And we said to ourselves, shoot, it might be cool to share with people what we’ve been digging, so they can dig too. So here’s our 2013 memorial round-up of tasty media we ingested. Ras put together all the descriptions, we supplied the goods.
Enjoy. ::bows:: -Eighteen
///////RAS’S PICKS///////
BOOKS
+ The Oryx and the Crake by Margaret Atwood
Biotechnology, corporate surburbia, human trafficking
+ Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
The gradual decline of society, femme adolescent experience, dissociative experiences
+ The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
Exploration, emergent behavior in artificial intelligence, love
+ Alien Wombs and Spirits by Janice Boddy
Possession, dissociative experiences, anthropology, women’s spirituality
+ Affect and Artificial Intelligence by Elizabeth Wilson
Queerness, cybernetics, Alan Turing, male nerd-bonding
+ Story Revisions: Narrative Therapy in the Postmodern World by Alan Parry & Robert E. Doan
Post-modernity, personal history, multiple selves, existential psychology
+ Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense by Jonathan Moreno
Unspoken contracts, neuroscience, the military, mind-reading
+ Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century edited by Chris Spannos
Participatory government, future visioning, post-Marxism
+ Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-girl by Tiqqun & A. Reines
Mysogyny, girlhood, anger, receptacles
+ Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Cold hard survival, dystopia, tribes, DIY communities
+ The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Anarchism, utopia?, isolation, hard work, wisdom
PAPERS
+ “Nightmares, neurophenomenology and the cultural logic of trauma” by Lawrence Kirmayer
SHORT STORIES
+ “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang
Perception of time, linguistics, kinship
WEB
+ Postcolonial Digital Humanities
Digital survival, digital diaspora, digital criticism
+ Longform and Longform/fiction
Narrative, classical digital formats, immersion
+ Socialtext Journal
Open-source scholarship, [post]modern culture, disruption
+ “Neurocultures Manifesto” by Victoria Pitts-Taylor
Neuropower, interdisciplinarianism, decommodifying science
TV
+ The X Files
Trenchcoats, sensible loafers, skepticism
+ Serial Experiments Lain
Manual updates, internet addiction, cyberspaces
FILM
+ Upstream Color directed by Shane Carruth
Abduction, memory, shared trauma
+ Killer of Sheep directed by Charles Burnett
Black Los Angeles, deindustrial wastelands, neverending hustle
+ Ganja & Hess directed by Bill Gunn
African curses, black academia, intense monologues
+ Sound of My Voice directed by Zal Batmanglij
Time travel, cults, faith
///////RASHEEDAH’S PICKS///////
BOOKS
+ Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness by Itzhak Bentov
Continuous Big Bang, eternal return, quantum cosmology
+ The PsychoBiology of Mind-Body Healing: New Concepts of Therapeutic Hypnosis by Ernest Lawrence Ross
Mind-body communication, self-suggestion, the cycle of healing
+ Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture by Ytasha Womack
The afro multiverse, fiction as activism, domestic aliens
+ Experiments with Light and Mirrors (Getting Started in Science) by Robert Gardner
Puzzlers, diversions, everyday phenomena
+ Everyday Quantum Reality by David Grandy
Mathematical anti-formalism, reality, science present
+ The Speed of Light: Constancy + Cosmos by David A. Grandy
Visual perception, existentialism, universal blending
+ Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
Medical ethics, institutional sociopathology, rage
+ Myth, Literature and the African World (Canto) by Wole Soyinka
Ritual, storytelling, unity
+ Crystals and Light by Elizabeth A. Wood
Space lattices, point groups, polarization
+ Develop Your Psychic Skills by Enid Hoffman
Right brain, intuition, reprogramming
+ Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World by Robert Anton Wilson
Non-Euclidian geometries, general semantics, relativity
