My husband lived with Mark for all 3 years that they spen at Hull University. He says even then you could see he had the sharpest mind of anyone there. Also very funny
"The last time I saw Mark in the flesh was in September 2012, at the music festival Incubate in Tilburg, Holland. The theme of the festival was do-it-yourself. I gave the keynote, interrogating certain aspects of DIY ideology and wondering whether it had outlived its usefulness as a cultural ideal. Mark was set to follow and spontaneously decided to drop what he was going to say and improvise a new talk, building on my argument. It was like the old blog days, except this time happening in real-time and real-space. Where I had read from a pre-written text that I laced with the occasional ad-lib, Mark spoke completely off the cuff, pulling riffs from the formidable arsenal in his brain, generating new thoughts and making electric connections. The performance was typical both of his collegiality and his mental agility. Mark likened it later to a stand-up routine -- adding that it was becoming a problem that institutions and individuals were video-recording his talks and putting them up on TH-cam, because people would become overly familiar with his material. But I can't imagine that was really ever going to be a problem: Mark was an inexhaustible font of insight and overview, bubbling over with fresh perceptions and original articulations, memorable maxims and acute aphorisms. He was never going to run out of things to say." Simon Reynolds (2018), from the Foreword to "k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016)", ed. Darren Ambrose. Repeater Books.
teamcrumb wow I can’t believe it, I happened to come across his work thanks to many Peters doing a video essay on one of his books and now I come to find out he died 😔 I’m dumbfounded
We lost a very sharp and astute mind when we lost Fisher. Very glad I discovered his work, even if I came to the party a little late. Cheers for the upload.
Likewise late to the party and wolfing down all i can get. He really is invaluable in helping to get a sense of our current orientation and our weaknesses and vulnerability.
I'm 16. I would hate to sound like one of those "born in the wrong generation " types, because that's exactly what I don't want to be. The trends Fisher is pointing out, especially the one regarding music, is still going on now more than ever. In my perhaps cliché attempt at trying to be subversive, I was looking for subcultures that I could join or take part in. I found none. I will try my best to write songs, draw pictures or make speeches that subvert, that challenge the mainstream, but to be honest I don't know what I'll be able to achieve... I don't have any real friends irl, so it's impossible to organise, to create collectively. Sometimes I ask myself how much of this is genuine dread, and how much is simply me being a kind of lonely teenager.
Almost 20 years ago, when I was 12, I immigrated to the USA from Russia. I hardly knew any English and it took years to start making friends. I may have felt a similar dread, I imagine. Today, I would say I'm grateful for it precisely because it helped me to extend a more critical lens unto society at large, a perspective which stayed with me even as my personal situation changed. So, I would urge to you some guarded optimism regarding some of the more daunting elements of your private alienation. In all likelihood, by ten years from now you would feel like you've found a fair number of "your" people, by which I mean people who would connect with you and value you in singular ways, rather than based on some shared situational sensibility or context, such as subcultures. Such genuine connections are the only ones that may aid existential loneliness and are rare for everyone, including people who seem to get along with everyone and who are always surrounded by friend/acquaintance posses, admirers, and current/former/future partners. Some of those people may feel just as lonely. And an element of that is a much more pervasive and subtler alienation, which your much more keenly felt (and also more contingent) private alienation is now leading you to discover. Moreover, given how critical, observant, and articulate you seem to be at 16, I suspect your social fortunes may one day shift very rapidly. Regardless of how awkward you may be, you might move to a new place or go off to college or see a flier in a coffee shop, and then suddenly find yourself surrounded by a crowd of friends. Maybe you'll even be so lucky as to meet a genuinely and reciprocally (there's a difference) compatible long term partner. Maybe you would even cease to feel so lonely. But when that happens, please don't let contentment become complacency. Don't lose sight of what you are learning to perceive now. Moreover, beyond critical sensibilities as such, your alienation right now may become the very ground of a lifelong sense of compassion towards others, upon which we may all build new foundations for solidarity in shared trust, aid, creativity, and every connective possibility which may rise therefrom. Pardon all my platitudes. But in short, hold on to the Negativity. It's not yours alone.
As a 14 year old, who really doesn't want this "cancellation of the future" in terms of culture to be true (frankly because it makes me sad), I've tried to find examples that prove this isn't the case, but it's difficult. My thoughts were Kanye West, yet even he, generally considered the most ground-breaking and impressive musician of I guess this century, relies on sampling to create his music...
