A Diatribe from the Remains of Dr. Fred McCabe

This is the moment my water arrived at room temperature

About a month ago in handling the remains of one Dr. Fred McCabe I found rich notes of contemplation on the subject of information theory. It appears that Fred could have written an entire book on the intricacies of hidden data, encoded messages and deceptive methods of transmission. Instead his notes exist in the form […]

first issue of rattle journal

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first issue of rattle journal

I have an article in the first issue of rattle journal, available now

To crush a Morlock’s skull

Although the Time traveller is an inquisitive type his journey through the crumbling museum offers him little insight. The relics are from his future: the arché has all but snapped off from archeology. As he leaves the Time Traveller ponders how best to crush a Morlock’s skull.

Should We Clone Neanderthals?

The Neanderthal is the most futuristic thing I can think of. Riddled with mythic charm, and soon to have its genes sequenced in the laboratory. Darwin wrote about the fittest surviving, but as a causal chain ‘natural’ biology has all but ceased to sow its paradigm.

Neanderthals may have interbred with humans

We live in a world of parasitoid wasps injecting their host with a virus that re-writes DNA…

…of skyscrapers designed in the 1960s coming to symbolise the turmoil of a new millennium.
…of a North Korean leader accused of using plastic surgery to counterfeit his doppelganger.
…of seedless grapes upgraded with information encrypted and compressed onto DVD Rom.
…of Kings, cargo cults and cannibals.

How the Neanderthals met their grisly end 30,000 years ago…we ate them

I am interested in the liminal phase between these states: the threshold betwixt when a Neanderthal is both lumbering Caliban and scientific curio. I am interested in the one genetically modified grape vine in every thousand that still harbours a bitter tasting seed. There is no room for representation here, and nor will there ever be in a world of non-privileged data packets interspersing culture at the speed of light.

New Mobile App Lets You Morph Yourself into a Neanderthal

Nature has never copied, never aimed to represent. These two are constructs of the human sphere, of art and computer code willing their paradigms onto perception. All around us are hybrids and shape-shifters: relations becoming related through noise and mistranslation. From Deleuze and Guattari:

“…it is a matter of something altogether different: no longer an imitation at all, but the capture of a code, the code’s surplus value, an increase in valence, a genuine becoming – the becoming-orchid of the wasp, the becoming-wasp of the orchid.”

Neanderthals may have interbred with humans

Without categories the archive submits to entropy, but that doesn’t mean that the laws of creation will cease to tick and tock. Like the Time Traveller, leafing through the textbooks of his future in an ancient museum, we can help old paradigms become new past-futures. But first, we must smash a few Morlock skulls.

Bible does not contradict human, Neanderthal link

Inside Code: A Conversation with Dr. Lane DeNicola and Seph Rodney

The Rosetta Stone

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to take part in a panel discussion on London based, arts radio station, Resonance FM. It was for The Thread, a lively show that aims to use speech and discussion as a tool for research, opening up new and unexpected angles through the unravelling of conversation.

audio essay : On Pharaohs, Cults and Parasitism (The Condition of Division)

On Pharoahs, Cults and Parasitism (The Condition of Division)

audio essay : On Pharaohs, Cults and Parasitism (The Condition of Division)

Originally broadcast on Resonance 104.4 FM as part of Antepress’ Digestives series, Monday 24th May 2010

[audio:http://machinemachine.net/text/podcast/2010/may/DIGESTIVES_MON-24th-MAY_Title-On-Pharaohs-Cults-and-Parasitism_by-Daniel-Rourke.mp3|titles=On Pharaohs, Cults and Parasitism (The Condition of Division)]

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The Opposition Paradigm (Together Again for the First Time)

Clegg, Cameron, Brown : The First Ever UK Election Television Debate

figure i : he stands opposite his rivals You are the only one who can never see yourself apart from your image. In the reflection of a mirror, or the pigment of the photograph you entertain yourself. Every gaze you cast is mediated by a looking apparatus, by an image you must stand alongside. The […]

/noise : Blues, Reds (and some Yellows)

Blues, Reds (and some Yellows)Podcast: 7th May 2010 / theme = Blues, Reds (and some Yellows)

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