Mark Fisher : The Slow Cancellation Of The Future

The late Mark Fisher speaking at MaMa, Zagreb @ May 21, 2014, a talk held within the event "Everything Comes Down to Aesthetics and Political Economy".

The "slow cancellation of the future" is the idea that culture is re-running itself within the larger frame of capitalist consumption. Endless return to "classic sounds" within music, the revival of "retro fashion" or yet another band from the past getting back together to play their hits. There are millions of examples of how we are stuck culturally in a nostalgia extraveganza. Why this is so could be debated, but I believe it is to do with the promise of market capitalism now being exhausted under the weight of economic and ecological failures. Even the presently much flouted Artificial Intelligence is a dominance of technology over content, with much of it being derivative and process oriented. 

The result is a need, from economic, social and political perspectives, to maintain the ideology that supports consumption. But at the same time there is a necessity to pacify and direct the population within the possibilities of culture, towards a benign state of passive consumption.

To quote Fisher:

“The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by a deflatioat then of expectations. There can be few who believe that in the coming year a record as great as, say, the Stooges’ Funhouse or Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On will be released. Still less do we expect the kind of ruptures brought about by The Beatles or disco. The feeling of belatedness, of living after the gold rush, is as omnipresent as it is disavowed. Compare the fallow terrain of the current moment with the fecundity of previous periods and you will quickly be accused of ‘nostalgia’. But the reliance of current artists on styles that were established long ago suggests that the current moment is in the grip of a formal nostalgia, of which more shortly.

It is not that nothing happened in the period when the slow cancellation of the future set in. On the contrary, those thirty years has been a time of massive, traumatic change. In the UK, the election of Margaret Thatcher had brought to an end the uneasy compromises of the so-called postwar social consensus. Thatcher’s neoliberal programme in politics was reinforced by a transnational restructuring of the capitalist economy. The shift into so-called Post-Fordism – with globalization, ubiquitous computerization and the casualisation of labour – resulted in a complete transformation in the way that work and leisure were organised. In the last ten to fifteen years, meanwhile, the internet and mobile telecommunications technology have altered the texture of everyday experience beyond all recognition. Yet, perhaps because of all this, there’s an increasing sense that culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present. Or it could be that, in one very important sense, there is no present to grasp and articulate anymore.” ― Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (Full PDF)

Honeyland (2019)

Honeyland (2019) is a stunning, meditative documentary that unfolds like a quiet epic about nature, tradition, and survival. Set in a remote village in North Macedonia, the film follows Hatidze Muratova, a lone, middle-aged beekeeper and one of the last in Europe to practice wild beekeeping in harmony with the land.

Living with her ailing mother in a crumbling stone hut, Hatidze climbs cliffs, whispers to her bees, and harvests honey with care — always leaving “half for the bees.” Her existence is simple but dignified, rooted in an unspoken code of balance and respect. That delicate balance is disrupted when a nomadic family with seven children and dozens of cattle settles nearby. At first, Hatidze welcomes them with warmth. But when the family’s patriarch decides to take up beekeeping himself, driven more by profit than sustainability, tensions rise. Greed clashes with wisdom, and nature bears the cost.

Filmed over three years, directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov use no narration or interviews. Instead, they let the camera observe, allowing the story to emerge organically through breathtaking visuals and deeply human moments. The cinematography captures the stark beauty of the landscape and the quiet poetry of Hatidze’s daily rituals.

At its core, Honeyland is about more than bees — it's a microcosm of global issues: climate change, capitalism, and the fragile balance between humans and nature. Hatidze emerges as a quietly heroic figure, both resilient and heartbreakingly alone.

The film is both intimate and universal, minimalist yet emotionally rich. Nominated for both Best Documentary and Best International Feature at the Oscars, Honeyland is a rare gem that speaks volumes without ever raising its voice — a powerful testament to harmony, loss, and the price of exploitation.

Click on the above image to watch the entire film.