@Andrew McNaughton I'm getting the impression that you haven't listened to his music and are judging off his persona, 2010's My beautiful dark twisted fantasy is critically considered one of the best albums of the 21st century. No one that enjoys listening to his music, has enjoyed seeing his public deterioration, going back on the values that he represented in his early albums (the college dropout etc.) by supporting trump and the like he has said about slavery. Incidentally the quality of his music has declined in tandem. Just because he has come to represent everything wrong with celebrity culture doesn't mean that he can't be considered a great artist, which he is.
@@alekseycalvin534 it's so honest and kind of you to take the time to genuinely reflect and respond to these kids. i wish i had blokes like you around when i was a lad.
you can't really challenge the mainstream, because the internet age slowly dissolves mainstream, the idea of mainstream starts to disappear. it used to be mainstream vs counter cultural, now it's more like an infinite number of small online niches, circles of interest and aesthetics also in late capitalism any new movement that challenges the mainstream is doomed to be recuperated by the system. the fact that you can buy "punk" clothes in a fast fashion chain store is a sign that subculture is dead. no matter how underground and radical a subculture is, the system will find a way to soften it and turn it into a profitable product
Separating (for as long as it holds) the concept of 'mainstream' from identity, and re-situating it as a place, as the public space to be fought over for the representation of alternatives. This is such a fucking important idea.
Правые политики отменяют будущее, утверждая вечное возвращение того же самого. Левые говорят об отмене будущего, принимая "отмену" за неопределенность будущего. Деятели культуры сокрушаются об отмене культуры, умалчивая о захвате общественного пространства медиа-корпорациями, создающими порядок мейстрима. Капитал инвестирует, хеджируя риски, упорядочивая мир в таблицах страховых случаев.
This is Mark showing "ultra-posh nincompoop" Michael McIntyre how it's done. He's really great here. I'm glad I got to see it, notwithstanding his reservations about people becoming overfamiliar with his work. Also: went and listened to that Black Flag track and now have a bangin' floorfiller the next time I'm down at the Walkabout on karaoke night.
Does anyone know which comedy sketch Mark is referring to when he talks about the Big Society politicians going door to door asking if people want to empty the bins?
...Now that he's mentioned "The Warriors," I am re-thinking my previous statement: I now believe that we need to do better to incorporate the drive to change within all art.
The most important part of this lecture is what he said about neoliberalism being like a genie... yes, it gave you the wishes, but they did not turn out how you wanred.. you want freedom, okay, here is the gig economy, you want a small state, okay well now you'll lose all your benefits (even if you're in work).
Neoliberalism gave Mark and thousands of others like him the means and opportunities to achieve what he did . And gave him an extremely comfortable standard of living. I'm Still Not clear what his alternative economic model would be.?
20:28 is he talking about the 2012 summer olympics? that time when the current pm got stuck on a wire waving a couple of union jack flags in his hands?
Here’s a track by SIFIR recently released by Force Inc / Mille Plateaux Records: NOT ENOUGH NEGATIVTY where you will hear voice samples from Mark Fisher’s DIY talk: th-cam.com/video/nuvobdBGSJ0/w-d-xo.html
London is a miserable city since Brexit. Pretty cool before. Also, its neoliberalism was pretty good for working class migrants (try to get a job as easily in more socialist France or Spain and then tell me about how miserable London is). Painful paradox. Loved the rest of the talk, by the way :)
I have to say that I don't ever remember any, never mind what Mark Fisher says "always", anarchists attacking trade-union marches in the UK. God, how much worse everything has got in Britain in the 11 years since this lecture.
we'll never know, really, but judging by his high sensitivity to social and cultural issues the timing of his death feels striking to me, just half a year after the Brexit referendum and a couple of months after Trump's election
@@dovic86 Surely Trump and Brexit are rejections of the neoliberal order? The Trump vote was a rejection of an entrenched political dynasty and Brexit was a rejection of an international capitalistic super-structure. I’d argue that these were early signs of populist rejection of capitalist realism. Though probably in the ‘wrong direction’ from Mark’s point of view.
@@SJ-np4cz Just because they were sold as rejections of neoliberalist capitalism, it doesn't mean that they were. In marxist terms, there has definitely been a shift in the superstructure, but this ideological turn, which in most cases isn't much more than a brushing up of nationalism, does not correspond to an equivalent turn at the base level. In fact, I would argue that this is yet another episode of capitalist shapeshifting aimed at preserving and reinforcing the economic system. As Fisher would say, "operations of capital do not depend on any sort of subjectively assumed belief." Both Trump and Johnson are eccentric with respect to the traditional political class (Johnson less so, but he is in terms of public image and demeanour), but they both belong to the establishment. None of them has ever talked of alternatives to capitalism, which leaves capitalist realism perfectly intact. Brexit was financially backed by businessmen involved in international investment management and hedge funds, besides being supported by Rupert Murdoch's media outlets. Recently, Johnson attributed the successful vaccine roll-out to capitalistic greed, which gives a good idea of where his heart is.
