What Is Science Fiction?

by

On Chronicle of the Stellar Bridges To define science fiction with any rigour, we need a conception not only of science but also of technology, since what these stories most often present is a display of fabulous devices whose theoretical foundations are left implicit. Here we shall draw on the following text by the Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno (1924—2016) — … Read more →

Zaprezs

by

Zaprezs placed the toes of his unpolished shoes at the exact edge of the stage. His attire had been treated with meticulous care to suppress all light and all reflection. The only white was the collar of his shirt, which pressed the flesh of his jowl against his jaw and pushed his head back. The whole body followed: erect beneath … Read more →

Matrix and Gnosticism

by

The Matrix film saga set off a wave of armchair philosophers who saw in it a tale of almost mystical depths, a metaphysics renewed with the motifs of postmodernity. The matrix of Matrix is indeed metaphysical, but it is neither new nor does it engage with the heights of ontology, Western or Eastern. These films basically copy the structure of … Read more →

Exile of Gods, Heroes, and Monsters

by

An old maxim has it that nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses. But it is also true that the intellect combines at its whim the materials it gathers from the tumultuous well that delivers them. That well opens onto an abyss not only of the ignoramus but also of the gaze that seeks compassion. Stories are built in common — at least their unspoken part, the part made of sharp edges beneath the light that sets some days apart from others. From there the gods arose, with no one apparently having summoned them. From there too the heroes and the monsters: enemies and lovers, as courage and panic are, as life and death are. And at their centre of mass, sacrifice.

Enter the gallery

Read more

From Pathways to Channels: Art, Culture, and Commodification

by

The anthropologist Ruth Finnegan coined the expression “pathways of urban life” to describe the musical practices of a small British town. These pathways are made up of the web of social acts of those taking part in that musical life, and they hold so long as the relationships, and the habits they produce, retain their force and continuity. It is … Read more →

Ineffable Diary

by

The Ineffable Diary has been published in secret — a book that has sprung up, unexpected and uncultivated, like a mushroom: a delicacy and a poison at once, a necessary uselessness in times of scarcity. An unsellable object, like the capricious shapes of clouds on the days surrounding a storm.

Read it here

Portada Diario Inefable

The Age of Packaging

by

No single material defines our era. Stone and iron are still used in massive quantities, on a scale never before imagined; the same goes for sand, all the other metals, leathers, wood, and so on. And we have added, as a novelty, plastic and all the derivatives of petroleum. The last of these has led some to think of ours … Read more →

The Limits of Humour and Freedom of Expression

by

Many professional comedians have come to believe the fantasy of the jester telling the King uncomfortable truths. At least they recognise their condition as servants. As for the uncomfortable truths, they resemble those journalists who, far from telling any such thing, are the mouthpieces of dominant thought — in their case, of the fashionable aesthetic among the young media-consuming public, … Read more →

The Justifications of Contemporary Art

by

The thesis to be set out here is the following: many works of current art present themselves wrapped in the text of their own justification — the catalogue text in which they are embedded — as though they were tied to it of necessity, when in reality the work itself, in its material-conceptual form, need not refer to that text … Read more →

Sketch of a Poetics: The Control of Inertias

by

Inertia is understood here in a sense close to the one set out by Newtonian physics in its first law, which we take as known. We apply this sense to any process or material state indifferent to the subject’s intentions and prior to his operations. As an example: a block of raw stone confronted by a sculptor is an inertia. … Read more →

An Unhappy World

by

A weariness came over me and cast its shadow. That was when my ordeal began. At the entrance to the company there are always volunteers who smile at you, wearing that pathetic look of people who love every living creature. In those days, such treacly displays still offered me some comfort. On the way home I could always stop at … Read more →

The Mystery Business

by

I admit I have been a consumer of mystery-industry products, especially in their radio format. The amenable manner in which they were presented on La Rosa de los Vientos, and the distance its host kept from the things being told there, made the programme an inviting way-station for the curious. Nothing like the sensationalist unease radiated by products such as … Read more →