B-Movie - Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989 [2015]

B-MOVIE: LUST & SOUND IN WEST BERLIN is a documentary about music, art and chaos in the Wild West Berlin of the 1980s. The walled-in city which became the creative melting pot for a special kind of sub and pop culture, attracting ingenious dilettantes and world famous celebrities alike. However, before the iron curtain would fall, artists and communards, squatters and hedonists of all kinds would enjoy Berlins unconventional lifestyle. It was not about long-term commercial success, but about living for the moment - the kick - the here and now. With mostly unreleased TV and film footage, photos and original interviews, B-MOVIE tells the story of life in the divided city, a cultural interzone in which everything and anything seemed possible in a place unlike anywhere else in Europe. It's a fast-paced collage of stories from a frenzied but creative decade, starting with punk and ending with the Love Parade, all from a city where the days are short and the nights are endless. This is a time when Berlin was like a B-MOVIE: Colourfully cheap and trashy, threatened and thrown together, anxious and ambitious, clubbed and caned, stoned and strung out, drunk, drugged and - just very special. Click on the image above to be taken to the film.

„B-Movie“ ist eine Dokumentation über Musik, Kunst und Chaos im wilden West-Berlin der 80er Jahre. Bevor der eiserne Vorhang fiel, tummelten sich hier Künstler und Kommunarden, Hausbesetzer und Hedonisten.

Sans toit ni loi / Vagabond (1985)

Vagabond (French: Sans toit ni loi, "without roof or law") is a 1985 French drama film directed by Agnès Varda, featuring Sandrine Bonnaire. It tells through flashbacks the story of a vagabond who wanders through the Languedoc-Roussillon wine country one winter, beginning after her body is found. The film premiered at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion. Vagabond was nominated for four César Awards, with Bonnaire winning Best Actress. The film was the 36th highest-grossing film of the year with a total of 1,080,143 admissions in France.

Click on the image above and you are there for the entire film.

Daises/Sedmikrásky (1966)

If the entire world is bad, why shouldn’t we be? Adopting this insolent attitude as their guiding philosophy, a pair of hedonistic young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. But what happens when the fun is over? Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Věra Chytilová, with the close collaboration of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, unleashes an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes designed by Ester Krumbachová, who also cowrote the script. The result is Daisies, the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.

Anarchism in America

"Anarchism in America" is a 1983 documentary directed by Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher, and produced by Pacific Street Films. It was re-released on DVD by AK Press. The film includes interviews with influential anarchists such as Murray Bookchin, Paul Avrich, Jello Biafra, Mollie Steimer, and Karl Hess, as well as the poet Kenneth Rexroth. "The state is essentially violent"

"D.I.Y. or Die How to Survive as an Independent Artist"

 

D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist is a low-budget documentary film released by Music Video Distributors in 2002. The film is a "celebration of the underdog" and deals with why artists do what they do, regardless of the lack of a continuous paycheck.

The film features some artists that define the DIY ethic and speaks to the overall DIY culture. It features interviews with Steve Albini, Lydia Lunch, Ian MacKaye, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr, Jim Rose, J. G. Thirlwell of Foetus, Mike Watt, Eric McFadden, Richard Kern (filmmaker), Ron Asheton of The Stooges, Madigan Shive of Bonfire Madigan, Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8 and Dave Brockie of Gwar, among others.

Alicia Dattner appears in the credit sequence as a punk street artist stapling DIY flyers. Original artwork for the credits drawn by Attaboy, co-founder of Hi-Fructose Contemporary Art Magazine.

The DVD was released (under the title "D.I.Y. or Die: Burn This DVD") with no region restrictions or copy protection. Director Michael W. Dean allowed and even encouraged people to make copies for non-commercial use.

They Live

"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."- George Nada

This movie will change your life.

They Live is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media. The 2012 documentary film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, presented by the Slovene philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek, begins with an analysis of They Live. Žižek uses the film's concept of wearing special sunglasses that reveal truth to explain his definition of ideology. Žižek states:

They Live is definitely one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Hollywood Left. … The sunglasses function like a critique of ideology. They allow you to see the real message beneath all the propaganda, glitz, posters and so on. … When you put the sunglasses on, you see the dictatorship in democracy, the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.

Reclaim the Streets - The Film

This is how we used to do it in the 90's...

Imagine 5000 people being taken across London by underground to a mystery location and then transforming a motorway into a sand pit, a dance floor, a forest. Imagine radical ecologists joining forces with sacked dockers and occupying Liverpool docks. Imagine Trafalgar Square metamorphosed into London's largest rave while under siege from 3000 unhappy riot police. Stop imagining and watc h this film. YOU WILL BE INSPIRED.

