Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction

by Mark Fisher, Exmilitary Collective (Editor)

Donna Haraway's celebrated observation that "our machines are disturbingly lively, while we ourselves are frighteningly inert" has given this issue a certain currency in contemporary cyber-theory. But what is in- teresting about Haraway's remark - its challenge to the oppositional think- ing that sets up free will against determinism, vitalism against mechanism - has seldom been processed by a mode of theorizing which has tended to reproduce exactly the same oppositions. These theoretical failings, it will be argued here, arise from a resistance to pursuing cybernetics to its limits (a failure evinced as much by cyberneticists as by cultural theorists, it must be added). Unraveling the implications of cybernetics, it will be claimed, takes us out to the Gothic flatline. The Gothic flatline designates a zone of radical immanence. And to theorize this flatline demands a new approach, one committed to the theorization of immanence. This thesis calls that approach Gothic Materialism.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Politics, Psychology, Technology, Art

212 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2018

About the author

Mark Fisher (1968 – 2017) was a co-founder of Zero Books and Repeater Books. His blog, k-punk, defined critical writing for a generation. He wrote three books, Capitalist Realism, Ghosts of My Life and The Weird and the Eerie, and was a Visiting Fellow in the Visual Cultures department at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Likely my favorite Fisher so far, though it is but a PhD dissertation. There is a certain idealism here which one can't hope to approach seriously. Once one unpacks the jargon there are potential futures, ones almost exclusively poetic, rather than anything practical. I am troubled by the overreliance on Neuromancer . Apparently, this was the gospel with CCRU clique. Another coin of that realm was the term cybernetics, one which becomes so general as to appear inert if not meaningless.

There are interesting explanations of Bodies without Organs (from Deleuze and Guattari -- hence known as BwO via D&G) and explorations of Marshall McLuhan horror cinema and the prescriptive ontology of William S Burroughs. Shelley's Frankenstein goes through the looking glass--or is it Nick Land's Black Mirror? The work concludes with a detailed reading of John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1994). This entire work appears hinged on a quote by Donna Haraway: "our machines are disturbingly lively, while we ourselves are frighteningly inert"-- this is brought back around to the Carpenter film by parsing automation and reproduction whether through a virus, enchantment or Fordism. Thus the hyper horror of Carpenter's altered reality (mirrored in Cronenberg's Videodrome) leads to BwOs or serial neutered loops i.e. the average Tik-Tok user.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark submitted this thesis to the University of Warwick in 1999 and earned his PhD. In it, he explores a radical plane of immanence, namely "the Gothic flatline" on which the anthropocentric tendency to give agency to inanimate objects is subverted, so that everything —animate or inanimate —is seen as 'dead'. Following Donna Haraway’s remark that "our machines are disturbingly lively, while we ourselves are frighteningly inert", Mark sets out to pursue this notion to its theoretical cybernetics limit: "What if we are as ‘dead’ as the machines"?
As with his later published work, Mark adorns his theories with familiar media. This thesis contains his explorations of cybernetic themes in postmodern approaches and terms within the language of Horror [Deleuze-Guattari] such as vampirism, zombification, etc., Baudrillardian notions of "Science Fictional" body and what makes cyberpunk Gothic Materialist with its departure from an instrumental view of technology and the organs, analysis of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, J. G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition, Samuel Butler's Erewhon and Gibson’s Neuromancer in lieu of Deleuze-Guattari's reconstructive arguments in Anti-Oedipus. The final chapter of the thesis focuses on the meaning of hyperfiction and establishes its position as a plane of radical immanence.
While it is an enjoyable read —especially as it portrays a primary sketch of what later became Mark's signature prose and style of writing—it is not always easy and smooth, and gets quite technical at times; this is a thesis, after all. Being at least familiar with the numerous works of philosophy and literature that Mark draws from is helpful, if not necessary, for following his colorful train of thought.

