Acid Horizon

What is the role of the face in the construction of societies and the development their forms of political power? In today's episode, we are joined by Sean from 'Buddies Without Organs', a philosophy podcast which conducts close readings of the work of Deleuze and Guattari. Together, we examine the plateau entitled "Year Zero: Faciality" from Deleuze and Guattari's A...

In this episode of Acid Horizon, we had the privilege to discuss the metaphysics of anarchy with Professor Catherine Malabou of the European Graduate School and the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy. In the interview, we use the introduction to Reiner Schürmann's work "Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy" as a jumping-off point to discuss the qu...

This week we discuss the first few chapters of Marcello Tari's new book There Is No Unhappy Revolution . With figures such as Marx, Deleuze, and Negri hovering in the background, Craig, Adam, Matt, and Will discuss the questions and ideas posed in these early sections.  We discuss how an insurrection can be turned into a revolution, and whether democracy has anything to add to the idea of Com...

Why is it that the masses desired and worked toward their own servitude in the 1930s? In this episode, Craig, Will, and Adam take a look at an essay in Wilhelm Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism, “Ideology as a Material Force.” Here, Reich pushes back against some of his Marxist contemporaries. To Reich, the purely economic explanation of the rise of fascism is insufficient. What are the limitatio...

In this episode, Craig, Adam, Matt, and Will examine an early writing of Friedrich Engels entitled "Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy". How can we interpret the evidently moralistic language in Engels' work in light of the anti-moralism which characterizes his later writings with Marx, namely within "The German Ideology". In "Outlines", Engels offers a...

In this episode, Craig, Adam, Will, and Matt answer listeners’ questions ranging from Deleuze and Derrida to MacIntyre and Adorno. What are some ways to read philosophy effectively? Where does theory intersect with the novel and how does this encounter affect philosophy? Craig flexes his pedagogical muscles, Adam muses on the double bind of Twitter, Will discusses Dostoyevsky, and Matt shows us hi...

*CW: discussions of psychological trauma, sexual assault, suicide, depression, and anxiety* Welcome to the first episode of the new series ‘Inner Experience’ from Acid Horizon! A show about exploring our consciousness, the weird, the eerie, and the beyond. For this episode, Craig, Will, and Adam are joined by Andy (@cainalikehyena), the Black Metal and Industrial maestro behind Caїna and Ritual Ob...

In this episode, we invited friends of the show, Will and Anton, to discuss their upcoming project: an ethnographic, musicological, and philosophical investigation into the aesthetic phenomenon of 'PC Music' and its unique digital use of space, facial framing, and audible intensity in generating concert experiences. Taking artists such as A.G. Cook and SOPHIE as paradigm cases, we discus...

What does it mean to tremble before something? In this episode, we cover “Whom to Give to” from Jacques Derrida’s The Gift of Death . Why do we commit to one other instead of all others? Our discussion centers around the notions of the ethical, the universal, and the choices we make. This is a unique work of Derrida’s – one informed by a very focused reading of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Th...

CONTENT WARNING: MENTAL HEALTH DISCUSSION In this episode, Craig, Will, Matt, and Adam invite friend of the show Rose( @8leggedloser) to discuss the notion of 'impostor syndrome'. Using texts such as Mark Fisher's "Good for Nothing" and Deleuze's "Plato and the Simulacrum" from his Logic of Sense, we consider what it means to feel a failure of identification...

Why is there something rather than nothing? In this episode, Craig, Matt, Will, and Adam address Heidegger’s inaugural lecture “What is Metaphysics?”. For Heidegger, the central problem of metaphysics lies at the level of the “is” itself. His pursuit is to establish a fundamental understanding of Being, something he believes has been almost entirely overlooked since the split between Plato and Ari...

In this episode, Craig, Matt, Will, and Adam close out the year by taking a look at Deleuze’s “To Have Done with Judgment”. In this work, Deleuze’s crosses paths with Artaud, but Nietzsche, Lawrence, and Kafka are also at his disposal. Those familiar with Deleuze's work will be familiar with some of the machines operating here. How does judgement function? How exactly are we to escape concept...

