Real Review Magazine – Issue 18: Pretending the World

To pretend means to “lay claim” – to stretch forward and take hold of what we want, as if it already existed, or were already ours. To pretend is thus to call forth another reality and create truth through the power of conviction alone. It is fashionable to ridicule performative gestures as ineffective posturing. Yet this is literally the only way that new societies come into being.

This issue of Real Review is dedicated to the current mood of Pretending the World.

Featuring Petro Chekal’s photo “There Is,” an interview with Meredith Whittaker, a photo essay and interview with Alvaro Fernandez-Pulpeiro on Petro Futures, with further contributions by Günseli Yalçinkaya on Reality Shifting, Jack Self on Retrocausality, Ana Nicolaescu on Slopwork or the Work of Slop, Ivan Self on Larping an Empire, Tyler Mitchell, Ruth Schwartz Cowan on More Work for Mother, Pierce Myers on Mesoeconomy of Fire, Kwan Queeni Li on Weeds, Jenny Barcelos on Careless Whisper 1999, Jessica Burbank on Syndicates of Capital, Sumayya Vally in conversation with Shumon Basar on the spaces of other worlds, James Bridle on There Is No Off Grid, Guy Mackinnon-Little on A World That Is Also A Demon, Elmer Blåvarg on Para Neo Realism, and the RR Members contributing through the groupchat.