Grafton reflects on The Utopia of Rules by David Graeber, discussing what it means to be radical and how to go about being so. Read the review here.
Interview with Discourse Collective
On this special episode of Discourse Collective, Hunter (@copcemetary), Malloy (@mmaloyboy) and Sergey (@NovemberBrav0) interview Grafton about his book Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave And The Commodification Of Ghosts, examining vapor as a phenomenon and an aesthetic, how it reflects the haunted culture we live in, and what it says about our politics and philosophy.
A Reading from Grafton Tanner on Vaporwave, Stranger Things, and the Late Mark Fisher
Stranger Things and the Nostalgia Industry
In an essay for The Hong Kong Review of Books, Grafton calls Stranger Things “a window through which the present-shocked can gaze at a clichéd past.”
Check out the essay here
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Book Reading at A Cappella Books
On Thursday, February 2nd, 2017, Grafton Tanner will hold a book reading at A Cappella Books in Atlanta, GA. Grafton will read from his latest book, Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts. The event starts at 6 PM and is free.
Babbling Corpse Reviewed in Under the Radar
Under the Radar calls Babbling Corpse a “thoroughly researched” and “sturdy…deconstruction of an enigmatic and confounding artistic movement.”
Read the review here.
Babbling Corpse Book Launch
On June 24, 2016, Avid Bookshop hosted the book launch for Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts at their Prince Avenue location in Athens, GA.
Avid is a neighborhood bookstore located at 493 Prince Avenue, Athens, GA 30601.
On Saturday, November 26, 2016, Avid will open its second location at 1662 S. Lumpkin Street, Athens, GA 30606.
Please support local and independent bookstores.
Babbling Corpse Out Now
In June 2016, Zero Books published Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts. It can be purchased at:
Avid Bookshop (indie)
In the age of global capitalism, vaporwave celebrates and undermines the electronic ghosts haunting the nostalgia industry. Ours is a time of ghosts in machines, killing meaning and exposing the gaps inherent in the electronic media that pervade our lives. Vaporwave is an infant musical micro-genre that foregrounds the horror of electronic media’s ability to appear – as media theorist Jeffrey Sconce terms it – “haunted.” Experimental musicians such as INTERNET CLUB and MACINTOSH PLUS manipulate Muzak and commercial music to undermine the commodification of nostalgia in the age of global capitalism while accentuating the uncanny properties of electronic music production. Babbling Corpse reveals vaporwave’s many intersections with politics, media theory, and our present fascination with uncanny, co(s)mic horror. The book is aimed at those interested in global capitalism’s effect on art, musical raids on mainstream “indie” and popular music, and anyone intrigued by the changing relationship between art and commerce.
Grafton Tanner 