Chris Mitchell Cyberspace is perhaps the last place you’d look for some sort of spiritual revival at the end of the twentieth century. But Margaret Wertheim believes that cyberspace is indeed a contemporary secular version of the medieval conception of Heaven – that is, a space which exists somewhere beyond or outside our everyday world. […]
Portishead : PNYC
Chris Mitchell Having nearly imploded thanks to the success of Dummy, Portishead seemed to be trying to avoid attracting any attention whatsoever to themselves, as shown by 1997’s low-key self-titled second album. But unlike the deliberate attempt at fan alienation a la Nirvana’s In Utero, Portishead’s second album went deeper and darker than Dummy, repaying […]
UNKLE: Psyence Fiction
Chris Mitchell UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction has been the UK’s most-eagerly awaited album of 1998. So eagerly awaited that virtually all of the UK music press published previews rather than reviews of the album, so keen were they to get in there and proclaim UNKLE the new saviours of British music. Which is particularly strange in […]
Underworld : Beaucoup Fish
Chris Mitchell Over here in the UK, few albums have been so keenly expected as the new musical opus from Underworld, the oddly named Beaucoup Fish. Most famous for their track “Born Slippy”, which was featured prominently in the film of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting a couple of years ago, Underworld nearly didn’t survive long enough […]
Astro Teller: Exegesis
Chris Mitchell Exegesis is a novel written in the form of email messages between its two major protagonists, Alice Lu and EDGAR. However, Astro Teller’s debut novel is not a digital bodice-ripper, despite the jacket blurb proclaiming Exegesis to be the story of “sex, lies and cyberlove in the year 2000”. Instead, it hinges on […]
Bryan Burrough: Dragonfly: NASA And The Crisis Aboard Mir
Chris Mitchell Throughout 1997, the Russian space station Mir made international headlines as it lurched from one near disaster to another. Populated by Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts, Mir became a symbol of the two countries’ collaboration in the post-Soviet age. But even with the financing and expertise of NASA injected into the ailing Russian […]
Ulf Poschardt: DJ Culture
Chris Mitchell In the last 30 years, the role of the DJ has transformed from being a mere purveyor of pop music to being the creator of pop music. This transformation is due almost solely to the humble analogue technology of the record turntable, which still thrives in the midst of this supposedly digital decade. […]
Spiritualized : Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Chris Mitchell When bands release double live albums, it’s usually a cause for consternation rather than celebration. Notorious for being very much less than the sum of their parts, live albums tend to be the last refuge for heavy metal bands who ran out of ideas long ago and want to milk every last cent […]
Julian Dibbell: My Tiny Life
Chris Mitchell With the popularity of the World Wide Web these days, it’s easy to forget that the Internet has other tricks up its telephone wires. MUDs (Multi User Dimension) and MOOs (Multi user dimension, Object Orientated) are burgeoning virtual reality communities tucked away in the backwaters of cyberspace. My Tiny Life is Village Voice […]
Julian Dibbell: My Tiny Life
Chris Mitchell With the popularity of the World Wide Web these days, it’s easy to forget that the Internet has other tricks up its telephone wires. MUDs (Multi User Dimension) and MOOs (Multi user dimension, Object Orientated) are burgeoning virtual reality communities tucked away in the backwaters of cyberspace. My Tiny Life is Village Voice […]
Douglas Coupland : Polaroids From The Dead : Ueber Furcht bis hin zu Ewigkeit
Chris Mitchell mailte Douglas Coupland und sprach mit ihm ueber Ruhm, die Zukunft und die Probleme mit amerikanischer Schokolade. German translation by Boris Haenssler You can read the English version of this interview by clicking here. Douglas Coupland ist kein durchschnittlicher Romanautor. Seit der Veroeffentlichung von Generation X im Jahre 1991 wurde er dank seiner […]
P.J. O’Rourke: Eat The Rich
Gary Marshall P.J. O’Rourke has never been afraid to tackle big subjects. Previous books have attempted to explain the entire US Government, refute the arguments of the environmental lobby, and describe the bits of the Gulf War that CNN wouldn’t broadcast. With his latest book, “Eat The Rich”, PJ sets his sights on possibly the […]
Douglas Coupland: Lara’s Book Lara Croft And The Tomb Raider Phenomenon
Chris Mitchell Well, it had to happen. Lara Croft, star of the Tomb Raider videogames, gets the coffee table treatment in her own glossy picture book. In an attempt to give this tome some literary gravitas, “Generation X” author Douglas Coupland has been drafted in to provides thoughts about the Lara phenomenon and a story […]
