Description
Book SynopsisHow (and why) are new technologies radically reshaping our desires?
Trade Review'If you want a glimpse into how our desires are manufactured under our new techno-feudal order, and how love can prove our last defence, read Alfie Bown's 'Dream Lovers''
-- Yanis Varoufakis
'Alfie Bown is one of the smartest writers around. Dream Lovers is an exciting, astute analysis of how our capacity for desire and reverie has been slotted into the grooves of digital capitalism, and made to work for profit - from porn to Pokémon'
-- Richard Seymour, author of 'The Twittering Machine'
'A brisk and engaging examination of the gamification of love, a sharp analysis of contemporary technopolitics and of the synthetic quality of desire'
-- Helen Hester, Professor of Gender, Technology and Cultural Politics at the University of West London, and author of 'After Work: The Fight for Free Time' with Nick Srnicek
'Informative, entertaining and devastating all at once. Extremely well-argued and persuasive, it clearly shows how the technologies that promise to help us find love, or even just sex, are also perfectly designed to exploit us at our most vulnerable'
-- Anouchka Grose, writer and psychoanalyst at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research
'When love is being turned into NFTs and algorithms know more about our desires than ourselves, we should subject this new libidinal economy to ruthless analysis. Dream Lovers does precisely this in an erudite and exciting way'
-- Srećko Horvat, author of 'The Radicality of Love'
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Grindr Saga
1. Data Love
2. The Digital Libidinal City
3. Simulation and Stimulation: from Games to Porn
4. The Match: Metaphor vs Metonymy
Conclusion: Ready Worker One