In this episode, Craig, Matt, Will, and Adam are joined by critic, artist, cultural theorist, and assistant curator at Rhizome Aria Dean to discuss her 2017 essay "Notes on Blacceleration." In this episode, the Acid Horizon crew discusses with Aria the paradox of the ontological constitution of the black subject that sits at the very beginning of capitalism. “The black” or “the figure of...

In this episode, Craig, Matt, Will, and Adam return to Deleuze’s essay on the society of control. There are some crucial questions to ask: What is the nature of control? How does the control society differ from the society of discipline that Foucault identified in his work prior? Are we living in a control society, or some kind of hybrid? This work is short, but dense. The gang reflects on just ho...

In this episode, Taylor, Cooper, Will, and Craig break into Deleuze's famous text "Proust and Signs".  For most of us, this was the first time we encounter the text. Together we strive to unpack the meaning of Deleuze's phrase "the search for truth is the search for lost time".  We also cover Deleuze's concept of essence and apprenticeship. Support the show Suppo...

Taylor Adkins joins us for another episode to introduce his recent translation of Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information Vol. I & II . We carefully comb through introduction, unpacking Simondon's concept of individuation. Also, we discuss Simondon's work in view of Ancient thinkers and the subsequent work of Deleuze and Guattari. Some thinkers in the discussion als...

We engage with the existentialism of Benjamin Fondane, an existentialist philosopher who is not widely celebrated in the English speaking world but whose name enjoys renown among Francophones. Craig, Will, Adam, and Taylor look at “Existential Monday and the Sunday of History”, an essay which seeks to define the role of the existential philosopher against those philosophies which he claims erase o...

Is metal (heavy, black, death, etc.) radical? is there something about metal that sets it apart from other genres as being potentially revolutionary? More broadly, can there exist an aesthetics capable of instigating a struggle against capital which resists recuperation? David Burke is a PhD candidate and music writer who has contributed to The Quietus and Astral Noize. We also discuss existential...

“The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism” is an esoteric text at the heart of 19th century German philosophy and of no certain authorship. The primary contention is that it was most likely written by either Hölderlin, Hegel, or Schelling during their time together as essentially collage dorm-mates whilst at Tübinger Stift in Germany, although some analyses leave open the possibility of a...

What is ‘left accelerationism’? (Are there more than one?) How has capitalism changed and what implications does it hold for emancipatory politics? In this episode, we examine some of the  essential literature of L/acc, giving particular focus to Karl Marx’s “Fragment on Machines” from Grundrisse and Williams and Srnicek’s “Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics”. Figures also included in the d...

Step through the oddly placed door and enter the world of the weird and the eerie. In this episode, we dive into Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie with author and photographer Matt Colquhoun (xenogothic.com). Matt is the Author of Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher . He has also edited the compilation final lecture series entitled Postcapitalist Desire. All of the titles mentioned...

In this episode, we discuss Deleuze's early work Proust and Signs.  Joining us is Taylor Adkins and Cooper of the Machine at Unconscious Happy Hour. Follow us on Patreon to get the complete episode today! Support the show Support the podcast: AHRC Current classes at Acid Horizon Research Commons (AHRC): acidhorizonresearchcommons.com AHRC Course Archive: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahr...

In this Concepts in Focus episode, Craig breaks down the concept of the 'image of thought' in Deleuze's work. This discussion draws mostly upon the early works of Deleuze, particularly Difference and Repetition and Proust and Signs . A forthcoming discussion of Proust and Signs will be available as subsequent Patreon exclusive episode. Support the show Support the podcast: AHRC Curr...

We talk with our buddy Gouff, whom we met at the beginning of the pandemic. Gouff writes for an online journal called Fǎn (反) on Medium. In this episode, we talk about the concept of fictitious science, a notion which challenges the allegation that a boundary exists between the literary and the literal. We also confront the (faulty) assertion that philosophy no longer plays a role in the domain o...

The early Marx provides us with an account of deprivations experienced by workers under capitalism, namely in the form of what Marx calls 'estranged labor' and 'alienation'. Craig, Adam, Will, and Matt offer both a summary and analysis of the relevant sections of Marx's Paris Manuscripts. There is also an ensuing discussion of Marx's alleged humanism--and anti-humanis...