A few months ago Roger Ebert poked video game players with a stick, arguing that computer games could not possibly be art. His argument was stupid, as he himself has since realized, because he quite literally did not know what he was talking about: he had not played any of the games he was discussing, and so hadn’t had the kind of experience necessary to form a judgment on them. Dismissing computer games on the basis of video clips is, at best, like dismissing cinema on the basis of reading screenplays; the entire dimension in which the medium’s distinctive aesthetic effects work is absent. Ebert’s ignorance of computer games explains why he produces such a weak argument; this gives him an alibi which the editors of n+1 don’t have. Read more↴

“In general the close connection between advertising and the cosmic awaits analysis” wrote Benjamin (Arcades, 175). Indeed, and the connection would only become closer in the 50s; when, meanwhile, the phalanstery was finally conquered for the suburbs.

Perhaps this is a mere contingency of scheduling, but there’s an interesting pairing of exhibitions at SFMOMA right now. Read more↴

We’ve all probably imbibed, in one form or another, a left-wing culture criticism that draws, in one way or another, on Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis of the culture industry; even I find it difficult to like Paris Hilton sometimes. But their essay is more interesting than the reflexive anti-commodification that is now so common. As Owen pointed out when I mentioned this before, you can occasionally see a glimpse of utopian possibilities in popular culture in the Frankfurt School, and this strain is even more pronounced in Benjamin. I talked to our local Marxism reading group about this a couple of weeks ago; here’s what I said: Read more↴

Is it? These Soviet space program matchboxes (linked to by owen) suggest not.

Well, at least, I hope he’s being paid for his viral marketing of the Paris Hilton album. If he actually thinks this is some kind of incisive guerilla art action, that’s even more depressing.