Real Review Issue 14

DIRECT PERCEPTION

We spend almost a third of our lives connected to the internet, in a space-time of total internal reflection. Online lacks any randomness or chance; and this illusion of fate and order is at odds with the actual structure of the universe. Online we are not social beings but commodified identities; immersed in diluted ideas, weak connections and fleeting emotional states that neither originate within us, nor belong to us. We are possessed by the internet, and so dispossessed of life.

What is after the digital? We interview critical theorist JONATHAN CRARY on the internet complex. Artist CHRISTINE SUN KIM reviews contemporary society. TANYA AND ZHENYA POSTERNAK review graffiti written by soldiers in Ukraine, while SIRKHANE DARKROOM reviews the role of play on the Turkey-Syria border. RHEA DILLON performs an opera of the street, EMILY BARKER reviews accessible bathrooms and KAZEEM KUTEYI goes outside. SETH WHEELER and JAMILA SQUIRE review shoplifting. JACK SELF reviews object persistence, MADDY WEAVERS reviews comfort and SAMIHA MEEM reviews the Adobe Suite. JERRY GOGOSIAN reviews Instagram, LUCY ROEBER reviews the Milf and JACKIE WANG reviews Tiqqun. Plus much more.