What is the anti-capitalist game? For several decades, Jay Jordan and Isa Fremeaux of the game-changing Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination have been using play and games as methods of class war: from the disruptive frivolity of Reclaim the Streets marches to a Carnival Against Capitalism that shut down the London Stock Exchange; from the Cli…

What if we handed some of the most consequential decisions about the future of humanity and the planet to a bunch of game-obsessed nerds? From artificial intelligence to the future of money, from the way we find love to the way we come to know our bodies and communities, Silicon Valley has become one of the most revolutionary and transformative for…

In an age when our most intimate connections with others are mediated by gamified interfaces, it’s high time to revisit how the game of love became the plaything of capital. Alfie Bown joins us for episode 8 to explore the joys and horrors of the ero-tech and the burning question: can hookup apps, dating sims and thirst traps can be reclaimed for t…

On the blockbuster "reality" tv show "Love Island," an even number of conventionally attractive cis men and women compete to partner up and win the audience's affection in a spectacle that, like most of its kind, sees producers push heteronormative cliches to their absurd and humiliating limits. On this episode, theorist and author Sophie Lewis joi…

The worldwide gaming market is estimated at $347 billion. That's a hefty chunk of change, power and influence which lies in the hands of an exceptionally few game makers primarily in the global north. How does the culture of an industry like gaming leak into the broader political sphere? Episode 6 of "The Exploits of Play" features guest Thiago Fal…

Race and capitalism have always shaped one another, but what do we make of their relationship in an age when both systems increasingly toy with our lives in apocalyptic ways? How has the rhetoric of the cheat become part of a vicious racist reactionary politics, and what's the role of humour and fun in the struggle for a better world?Gargi Bhattach…

Leading game scholar, game designer and game company impresario Mary Flanagan joins us to talk about themes in her new book (co-authoered with Mikael Jakobsson) Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games. Along the way we speak about the yet fully realized potential of games to transform society.Mary Flanagan i…

From Squid Game to Hunger Games to Fortnite, how did the trope of cruel, inescapable games become so central to the stories that animate 21st century neoliberal capitalism? With tom Boland We explore how the game changes the player and how this fits into western literature's beloved 'character arc', as well as the new-age obsession with personal tr…

From military strategy to the corporate imaginary, from public policy to the worldview of Big Tech, game theory has dramatically reshaped power and the way live. On this second episode of THE EXPLOITS OF PLAY we speak with S. L. Amadae about how game theory and its elemental puzzle, the prisoner's dilemma, won the war for our hearts and minds, and …

On this first episode of THE EXPLOITS OF PLAY we speak with Hugh Davies about alternate reality games and gaming and the paranoid world of conspiracism.More information: https://weirdeconomies.com/podcasts/exploits-of-playTHE EXPLOITS OF PLAY is a 10-episode podcast about how games and play have moved from the margin to the centre of global capital…

This essay, which explores histories of the corporation, race and (intellectual) property regimes, appeared in a catalogue published to accompany Danish artist Hannibal Andersen’s 2022 exhibition The Abstract Expression of Privatization. In that work, an installation and a large mural explored corporate claims to the ownership of certain colours. T…

Amazon, a corporation that is by some estimates the world's largest private employer, has succeeded in part because of a kind of sci-fi storytelling that places the firm at the forefront of capitalism, technology and human achievement. But if it presents a utopian narrative of itself, its workers pay the price, many of them toiling in dystopian con…

Steven Shaviro is a cultural critic and leading theorist of the social roles of science fiction and author of many books, including The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism (2014) and Discognition (2016). His book on science fiction, Fluid Futures, will be published in 2024. In this interview, he helps us understand the history of science fic…

In the thick of the pandemic, Montreal-based writer and organizer Mostafa Henaway worked at an Amazon fulfillment centre to learn how "essential" workers were made disposable in the name of corporate profits. In this episode, he shares stories and critical reflections on the sci-fi nature of Amazon's brand of capitalism, and the implications for wo…

Heike Geissler is a prominent German novelist and writer who lives and works in Leipzig, once a major city in communist former "East Germany." Today, it is a major logistics hub for Amazon and site of the "reunified" country's first strike against the American corporation in 2013.In her 2014 memoir Saisonarbeit (published in English in 2018 as Seas…

Since 2011, the poet Mark Nowak has been facilitating rank-and-file workers' writing through the Workers Writers School. In collaboration with PEN, trade unions and other organizations, the WSS's workshops "create a space for participants to re-imagine their working lives, nurture new literary voices directly from the global working class, and prod…

How has writing been part of the coming-to-consciousness of the working class and our ability to imagine and fight for different futures? We speak with Jamie Woodcock, senior lecturer of management at the University of Essex about the history of Workers' Inquiry, a method where intellectuals and workers collaborate to learn about the changing natur…

