Robert Regier

Posted on 2014/12/05 by

Boot Camp: “Composing a Backward Essay;” or: “Making Deformative Poetics with My Computer;” or: “How to Completely Erase Your Hard Drive;” or: “Sabotaging Conclusions”

The titles always come last. Before that, comes the final warning: This essay irrecoverably destroys data! Eulogy: I regard the wasted corpse that used to be my computer. Once glitched beyond repair, now a useless assemblage of titanium, plastic, wire and glass. Many of its sensual qualities remain: the keys that have embraced the impact of my Read More

Posted on 2014/11/30 by

Emoticon Love, the Transmission of Affect and Breaking up via Text: New Ways to Map “Emoticontent”

Still feeling depressed after being dumped more than one month earlier, 2 has found difficulty in making sense of a range of negative emotions. Sad YouTube does not help. Nor do a variety of online psychological helpsites. After experimenting with an online “mood journal,” 2 reports an incapacity to “find words to type out the Read More

Posted on 2014/11/19 by

Deforming the Human Interface: Glitches, Orlan, and Interacting with Biodigital Mess

The quest for “universals of communication” ought to make us shudder – Gilles Deleuze (qtd in Galloway and Thacker, 23) What universally communicative method could provide a better survey of the “manifest image” of the human face than Facebook? A search through the expansive territories of “face” gleans a uniform notion of expression embodying the Read More

Posted on 2014/11/13 by

The Kanye West Phonotext: sampling, sharing, re-appropriation and racism

As a “graduate candidate” in literary studies, I often ask myself whether my analyses of unpopular, neglected poems, novels and plays are culturally relevant.  This short essay considers some things that are perhaps too often ignored by English scholars — the immense relevance of American popular music, how music relates to current trends in culture Read More