Alex Taek-Gwang Lee – författare

Is the self or subject discontinuous across technological platforms? Do technological developments increase inequality and exploitation? Is the new media landscape creating a dangerous distraction from the climate crisis? Connecting the work of critical postmedia studies to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of schizoanalysis, this book marks a bifurcatory shift in the radical theory on technology.A range of critical perspectives are explored by international authors who engage with ecology, ecosophy, climate change, the postmedia condition, and the Anthropocene. Answering the above questions, editors Joff P.N. Bradley, Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, and Manoj N.Y. frame the volume’s chapters as urgent responses to unbridled technological advance and impending climate disaster. Using ecological philosophy as a core focus, the volume analyses new media, technologies of the self, the power of algorithms, and technologies of resistance, to outline a materialist paradigm capable of addressing crises across the cultural, biological, and informational spheres.Through contesting economies built on desire and destruction and questioning the infiltration of capitalism in all of its spheres of negative influence, the editors review recent technological developments in light of Deleuze and Guattari’s earlier seminal theories to make bold new connections and critiques in the study of media, philosophy, and the environment.

Is the self or subject discontinuous across technological platforms? Do technological developments increase inequality and exploitation? Is the new media landscape creating a dangerous distraction from the climate crisis? Connecting the work of critical postmedia studies to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of schizoanalysis, this book marks a bifurcatory shift in the radical theory on technology.A range of critical perspectives are explored by international authors who engage with ecology, ecosophy, climate change, the postmedia condition, and the Anthropocene. Answering the above questions, editors Joff P.N. Bradley, Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, and Manoj N.Y. frame the volume’s chapters as urgent responses to unbridled technological advance and impending climate disaster. Using ecological philosophy as a core focus, the volume analyses new media, technologies of the self, the power of algorithms, and technologies of resistance, to outline a materialist paradigm capable of addressing crises across the cultural, biological, and informational spheres.Through contesting economies built on desire and destruction and questioning the infiltration of capitalism in all of its spheres of negative influence, the editors review recent technological developments in light of Deleuze and Guattari’s earlier seminal theories to make bold new connections and critiques in the study of media, philosophy, and the environment.

This new reading of Gilles Deleuze forges a link between his early and later works by decoding his hidden agenda for communism.Encoded in the idea of ‘the Third World’, Deleuze used his concept of communism as a bulwark against fascist politics and the liberal political economy. Inspired by May 68 and its aftermath, these concealed interpretations of Marx are now tacitly forgotten but can unlock a deeper understanding of Deleuze’s political project.Often regarded as an apolitical philosopher, the challenges that Deleuze mounted to structuralism are easy to overlook. By reinvigorating the communist aspect of his political project and linking his ideas to Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek, Alex Taek-Gwang Lee reveals Deleuze’s objective: to rescue Marxism from the dogmatic status quo and revive its political agendas. This major undertaking situates his ideas alongside and sets out a new framework for reading the significance of Marxist thought in postwar France. Ultimately, this new understanding of Deleuze’s critique of global capitalism opens up his vision of materialistic politics as a means of shaping the people and the proletariat of the future.

This new reading of Gilles Deleuze forges a link between his early and later works by decoding his hidden agenda for communism.Encoded in the idea of ‘the Third World’, Deleuze used his concept of communism as a bulwark against fascist politics and the liberal political economy. Inspired by May 68 and its aftermath, these concealed interpretations of Marx are now tacitly forgotten but can unlock a deeper understanding of Deleuze’s political project.Often regarded as an apolitical philosopher, the challenges that Deleuze mounted to structuralism are easy to overlook. By reinvigorating the communist aspect of his political project and linking his ideas to Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek, Alex Taek-Gwang Lee reveals Deleuze’s objective: to rescue Marxism from the dogmatic status quo and revive its political agendas. This major undertaking situates his ideas alongside and sets out a new framework for reading the significance of Marxist thought in postwar France. Ultimately, this new understanding of Deleuze’s critique of global capitalism opens up his vision of materialistic politics as a means of shaping the people and the proletariat of the future.

Weak Technologies challenges one of the great myths of our time: that technology is powerful. We are constantly told that tools, technologies and especially Artificial Intelligence expand our reach, overcome our limits and make us stronger. But this book proposes the opposite. Technologies are valuable not because they succeed but because they fail – because they glitch, deviate, surprise, and refuse to obey faithfully the intentions of their designers and users.The fascination with "powerful" technology rests on a fantasy of mastery: that human weaknesses can be overcome by machines. Yet every technology, from a screwdriver to a neural network, reveals itself to be interesting only when it does something unexpected: weakness, such as inconsistency, malfunction and improvisation, is where invention emerges. Technologies are not solutions to problems: they are problems, calling for new acts of imagination.This book invites us to abandon the dream of seamless efficiency and instead to embrace experimentation and play. To use technology well is not to control it but to explore what else it can do. Weak Technologies proposes nothing less than an artistic education in technological life, a way of creating with machines, not commanding them. It is a manifesto for an experimental, curious, and genuinely inventive technological culture.

Weak Technologies challenges one of the great myths of our time: that technology is powerful. We are constantly told that tools, technologies and especially Artificial Intelligence expand our reach, overcome our limits and make us stronger. But this book proposes the opposite. Technologies are valuable not because they succeed but because they fail – because they glitch, deviate, surprise, and refuse to obey faithfully the intentions of their designers and users.The fascination with "powerful" technology rests on a fantasy of mastery: that human weaknesses can be overcome by machines. Yet every technology, from a screwdriver to a neural network, reveals itself to be interesting only when it does something unexpected: weakness, such as inconsistency, malfunction and improvisation, is where invention emerges. Technologies are not solutions to problems: they are problems, calling for new acts of imagination.This book invites us to abandon the dream of seamless efficiency and instead to embrace experimentation and play. To use technology well is not to control it but to explore what else it can do. Weak Technologies proposes nothing less than an artistic education in technological life, a way of creating with machines, not commanding them. It is a manifesto for an experimental, curious, and genuinely inventive technological culture.

In 2009 Slavoj Zizek brought together an acclaimed group of intellectuals to discuss the continued relevance of communism. Unexpectedly the conference attracted an audience of over 1,000 people.The discussion has continued across the world and this book gathers responses from the conference in Seoul. It includes the interventions of regular contributors Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek, as well as work from across Asia, notably from Chinese scholar Wang Hui, offering regional perspectives on communism in an era of global economic crisis and political upheaval.

This short monograph explores the intersection of philosophy and painting, examining how major thinkers from Hegel to Merleau-Ponty developed key concepts through their engagement with specific artworks. Unlike traditional surveys, my book focuses on philosophers’ ideas as they emerged from concrete encounters with paintings, offering both scholars and general readers fresh insight into philosophical thought. By analysing these interactions, the book illuminates the often-overlooked connection between visual art and abstract reasoning, tracing the evolution of philosophical ideas through tangible, visual experiences. This approach not only bridges aesthetics with other philosophical branches but also presents a unique contribution to the history of ideas, demonstrating how painting has shaped philosophical thoughts. Ultimately, this work provides a novel perspective on familiar philosophical concepts, revealing the profound influence of art on intellectual history.