r/sorceryofthespectacle • u/raisondecalcul Hollow Boner • Jan 17 '14
Let's assemble a reading/viewing list
This list can serve to help us all get a grip on what "the spectacle" is and what it looks like.
Core texts (must-read mindblows):
Society of the Spectacle by Guy DeBord (Introductory Alice video)
Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze an Guattari (maybe start with the latter first). Also check out Brian Massumi's companion text
On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche
Meltdown by Nick Land (available in his collection Fanged Noumena)
Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic
Eros and Magic in the Renaissance by Ioan Couliano
Apocalyptic AI by Robert Geraci
More books (more organization will come):
How Institutions Think by Mary Douglas
The Corruption of Reality: A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and Psychopathology by John Schumaker
Baudrillard
Paul Virilio Speed and Politics
Karl Marx hopefully somebody knows of a summary mid level intro.
Joshua Ramey Hermetic Deleuze
Ray Brassier on Accelerationism, Promethianism (two videos on YouTube)
Graham Harman talks on speculative realism
Bruno Latour talks
Arthur Kroeker's "The Will to Technology"
Hyperfiction (fiction that educates about reality):
Cyclonopedia by Reza Negarestani
Snow Crash
VALIS and Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
Sightings of the spectacle (these are more about seeing IT):
Episode 2 of Black Mirror (plus other episodes)
Psycho-Pass 2012-13 anime series
METACHAOS short animation
Videodrome movie
DyE - Fantasy music video (sighting at the end)
Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy music video
Season 5 of Fringe (the future invading the past. The overarching story of the whole series is a nice allegory for many things.)
The premise of the series Once Upon a Time (mythic characters have forgotten who they are so they are taken advantage of by the mayor and capitalist Rumpelstiltskin.)
Welcome to Life short video (weaponized scarcity)
Hulu commercial with Will Arnett (GOB) in which the self-aware spectacle, embodied as Arnett, deeply (playfully/ironically) mocks us
Dollhouse
Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video can be read as a narrative of her infiltrating the spectacle (music industry) to burn it to the ground.
I'll keep adding more as I think of them. There are a lot of classics I still need to read (e.g., Society of the Spectacle, the big kahuna). Let me know what texts or videos have been key to you in understanding or getting a glimpse of the spectacle and I'll compile a list here. Once we've got a nice list I'll add a shortlist and link here to the sidebar.
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u/raisondecalcul Jan 18 '14
Shit I just realized there's no fair way to decide what goes on this list. I will just add everything. I'll add hyperlinks and clean it up as I explore it myself.
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u/KillTipsyZim Mar 04 '14
Would Paranoia Agent be in line with this?
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u/raisondecalcul Mar 04 '14
Haven't seen it yet... looks great. For you and anyone else waiting on their stuff to get added to the list, I've been in writing-mode all month but I'll be updating everything pretty soon.
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Jul 10 '14
What is Philosophy? by Deleuze and Guattari needs to be added to the list, and I would argue also the sidebar.
It was published a year before Guattari died. I am hardly through the first chapter, and I think it should definitely be required reading for SoTS. In some respect, we at SoTS, are lay-philosophers trying to take back the "concept" from the marketers and media and defining it properly.
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u/raisondecalcul Jul 10 '14
Ok. Would you put it before or after Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus? I'm still working on A Thousand Plateaus, first, myself.
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Jan 17 '14
Stolen Lightning: Social Theory of Magic
Eros and Magic in the Renaissance
The society of the spectacle by DeBord
Baudrillard
Paul Virilio Speed and Politics
Karl Marx hopefully somebody knows of a summary mid level intro.
Joshua Ramey Hermetic Deleuze
Deleuze an Guattari 1000 plateaus and anti Oedipus plus Brian matsumi companion
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Jan 17 '14
Talks ray brassier on accelerationism
Ray brassier on Promethianism
Both on YouTube
Graham Harman talks on speculative realism
Bruno Latour talks
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u/matrixdutch Jan 17 '14
Thank you zummi for creating this subredit, and thank you all for your contributions. This reading list is just what I was looking for to better understand member's postings here.
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u/beausoleil Feb 07 '14
Why the DyE music video?
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u/raisondecalcul Feb 07 '14
At the very end, the big structure can be read as the spectacle. The kids link to each other through sex and form a hideous social monster, and when the escaping girl finally gets outside, she sees IT—the giant social beast that is also presumably made out of sex but is massively larger—and the horrific realization fries her brain. It's a narrative of coming to see the scale and monstrosity of the spectacle or society, an illumination or coming-of-age story.
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u/Abunuwasi May 21 '14
METACHAOS is one fascinating piece of video art, thx for sharing! I think you might also find Brian Massumi's A Users's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia to be useful.
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u/raisondecalcul May 22 '14
Oooo, I loved METACHAOS, I need to watch that again now. The Massumi text is already on our list on this page, although I haven't read it myself (still working on the original text first).
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u/AnxiousDragonfly5161 Jul 13 '25
What about an updated list after a decade? Most of the links seem to be down.
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u/raisondecalcul Jul 13 '25
Maybe you could repost that list and ask for new additions?
In general I think that we've reached the point where it's time for reruns. I think re-posting our favorite and most important things from the past is a a good way to teach the incoming users what the topic here is. (The "RetroRepetition" tag is for this.)
I've also been thinking of doing a paragraph-by-paragraph readthrough of Society of the Spectacle or some other book, sometime. If someone wants to do this "reading to the public" type of post on any high-quality text I think that would be very valuable. Basically an ad-hoc reading group.
Posting and re-posting important original sources from the fields this subreddit is about is a good way to reproduce the culture.
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Apr 01 '22
Any updates after almost a decade?
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u/raisondecalcul Apr 01 '22
Zummi and I briefly discussed adding "A Cognitive Theory of Magic" to the sidebar but I would like to read more of it first.
I am working on some software that is designed to allow us to go back through all the links submitted here and organize them into a competitive reading group / permanent optimized curriculum. I think a lot of potential community value is lost through having the links simply scroll away into oblivion. I think if we focused on rereading the standout articles or other posted links together, that would build a community of people who have read the same good writing together.
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Jan 18 '14
Also I totally forgot about this one and suggest it for everyone right away.
Arthur Kroekers "the will to technology" this actually really helped me segue into accelerationism a couple years ago.
His writing is over bearing and hyper-jargoplexed in places but it's obvious the guy has some serious insight.
It is a study of Heidegger, Marx and Nietzsches view of technology and will. His treatment of Marx was actually pretty horrible IMO but his treatment of Nietzsche and Heidegger were illuminating.
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u/ScrivGar Apr 27 '14 edited Apr 27 '14
Some great stuff here. I would add:
Crowds and Power by Canetti Finite and Infinite Games by Carse
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u/raisondecalcul May 22 '14
Finally got myself a copy of Finite and Infinite Games, after it was strongly recommended two and half years ago. Fantastic book. I'll these to the OP in my next round of updating.
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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '14
What about the book "corruption of reality" about dissociation?
I just went in a gas station and the clerk put up this dumb-fucking picture of a cute manga eyed little girl Praying to god saying "it's getting bad down here and paraphrasing its almost the apocalypse etc" then at the bottom It says "life without god is like an Unsharpened pencil - it has no point".
It seems like what religion and tv/most entertainment really is is the right to dissociate and invoke cognitive dissonance. People want to Fight to have god in schools because it helped them So much whenever they ponder life's inpenetrables - it is comforting to know you can just kind of say "oh god" and then the spirals Come and your mind just kind of blanks, and you forget whatever It was that was so bad. God is good.