@@dovic86 You seem to imply that the "businessmen involved in investment management" stole Brexit as their own, not sure about that but more importantly where as the left in all of this? It didn't have to be like that. Why did Corbyn abandon his principles? If the left weren't so scared of the working class, and so ignorant of their totally valid stances on immigration, it could have gone a lot different. But no. The modern left is the middle class londoner wrapping herself in an EU flag. Lame
Yh if u think them commies are running the show through cultural marxism sure. Thats propably why we have neoliberalism everywhere, trump for president and bolsonaro in brazil coz them commies are brainwashing everyone.
That is completely what the right does. You know nothing about the post-Reagan political consensus in the west if you think that isn't true. LOOK AROUND YOU.
This talk is from 2012. The left may try to impose their agenda on people now, but at the time that was not at all the case. The right does now, as they did then.
My husband lived with Mark for all 3 years that they spen at Hull University. He says even then you could see he had the sharpest mind of anyone there. Also very funny
Sharpest mind in Hull. Nice ring to it.
@@BobHookeris your name a pun on fishing? lol
"The last time I saw Mark in the flesh was in September 2012, at the music festival Incubate in Tilburg, Holland. The theme of the festival was do-it-yourself. I gave the keynote, interrogating certain aspects of DIY ideology and wondering whether it had outlived its usefulness as a cultural ideal. Mark was set to follow and spontaneously decided to drop what he was going to say and improvise a new talk, building on my argument. It was like the old blog days, except this time happening in real-time and real-space. Where I had read from a pre-written text that I laced with the occasional ad-lib, Mark spoke completely off the cuff, pulling riffs from the formidable arsenal in his brain, generating new thoughts and making electric connections. The performance was typical both of his collegiality and his mental agility. Mark likened it later to a stand-up routine -- adding that it was becoming a problem that institutions and individuals were video-recording his talks and putting them up on TH-cam, because people would become overly familiar with his material. But I can't imagine that was really ever going to be a problem: Mark was an inexhaustible font of insight and overview, bubbling over with fresh perceptions and original articulations, memorable maxims and acute aphorisms. He was never going to run out of things to say."
Simon Reynolds (2018), from the Foreword to "k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016)", ed. Darren Ambrose. Repeater Books.
de Selby great anthology, strongly recommend.
thank you for sharing this.
"It wouldn't be publishable" if he only knew
"The reason why culture is so bad is that there's not enough Negativity." Absolutely goddamn right.
I love that he went to a diy conference and straight up said DIY is just retreating from the battle field and I want to go to war.. brilliant
so sorry u had to leave us, Mark. take care old lad x
I feel like we failed him. And by we I mean the society we're part of and build every day.
teamcrumb wow I can’t believe it, I happened to come across his work thanks to many Peters doing a video essay on one of his books and now I come to find out he died 😔 I’m dumbfounded
@@deathuponusalll Just had the same experience!
We lost a very sharp and astute mind when we lost Fisher. Very glad I discovered his work, even if I came to the party a little late.
Cheers for the upload.
Likewise late to the party and wolfing down all i can get.
He really is invaluable in helping to get a sense of our current orientation and our weaknesses and vulnerability.
Matt Gilbert Bruh I just arrived to the party and found this out by reading this comment section 💔😔
I'm 16. I would hate to sound like one of those "born in the wrong generation " types, because that's exactly what I don't want to be. The trends Fisher is pointing out, especially the one regarding music, is still going on now more than ever. In my perhaps cliché attempt at trying to be subversive, I was looking for subcultures that I could join or take part in. I found none.
I will try my best to write songs, draw pictures or make speeches that subvert, that challenge the mainstream, but to be honest I don't know what I'll be able to achieve...
I don't have any real friends irl, so it's impossible to organise, to create collectively.
Sometimes I ask myself how much of this is genuine dread, and how much is simply me being a kind of lonely teenager.
