Datacide

Author: Stewart Home

Book ReviewsDatacide 14
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Robert Dellar, Splitting In Two: Mad Pride & Punk Rock Oblivion (Unkant Publishing) (Book Review)

Robert Dellar’s book is part autobiography, part social history and in places morphs into fiction. It covers both Dellar’s own life via punk rock and the dehumanisation of those deemed clinically insane by the powers that be. While in academia the idea that madness might be the only sane response to capitalist society is often discussed in terms of Deleuze and Guattari’s anti-Oedipal theories, Dellar has a more hands on and activist approach to ‘bad craziness’.

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2008Datacide 10Film Reviews
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Peter Whitehead and the Sixties

Peter Whitehead, a filmmaker and enigmatic figure, captured key moments of the 1960s counterculture with his documentaries “Wholly Communion” and “Benefit of the Doubt.” Despite lacking formal filmmaking skills, Whitehead documented major cultural events like Allen Ginsberg’s poetry readings and Pink Floyd performances. His spontaneous, raw filming style, immortalized these moments in British countercultural history, especially *Wholly Communion*. Review of the BFI’s DVD release by Stewart Home in Datacide 10 (2008).

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2002Book ReviewsDatacide 8
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Was Marx A Postmodernist?

Double book review by Stewart Home from Datacide Eight. Leslie’s Marxist reading of Benjamin contrasts sharply with Olson’s anti-Marxist take on comedy. Leslie, a British Socialist Workers Party activist, seeks to reclaim Benjamin for Trotskyism, critiquing both philosophical appropriations of Benjamin and the cult around him. Olson, an old-fashioned liberal with anarchist leanings, critiques the shift from a classical to a neo-Marxist literary canon, though his grasp of Marxism is flawed. While Olson’s work lacks Leslie’s rigor, both books offer corrective insights when read together, illustrating the tensions between politics, aesthetics, and ideology.

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