Posted inOpinion

Shocker: Sontag FBI File Contains Comic Sans

The Freedom of Information Act request-processing website MuckRock has obtained and published Susan Sontag’s Federal Bureau of Investigation file. The document comprises 73 pages of letters and memoranda dating from 1968 through 1972, noting in mind-numbing detail the late intellectual’s various appearances in the press, her leftist advocacy, Vietnam war opposition, and political writings.

Posted inArt

Representational Politics, Video Games & War

When it came to light that the newest release in EA’s Medal of Honor video game series contained a mode in which players could choose to fight as a group named the Taliban, and the US Army was understandably not too happy about it. After all, they had previously been cooperating on developing the game, allowing EA access to military equipment for rendering as well as aiding in the recording of sounds for the game. Yet the thinking behind this pressure from the Army and EA’s final decision to remove the game mode is more complicated than it seems.

Posted inArt

Wild Things Got Nothin’ on Matta (or Martin Renteria)

Cambridge, MA — I set out from my couch of the moment for some coffee since I am one of those murmuring morning people, the kind who requires a habit and a burnt tongue to prove to myself that I am, in fact, awake. On the short walk down the cramped sidestreets of residential Cambridge, I come face to face with the broad glass windows of Meme Gallery — a storefront space with yellow strings like spokes suspending a purple totemic figure above a basin of water, placed in the middle of the gallery floor. Fabric contortions billowed and oozed along the walls, nightmares leaking through dawn and ceiling tiles, down the gallery walls. Am I awake? What the hell is this?