Zombies

Victoriana and Viruses:
mashups, esthetics, and anxious retrofuturism

Carrying into contemporary discourse

Making over into your own image

Conversation

Old (forgotten, irrelevant?), hidden, inaccessible,
someone else’s (shared or not shared)

Data <--> narrative
Categorizing, manipulating, retelling, story to machine,
machine to story

What is it about zombies anyway? www.lostzombies.com

…incantation

“Is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?"
viral "What's the difference?"

…seeing

Children are sacks of infection. [Seeing what you shouldn’t] was the
sort of thing that spread diseases. Epidemiology was always
viral complicated here and back home.

Ok, sure, everyone loves zombies and viruses. But why Austen?

‘Should my next Arduino project have a
steampunk or a Muji esthetic?’

We're building a lot of our worlds looking backward instead of
at the world now… We tend to be insular and self referential…
it keeps us from making things for anyone else.
--Raph Koster, on video games and retrofuturism

"I like the visual aesthetics
of it,'' said Victor Sargeant,
44, of Eatontown. "It harkens
back to the Victorian and
Edwardian styles, but it also
has an understanding of
science fiction when the idea
of technology was a wonderful
thing and it would benefit all
of mankind, which kind of
disappeared after World War I.''

It disappeared after 15 million
were killed in World War I,
thanks to all the new wonderful
technology. But we digress.

Chris Jordan, “Piscataway event celebrates
the Victorian era”, mycentraljersey,com

Anomie, which literally means “without law” … was defined by Durkheim
to be a state of “normlessness.” Durkheim posited that in times of social
change and upheaval, clear societal standards and expectations for
individuals vanish. Without “clear rules, norms, or standards of value”
people feel anxious, rootless, confused, and even suicidal. Life in an
age of anomie can often feel empty and meaningless.

if there is no absolute
right and wrong, then
what grounds is there for
criticism? …Now, this led
to a good deal of general
frustration, for people are
naturally censorious and
love nothing better than to
criticise others’ shortcomings.
And so it was that they seized
on hypocrisy and elevated it
from a ubiquitous peccadillo
into the monarch of all vices.

“Of course she herself is
suspicious of that order, although
she also insisted upon it. She
lived in the midst of 20 years of
nearly constant war. Her
countryside was green and pretty,
but it was also haunted, as were
the cities and the villages, by
returning soldiers dazed, some
insane, and often with amputated
limbs.”

As he speaks, I feel a chill in the
otherwise warm, sunshiny day.

Gendy Alimurung, “This Zombie Moment:
Hunting for What Lies Beneath the
Undead Zeitgeist,” LA Weekly, May 2009

Zombies

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