May 1995, London, England. A small group of people decide to organise an illegal street party in Camden, a part of the city renowned for its consumerism and incessant traffic. The final location is kept secret, because they know that the state and business will not be amused. Reclaim the Streets! is born, a cocktail of raging love, revolutionary carnival, art and anarchy. Since then the clandestine street parties have erupted all over the world. From Hull to Sydney, Lyon to Tel Aviv, Vancouver to Valencia, people are taking back their streets. And this is only the beginning.

This film, a 2012 re-edit of the original, made from over a hundred hours of footage from 13 film-makers, and brought up to date with a recent expose of cop infiltration, tells the story of reclaim the Streets from its origins in London to the Global Street Party in May 1998 when 30 cities simultaneously joined in the fun.

'Ultimately it is in the streets that power must be dissolved: for the streets where daily life is endured, suffered and eroded, and where power is confronted and fought, must be turned into the domain where daily life is enjoyed, created and nourished.'

Chumbawamba - Well Done, Now Sod Off!

 

A documentary about the band Chumbawamba, from their beginnings in an anarchist UK squat in the early 80s to their mainstream success and beyond.

La Commune Paris 1871 (FR, 2000)

 

La Commune. Directed By Peter Watkins (5hrs 46mins). La Commune is Watkins’s anarchist masterpiece. He made it in 13 days in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Paris, with a cast of more than 200 participants who re-created the six-week experiment in socialist self-government of 1871. In this war drama blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, the working class and the bourgeoisie of 19th century Paris are interviewed and covered on television, before and during a working class revolt. Most came to the project as activists, not actors, with a pre-commitment to Watkins’s own utopianism and his desire to bring contemporary capitalist society and media to account.

Trouble (1993)

Berlin, 1992 - squats, music and the global mind.

Trouble (1993)

The story centers on a young Canadian woman who lives in a politically active flat-sharing community in Kreuzberg Berlin and works in a squat bar whilst also singing in a rock band. Due to the new capital situation, occupied buildings suddenly become sought-after investments. The living and working situation of the musicians and other scene-people deteriorates massively. The band wants to draw attention to their situation with a street concert, so the apartment community hijacks the entire broadcasting van of a television station. The film was broadcast on TV on 23 March 1993 and was released on DVD a few years later. The film culminates in an act of broadcast signal intrusion. An authentic neighborhood portrait of Berlin at the time with an excellent soundtrack. The 'Rockhaus' squat of the film is actually the Køpi squat at 137 Köpenicker Straße in Mitte, that was first occupied in 1990 and continues today. 

Køpi was squatted on 23 February 1990 by Autonomen from West Berlin . Despite the terrible state of the building, the squatters were attracted by the large rooms. The police did not attempt to evict the occupation, which marked the first time people from West Berlin had squatted in East Berlin. The squatters legalized their occupation with the district council of Mitte in 1991.

From the very beginning, Køpi was a radical left space where anarchists , socialists , queers and musicians were welcome. The building itself is covered in banners and graffiti. It became known as Køpi because the squatters chose to use the Danish ø despite the name coming from the name of the street (Köpenicker Straße). Køpi is also spelled Koepi, Köpi and even occasionally Kopi in English or Spanish texts. Køpi has become an important symbol for the radical left in Berlin, linked to projects elsewhere such as the Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen and Rozbrat in Poznań.

"Whoever buys Køpi, buys trouble".

Director - Penelope Buitenhuis

Writers - Penelope BuitenhuisMaureen KelleherIlja Schellenschmidt

Stars - Yvonne Ducksworth, Jan Erik Engel, Gode Benedix

German with English subtitles. 

Chomsky Explaining Real Anarchism

"Power prefers darkness. If it is exposed to light, it erodes."

Here's a transcription of a key part of his replies to the questions around how an anarchist society work, and how to communicate anarchist ideas. There are several comment threads below that present interpretations that are quite different than what he actually said here. He doesn't describe a final, utopian, end-state, and admits that he doesn't know what that would look like, but recognizes the on-going human tendency to question, challenge and dismantle illegitimate 'structures of authority, domination and hierarchy.' Some may disagree that this describes their own understanding of anarchism, but it seems to represent Chomsky's sense of the term.

