Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher is a highly respected music writer, editor, blogger and cultural theorist, writing regularly for frieze, Sight & Sound and The Wire, where he was he was acting deputy editor for a year. He was one of the founding members of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit and now maintains one of the most successful weblogs on cultural theory, as k-punk.
His 2009 Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? examines the widespread belief that capitalism is the only “realistic” political economic system and suggests that this idea is embedded deep in our unconscious making alternatives (almost) unthinkable. It seems easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. With endorsements from Slavoj Žižek amongst others, Fisher’s blend of high theory and example from the everyday asks how capitalism and its inconsistencies can be challenged.
Fisher has been instrumental in bringing Derrida’s concept of hauntology to music criticism, as well as being a key contributor to Simon Reynolds’ notorious hardcore continuum discussion about the developments in musical culture and electronic music that emerged out of the British rave scene.
He has a PhD in Philosophy and Literature from Warwick University, and is a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, University Of London.