+ target=”_blank”The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics by Julian Barbour
Change, time, immortality, Heraclitus
+ The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe by Eric Lerner
Decay, plasma, electromagnetic fields
WEB
+ “Why I Became an Afrofuturist” by Stafford Battle
Populism, Nat Turner, Steamfunk, Janelle Monae
+ PHYS.org
Crystals, sugar batteries, multicellularity, circadian clocks
MAGAZINES
+ Discover Magazine, Nov 2013
Comet ISON, OCD, pachyderms
+ Scientific American, June 2013
Octopii, metallic robots, light deflection
FILM
+ Hidden Colors 1 & 2
Diaspora, indigenous people, African historical presence
TV
+ Fringe
The FBI, mythology, alternate realities
+ Sliders
Wormholes, parallel universes, Earth Prime
+ Warehouse 13
The US Secret Service, South Dakota, supernatural artifacts
+ Medium
Psychic abilities, intergenerational precognition, deja vu
+ Eureka
Global Dynamics, technological breakthroughs, corporate suburbia
+ The 4400
Mount Rainier, The Department of Homeland Security, precognition
///////EIGHTEEN’S PICKS///////
WEB
+ The Coming ‘Instant Planetary Emergency’ by Dahr Jamail
Artic methane, climate nightmares, climate realities
+ Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch From America’s Most Desperate Town by Matt Taibbi
Real dystopias, vigilante blocks, urban anarchy
+ Scientists Discover a Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics by Natalie Walchover
The amplituhedron, quantum gravity,locality, unitarity
+ Introduction To Nahuatl by Fermin Herrera
The Mexica Movement, indigenous linguistics, cultural substrates
ZINES
+ Vanitas by Hag Collective
Glitter lips, shiny cream sticky kid, ahaha
+ Undoing Sex: Against Sexual Optimism by C.E., encountered originally at negatecity.tumblr.com (currently defunct)
Anti-fuck, anti-orgasm, perspectives on intimacy
+ Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English
Witch hunters, the medical establishment, demonization of woman healers
+ ARKDUST 1 by Alex Smith
Home town superheroes, bodega fantasies, ecstacy
BOOKS
+ Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
False dichotomies, la mitologia de Las Aztecas, The Treaty of Guadalupe, cultural tyranny
+ Happy Baby by Stephen Elliot
The juvenile justice system, pain/pleasure paradox, Chicago
+ Snitch Factory by Peter Plate
Welfare bureaucracy, urban decay, corruption, heroism
+ Doc and Fluff: The Dystopian Tale of a Girl and Her Biker by Pat Califia
Outlaws, violent sex, true love?
+ The Cyborg Handbook by Chris Hables Gray
Cybernetic organisms, prostheses, living machines
+ Robin Hood by Louis Rhead
Chivalry, poachers, merry men
GRAPHIC NOVELS
+ Battle Angel Alita: Last Order Omnibus 1 by Yukito Kishiro
Sky cities, mad scientists, bio-chips
TV
+ Black Mirror
Wireless, techno-paranoia, techno parables
+ Macross Plus
Colonies, rivalries, AI holograms (tw: sexual assault)
///////ALEX’S PICKS///////
BOOKS
+ Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality by Ronald L. Mallett & Bruce Henderson
Theoretical physics, space-time, circulating laser light
+ Long Division by Kiese Laymon
Post-Katrina, violence, teen rappers
+ Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God From Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human by Grant Morrison
Archetypes, superheroes, modern myths
COMICS
+ Copra by Michel Fiffe
Supervillains, psychedelic dimensions, experimental visuals
+ MIND MGMT by Matt Kindt
Super spies, espionage, government agencies
+ I am not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett
Racial identity, absurdity, recurrent communication problems
ZINES
+ All That’s Left by Eighteen
Commodified bodies, dome-life, block life, enhancements
+ Destroy the Scene: BROS FALL BACK by The Secret Society of Femmes
Hetero-patriarchy, punk scenes, DIY
+ HYPEBEAST print magazine “The Synthesis Issue”
Fashion, IRL identity conjuring, online commerce
AUDIO
+ Young Fathers TAPE ONE and TAPE TWO 12″ EPs
Romance, fortune, remains
WEB
+ Black Girl Dangerous
Mia Mackenzie, voice, experience, expression