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Scott Esposito

Scott Esposito is the co-author of The End of Oulipo? (with Lauren Elkin; Zero Books, 2013). His writing has appeared recently in Music & Literature, Drunken Boat, and The Point. His criticism appears frequently in the Times Literary Supplement, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post.



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The Last Redoubt

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November 2014

Scott Esposito

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November 2014

As they say of politics, I have found essay-writing to be the art of the possible. Certain work can only be done in those...

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February 2014

Another Way of Thinking

Scott Esposito

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February 2014

I. There is no substitute for that moment when a book places into our mind thoughts we recognise as our...

The Chinese artist Cao Fei documents life in her country’s rapidly changing urban and social landscapes Her eclectic work as an artist – which extends to video, photography, digital animation, and writing – twins the physical and material changes driven by industrialisation with the increasing immersion of China’s youth in digital networks and virtual environments   Her early work explored these preoccupations – the video ‘COSPlayers’ (2004), released when she was 25 years old, follows adolescents as they dress up as animé characters and skirt the edgelands of Guangzhou, the sprawling port city of Fei’s birth; in ‘Whose Utopia?’ (2006, presented at the Tate Modern in 2014/15), workers at a manufacturing plant act out their fantasy lives amid the machines She came to wider international prominence for her construction of a virtual Gotham toontown called RMB City (2006–2011) on Second Life, the online world in which it is possible to buy property, get married, and set up businesses through a digital alias   Fei operated in Second Life through the avatar China Tracey In ‘iMirror’ (2007), Tracey meets Hug Yue, a hunky blonde in white-tie, and together they rove the virtual landscape on a safari romance, musing on the spliced world they encounter RMB City is an island conurbation comprised of a heap of souvenirs and stock images – as if burped out of a factory production line – which Fei describes as a ‘condensed incarnation of contemporary Chinese cities’ complete with chimneystacks, statues of Mao, shipping containers and shopping malls Fei has documented the city in a wide range of mediums, from videos and virtual guides to a theatrical production on Second Life (‘RMB City Opera’, 2009)   Fei has exhibited widely, including at the Venice Biennale (2003, 2007, 2015), Deutsche Guggenheim (2006), and Serpentine Gallery, London (2008) Her work has been shown at, among others, Tate Modern, London; the Guggenheim Museum, the International Center of Photography and MoMA, New York; and at the Centre Pompidou and Palais de Tokyo, Paris Her first museum solo show in the US opened at MoMA PS1 this April (and runs to 31 August)   We meet amidst the palatial

Contributor

August 2014

Scott Esposito

Contributor

August 2014

Scott Esposito is the co-author of The End of Oulipo? (with Lauren Elkin; Zero Books, 2013). His writing has...

Negation: A Response to Lars Iyer's 'Nude in Your Hot Tub'

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September 2012

Scott Esposito

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September 2012

I do not know whether I have anything to say, I know that I am saying nothing; I do not know if what I...
Art's Fading Sway: Russian Ark by Aleksandr Sokurov

Art

May 2012

Scott Esposito

Art

May 2012

I have often fallen asleep in small theatres. It is an embarrassing thing to have happen during one-man shows, and I am certain that...

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Interview

May 2013

Interview with Darian Leader

Kishani Widyaratna

Interview

May 2013

A practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst, Darian Leader is one of a dying breed. It is no overstatement to say that...

Interview

Issue No. 1

Interview with Will Self

Jacques Testard

Interview

Issue No. 1

Standing on the doorstep of Will Self’s London home ahead of this interview, last August, I was quite terrified....

poetry

April 2014

Obsolescence

Joseph Mackertich

poetry

April 2014

A lot of people tell me my voice is similar to that of the actor Christopher Walken. I don’t...

 

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