The Perennial Tradition Does Not Exist

by

The perennial tradition — perennial philosophy, perennial wisdom, or eternal tradition — is supposedly the common substratum of all historical knowledge from the very origin of human culture: that which links together the great philosophical, religious, ethical, moral, and spiritual ideals, and so on. Well, this tradition does not exist. There are, of course, contents that may be shared, or … Read more →

The Most Beautiful Profession in the World

by

It is almost a tradition that certain figures who appear often in the media — actors, artists, journalists — should declare with a crystalline smile and a victorious pride that they are lucky enough to practise the most beautiful profession in the world, and that ever since they were tiny children they had known their vocation was to tell stories. … Read more →

To Be an Artist Is to Look Like One: From Fetish to Puppet

by

When El Fary appeared on television, my grandmother used to say: “That man is a great artist.” I will not deny him his talents — who lacks them entirely? — but what interests me here is the heterogeneity of contexts in which the label artist gets applied. El Fary is one, of course, and so is every imaginable Spanish folclórica … Read more →

The Strange Case of Dr. Puertas

by

With the help of a small fortune and in the strictest secrecy, Dr. Julio Puertas built a time machine that ran on plutonium. Such an achievement was the culmination of a childhood dream he had never abandoned. He studied engineering, earned a doctorate in physics, and secured well-paid positions to fund his project — all of which he resigned in … Read more →

English Is the Language of Porn

by

In ancient Rome, Greek was the language of culture, so much so that even the emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations in it. The empire, however, was Rome, and Rome gave its tongue to the lands it conquered — one of whose descendants, through another empire, the Spanish, reached further still. English too has had its empire, and still has … Read more →

The Painter and the Light

by

There was once a painter who wandered through places where no paths have been written, in search of the perfect light. One day, a ray broke through the clouds and spread like a fan across the distant hills. Beneath that light, everything came alive anew. The painter was enraptured by that sky, but when he tried to paint it, the … Read more →

Who Is Isidoro Magaux?

by

The photograph that illustrates this text is the only known image of Isidoro Magaux. His legend has it that he lost his family very young in a blizzard. This is the only uncertain detail in his biography. Everything else bears the iron stamp of invention. The first thing is his name, which he traced over the wreckage of his shipwreck. … Read more →

Artificial Intelligence and Creativity

by

The advance of artificial intelligence unsettles some people as if some unknown invader were drawing slowly closer through space. For them, AI is on the verge of waking up to take control of itself. This haloed horizon conceals the real reality of these technologies, which is their insertion into our structures of production. What I want to talk about is … Read more →

Mrs. Enríquez

by

Mrs. Enríquez was born during one of the many post-war periods. Among briars and mud, she learned hunger and resilience before she learned to speak. Her genes, programmed to produce an athlete, had instead produced a slight, wiry little woman with sinewy limbs, defiant cheekbones, and light feet. She moved with the energy and steadiness of someone who has not … Read more →

The Myths of the “Free Press“

by

We take the term “mass media” in its common sense: companies that produce and disseminate messages. Their product is presented as the news — not as just any information, but as the relevant events. These media outlets justify themselves, through their professionals, by means of the following myths: These myths conceal something further: the commodity character of the contents these … Read more →

The Flight of Words

by

One summer night, while everyone slept, the words began to escape through the window. They were tired of being used vulgarly, offensively, or wrongly — of being used to deceive, to lie, to insult. And so a few of them, the worst-treated, broke the chains that bind them to our tongue and set out on an adventure. The first to … Read more →

Traditional Cultures Are Not Traditionalist

by

Traditionalism is an ideology that regards certain past institutions as the most perfect and effective and links them with truth. It is a modern ideology, first explicitly formulated in the political circles that, in nineteenth-century France, reacted against the ravages of the Revolution. The concrete forms to which they appealed were those of the Ancien Régime: throne and altar. Since … Read more →