Almost 20 years ago, when I was 12, I immigrated to the USA from Russia. I hardly knew any English and it took years to start making friends. I may have felt a similar dread, I imagine. Today, I would say I'm grateful for it precisely because it helped me to extend a more critical lens unto society at large, a perspective which stayed with me even as my personal situation changed. So, I would urge to you some guarded optimism regarding some of the more daunting elements of your private alienation. In all likelihood, by ten years from now you would feel like you've found a fair number of "your" people, by which I mean people who would connect with you and value you in singular ways, rather than based on some shared situational sensibility or context, such as subcultures. Such genuine connections are the only ones that may aid existential loneliness and are rare for everyone, including people who seem to get along with everyone and who are always surrounded by friend/acquaintance posses, admirers, and current/former/future partners. Some of those people may feel just as lonely. And an element of that is a much more pervasive and subtler alienation, which your much more keenly felt (and also more contingent) private alienation is now leading you to discover. Moreover, given how critical, observant, and articulate you seem to be at 16, I suspect your social fortunes may one day shift very rapidly. Regardless of how awkward you may be, you might move to a new place or go off to college or see a flier in a coffee shop, and then suddenly find yourself surrounded by a crowd of friends. Maybe you'll even be so lucky as to meet a genuinely and reciprocally (there's a difference) compatible long term partner. Maybe you would even cease to feel so lonely. But when that happens, please don't let contentment become complacency. Don't lose sight of what you are learning to perceive now. Moreover, beyond critical sensibilities as such, your alienation right now may become the very ground of a lifelong sense of compassion towards others, upon which we may all build new foundations for solidarity in shared trust, aid, creativity, and every connective possibility which may rise therefrom. Pardon all my platitudes. But in short, hold on to the Negativity. It's not yours alone.
As a 14 year old, who really doesn't want this "cancellation of the future" in terms of culture to be true (frankly because it makes me sad), I've tried to find examples that prove this isn't the case, but it's difficult. My thoughts were Kanye West, yet even he, generally considered the most ground-breaking and impressive musician of I guess this century, relies on sampling to create his music...
@Andrew McNaughton I'm getting the impression that you haven't listened to his music and are judging off his persona, 2010's My beautiful dark twisted fantasy is critically considered one of the best albums of the 21st century. No one that enjoys listening to his music, has enjoyed seeing his public deterioration, going back on the values that he represented in his early albums (the college dropout etc.) by supporting trump and the like he has said about slavery. Incidentally the quality of his music has declined in tandem. Just because he has come to represent everything wrong with celebrity culture doesn't mean that he can't be considered a great artist, which he is.
@@alekseycalvin534 it's so honest and kind of you to take the time to genuinely reflect and respond to these kids. i wish i had blokes like you around when i was a lad.
you can't really challenge the mainstream, because the internet age slowly dissolves mainstream, the idea of mainstream starts to disappear. it used to be mainstream vs counter cultural, now it's more like an infinite number of small online niches, circles of interest and aesthetics
also in late capitalism any new movement that challenges the mainstream is doomed to be recuperated by the system. the fact that you can buy "punk" clothes in a fast fashion chain store is a sign that subculture is dead. no matter how underground and radical a subculture is, the system will find a way to soften it and turn it into a profitable product
Separating (for as long as it holds) the concept of 'mainstream' from identity, and re-situating it as a place, as the public space to be fought over for the representation of alternatives. This is such a fucking important idea.
This is the only reason I comment or 'like' TH-cam videos
@@avillz8279 we gotta make the youtube comments the margin notes sometimes - help each other see the important ideas
Правые политики отменяют будущее, утверждая вечное возвращение того же самого. Левые говорят об отмене будущего, принимая "отмену" за неопределенность будущего. Деятели культуры сокрушаются об отмене культуры, умалчивая о захвате общественного пространства медиа-корпорациями, создающими порядок мейстрима. Капитал инвестирует, хеджируя риски, упорядочивая мир в таблицах страховых случаев.
one of the greatest minds of our time. rip.
33:20 the impossible becomes the inevitable
34:00 Interpassivity
48:20 Warriors
50:10 Handsworth Songs
53:20 equality and equity and authority
This is Mark showing "ultra-posh nincompoop" Michael McIntyre how it's done. He's really great here. I'm glad I got to see it, notwithstanding his reservations about people becoming overfamiliar with his work. Also: went and listened to that Black Flag track and now have a bangin' floorfiller the next time I'm down at the Walkabout on karaoke night.
Does anyone know which comedy sketch Mark is referring to when he talks about the Big Society politicians going door to door asking if people want to empty the bins?
"Anglo delirium, excremental kitsch" - nailed it.
I'd love to hear his view on the current state of the world, particular the pandemic. Such a shame he's not here.
I love the Britney mic
...Now that he's mentioned "The Warriors," I am re-thinking my previous statement: I now believe that we need to do better to incorporate the drive to change within all art.
What a great guy.
I also hate Location Location Location for the reasons discussed
The most important part of this lecture is what he said about neoliberalism being like a genie... yes, it gave you the wishes, but they did not turn out how you wanred.. you want freedom, okay, here is the gig economy, you want a small state, okay well now you'll lose all your benefits (even if you're in work).
