FISHER, Mark
Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction [UK Edition]

Completed in 1999 during his time with the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, Mark Fisher’s PhD thesis, Flatline Constructs, invents a fusion of culture, critique, and radical philosophy that would define his signature style. Drawing on sources from David Cronenberg to Gilles Deleuze and William Gibson, Fisher presents a Gothic vision of cyberpunk reality, in which Man and media are drawn ever closer together, and life and death are never truly far apart. [publishers’ note]

“One of the aims of Flatline Constructs is to play off Deleuze-Guattari and Baudrillard against each other on the question the Meyrinck’s passage poses. In developing theories radically antipathetic to subjectivity, Deleuze-Guattari and Baudrillard have occupied parallel trajectories, sometimes closely intermeshing, sometimes radically diverging. One common feature is the – cybernetic – emphasis on code (as we shall see, one major difference between them concerns the role of decoding).”
— Mark Fisher

With an introduction by Adam C. Jones (Acid Horizon)

Published by Zero Books, 2025
Essays / Politics / Science/Fiction / Media Studies