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Grafton Tanner

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Grafton Tanner is an American author and academic. His work focuses on Big Tech, nostalgia, neoliberalism, and education.[1][2][3] Tanner is a limited-term instructor at the University of Georgia's Department of Communications.[4]

Academic work

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Babbling Corpse

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Tanner's first book, Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts, was written in 2016 for Zer0 Books Publishers. Tanner analyzed vaporwave, a genre of lo-fi music based on internet aesthetics and 1980s consumerism, through the lens of Mark Fisher's capitalist realism as a response to capitalism in a post-September 11th world saturated with culture. Babbling Corpse was generally well received by reviewers.[5] Writing for Broken Pencil, Joel Vaughan claimed the book is best when dealing with aesthetics, but "loses a little steam when diving into the mud of theory."[6]

Following the English release of Tanner's third book, The Hours Have Lost Their Clock, Babbling Corpse received a 2022 Spanish translation by Cristóbal Durán for Ediciones Holobionte, titled Un cadáver balbuceante. El Vaporwave y los fantasmas electrónicos.[7] Eduardo Almiñana of Culturplaza praised the book for portraying hyperconsumerism as a sickness of culture that vaporwave fights against, stating: "tendencies like YouTube Poop and many other forms of expression that include the appropriation and alteration with few means have flourished like ephemeral mushrooms in the shadows of artificial fires and in the medium of a widespread poltergeist."[8]

Views

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In an interview with Enrique Zamorano of El Confidencial, Tanner states that artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT embody the cultural malaise of hauntology as machines can only artificially replicate human nostalgia and societal attitudes.[9]

Books

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  • Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts, 2016. Zer0 Books. ISBN 1782797599, 978-1782797593.[10]
  • The Circle of the Snake: Nostalgia and Utopia in the Age of Big Tech, 2020. Zer0 Books. ISBN 1789040221, 978-1789040227.[11][12]
  • The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia, 2021. Repeater Books. ISBN 9781913462444.[13][14]
  • Foreverism, 2024. Polity. ISBN 1509558063, 978-1509558063.[15][16]

References

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  1. ^ Kenney, Erin (2021-01-15). "Q&A: UGA professor discusses new book on nostalgia and technology". The Red and Black.
  2. ^ Abdelfatah, Rund; Arablouei, Ramtin; Caine, Julie; Kaplan-Levenson, Laine; Wu, Lawrence; Yvellez, Victor; Adriana, Tapia; Mazariegos, Miranda; Steinberg, Anya (2021-10-14). "The Nostalgia Bone". National Public Radio.
  3. ^ Veltman, Chloe (2021-12-09). "Ah, Remember the Days When Your Toy Might Contain Real Uranium?". KQED.
  4. ^ "Grafton Tanner". University of Georgia.
  5. ^ Shafer, Cody Ray (2016-10-16). "Babbling Corpse". Under the Radar.
  6. ^ Vaughan, Joel W. (Winter 2017). ""Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts"". Broken Pencil (74): 48 – via Gale.
  7. ^ "Un cadáver balbuceante. El Vaporwave y los fantasmas electrónicos por Grafton Tanner". Holobiontes Ediciones. 2022-05-11. Retrieved 2024-10-14.
  8. ^ Almiñana, Eduardo (2022-07-18). "'Un cadáver balbuceante', los fantasmas electrónicos del vaporwave de Grafton Tanner" ["A Babbling Corpse," vaporwave's electronic ghosts by Grafton Tanner]. Cultur Plaza (in Spanish). tendencias como el YouTube Poop y otras muchas formas de expresión que incluyen la apropiación y alteración con pocos medios han florecido como hongos efímeros a la sombra de los fuegos artificiales y en medio de un poltergeist generalizado
  9. ^ Zamorano, Enrique (2023-03-26). "Entrevista a Grafton Tanner: "No, no quiero un nuevo 'smartphone', quiero ser capaz de pagar una casa"" [Interview with Grafton Tanner: "No, I don't want a new smartphone, I want to be able to buy a house."]. El Confidencial (in Spanish). Retrieved 2024-10-14. Por ello se produce un bucle de retroalimentación entre la máquina y nosotros. Un "feedback loop". Claro que es posible que exprese emociones nostálgicas o melancólicas si tú no paras de buscar y colgar contenidos melancólicos, al igual que sucedería si solo subieras contenidos que promueven la crispación o el enfado. Pero bueno, esa es la relación al fin y al cabo que tenemos con los medios de comunicación de masas: si ven que la sociedad está enfadada, seguirán fomentando el enfado. [For that it creates a feedback loop between the machine and us. A "feedback loop." Clearly it's possible for it to express nostalgic or melancholic emotions just the same as if you only uploaded content that promotes tension or anger. But, well, that is the relationship we have with mass communication, after all: if they see an angry society, they will keep promoting the anger.]
  10. ^ Behrenshausen, Bryan (2019-02-19). "Babbling Corpse". Private Suite. 5: 10–11 – via Utopia District.
  11. ^ Ranger, Jamie (July 14, 2021). "Book Review: The Circle of the Snake: Nostalgia and Utopia in the Age of Big Tech by Grafton Tanner". TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. 19 (2): 301–306. doi:10.31269/triplec.v19i2.1276. S2CID 237769826 – via www.triple-c.at.
  12. ^ Kemmerer, Laura. "Book Review: Circle of the Snake". What Sleeps Beneath.
  13. ^ Marx, Paris (2021-10-22). "Don't Give in to the Culture Industry's Appeals to Nostalgia". Jacobin.
  14. ^ Russo, Emmalea (2021-12-29). "Imagining a More Habitable Present: On Grafton Tanner's "The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia"". Los Angeles Review of Books.
  15. ^ Lancaster, Guy (2024-02-02). "'Foreverism' by Grafton Tanner reviewed by Guy Lancaster". Marx and Philosophy. Retrieved 2024-08-01.
  16. ^ Stark, Andrew (2024-01-26). "'Yesterday' and 'Foreverism' Review: Forward Into the Past". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2024-10-14.
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