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Mark Fisher

Mark Fisher (11 July 1968 â€“ 13 January 2017), also known under his blogging alias k-punk, was an English writer, music critic, political and cultural theorist, philosopher, and teacher based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. He initially achieved acclaim for his blogging as k-punk in the early 2000s, and was known for his writing on radical politics, music, and popular culture.

For other people named Mark Fisher, see Mark Fisher (disambiguation).

Mark Fisher

(1968-07-11)11 July 1968

Leicester, England

13 January 2017(2017-01-13) (aged 48)

Felixstowe, England

k-punk

Zoe Fisher

1

Fisher published several books, including the unexpected success Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009), and contributed to publications such as The Wire, Fact, New Statesman and Sight & Sound. He was also the co-founder of Zero Books, and later Repeater Books. After years intermittently struggling with depression, Fisher died by suicide in January 2017, shortly before the publication of The Weird and the Eerie (2017).

Early life and education[edit]

Fisher was born in Leicester and raised in Loughborough to working-class, conservative parents; his father was an engineering technician and his mother a cleaner. He attended a local comprehensive school. Fisher was formatively influenced in his youth by the post-punk music press of the late 1970s, particularly papers such as NME which crossed music with politics, film, and fiction.[1] He was also influenced by the relationship between working class culture and football, being present at the Hillsborough disaster.[2] Fisher earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Philosophy at Hull University (1989), and completed a PhD at the University of Warwick in 1999 titled Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction.[3] During this time, Fisher was a founding member of the interdisciplinary collective known as the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, which were associated with accelerationist political thought and the work of philosophers Sadie Plant and Nick Land.[1][4] There, he befriended and influenced producer Kode9, who would later found the Hyperdub record label.[5] In the early 1990s, he also made music as part of the techno group D-Generation, releasing the 12" Entropy in the UK.[5][6] In the 1990s Mark wrote "White Magic" for CritCrim.org.[7]


After teaching philosophy at a further education college,[8] Fisher began his blog on cultural theory, k-punk, in 2003.[9] Music critic Simon Reynolds described it as "a one-man magazine superior to most magazines in Britain"[1] and as the central hub of a "constellation of blogs" in which popular culture, music, film, politics, and critical theory were discussed in tandem by journalists, academics, and colleagues.[10] Vice magazine later described his writing on k-punk as "lucid and revelatory, taking literature, music and cinema we're familiar with and effortlessly disclosing its inner secrets".[11] Fisher used the blog as a more flexible, generative venue for writing, a respite from the frameworks and expectations of academic writing.[12] Fisher also co-founded the message board Dissensus with writer Matt Ingram.[1]

Personal life[edit]

In an article posted to the k-punk blog on 29 September 2004, Fisher wrote about having experienced sexual abuse in his early twenties.[41]

Death[edit]

Fisher died by suicide at his home on King Street, Felixstowe on 13 January 2017 at the age of 48, shortly before the publication of his latest book The Weird and the Eerie (2017). He had sought psychiatric treatment in the weeks leading up to his death, but his general practitioner had only been able to offer over-the-phone meetings to discuss a referral. Fisher's mental health had deteriorated since May 2016, leading to a suspected overdose in December 2016, when he was admitted to Ipswich Hospital.[42] He discussed his struggles with depression in articles[43] and in his book Ghosts of My Life. According to Simon Reynolds in The Guardian, Fisher argued that "the pandemic of mental anguish that afflicts our time cannot be properly understood, or healed, if viewed as a private problem suffered by damaged individuals."[44]

Legacy[edit]

Fisher has been posthumously acclaimed as a highly influential thinker and theorist.[45][46] Commenting on Fisher's influence in Tribune, Alex Niven recalled that Fisher's "lucidity, but more than that, his ability to get to the heart of what was wrong with late-capitalist culture and right about the putative alternative...seemed to have cracked some ineffable code".[47] In The Irish Times Rob Doyle wrote that "a more interesting British writer has not appeared in this century",[48] while The Guardian described Fisher's k-punk blog posts as "required reading for a generation".[49] In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Roger Luckhurst called Fisher "one of Britain's most trenchant, clear-sighted, and sparky cultural commentators...it is a catastrophe that we no longer have Mark Fisher".[50] He still has a large influence on contemporary Zer0 Books writers, with him being cited extensively in Guy Mankowski's 'Albion's Secret History: Snapshots of England's Pop Rebels and Outsiders'.[51] After Fisher's suicide, English musician the Caretaker, who had a symbiotic relationship with the writer,[52] released Take Care. It's a Desert Out There... in memory of him, with its proceeds being donated to the mental health charity Mind.[53]

The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson (editor). Winchester: Zero Books, 2009.  978-1-84694-348-5

ISBN

Winchester: Zero Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1-84694-317-1

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014.  978-1-78099-226-6

ISBN

Post-Punk Then and Now (editor, with and Kodwo Eshun). London: Repeater Books, 2016. ISBN 978-1-910924-26-6

Gavin Butt

The Weird and the Eerie. London: Repeater Books, 2017.  978-1-910924-38-9

ISBN

Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction (foreword by exmilitary). New York: Exmilitary Press, 2018.  978-0-692-06605-8

ISBN

k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004–2016) (edited by Darren Ambrose, foreword by ). London: Repeater Books, 2018. ISBN 978-1-912248-29-2

Simon Reynolds

Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures (edited and with an introduction by Matt Colquhoun). London: Repeater Books, 2020.  978-1-913462-48-2

ISBN

. thequietus.com. Retrieved 1 August 2015.

"An Extract From Mark Fisher's Ghosts Of My Life"

 â€“ discussing issues relative to the recession, insurrection, and Really Existing Capitalism

2012 podcast discussion with Mark Fisher

 â€“ Mark Fishers "K-Punk" Blog

K-Punk Blog Archive

Mark Fisher Tribute Site & Video Archive

Dissensus forum