“Ghosts of My Life confirms that Mark Fisher is our most penetrating explorer of the connections between pop culture, politics, and personal life under the affective regime of digital capitalism. The most admirable qualities of Fisher’s work are its lucidity, reflecting the urgency of his commitment to communicating ideas; his high expectations of popular art’s power to challenge, enlighten, and heal; and his adamant refusal to settle for less“ - blurb for Ghosts of My Life
"As much as his actual ideas – which have
been so influential, and certainly have influenced me – what I respond to in
Mark’s work is the writing itself, being a writer myself. The sheer style of
it, and the clarity. I admire the way he could distil complex ideas into
instantly graspable, punchy one or two-sentence statements. Or even just a
phrase, which would then worked as a kind of concept-slogan, a meme:
“capitalist realism”, “depressive hedonism”, “the secret sadness of the 21st
Century”, so many more.
Although he was intensely serious, Mark
could also be savagely funny – usually when he was tearing something to shreds.
If he thought something was pernicious or reactionary, he gave no quarter, and
ridicule was one of his most effective weapons. His strength as a thinker and
writer came precisely from this polarized love/hate, adore/abhor
approach. So Mark could heroize certain figures like Burial with definitive
takes on what their music represented, make them into almost mythic figures.
But he would also “nihilate” – that’s a term he used, the power of nihilation -
the opposition: anything that didn’t come up to his exacting standards of
what pop culture could and should be."
- director's cut version of a quote supplied to Mark Fisher tribute article by Adam Corner for Crack magazine
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