Cory Doctorow is an essayist, novelist, activist, and public intellectual whose work focuses on themes of technology, intellectual property and the prospects for freedom in our digital age. Since the 1990s he’s been on the forefront of struggles for the rights of creators, including ongoing work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Today, he is…

Co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Canada and the Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism, Syrus Marcus Ware explores the importance of future imagining for Black, queer, trans, disability and collective liberation projects. He speaks to us about the importance of speculative fiction for social movement organizers and radical dreamers. Syrus is a Vanier…

Léonicka Valcius is a literary agent specializing in championing the work of racialized and equity-seeking writers in genres including YA fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, kid lit, romance and sci-fi. In this interview, Léonicka breaks down how the publishing industry is changing and the consequences, good and bad, for emerging authors trying t…

Amazon presents its "revolution" in logistics as a bloodless technological coup against the forces of convention, waged in the name of customer satisfaction. But in Alessandro Delfanti's book The Warehouse: Workers and Robots at Amazon, the University of Toronto professor reveals that its labour exploitation all the way down. In this episode he hel…

In his 2020 memoir Black Water, award-winning author David A. Robertson reflects on how his Cree heritage and his family's survival of colonialism has shaped his imagination. In this conversation, he speaks of the joys and challenges of writing speculative fiction for adults and children, informed by Indigenous worldviews and struggles. Approaching…

The legendary thinker and radical historian Robin DG Kelley joins us to discuss the importance of the radical imagination and the history of workers' writing. Kelley is author of many books on the history of labour and anti-racist struggles, and about luminary proletarian creative figures. These include: Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imaginatio…

Amazon's exploitation of data, robotics, and workers has created a breathtaking global empire. Charmaine Chua, a labour organizer with Amazonians United and an assistant professor at University of California Santa Barbara's Department of Global Studies, is uniquely well qualified to guide us through what that means, for workers and for the world. H…

In Marc McGurls " Everything and Less" the Stanford University professor of American literature explores the fate of the novel in the "Age of Amazon." Well known for his illuminating studies of the institutions that surround how we read and write, McGurl turns his attention to what he suggests may be the most important shift in literature in our mo…

For 15 years Brent Lee not only believed in conspiracy theories but helped produce and popularize them. Today, he warns others about both the danger and the appeal of conspiratorial world-building. We have been taught to imagine that people fall into the proverbial "rabbit hole" because of isolation, idiocy and paranoia. But in this interview, Bren…

How do today's videogames inherit and reiterate colonial ideologies, tropes and ways of seeing the world? Can such games be played “against the grain" in ways that defy the colonial script? We speak with Souvik Mukherjee.Dr Souvik Mukherjee is assistant professor in Cultural Studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta, India. Souv…

The line separating conspiracy theories from "legitimate" political discourse or critical theory is far from sharp. Renowned scholars Peter Knight and Clare Birchall join us to to reveal what's at stake and the broader (neoliberal capitalist) context.Clare Birchall is Reader in Contemporary Culture at King’s College London. She is the author of Kno…

The left's relationship with games is "complicated." We're joined by labour organizer, YouTuber, writer and teacher Marijam Didžgalvytė to explain why, and what can be done about it.Marijam Didžgalvytė is a creator of content at the intersection between videogames and politics. She lectures at the Royal Holloway, University of London and is a Marke…

With game designer and professor Paolo Pedercini we explore the possibility of anti-capitalist games and what's behind today's conspiracy movements.Paolo Pedercini is a game developer, curator and educator. He teaches digital media production and experimental game design at the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. Since 2003 he works under …

Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan of the Laboratory for the Insurectionary Imagination present their 2021 book **We Are 'Nature' Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones** published by the RiVAL-affiliated VAGABONDS series of Pluto Press in cooperation with the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest============For a video version of …

The following piece by Max Haiven, A. T. Kingsmith and Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou was pubished in the Los Angeles Review of Books on Saturday, 13 November 2021 and is available here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/whither-harmony-square-conspiracy-games-in-late-capitalismBy RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab

We're joined by Keir Milburn joins us to talk about the rise of the cosmic right and their conspiritual weirdness, as well as the fate of the acid left and the role of games in revolutionary movements.Keir Milburn is a longtime political activist from the UK. He spent over a decade teaching political economy and organization but now works on munici…

Ruth and Marc of Furtherfield Gallery join us to talk about the connections between art, games and revolutions in everyday life and technology.Furtherfield disrupts and democratises art and technology through exhibitions, labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking and is London’s longest-running (de)centre for art and technolog…