Neoliberalism gave Mark and thousands of others like him the
means and opportunities to achieve what he did . And gave him an extremely comfortable standard of living. I'm Still Not clear what his alternative economic model would be.?
@@2msvalkyrie529own nothing, be happy 🤑🤑🤑🤑
Apparently mark didn’t have much money at all
21:24 Amazing how astute this was
so fucking brilliant
he references black flag "You're such a man putting up your christmas lights." lol
I watch my wife do it :-)
Mark was stuck in a past that never was . He has become whatever we need him to be.
Maybe...Music's done it all already...and has been accordingly co-opted by the establishment...Now it's up to the people...
20:28
is he talking about the 2012 summer olympics? that time when the current pm got stuck on a wire waving a couple of union jack flags in his hands?
Here’s a track by SIFIR recently released by Force Inc / Mille Plateaux Records: NOT ENOUGH NEGATIVTY where you will hear voice samples from Mark Fisher’s DIY talk: th-cam.com/video/nuvobdBGSJ0/w-d-xo.html
thing is joy division were not on the same level as the beatles
Is the Simon Reynolds talk to which Mark refers available online?
Mainstream is the lamestream
I wonder what Mark would say had he witnessed the convention floor of the DSA in the states, Aug 2019.
What a shit show!
Jesus loves you ❤ 💖 💕 💗
London is a miserable city since Brexit. Pretty cool before. Also, its neoliberalism was pretty good for working class migrants (try to get a job as easily in more socialist France or Spain and then tell me about how miserable London is). Painful paradox.
Loved the rest of the talk, by the way :)
didn't the normies and hipsters already take over before Brexit ?
super milquetoast cultural theory 🤷♂️
super on point on milquetoast culture
the imitation era
I have to say that I don't ever remember any, never mind what Mark Fisher says "always", anarchists attacking trade-union marches in the UK.
God, how much worse everything has got in Britain in the 11 years since this lecture.
❤❤❤
So, so much has changed.
How so ? Genuine question I’d love for you to expand on it
Why did he commit suicide?
He couldn’t take anymore the crap our society has become
we'll never know, really, but judging by his high sensitivity to social and cultural issues the timing of his death feels striking to me, just half a year after the Brexit referendum and a couple of months after Trump's election
@@dovic86 Surely Trump and Brexit are rejections of the neoliberal order? The Trump vote was a rejection of an entrenched political dynasty and Brexit was a rejection of an international capitalistic super-structure.
I’d argue that these were early signs of populist rejection of capitalist realism. Though probably in the ‘wrong direction’ from Mark’s point of view.
@@SJ-np4cz Just because they were sold as rejections of neoliberalist capitalism, it doesn't mean that they were. In marxist terms, there has definitely been a shift in the superstructure, but this ideological turn, which in most cases isn't much more than a brushing up of nationalism, does not correspond to an equivalent turn at the base level. In fact, I would argue that this is yet another episode of capitalist shapeshifting aimed at preserving and reinforcing the economic system. As Fisher would say, "operations of capital do not depend on any sort of subjectively assumed belief."
Both Trump and Johnson are eccentric with respect to the traditional political class (Johnson less so, but he is in terms of public image and demeanour), but they both belong to the establishment. None of them has ever talked of alternatives to capitalism, which leaves capitalist realism perfectly intact.
Brexit was financially backed by businessmen involved in international investment management and hedge funds, besides being supported by Rupert Murdoch's media outlets. Recently, Johnson attributed the successful vaccine roll-out to capitalistic greed, which gives a good idea of where his heart is.
@@dovic86 You seem to imply that the "businessmen involved in investment management" stole Brexit as their own, not sure about that but more importantly where as the left in all of this? It didn't have to be like that. Why did Corbyn abandon his principles? If the left weren't so scared of the working class, and so ignorant of their totally valid stances on immigration, it could have gone a lot different. But no. The modern left is the middle class londoner wrapping herself in an EU flag. Lame
14:50 to 15:00 Utter bollocks, the exact opposite of the truth.
Yh if u think them commies are running the show through cultural marxism sure. Thats propably why we have neoliberalism everywhere, trump for president and bolsonaro in brazil coz them commies are brainwashing everyone.
thats propably why poor mark fisher killed himself, coz the leftist elite were giving him so much power and exposure poor guy just couldnt handle it
Thank you! Finally.
That is completely what the right does. You know nothing about the post-Reagan political consensus in the west if you think that isn't true. LOOK AROUND YOU.
This talk is from 2012. The left may try to impose their agenda on people now, but at the time that was not at all the case. The right does now, as they did then.