the ‘schizological’ nature of sound. The podcast concludes with an exclusive track by Bonnet’s alter-ego Kassel Jaeger.

In this episode of Urbanomic's Yarncast series, Urbanomic director Robin Mackay and artist Paul Chaney talk about the ideas behind the project and some of the background to their work. Recorded at Bergen Academy of Art and Design. Yarncast is a series of podcasts produced by Urbanomic as a part of the research residency project The Ultimate Yarnwork at Bergen Kunsthall in January–February 2015 (www.urbanomic.com/event-uf34-details.php), and featuring in depth interviews with writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, centered around the concepts of plot and plotting.

In this episode of Urbanomic’s Yarncast series, artist Amanda Beech (www.amandabeech.com) discusses the compelling power of crime fiction, TV shows and movies, the materiality of language and image, and how her video work interrogates the subject-positions and theories of knowledge and power embedded in these popular narratives. Yarncast is a series of podcasts produced by Urbanomic as a part of the research residency project The Ultimate Yarnwork at Bergen Kunsthall in January–February 2015 (www.urbanomic.com/event-uf34-details.php), and featuring in depth interviews with writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, centered around the concepts of plot and plotting.

In this episode of Urbanomic’s Yarncast series, architect and theorist Eyal Weizman discusses his Forensic Architecture project (http://www.forensic-architecture.org/), and explains why the defence of victims of state violence demands a counterforensics that introduces new types of evidence, new modes of intervention, and operates outside the courtroom, generating new public forums. Yarncast is a series of podcasts produced by Urbanomic as a part of the research residency project The Ultimate Yarnwork at Bergen Kunsthall in January–February 2015(http://www.urbanomic.com/event-uf34-details.php), and featuring in depth interviews with writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, centered around the concepts of plot and plotting.

In this episode of Urbanomic’s Yarncast series, creative consultant Allison Evans tells us about her work developing and preparing visual presentations for the courtroom, transforming facts into a compelling plot that will bring the jury on side. Yarncast is a series of podcasts produced by Urbanomic as a part of the research residency project The Ultimate Yarnwork at Bergen Kunsthall in January–February 2015 (http://www.urbanomic.com/event-uf34-details.php), and featuring in depth interviews with writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, centered around the concepts of plot and plotting.

In this episode of Urbanomic’s Yarncast series, strategist Benedict Singleton (www.benedictsingleton.com) discusses the longstanding suspicion of design as a practice of illicit manipulation, the concept of the trap, and the difference between plots and plans. Yarncast is a series of podcasts produced by Urbanomic as a part of the research residency project The Ultimate Yarnwork at Bergen Kunsthall in January–February 2015 (http://www.urbanomic.com/event-uf34-details.php), and featuring in depth interviews with writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, centered around the concepts of plot and plotting.

In this episode of Urbanomic’s Yarncast series, Professor Henry Turner, author of The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts 1580-1630, discusses how the modern concept of ‘plot’ emerged during the early modern era in the theatre, where playwrights such as Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker inhabited an artisanal milieu galvanized by the popular diffusion of practical geometry. Yarncast is a aeries of podcasts produced by Urbanomic as a part of the research residency project The Ultimate Yarnwork at Bergen Kunsthall in January–February 2015 (http://www.urbanomic.com/event-uf34-details.php), and featuring in depth interviews with writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, centered around the concepts of plot and plotting.

In this episode of Urbanomic’s Yarncast series, Norwegian crime writer Gunnar Staalesen, creator of the private detective Varg Veum (www.vargveum.no) discusses his career, how plots are constructed, and the influence of Norway, and especially his hometown of Bergen, on his brand of ‘nordic noir.’ With readings by Staalesen from the English-language translations of his Varg Veum novels. Yarncast is a series of podcasts produced by Urbanomic as a part of the research residency project The Ultimate Yarnwork at Bergen Kunsthall in January–February 2015 (http://www.urbanomic.com/event-uf34-details.php), and featuring in depth interviews with writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, centered around the concepts of plot and plotting.