A wide-ranging conversation with Aleena Chia about the labour of fans, the joys of rabbit-holing, con/spirituality communities and the importance of democratic engagement.Aleena Chia is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University and incoming Lecturer of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, Uni…

A feminist care conspiracy? An artwork transmogrified into a world-wide secret society? A free anti-capitalist social technology? A revolutionary pyramid scheme? Cassie Thornton shares The Hologram project: a ferminist, peer-to-peer social technology for collective health and rebellion (thehologram.xyz).Cassie Thornton (feministeconomicsdepartment.…

A wide-ranging conversation with acclaimed and bestselling author, essayist and podcaster Hari Kunzru centring on his 2020 novel *Red Pill*.Born in London, Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men, and White Tears, as well as a short story collection, Noise and a novella, Memory Palac…

We are caught between two wars of restoration: the far-right, seeking to return us to a fabled past and a liberal capitalist "centre" demanding more business as usual. Between these two, dark new "conspiracy theories" breed, especially among men, which reinforce the worst of patriarchy, with deadly effect...Jack Bratich is professor of Journalism a…

How have governments and other powerful forces conspired against Black people in "North America" since the colonial invasion? How are fears about conspiracy theorizies displaced onto Black and racialized people? How do we separate the real conspiratorial functions of power from dangerous conspiracy fantasies?El Jones is a poet, journalist, professo…

We speak to Brian van Slyke of the TESA Collective about how board games have become an important part of the social movement ecosystem and what it takes to design a game that contributes to today's struggles for racial, social and economic justice.The TESA Collective is a 10-year old worker cooperative that designs and manufactures games for socia…

Is it wise to approach today's rise in conspiracy fantasies as a form of dangerous play? The Conspiracy Games and Countergames team (Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, A.T. Kingsmith and Max Haiven) kick off the inaugural session of RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab's 2021 Summer Institute (reimaginingvalue.ca/cgcg). They discuss anxiety, financiali…

Rebecca Rouse joins us to discuss the use and misuse of empathy in games and the ways games and gaming can be profound platforms for individual and social transformation.Rebecca Rouse, PhD is a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Game Development at the University of Skövde, Sweden. Rouse’s research focuses on both the history and practice of storyt…

Marcus Gilroy-Ware explores how conspiratorial thinking thrives in a digital neoliberal world where truth is sold to the highest bidder and where alienation is rampant.Marcus Gilroy-Ware is a writer and scholar-activist who is focused on understanding how people learn about the world they live in through media. His work draws connections between a …

Writer and activist Arun Kundnani helps us unpack over two decades of Islamophobic conspiracy fantasies of the War on Terror and think about radical responses to a world of neoliberal warlordism.Arun Kundnani writes about racial capitalism and Islamophobia, surveillance and political violence, and Black radical movements. He is the author of The Mu…

Game designer, writer and researcher Jess Rowan Marcotte joins us to discuss the importance of community, connection and queerness in game design.Jess Rowan Marcotte (they/them) is a queer mixed white-passing Mi’kmaw game designer, writer, maker and Doctor of Philosophy (Critical Interaction Design, Individualized Program). Their work focuses on in…

In the conclusion of our two-part interview, Wu Ming collective member 1 discusses the power of narrative and games in driving conspiracy fantasies and the forms of activism that have risen to confront a system that gives rise to them.Wu Ming 1 is an original and ongoing member of the Wu Ming collective, which was founded in Bologna in 2000 and has…

In the first of our two-part interview, Wu Ming collective member 1 discusses his new book La Q di Qomplotto (The Q in Qonspiracy: How Conspiracy Fantasies Defend the System).Wu Ming 1 is an original and ongoing member of the Wu Ming collective, which was founded in Bologna in 2000 and has, since that time, published several collaboratively written…

* Hannah Appel (UCLA/Debt Collective)* Max Haiven (Lakehead)* Denise Ferreira da Silva (UBC)* Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Columbia)* Facilitator: Catherine Cumming~~~~~~~~~~DESCRIPTION~~~~~~~~~~- How do debts function, yesterday and today, as racial capitalim’s revenge?- Can debt be a grounds for emergent solidarities, today and tomorrow?- What are th…

Recorded April 7 as part of the “Pivot(al): Possibilities for a Post-pandemic World” lecture series of the Third Age Learning program of Lakehead University --> https://www.lakeheadu.ca/about/orillia-campus/community-programs/talWhat if we imagined the imagination as the basic building block of our society and everything in it? Take today’s increas…

A recording of the essay "Revenge Against Revenge?: Biden’s Revenge Politics and The Cure at Troy" by Max Haiven, published in the Los Angeles Review of Books in March of 2021 - https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/revenge-against-revenge-bidens-revenge-politics-and-the-cure-at-troy/By RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab