McKenzie Wark / Post Cultural Studies

While I was working on my book Raving, about the Brooklyn queer rave scene, I heard an interview with another writer, about another scene, describe parts of the city as "post cultural." That shocked me, at first, then I came to think that it might be right. What would it mean to think of culture as something that is disappearing? Not that there is culture and it's bad, but that there is no culture, good or bad. That in some parts of the urban and media environments there's nothing left but a kind of post cultural decoration. If one can provisionally admit the possibility of the post cultural, one might then imagine a post cultural studies, and a post cultural practice.

McKenzie Wark is the author, among other things, of Reverse Cowgirl (Semiotexte), Raving (Duke) and Love and Money, Sex and Death (Verso). She is Professor of Media and Culture at Eugene Lang College, The New School in New York.

Co-presented by the Power Institute and UNSW Art & Design, with support from Performance Space.