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 3 out of 5]

Are you fan of cyberpunk fiction? Do you read contemporary theory? This book might be for you.
Here Fisher (re)constructs the geneology of a kind of materialism radically indifferent to bifurcations (organic/inorganic, vitalism/materialism, subject/object, life/death) that are increasingly losing their ontological and cultural purchase in the age of cybernetics and feedback circuits, no longer able to contain the subterranean complicities swarming underneath the metastable surface.
This materialism, according to him, is anticipated, theorized, and fictionalized by and in the works of Philip K. Dick, Gibson, Ballard, Burroughs, Weiner and Baudrillard and Deleuze-Guatarri.
Baudrillard recognized the stakes at hand, namely, the liquadation of the boundary between the fictional and the Real (the monstrous proliferation of what he calls third order simulacra--copies without originals), but lapsed back into primitivism at the final instance, whereas Deleuze-Guattari celebrate this dissolution as heralding everywhere a metaphysics of immanence.
Cyberpunk fiction best exemplifies this feedback loop between theory and fiction.
While that being said, this work is largely an exercise in literary criticism.
Fisher overquotes authors in several places.
However, insofar as the basic thesis is concerned, the book is meticulously researched and competently argued.

[Sophia]

They killed my friends too.

[Dylan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ground has to be ceded to the fact that this is a published dissertation, not a traditional published work of non-fiction. It is unfair to fully think about it in the same way that I thought about Capitalist Realism, Ghosts of My Life or The Weird and the Eerie. However, this text reeks of Fisher struggling to find his footing and to fluff his language and word-count up to some university accepted level. Every once in a while Fisher reaches lucidity and analyzes his subject creatively and clearly. The rest of the time it is overly verbose and honestly a real slog to get through.

[Milo Galiano · Rating 5 out of 5]

El mejor ensayo que me he leído sin duda. Fisher me ha destrozado, me ha recompuesto y me ha roto prejuicios enormes que tenía, como que hay ingleses interesantes después de todo (broma).

Quizá la única pega que le pondría es que hay pasajes en los que no escucho su voz, sino citas consecutivas sin fin. Aun así, las partes buenas son TAN buenas, que no hay fallo.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's like reading Nick Land but without the drug addiction.

Excellent sociological, cultural, psychological and film analysis.

My only problem is everytime Baudrillard is the central point of discussion: speaking as a geographer, Baudrillard has done more damage to our discipline than Friedrich Ratzel.

[Santiago M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most likely my favorite Fisher thus far and a very engaging read. Perhaps this is the book that has most rewarded me when it comes to previous, contextual works needed to understand it.

A mapping of our schizophrenic late-capitalist times, rapidly advancing towards darker futures (with more opportunities to ride flight lines towards other multiplicities, nevertheless).

[Marcie Mayfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rly enjoyed the parallels to sci-fi and horror especially 💖

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read any critical theory for a while and based on the title alone I was worried that this would be intentionally obfuscatory and fairly impenetrable, which it is, but once I got back into the swing of things I also found it really engaging and rewarding.

Fisher essentially argues that our increasingly technological society has blurred the lines between life and death, the human and the nonhuman, fiction and reality. This has led to what he calls gothic materialism, where uncanny, monstrous, and ghostly forces that we once saw as supernatural have real material implications.

Most interestingly for me was how he uses this framework to read through a lot books and films that I'm already extremely into, and then uses those texts to elaborate the theory. Gibson, Burroughs, Ballard, Dick, Cronenberg, all the stars are here. Highly recommend if that's the type of stuff you're also into.

This honestly might have convinced me to get back into critical theory, stay tuned to see how it all plays out.

[fantova0]

Me lo compré porque me gustaba la portada sin saber nada de Fisher. Por primera vez leo a un tío que mezcla filosofía con cine, literatura, sociología, etc, y me gustó mucho mi puto rollo. Mola que no esté constantemente presentando sus ideas, sino simplemente relacionando autores con cosas culturales por la cara. Buen libro para bajarle los humitos a las flipadas antitecnológicas que les encanta hacerse las víctimas y quejarse del chatgpt, luego se hacen una excursión y lo primero la historia de instagram. Chica asume que la tecnología define toda tu vida bienvenida al siglo XXI vale?. Gracias a Fisher puedo decir que no soy adicto al móvil, soy materialista gótico y cyberpunk e Internet ha construido toda mi identidad sin él no sería nada.

