Black Box Syndrome
Black Box Syndrome by Jose-Luis Moctezuma, published by Omnidawn Publishing in 2023, presents a collection of 75 poems that engage with systems of chance and divination as a response to the pervasive influence of financial systems. This edition explores the intersections of various disciplines, drawing on the ancient Chinese divination text, the I Ching, and the aleatoric traditions of surrealism, while addressing the complexities of modern life shaped by financialization.
Readers will find that Black Box Syndrome delves into themes of death, grief, and loss, synthesizing elements of Aztec anatomical science and conspiracy theory with contemporary systems theory. The poems, described as “black boxes,” challenge the corrosive effects of financial markets and propose a counter-divination that seeks to disrupt and decolonize the prevailing logic of empire. Through this innovative approach, the work invites contemplation on the tensions between lyrical expression and the constraints of digital compaction in today’s world.
Official synopsis Publisher
Poems that follow systems of chance and divination to counter corrosive financial systems.
Jose-Luis Moctezuma’s Black Box Syndrome is a series of poems–or “black boxes”–based on black hexagrams in the I Ching, an ancient Chinese divination text. Following the aleatoric tradition popularized by the surrealists and extended by the work of John Cage and Jackson Maclow, these poems cast their lenses on the hazards of the incessant financialization of everyday life. Synthesizing chance-operational aesthetics with Aztec anatomical science, conspiracy theory with systems theory, and the black box model with the concept of the “influencing machine,” Black Box Syndrome explores tensions between lyric excess and digital compaction in the age of pandemic. Over and against the corrosive world-shrinking effects of Wall Street risk management and futures trading, the black boxes in this book propose a counter-divination that distorts, deranges, and decolonizes the logic of empire.
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