1,552 books
—
856 voters
“And so art is everywhere, since artifice is at the very heart of reality. And so art is dead, not only because its critical transcendence is gone, but because reality itself, entirely impregnated by an aesthetic which is inseparable from its own structure, has been confused with its own image. Reality no longer has the time to take on the appearance of reality. It no longer even surpasses fiction: it captures every dream even before it takes on the appearance of a dream.”
― Simulations (Semiotext
― Simulations (Semiotext
“The strategy of power has long seemed founded on the apathy of the masses. The more passive they were, the more secure it was. But this logic is only characteristic of the bureaucratic and centralist phase of power. And it is this which today turns against it: the inertia it has fostered becomes the sign of its death.”
― In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities
― In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities
“The old slogan 'truth is stranger than fiction,' that still corresponded to the surrealist phase of this estheticization of life, is obsolete. There is no more fiction that life could possibly confront, even victoriously-it is reality itself that disappears utterly in the game of reality-radical disenchantment, the cool and cybernetic phase following the hot stage of fantasy.”
― Simulations (Semiotext
― Simulations (Semiotext
“The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.”
― The Prince
― The Prince
“The hyperreal is the abolition of the real not by violent destruction, but by its assumption, elevation to the strength of the model. Anticipation, deterrence, preventive transfiguration, etc.: the model acts as a sphere of absorption of the real.”
― In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities
― In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities
IO’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at IO’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by IO
Lists liked by IO

