[Herm · Rating 5 out of 5]

a flattening of the inorganic & organic into a single plane with frightening implications for the intelligences that we live with

[Florin Axiuc · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's like crack. Am inteles doar 25% din continut, will come back to it

[poppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“il terrore […] non è tanto - e non è principalmente - che l’interno dei loro corpi venga invaso, ma che non abbiano alcun interno”

“i vecchi regimi di potere dell’asservimento macchinico (entro i quali gli esseri umani funzionavano come componenti di una mega-macchina sociotecnica) e della soggettivazione sociale (entro i quali gli esseri umani sono assoggettati alle macchine tecniche che utilizzano) si combinano in un nuovo “insieme [che] comporta a un tempo assoggettamento e asservimento, spinti agli estremi, come due parti simultanee che continuano a rinforzarsi, a nutrirsi a vicenda”

“il discorso “circola” è da premere in senso letterale: vale a dire che non va più da un punto all’altro, ma percorre un ciclo che ingloba indistintamente le posizioni di emittente e ricevente, ormai irreperibili in quanto tali”

“la tragedia di Narciso non risiede nel fatto che si innamori di sé stesso, quanto piuttosto nella sua incapacità di riconoscere come propria l’immagine che gli viene restituita. […] questa estensione speculare di sé stesso attuti le sue percezioni sino a fare di lui il servomeccanismo della propria immagine estesa o ripetuta[…] il senso di questo mito è che gli esseri umani sono soggetti all’immediato fascio di ogni estensione di sé, riprodotta in un materiale diverso da quello stesso di cui sono fatti”

“sul piano fisiologico, l’uomo è perpetuamente modificato dall’uso normale della tecnologia (o del proprio corpo variamente esteso) e trova a sua volta modi sempre nuovi per modificarla. diventa, insomma, per così dire, l’organo sessuale del mondo della macchina, come lo è l’ape per il mondo vegetale: gli permette il processo fecondativo e l’evoluzione di nuove forze. il mondo della macchina contraccambia l’amore dell’uomo ottemperando alle sue volontà e ai suoi desideri, e precisamente dandogli ricchezza” a governare il processo non sono né l’uomo né la macchina; è piuttosto un’operazione di reciproca estrazione di plusvalore di codice, dotata di una propria traiettoria, dove tanto gli esseri umani quanto gli apparati tecnici sono mere componenti non autonome”

[Stefano Solventi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scritto come testo di dottorato nel 1999, "Materialismo gotico" è un saggio complesso e vertiginoso, capace di illuminare con impressionante anticipo il paesaggio comunicativo contemporaneo. Mark Fisher intreccia cyberpunk, filosofia e teoria dei media per descrivere un capitalismo che ha ormai assorbito il reale dentro la simulazione (sì, c'entra anche Donald Trump).

Un tentativo di recensione sul mio blog 👇
https://pensierosecondario.wordpress....

[Noah Coates · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant work that strives to create new concepts and ways of thinking in the face of a changing capitalist landscape. I appreciate the way he uses Marx and his interpretation of and engagement with Baudrillard is valued.

[Yaniz · Rating 4 out of 5]

El algoritmo
Nunca sabrá
Lo que es el amor
Pero a nadie le importa
El fin del mundo tampoco es una opción.

[Martyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

bardzo ciekawa rozprawa doktorska. bardzo podobały mi się odniesienia do science-fiction i horroru i to jak elegancko zostały wplecione w różne teorie filozofiiczne

[Javee]

Qué bien se siente leer a alguien mucho más listo que tú hablando de las mismas frikadas que te gustan

[Giada Brugnera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nell’ormai celebre tesi di dottorato di Mark Fisher, pubblicata nel 1999, il capitalismo viene presentato non come un mero sistema economico o, ancora, un’ideologia, bensì come una forza materiale che domina e organizza il tempo dell’esistenza umana, ne modella l’esperienza e si riproduce mediante reti operative che trascendono la volontà dei singoli soggetti. Il controllo e l’omogeneizzazione, la standardizzazione rigorosa della temporalità della vita umana, non è un semplice effetto collaterale della modernità, ma la condizione strutturale materiale che permette l’insediamento del dominio capitalista e la conseguente generazione e accumulazione del capitale. Anche il tempo diviene, quindi, una risorsa da estrarre e valorizzare entro processi di produzione capitalistica, al fine di trasformare il tempo e l’esistenza umana che esso racchiude e regola in plusvalore.
A questo punto l’analisi di Fisher riprende e si innesta sull’immagine marxista del capitale come “lavoro morto che si nutre del lavoro vivo“ e la rielabora grazie alla figura concettuale del vampiro; quella del vampirismo non è tanto una semplice metafora quanto “un insieme reale di relazioni operative che definiscono il regime temporale del capitale“. La categoria stessa del gotico diviene perciò strumento analitico: il capitale é gotico nella sua stessa essenza spettrale, non-viva e non-morta, che sopravvive assorbendo energie vitali, trasformandole in plusvalore. Il passaggio ulteriore di Fisher è quello di allinearsi all’epistemologia cibernetica, secondo cui qualcosa reale nella misura in cui è inserito in una rete funzionale di relazioni che producono azioni (input e output): “se consideriamo il vampirismo come un insieme funzionale di relazioni che producono azioni e output, allora esso è ciberneticamente reale. In questa prospettiva, come insieme di processi relazioni operative, descrive con precisione il processo materiale che dà forma alla natura gotica delle nostre condizioni sotto il capitalismo. Ne consegue che: materialismo gotico= realismo cibernetico”.
L’elaborazione fisheriana risente molto dell’influenza di Deleuze e Guattari, dai quali riprende l’idea di un piano di immanenza in cui processi biologici, tecnologici, economici e culturali operano sul medesimo livello ontologico. La flatline gotica descrive precisamente questo spazio di indistinzione tra organico e inorganico, entro il quale il capitale agisce come una rete produttiva impersonale. Al contempo, il confronto con Baudrillard consente a Fisher di superare una concezione puramente rappresentazionale del gotico: vampiri, fantasmi e infestazioni non rinviano simbolicamente al capitale, ma ne esprimono direttamente il funzionamento operativo. Da qui la possibilità di concepire il materialismo gotico come una forma di realismo cibernetico, interessata non a ciò che le immagini significano, ma agli effetti reali che producono all’interno delle reti di relazioni che strutturano l’esperienza contemporanea.

[Wei Lin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an insanely good work of philosophy and literary criticism. It was a little daunting to go through at first, but reading it closely while taking notes was extremely rewarding and I got a lot out of it. On one level, the book functions as a lucid introduction to and clarification of a variety of things, both familiar and unfamiliar. (The concepts of Baudrillard and Deleuze-Guattari are the main meat of the content, though there's also forays into media theory, cybernetics and literary criticism.) On another level, Fisher's intriguing analyses of Ballard and Gibson made me want to read more of their fiction.

The main takeaway, I think, comes in the final section: "fiction as contagion, fiction as artificial intelligence, fiction which makes itself real." (178) Fiction itself is a kind of technical system - an inorganic entity - that has a capacity to affect reality. Fiction thus has agency - a capacity to react - and agency is not limited to organic entities or entities with consciousness. Fiction is like a demon or a virus, requiring a host to perform its agency and propagate itself. Does this mean that if fiction does not have a reader, it does not have the capacity to influence reality (because there is no belief or hype for the potential of its becoming-real)?

I see how most of Fisher's ideas here (especially when retracing the hopefulness of Deleuze-Guattari in the later chapters back to Baudrillard's pessimism in the earlier ones) formed the groundwork which allowed him to then write his more famous book on capitalist realism, which definitely feels more pessimistic even though some optimism seems to come in right at very end, unrealized though it may be. Maybe in Flatline Constructs, if we look closely enough, it's possible to find an alternative to capitalist realism by following the traces of Deleuze-Guattari back over the earlier Baudrillardian chapters...

