Matthew Fuller – författare

A philosophical and cultural distillation of the bleak joys in today’s ambivalent ecologies and patterns of lifeBleak Joys develops an understanding of complex entities and processes-from plant roots to forests to ecological damage and its calculation-as aesthetic. It is also a book about “bad” things, such as anguish and devastation, which relate to the ecological and technical but are also constitutive of politics, the ethical, and the formation of subjects.Avidly interdisciplinary, Bleak Joys draws on scientific work in plant sciences, computing, and cybernetics, as well as mathematics, literature, and art in ways that are not merely illustrative of but foundational to our understanding of ecological aesthetics and the condition in which the posthumanities are being forged. It places the sensory world of plants next to the generalized and nonlinear infrastructure of irresolvability-the economics of indifference up against the question of how to make a home on Planet Earth in a condition of damaged ecologies. Crosscutting chapters on devastation, anguish, irresolvability, luck, plant, and home create a vivid and multifaceted approach that is as remarkable for its humor as for its scholarly complexity.Engaging with Deleuze, Guattari, and Bakhtin, among others, Bleak Joys captures the modes of crises that constitute our present ecological and political condition, and reckons with the means by which they are not simply aesthetically known but aesthetically manifest.

Contemporary theorists, including Walter Benjamin, Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Nancy, have identified that an essential feature of capitalism is an uninterrupted or permanently wakeful continuity of production, exchange, consumption, communication and control. A form of enforced insomnia which keeps people subservient and compliant. This makes sleep a revolutionary act.Insomnia ranges from the history of philosophy to contemporary 'sleep science' and cutting edge theory to provide us with a powerful philosophical and aesthetic intervention – that charts not just the problems of sleep but its revolutionary potential as a new politics of sleep. This is urgent reading for anyone trying to sleep in contemporary capitalism.

Contemporary theorists, including Walter Benjamin, Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Nancy, have identified that an essential feature of capitalism is an uninterrupted or permanently wakeful continuity of production, exchange, consumption, communication and control. A form of enforced insomnia which keeps people subservient and compliant. This makes sleep a revolutionary act.Insomnia ranges from the history of philosophy to contemporary 'sleep science' and cutting edge theory to provide us with a powerful philosophical and aesthetic intervention – that charts not just the problems of sleep but its revolutionary potential as a new politics of sleep. This is urgent reading for anyone trying to sleep in contemporary capitalism.

What if judgment returned to the craft of magic? How would that relieve the burdens of critique and realign its priorities? These questions regarding the value of magic to thinking are at the very heart of the acclaimed philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers' political and philosophical thought and her insistence that ‘the smoke of the burned witches still hangs in our nostrils’.Now, in the first English translation of this classic text, Hypnosis Between Science and Magic provides an entry point to the work of Isabelle Stengers, who has so originally and forcefully shifted how we think about the history of ideas. The book focuses in on an area of her thought that has recurred throughout her career: the presumed antagonism between magic and science, and especially the evacuation of magic from all that is thought to be scientifically valid.

What if judgment returned to the craft of magic? How would that relieve the burdens of critique and realign its priorities? These questions regarding the value of magic to thinking are at the very heart of the acclaimed philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers' political and philosophical thought and her insistence that ‘the smoke of the burned witches still hangs in our nostrils’.Now, in the first English translation of this classic text, Hypnosis Between Science and Magic provides an entry point to the work of Isabelle Stengers, who has so originally and forcefully shifted how we think about the history of ideas. The book focuses in on an area of her thought that has recurred throughout her career: the presumed antagonism between magic and science, and especially the evacuation of magic from all that is thought to be scientifically valid.

Existence is Elsewhere offers the first comprehensive account of surrealism as a movement sustained by philosophical ideas.Moving far beyond the familiar narrative linking surrealism to Freud, this study reveals a century-long engagement with thinkers as diverse as Hegel, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Schelling, Novalis, Nietzsche, and Fourier, as well as traditions outside the Western canon, from ancient Egypt to Chinese thought.Michael Richardson shows that surrealism was born of a network of encounters: collective experiments, shared crises after the First World War, and intense friendships that shaped its emergence between 1919 and 1924. Its philosophical orientation arose not from systematic study but from a “philosophical poetics” – a way of thinking through practice, intuition, and experiment.Across ten chapters, Richardson traces surrealism’s relationship with dialectical thinking, analogy, myth, and the marvellous. Hegel’s ideas on mediation and becoming illuminate Breton’s concerns with identity and recognition; Heraclitus’ unity of opposites and Parmenides’ journey into the unknown resonate with surrealism’s pursuit of an “elsewhere” beyond perceptual reality; Schelling’s philosophy of nature and the unconscious opens new vistas for understanding surrealism’s animist sensibility, while Nietzsche’s pessimism and affirmation of life sharpen its critique of modernity. Existence is Elsewhere is an essential resource for readers in philosophy, literature, art history, and modern intellectual history, offering a bold reconceptualization of the history of surrealism, and what it may still become.

