I recently published a book on the evils of palm oil, preceded by a book on revenge. I am often asked (and ask myself) how I remain optimistic. The truth is that I am surrounded by phenomenal humans doing very exciting projects. In this newsletter, I thought to share some of those.
Hologramming
As dedicated readers will know, I spend a lot of time with my favourite artist, Cassie Thornton whose project The Hologram (a deceptively simple protocol for doing mutual aid based on the systems of care developed during the Greek debt crisis) has been wonderfully successful. Her book about the project is the second in the VAGABONDS series, and a great read. Recently, Cassie and the Hologram team launched an online course. You can read a recent interview, “From Debts to Gifts,” she did with Dani Admiss for the latter’s new project Sunlight Doesn't Need a Pipeline, or watch an interview Cassie did with Rosano, another of the residents at the moos.garden residency in Berlin where both Cassie and I are presently situated. Cassie has two upcoming shows, one at the National Museum of Psychology in Akron, Ohio, as part of the FRONT triennial, the other at Fonderie Darling in Montreal.
Interspecies treaty games
Our good friends over at Furtherfield are doing some wonderful things. Ruth Catlow has spearheaded a fascinating project to try and create an interspecies treaty for Finsbury Park, the unique urban green zone in London where the Furtherfield’s spaces are located. It’s a multi-year, participatory project with very exciting implications and expressions, including an online game you can join on dates throughout May and June.
What comes after extractivism?
My friends Krystian Woznicki and Magdi Taube at the Berliner Gazette have begun to unfold this year’s ambitious annual theme, “After Extractivism,” with a series of excellent articles that will lead up to a conference in the fall. I was grateful to publish a piece about extraction, palm oil an human sacrifice, which they also translated into German. There are many other fascinating pieces in the same series. Here is the outline for this important and ambitious project.
New books
My friend Brett Scott has a new book out that promises to be a game-changer: Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets. The recent crash in crypto and NFT prices vindicates his long-term arguments and his concerns about the implications of the “war on cash.”
And my friend and collaborator Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou is on tour promoting his new book Speculative Communities: Living with Uncertainty in a Financialized World. Aris and I share a long-standing interest in finance and the imagination, and we also work together on the Conspiracy Games and Countergames project, which includes a podcast, a game and writing.
Ardath Whynacht recently published a very important book with Fernwood books: Insurgent Love: Abolition and Domestic Homicide. It challenges we prison abolitionists to complicate and expand our imaginations around gender, race, intimacy, harm and reckoning.
Interlude
Some new things from me:
WRITING: Graeme Webb, Xenia Benivolski and I have a new piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books, “Is Amazon the Borg? We Asked Their Workers.”
INTERVIEWS: There are three new interviews with me about Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire. One is on the Earth Eats radio show/podcast from Indiana Public Radio. Another is on the Last Born in the Wilderness podcast. A third is with with a podcast called The House of Modern History. And more coming soon…
TALKS: This Friday and Saturday I’m in Utrecht for the No Linear Fucking Time symposium at BAK, and then, on Sunday, at an online event in Singapore on “NFTs as Revenge Capitalism” at Y-Lab, a platform of the National Gallery of Singapore. On June 1 I’m in Copenhagen giving a book talk at 7pm at Bogcafeen Almindelig Brand (Baldersgade 70) and on June 2-3 I’m at the ephemera journal’s “Games, Incorporated” conference in Malmo, playing Clue-Anon with the participants.
Farewell, ROAR
My comrades Jerome Roos and Joris Leverink have closed down the amazing ROAR Magazine after ten glorious years. Thanks to their hard work, it was the go-to source for news and views about struggles around the world and I was very proud and thankful to publish many pieces there. Thanks so much, Jerome and Joris. Incidently, Jerome is working on what promises to be a very exciting book charting some 1,000 years of global crises.
Two new documentaries on Indigenous struggles
Charles Levkoe, my friend and fellow Canada Research Chair at Lakehead University, has just completed a multi-year collaboration Batchewana First Nationwith to produce a documentary: Lake Superior Our Helper: Stories from Batchewanaung Anishinabek Fisheries. It sharess “a series of conversations with community members to reveal the cultural, political, and ecological relationships surrounding their fisheries.” It’s part of the work Charles does at The Sustainable Food Systems Lab, which is right accross the hall from RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab.
Jody Porter, Thunder Bay’s finest reporter, and my friend David Peerla, a researcher and organizer in the troubled city, have produced an excellent new audio documentary about the struggle of the “KI6,” six Indigenous community leaders from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (“KI”) who were jailed for saying “no” to mining on their lands in Norther Ontario. The documentary is based on unprecedented and intimate interviews with the participants.
What does decentralization mean again?
Another resident here at Berlin’s moos.garden, Alice Yuan Zhang, has an important new essay “Unpacking the Myth of Web3: Decentralization of What?” that shows us how the corporate hype around “decentralization” is a dangerous distraction from the real, radical practices of decentralization developed by community in struggle.
Food forests and other family business
My brother Omri has been an important part of establishing the Vancouver Urban Food Forest, who recently scored a major victory at the city’s park board, opening the way for a major collaborative project. They’re working with Indigenous groups to also heal the land, including from the legacy of a notorious orphanage that once stood there. My mother, Judy, is a very active blogger and has recently written about the murder of Indigenous mothers in Canada and the country’s awful covid policies. My father, Larry, has also recently wrote an excellent critique of Canada’s proposed changes to the criminal code around Holocaust denial (he often writes on related topics).
Crypt drippings
Did you know that sometimes Cassie and I also play in a band? It’s called Crypt Drippings. Recently, we played our first live show, a 25-min concept/performance piece “Welcome to Hell, Apollo!” with support from the aforementioned Rosano. It was at the birthday part of curator and Hologram care-taker Magda Jadwiga Härtelova, whose excellent poetry band Lightbush (which also includes John Broback) also performed (with much more grace and skill than Crypt Drippings). Our band is in some senses a continuation of our play in The University of the Phoenix.