[anotherai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of like a trans-everything survey, like trans alive-dead, trans one-many. Trans difference (thats just DG difference.) Surprisingly readable for a dissertation! Great jumping off point or ‘gallery guide’ to a bunch of other books, enough explanations of deleuze-guattari items to make me feel more able to go back around! It fizzles out at the end and more ‘makes me think’ than delivers a thesis but i wholeheartedly liked it. Why so low a stars? Cause I’m a month out and didnt retain much of it. It was a new way to look at cybernetics, assemblages. Not as heady, but physical, not as computer, but as gothic. It is a reorientation around some key terms, a reorientation that left me nauseous and confused at the end, strange loops vs tangled hierarchy, meta-systems vs hyper-systems, where all my thoughts go awry, it’s not that the book is bad, it’s that i don’t understand this stuff well enough to synthesize all this information, because it needs constant regrounding in stuff i see and touch. I’m new to assemblages & hyperstitial objects, to acausal thinking, and need to take a lap real quick. That line at the end about the author inside the book breaking down, letting waves of meaning wash over them, not trying to grasp anything solid… i think this is part of our condition, and isn’t just a product of thinking like this, and that either we’re can’t yet actually process it or it’s the end of thought, wittgenstein as a bookend. Use your gut.

[Jake5v · Rating 4 out of 5]

my dates are total bullshit here I've been chipping away at this bad boy for months.

I won't pretend I read this closely enough to give a comprehensive critique of the ideas presented, but a part of me was hoping that they would be wrapped up a bit more cleaner in the end. I've never read a PHD dissertation before so idk maybe they're just like that.

Honestly, I can't be mad though. This thing has infected my interests. It gives theory, science fiction, cyberpunk, and horror a new sense of relevance and immediacy. It's motivated me to check out what feels like a whole new genre of fiction in Gibson, Ballard, Burroughs, etc. Definitely a big one for me!

[Chowder 3108 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fisher is flying along at a mile-a-minute in this dissertation turned book, invoking a dizzying array of theorists and ideas in an almost feverish pursuit of this notion of a Gotchic Materialism. I'm not totally sure he is able to create a comprehensive or rigorous framework with these ideas, and I have to confess that I'm not sure I fully understand most of what he says. At the same time though, his passion is so authentic and infectious that I found myself deeply enjoying this book, and the parts that I could understand were fascinating and quite illuminating.

[Bastián Olea Herrera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremadamente inconexo, literalmente no tiene conclusión alguna, exageradamente críptico, en muchos momentos parece ser una corriente de conexiones que no van a ninguna parte, y que luego de cientos de páginas retoma fugazmente conceptos supuestamente centrales del texto. Tiene ideas interesantes y atrevidas, y como teoría ficción resulta estimulante, pero jamás concreta nada. La verdad, muy decepcionante.

[Melissa Ranieri · Rating 4 out of 5]

L' ho finito con tanta, tanta fatica.Scritto per parlare di filosofia con chi la mastica a pranzo e cena, da non edotta in materia l' ho trovato davvero difficoltoso.Fiera della scalata, contenta di aver comunque imparato molte cose, ma la prossima volta che compro un libro del genere mi informo meglio prima 😅 avevo letto altre cose di Fisher ben più divulgative, scritte per chi certe cose non le ha mai studiate, e mi erano piaciute molto di più.

[Venzic Barbosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not an casual read, deeply theoretical on posthumanism and experimental ideas with ghotic materialism and psychological thriller. Which is a relevant read in this AI generation and boom, the deep eery dialog between the struggles of understanding the complexity of human intelligence battling the difference in Artificial intelligence.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the best theory I've read in a while. RIP, Mark.

[Nick Bentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wide-ranging and valuable resource. Really wonderful at giving you an idea of the blurring lines between fiction and reality and fiction and theory. Hard to believe this is a dissertation!

[luna dormit · Rating 4 out of 5]

rip mark fisher you would’ve loved serial experiments lain