Existence is Elsewhere offers the first comprehensive account of surrealism as a movement sustained by philosophical ideas.Moving far beyond the familiar narrative linking surrealism to Freud, this study reveals a century-long engagement with thinkers as diverse as Hegel, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Schelling, Novalis, Nietzsche, and Fourier, as well as traditions outside the Western canon, from ancient Egypt to Chinese thought.Michael Richardson shows that surrealism was born of a network of encounters: collective experiments, shared crises after the First World War, and intense friendships that shaped its emergence between 1919 and 1924. Its philosophical orientation arose not from systematic study but from a “philosophical poetics” – a way of thinking through practice, intuition, and experiment.Across ten chapters, Richardson traces surrealism’s relationship with dialectical thinking, analogy, myth, and the marvellous. Hegel’s ideas on mediation and becoming illuminate Breton’s concerns with identity and recognition; Heraclitus’ unity of opposites and Parmenides’ journey into the unknown resonate with surrealism’s pursuit of an “elsewhere” beyond perceptual reality; Schelling’s philosophy of nature and the unconscious opens new vistas for understanding surrealism’s animist sensibility, while Nietzsche’s pessimism and affirmation of life sharpen its critique of modernity. Existence is Elsewhere is an essential resource for readers in philosophy, literature, art history, and modern intellectual history, offering a bold reconceptualization of the history of surrealism, and what it may still become.

Sleep is quite a popular activity, indeed most humans spend around a third of their lives asleep. However, cultural, political, or aesthetic thought tends to remain concerned with the interpretation and actions of those who are awake. How to Sleep argues instead that sleep is a complex vital phenomena with a dynamic aesthetic and biological consistency.Arguing through examples drawn from contemporary, modern and renaissance art; from literature; film and computational media, and bringing these into relation with the history and findings of sleep science, this book argues for a new interplay between biology and culture. Meditations on sex, exhaustion, drugs, hormones and scientific instruments all play their part in this wide-ranging exposition of sleep as an ecology of interacting processes.How to Sleep builds on the interlocking of theory, experience and experiment so that the text itself is a lively articulation of bodies, organs and the aesthetic systems that interact with them. This book won't enhance your sleeping skills, but will give you something surprising to think about whilst being ostensibly awake.

Sleep is quite a popular activity, indeed most humans spend around a third of their lives asleep. However, cultural, political, or aesthetic thought tends to remain concerned with the interpretation and actions of those who are awake. How to Sleep argues instead that sleep is a complex vital phenomena with a dynamic aesthetic and biological consistency.Arguing through examples drawn from contemporary, modern and renaissance art; from literature; film and computational media, and bringing these into relation with the history and findings of sleep science, this book argues for a new interplay between biology and culture. Meditations on sex, exhaustion, drugs, hormones and scientific instruments all play their part in this wide-ranging exposition of sleep as an ecology of interacting processes.How to Sleep builds on the interlocking of theory, experience and experiment so that the text itself is a lively articulation of bodies, organs and the aesthetic systems that interact with them. This book won't enhance your sleeping skills, but will give you something surprising to think about whilst being ostensibly awake.

Computer software and its structures, devices and processes are woven into our everyday life. Their significance is not just technical: the algorithms, programming languages, abstractions and metadata that millions of people rely on every day have far-reaching implications for the way we understand the underlying dynamics of contemporary societies.In this innovative new book, software studies theorist Matthew Fuller examines how the introduction and expansion of computational systems into areas ranging from urban planning and state surveillance to games and voting systems are transforming our understanding of politics, culture and aesthetics in the twenty-first century. Combining historical insight and a deep understanding of the technology powering modern software systems with a powerful critical perspective, this book opens up new ways of understanding the fundamental infrastructures of contemporary life, economies, entertainment and warfare.In so doing Fuller shows that everyone must learn ‘how to be a geek’, as the seemingly opaque processes and structures of modern computer and software technology have a significance that no-one can afford to ignore. This powerful and engaging book will be of interest to everyone interested in a critical understanding of the political and cultural ramifications of digital media and computing in the modern world.

