Zero Squared: chris bateman cookie clicker epistemology fictionalism Hegel imaginary games super smash brothers melee video games
by douglaslain
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Zero Squared #28: Imaginary Games
Chris Bateman is a game designer, outsider philosopher and author. His book Imaginary Games was published by Zero Books in 2011. Bateman is also the blogger behind Only a Game and he posts regularly in between writing how to manuals on game design and lecturing at the University of Bolton.
Jon Cogburn, Director of Philosophy at LSU blurbed Imaginary Games this way:
Chris Bateman’s Imaginary Games may just do for videogames what Noël Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror did for scary books and movies…. not only philosophically compelling and interesting; it is also a great read.
In this episode you’ll hear a rerun of a conversation about the movie Tron between me and my then thirteen year old son Ben, theme music from Super Smash Brothers Melee, Chad African explaining Zizek and his idea of ontological incompleteness, clips from a youtube documentary about smash, a short clip on Hegel from the 8-bit philosophy series, and the theme music from Super Mario Brothers.
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Zero Squared: Alfie Bown Barthes critical theory epistemology Radio Lab Satire Subaltern Turking Twerking
by douglaslain
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Zero Squared #15: Twerking to Turking (EDA)
Alfie Bown is the guest this week and we discuss the book from the EDA Collective Twerking to Turking which is coming from Zero Books this month. With the tag line: “Analysing the signs of everyday life” this is the second collection by the EDA. It is a follow-up to their book “Why Animals are funny.”
Jamie Mackay, writing for Review 31, praised the EDA, writing:
It is not often that theory is this fun to read, and less often still that satire is so well versed in the language of its assailants.
It’s Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 and I’m Douglas Lain the publisher of Zero Books and the host of this podcast.
In this episode you’ll hear a longish clip from Radiolab on the subject of Yellow Rain. The podcast was originally aired on September 24th, 2012, and I’ll provide links to it in the show notes. If you go to the site you’ll find an apology from Robert Krulwich wherein he apologizes for the way he aggressively questioned the Mr Eng Yang regarding reports that “yellow rain” was used on people in Laos after American forces left Vietnam. I want to make clear that, in my opinion, Robert Krulwich should not have apologized. If the oppressed of the Earth are going to find a voice that matters they will, simultaneously, have to be open to the truth and to pursuing the truth. This will require transcending their own experiences even as they act in their own collective interest.
You’ll also hear clips of Philip Glass’s Photographer, an excerpt from a documentary about Audrey Hepburn entitled “World’s Most Photographed Woman,” the comedian Godfrey Chi, Phlearn Photoshop’s “The Basics of Studium and Punctum in Photographs,” and “Got a Good Thing Going” by the Beetletown Players and Mister Show.
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Soap Zero: 10/40/70 epistemology existenz film theory nicholas rombes zero books
by douglaslain
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Soap Zero #1: Film Stills and Unreality
Zero Books will be the focus of this new new line of Diet Soap specials. Which means this is episode 218 for Diet Soap but it is also episode one of Soap Zero, a podcast dedicated books published by Zero Books. The guest this week is Nicholas Rombes and we discuss his book 10/40/70. The premise of the book is that one can learn about a film by analyzing stills from it,specifically stills lifted from the ten, forty, and seventy minute mark. We take a close look at the Cronenberg’s 1999 film eXistenZ.
I’d like to urge regular listeners to the podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Music and sound clips on this episode include Otto Luening’s “Low Speed” circa 1952, Delia Derbyshire’s “Love Without Sound,” clips from eXistenZ, and a lecture about Deleuze’s Film Theory set to the song Skokiaan as played in the film Slacker.
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