Real Review, Issue 11

Real Review is a quarterly contemporary culture magazine with the strapline “what it means to live today”. Our agenda focuses on the politics of space, and trying to understand how everyday conditions enforce and reinforce power relations.

In this issue:

The collective trauma of the pandemic has become an excuse for global capital to accelerate the total commodification of everyday life. Everything is for sale. There is more merchandise than love, more sponsored content than truth. No society in human history has demanded so many people be such active participants in producing the contemporary. No contemporary has ever been so aggressively monetised.

As a coping mechanism, many amongst us have decided to check out from reality altogether; preferring to inhabit tailor-made fantasies and simulations. But only children believe that closing their eyes renders them invisible to monsters. When the monsters are real, closing our eyes rather increases the danger.

INSIDE REAL REVIEW 11

We interview physicist CARLO ROVELLI on the modern concept of time. Philosopher TIMOTHY MORTON pens a love song to non-human life. Artist HELEN MARTEN contributes a multiple in the form of a scratch card. YUK HUI reviews history and technology, while KELLER EASTERLING reviews designing reality. Economist CHIARA DI LEONE reviews negative interest rates, while an anonymous writer from domyessayright.com reviews DAVID GRAEBER’S book Bullshit Jobs. MAISA IMAMOVIC reviews product styling for online shopping (photography by CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS), while GABRIELLE de la PUENTE reviews Long Covid.

Also in the issue: LAURA LIZONDO and DEBORA DOMINGO-CALABUIG review LILLY REICH; artist ANDI SCHMEID reviews ultra-high net worth real estate; KRIS KOZLOWSKI reviews the lawn; BELLA GLADMAN reviews the X-FILES; architect EDDIE BLAKE reviews hi-viz clothing, and JACK SELF reviews conspiracists and Tales from the Black Museum.