"It's not a specific set of doctrines but a tendency in human thought and action which tries to detect and discover structures of authority, domination and hierarchy and challenge them - ask them to demonstrate their legitimacy, recognizing that they are not self-justifying. They have a burden of justification. That’s true all across the spectrum of human life, from patriarchal families to imperial systems, and everything in between. Wherever you find a structure of domination, hierarchy, someone giving orders, someone taking them, you have to ask if that’s legitimate. You cannot assume and you shouldn’t assume that it’s legitimate because it’s been like that. That’s not a justification. You have to ask, “is it legitimate?“ When you do, you generally find that it can’t be justified. There are cases where you could make up a justification, but try it. It’s pretty hard. Most of the time the justification is around the way power is distributed, but that’s not a justification. Anarchism is the effort to discover such systems, and when they can’t justify themselves, to dismantle them and to move towards greater freedom, justice, opportunity, individual creativity, cooperative activity, and so on. It’s just a tendency in history and I don’t think it’s hard to communicate to people. I think they take it for granted if it’s brought to their attention. You see it.

Take for example: one of the major achievements of the last 50 years in many societies - in the United States and in many others - has been the expansion of women’s rights. It’s changed enormously. How did it happen? Well, as soon as the structures of oppression were identified, they kind of disappeared. Not instantly of course. There’s still plenty of resistance. It’s a general truth that power prefers darkness. If it’s exposed to the light it erodes. This happens all through history.

Where does this lead? What will the final goal be? I don’t think anyone is smart enough to say that, to see what that will be. This is a constant, ongoing effort to expand the realm of justice, freedom, independence, breakdown of authority and so on, and I don’t see that it should have any limits."

"Hopefully, it would be like your describe it, but I still have a little doubt. And...um...isn't it too demanding, you know? It's easier to be led by authority. I'm, myself, sort of an activist, and sometimes I regret it...uh...all the time. It's terribly time-consuming, uh, it costs me a lot of energy, the outcome is very uncertain, it's not very rewarding, not all the time. It's easier to be led by authorities. So, isn't the idea...too much demanding?"

"That's basically an argument for slavery." - Chomsky

The Net - the Unabomber, LSD and the Internet

 

Ultimately stunning in its revelations, Lutz Dammbeck's THE NET explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology - a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.

The Life and Politics of Monica Sjöö

Monica Sjöö, (December 31, 1938 – August 8, 2005), was a Swedish painter, writer and a radical anarcho/ eco-feminist who was an early exponent of the Goddess movement.

Her most famous painting is the controversial God Giving Birth (1968), which depicts a non-white woman giving birth; it was censored multiple times and at one art show, Sjöö was reported to the police for blasphemy.

Sjöö was the main author of Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art (1971) one of the first, and most militant, feminist art manifestos. It was discussed widely in the feminist press, and The Guardian published an article in response. Ann Pettitt, one of the founders of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, contributed to a later iteration.

In 1976 Sjöö was the subject of a film documentary shown at the ICA and NFT.

Sjöö wrote the original pamphlet that, with Barbara Mor's re-write and expansion, would become the book The Great Cosmic Mother (1987). It covers women's ancient history and the origin of religion, and is one of the first books to propose that humanity's earliest religious and cultural belief systems were created and first practised by women. It is currently in print and has been, and still is, a part of many women's studies, mythology and religious studies syllabi. Her research and writing helped uncover the hidden history of the Goddess. Sjöö's successful use of interdisciplinarity in her research has led to its acclaim within the Goddess movement.

Her art and writing became well known outside of the UK, and throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s she corresponded with influential American writers, artists and pagans such as Jean and Ruth Mountaingrove, Starhawk, Zsuzsanna Budapest, Lucy Lippard, Alice Walker, and Judy Chicago.

