PlaguePod Live (New Variant), Year 2 Day 1

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 On Logic and the Theory of Science, 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 On Logic’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 The Mortiloquist all make an appearance. Music: ‘Dionysus’, by Herman Polsus aka Drew Flieder, and ‘Timeshift’ by Eschaton (Omni Music) Get your hands on a copy of Chronosis now!

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.