Kimberly S. Young: Caught In The Net
Chris Mitchell Dr Kimberly Young has made something of a name for herself in the last few years with her research into the phenomenon of Internet addiction. Having set up the Centre for On-line Addiction and written numerous papers about Internet addicts over the last three years, Caught In The Net is a distilled account […]
Scott Adams: Dilbert Seven Years Of Highly Defective People
Chris Mitchell Dilbert is rapidly becoming enough of a cartoon icon to rival the fame of Disney’s most enduring creations. Chronicling the trials of a hapless IT engineer battling against the absurdities of corporate life, the Dilbert comic strip appears in over 1500 newspapers worldwide. Seven Years Of Highly Defective People is creator Scott Adams’ […]
John L. Casti: The Cambridge Quintet
Chris Mitchell When world chess champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by IBM’s Deep Blue II last year, it provoked a renewed popular interest in the possibilities of artificial intelligence. Kasparov commented that he felt he was playing “an alien intelligence”. But was Deep Blue really thinking or simply number-crunching at a incredible speed to produce […]
Geoff Ryman: 253
Chris Mitchell Despite appearing in print for the first time this month, Geoff Ryman’s 253 is not a new book. This self-styled “interactive novel” has been available on the Internet since 1996 at http://www.ryman-novel.com, and its electronic success has prompted the “print re-mix” version to be published. The original Internet version of 253 was not […]
Melanie McGrath : Hard, Soft And Wet: Doing It For The Kids
Chris Mitchell meets Melanie McGrath, chronicler of the Digital Generation The days of travel writing being produced by someone wearing a pith helmet and clutching a pink gin are thankfully over. The new generation of travel writers are increasingly venturing into uncharted territories, as Melanie McGrath’s new book Hard, Soft And Wet demonstrates. No, it’s […]
Joey Anuff, Ana Marie Cox: Suck: Worst Case Scenarios In Media, Culture, Advertising and The Internet
Chris Mitchell Suck has long been the sardonic scourge of the internet. Under the slogan “a fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun”, the Suck website serves up a free daily dose of mordant satire, analysis and “buzzsaw journalism” about the most recent media occurrences. It’s a recipe which has made Suck popular across the […]
Mark Slouka: War Of The Worlds: The Assault On Reality
Chris Mitchell If Mark Slouka is to be believed, we are losing our grip on reality. With the proliferation of technologies that allow us to immerse ourselves in artificially created worlds – from radio and television through to virtual reality and cyberspace – the line between real reality and artificial reality is blurring. Soon, Slouka […]
David Lavery: Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-Files
Chris Mitchell Just what is it that makes The X-Files so popular? The television show which revolves around the investigations of FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully into all things paranormal has become incredibly popular, narrating their quest for the ever-elusive truth through a combination of police drama, gothic horror and science fiction. Deny […]
Timothy Leary: Design For Dying
Chris Mitchell Even in death, Timothy Leary is still trying to shatter society’s taboos. Design For Dying appears eighteen months after the former Harvard psychologist turned LSD guru passed away from prostate cancer. Written during his last months, Leary’s book attempts to dispel our fear of death by suggesting that technology increasingly lets us orchestrate […]
Jeff Noon: Nymphomation
Chris Mitchell After giving Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland electric shock treatment last year in Automated Alice, Jeff Noon’s new novel Nymphomation returns to the near-future Manchester of his first two books, Vurt and Pollen. While Automated Alice was an audacious exercise in seeing quite how far he could push reinventing a classic, Nymphomation sees […]
Trainspotting: The Play : Expletives Repeated
Harry Gibson’s stage adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspottinghas taken the theatre world by storm. Chris Mitchell discusses censorship, sincerity and swearing with the director. [Note: this interview is about the original stage production of Trainspotting in 1996. Spike also has another interview with Harry Gibson on the 10th anniversary stage production of Trainspotting in 2006.] […]
Toby Litt : Beatniks : Shelf Life
Chris Mitchell gives the lowdown on Toby Litt Who’s Toby Litt? “Britain’s answer to Douglas Coupland“, according to various critics. “If you don’t want to be him or have him, you’re dead” drooled Julie Burchill with her characteristic understatement Our very own homegrown Generation X guru, then? Last year’s debut short story collection Adventures In […]