Some of Monica Sjöö's writings:

• —— (1977). "Women's Spirituality" (PDF). Goddess Shrew. Vol. 1. London: London Matriarchy Study Group. pp. 5–6.
• —— (1978). "Some Thoughts on Menstruation" (PDF). Menstrual Taboos. Vol. 2. London: London Matriarchy Study Group. pp. 11–13.
• —— (1979). "An Avebury Experience" (PDF). Politics of Matriarchy. Vol. 3. London: London Matriarchy Study Group. p. 55. ISBN 978-0906663004.
• —— (Fall 1980). "Art is a Revolutionary Act". WomanSpirit.
  • Excerpted in: (2001). In Robinson, Hilary. Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2000. Malden, MA: Blackwell. ISBN 9780631208495.
  • (2015). In Robinson, Hilary. Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2014. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 9781118360606.
• —— (1983). "Sagan om St. Göran och kvinnan". Hertha (in Swedish). 70 (2): 2–4, 38.
• —— (Summer 1984). "The Bleeding Yew Mother and Pentre Ifan Cromlech" (PDF). Wood and Water. 2 (12): 6–8.
• —— (1998). "Sinister New Age Channelings: Who or What is Speaking?". From the Flames – Radical Feminism with Spirit. 22. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.
• ——. "The Unofficial Herstory of the Externsteine, Ancient Sacred Rocks of Germany". The Pipes of Pan. 19. Archived from the original on March 14, 2016.
• ——. "Challenging New Age Patriarchy". Women of Power (19). Archived from the original on March 14, 2016.
• —— (May 28, 1993). "Going To Church: Breaking the Taboo – doing the unthinkable". Archived from the original on March 14, 2016.
• ——. "The Artist As Reluctant Shamanka". Archived from the original on March 14, 2016.
• ——. "St Non's Well, Pembrokeshire". Archived from the original on March 14, 2016.
• ——. "On Death and Dying". Archived from the original on March 14, 2016.

Anarchy in the UK: The New Underground Cinema (2016)

The definitive documentary that chronicles the UK's 'Misrule Cinema Movement' boom from (2010-2016) This period of social revolution and unrest gave birth to a new wave of pent-up creative energy and determined filmmakers who started shaking the chains of the mainstream film industries rigid cage, by making movies on mobile phones and using Youtube and Facebook to promote their films. Building their own cinemas and staging guerrilla-style movie screenings throughout the country.

Nestor Makhno Peasant of Ukraine [English subtitles]

 

Nestor Ivanovych Makhno, commonly known as Bat'ko Makhno, was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of an independent anarchist army in Ukraine from 1917–21. Makhno was the commander of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, commonly referred to as the Makhnovshchina.

The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Революційна Повстанська Армія України), also known as the Black Army or as Makhnovtsi (Ukrainian: Махновці), named after their leader Nestor Makhno, was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian peasants and workers during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. They protected the operation of "free soviets" and libertarian communes in the Free Territory, an attempt to form a stateless libertarian communist society from 1918 to 1921 during the Ukrainian War of Independence. They were founded and inspired based on the Black Guards.

Commander Arian, a history of women, war and freedom (Kurdish, Spanish subs)

 

In this story of emancipation and freedom in the face of the Syrian war, Commander Arian guides a women's battalion towards Kobane with the mission to liberate the population living under the yoke of Daesh (ISISIS). Arian, who when very young witnessed the viscous treatment that victims of sexual violence received, does everything possible to make her comrades discover the true meaning of their struggle: freedom for the next generation of women. After living for months with the commander and her troops, filming with an unprecedented intimacy that includes raw sequences of Arian's slow recovery from wounds, Sotorra makes a fascinating portrait of a woman on a mission.

2018 Duration: 77 min.

País: España

Dirección:Alba The Warrior Guion: Jesper Osmund, Alba Sotorra, Steffano Strocchi

Capitalist Realism and the New Hollywood

An exploration of Mark Fisher's concept of capitalist realism as it manifests itself in the films of the New Hollywood, such as The Godfather and Five Easy Pieces. The New Hollywood at once reveals the dominance of capitalist realism and, at times, attempts to pose a challenge to it.

Squatting (2009)

Squatting is a film by Larissa Matteyssen which follows anarchists and activists, who occupy different empty buildings and territories - from rooms, houses and industrial buildings to complete villages and ports. Dutch and Russian activists are telling about their experiences of squatting and reactions of authorities to self-organisation. Anti-squatters explain why they are in side of the state.

More on the subject:

 * http://video.squat.net

 * https://vimeo.com/6812727

 * https://documentaryheaven.com/the-art-of-squatting/