Computer software and its structures, devices and processes are woven into our everyday life. Their significance is not just technical: the algorithms, programming languages, abstractions and metadata that millions of people rely on every day have far-reaching implications for the way we understand the underlying dynamics of contemporary societies.In this innovative new book, software studies theorist Matthew Fuller examines how the introduction and expansion of computational systems into areas ranging from urban planning and state surveillance to games and voting systems are transforming our understanding of politics, culture and aesthetics in the twenty-first century. Combining historical insight and a deep understanding of the technology powering modern software systems with a powerful critical perspective, this book opens up new ways of understanding the fundamental infrastructures of contemporary life, economies, entertainment and warfare.In so doing Fuller shows that everyone must learn ‘how to be a geek’, as the seemingly opaque processes and structures of modern computer and software technology have a significance that no-one can afford to ignore. This powerful and engaging book will be of interest to everyone interested in a critical understanding of the political and cultural ramifications of digital media and computing in the modern world.

A philosophical and cultural distillation of the bleak joys in today’s ambivalent ecologies and patterns of lifeBleak Joys develops an understanding of complex entities and processes-from plant roots to forests to ecological damage and its calculation-as aesthetic. It is also a book about “bad” things, such as anguish and devastation, which relate to the ecological and technical but are also constitutive of politics, the ethical, and the formation of subjects.Avidly interdisciplinary, Bleak Joys draws on scientific work in plant sciences, computing, and cybernetics, as well as mathematics, literature, and art in ways that are not merely illustrative of but foundational to our understanding of ecological aesthetics and the condition in which the posthumanities are being forged. It places the sensory world of plants next to the generalized and nonlinear infrastructure of irresolvability-the economics of indifference up against the question of how to make a home on Planet Earth in a condition of damaged ecologies. Crosscutting chapters on devastation, anguish, irresolvability, luck, plant, and home create a vivid and multifaceted approach that is as remarkable for its humor as for its scholarly complexity.Engaging with Deleuze, Guattari, and Bakhtin, among others, Bleak Joys captures the modes of crises that constitute our present ecological and political condition, and reckons with the means by which they are not simply aesthetically known but aesthetically manifest.

Today, artists are engaged in investigation. They probe corruption, state violence, environmental destruction and repressive technologies. At the same time, fields not usually associated with aesthetics make powerful use of it. Journalists and legal professionals pore over open source videos and satellite imagery to undertake visual investigations. This combination of diverse fields is what the authors call "investigative aesthetics": mobilising sensibilities often associated with art, architecture and other such practices to find new ways of speaking truth to power.This book draws on theories of knowledge, ecology and technology, evaluates the methods of citizen counter-forensics, micro-history and art, and examines radical practices such as those of Wikileaks, Bellingcat, and Forensic Architecture. Investigative Aesthetics takes place in the studio and the laboratory, the courtroom and the gallery, online and in the streets, as it strives towards the construction of a new 'common sensing'.The book is an inspiring introduction to a new field that brings together investigation and aesthetics to change how we understand and confront power today.To Nour Abuzaid for your brilliance, perseverance, and unshaken belief in the liberation of Palestine.

WINNER: Business Book Awards 2018 - 'Selling The Dream' category (1st edition)In an increasingly competitive professional services sector, it is vital that firms have an effective tendering strategy. The advantages gained from winning and retaining clients can be transformative, and the cost of losing key tenders can be catastrophic. Strategic Tendering for Professional Services provides end-to-end best practice guidance, from the crucial decision of which request-for-proposals to respond to, right through to the all important face-to-face presentation and post-pitch follow-up. Now in its second edition, this practical book captures insights from both sides of the market through interviews with both proposal professionals and decision makers from the client side. Focusing on key considerations, including the need for diversity and inclusion, providing evidence of global citizenship and how public sector pitching differs from the private sector, this book is packed with features and tools to help professionals turn guidance into practice. Strategic Tendering for Professional Services is the essential guide to improving your pitches, honing your tendering skills and boosting your win rate.

WINNER: Business Book Awards 2018 - 'Selling The Dream' category (1st edition)In an increasingly competitive professional services sector, it is vital that firms have an effective tendering strategy. The advantages gained from winning and retaining clients can be transformative, and the cost of losing key tenders can be catastrophic. Strategic Tendering for Professional Services provides end-to-end best practice guidance, from the crucial decision of which request-for-proposals to respond to, right through to the all important face-to-face presentation and post-pitch follow-up. Now in its second edition, this practical book captures insights from both sides of the market through interviews with both proposal professionals and decision makers from the client side. Focusing on key considerations, including the need for diversity and inclusion, providing evidence of global citizenship and how public sector pitching differs from the private sector, this book is packed with features and tools to help professionals turn guidance into practice. Strategic Tendering for Professional Services is the essential guide to improving your pitches, honing your tendering skills and boosting your win rate.