Semiotica della fine. Saggi sul capitalismo e l'apocalisse

Network Notion #1

by Alessandro Sbordoni

Cosa avviene alla fine del mondo che abbiamo finora immaginato? Ecco la sfida lanciata da Alessandro Sbordoni, con tredici pungenti saggi sulla fine del mondo nella cultura del XXI secolo: sulla musica di Britney Spears e Arca, su Avengers e Donnie Darko, fino al meme delle Backrooms. L’autore sottolinea la rilevanza del post-capitalismo nella cultura pop contemporanea, delineando la relazione tra filosofia, cinema, musica, arte e tecnologia attraverso la lettura di autori come Mark Fisher, Franco Berardi Bifo, Byung-Chul Han, Jean Baudrillard ed Eugene Thacker.

Tra le mani avete un manifesto per l’immaginazione di un nuovo inizio dopo la fine del capitalismo.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Theory

112 pages, Paperback

Published February 28, 2025

Reviews

[Cru · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had big hopes on this but... :(
I should know... if there is too much of Byung-Chul Han, Mark Fisher, Nick Land, Hauntology & co., I know what to expect.
I'm not saying this is not relevant, but when are we finally writing books about the apocalypse that are not just useless and full of expected hopelessness? Like, we get it, the world is fucked, maybe for you it's really interesting to theroize about it and be edgy, but honestly, do something.
I'm sorry to be harsh, I also have respect towards these theorists, but this is not what I look for when reading about the apocalypse. Empty antimetaboles like "time is nothing and nothing is time", and statements like "there's no hope anymore"... idk... just do something or at least try. Men writing about pessimism and nihilism: great red flag!
Besides, hauntology is the worst theory ever created... It just reveals some weird exceptionalism of modernity, as if everything that was invented there was not also a loop of the 19th century and so on and so forth. Hauntology reveals more about some male frustration of post-modernity (because you're not the center of the world anymore) than anything else.
Sorry... :(

[Isabella Mariano · Rating 5 out of 5]

eu adorei esse livro. em meio a tantos livros dificeis de ler sobre o tal do fim do mundo, esse me trouxe uma visão esperançosa de um jeito que eu não esperava.

o livro é uma crítica cultural muito atual, que pega emprestado conceitos da psicologia e da filosofia da linguagem e gera uma poderosa análise semiótica de prosa poética que aposta na construção de novos símbolos para imaginar um novo futuro.

me lembrou a música “primavera” de Don L que facilmente poderia ser objeto desse estudo.

[BonGard]

کامل مطالعه نکردم که نمره مشخصی بدهم
فقط فصل آخر آنتی‌هانتولوژی را خاندم
بد نبود، به ذهنیتم در پروژه تز کمک کرد

[Vincent Vanthienen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might not be smart enough to understand the jerking off of mark fisher written in a million ism, ist and ions but atleast I'm smart enough to turn off my phone and go for a walk.

[Eddie B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the depressive fears this book initially presented me, I have finished it with an emboldened and fortified philosophical hope.

The idea of Anti-Hauntology is particularly intriguing, in that it blends the hopeful yet hauntological aspects of Mark Fishers ‘acid communism’ with the age old idea of ‘trusting the process’. Like Simone weil’s famous quote states “the greatest human error is to reason in place of finding out”. Life has its ways of surprising us, we are haunted of phantasms of a world that could be free, through the imagination of a world beyond our own.

“So do not be frightened by despair. it does not delimit the potential for joy. And joy is the condition for proving intellectual despair wrong” Bifo Berardi - Heroes

What some may call a depressing book, is really an intriguing little book of hope, hope for the in-fathomable; an in-fathomable hope. A flanking hope that flips your perception of what hope looked like.

As the end of the book states “Let us use our imagination to concentrate our efforts away from the logic of despair, towards the logic of hope. Only then can we rewrite the future after the end”.

[Kaden · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just as Marx does in his masterpiece, Kapital, with the dialetical method, the ingenious Sbordoni imbeds his written argument in the form it is advocating for; that is, utter meaninglessness on both counts. Of course there are a few sparse genuinely interesting ideas in the sea of terrible attempts at prose. But even these are riddled with nonsensical technical references (zeros and ones bro!!) and epigonic plagiarism. All of these "discoveries" of the abitrary transformation of abstract time and the collapse of high art into culture (postmodernism) have been articulated before by people who actually want to say something rather than spew signs. A reflection of these dreary times, I suppose.

[Vardavas Dimitrios · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sbordoni is one of the most cutting-edge voices of his generation. We think of the end to be as brief as a fullstop. Sbordoni reveals it as a territory. Read his work!

[Eglė Valintėlytė · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,75

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Questo libro è stato la sempre scomodata goccia che et etc
Conosco il pensiero di Bifo, di Fisher e degli altri autori citati, e l'impressione è che questo tipo di filosofia, che personalmente mi ha lungo appassionato, sia intrappolata nell'hauntologia di cui tanto parla: un eterno presente, nessuno sviluppo. L'analisi di film e serie tv alla Zizek, della musica alla Fisher...questo libro rimanda l'idea di un cosplayer di questi autori. Sia chiaro: Sbordoni è bravo e fa un buon compitino. Bigino sul post capitalismo, 10/10.
Però, estendendo questo pensiero anche ad altri autori (Bifo), l'impressione è che più che immersi in un deserto del reale siamo impantanati in una palude del pensiero, il quale ha ben colto lo zeigst ma la cui funzione sembra dirsi conclusa. A meno che...