PUBLICATIONS
Books [author]
Prophetic Culture: Recreation for adolescents (London, Bloomsbury, 2021)
With an afterword by Franco Berardi 'Bifo'
- published in Spanish as Cultura Profetica, Enclave de Libros, 2022.
- published in Italian as Cultura Profetica, Edizioni Tlon, 2023.
Endorsements
“It's not enough to realize that the world is ending; we need to learn how to dream up new ones. Federico Campagna's Prophetic Culture - a worthy successor to his Technic and Magic - offers an eloquent, evocative and visionary map for drafting the cosmos to come.” – John Tresch, Mellon Professor in History of Art, Science, and Folk Practice, The Warburg Institute, UK
“A world does not simply exist from a human point of view. It needs to be maintained and even entertained by means of song and story. But how to perform this maintenance, or housekeeping if time and space break down, if the present becomes unpredictable, the past keeps changing, the future is past and the “house” as such becomes precarious, unstable and unavailable? Despite its wealth of historical references to prophetism and gnostic traditions Federico Campagna's book is in my view an intriguing experiment of how to turn something as mundane and pedestrian as housekeeping into a necessary tool of remaking the world, to turn housekeeping into world making so to speak.” – Hito Steyerl, Filmmaker and writer
“Federico Campagna's Prophetic Culture is a brilliant meditation on the planetary debacle of Westernized Modernity and a radical evocation of the spiritual and imaginative realities that may just possibly lie beyond the ruins of our future. A lucid and urgent work.” – Jonathan Crary, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory, Columbia University, USA
"This is a visionary book, highly original in conception. It offers an eloquent series of meditations on the forms of cultural and political possibility embedded within Judaeo-Christian mysticism, and addresses the prevailing sense of cultural crisis with confidence. Like Giorgio Agamben, Federico Campagna is an eclectic thinker with an internally coherent and urgent message for our time." – Malcolm Bull, Professor in History of Art, Christ Church College, Oxford, UK.
“This book sets a new tone - but this tone is immediately recognizable as belonging to our time.” – Boris Groys, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, New York University, USA
"Something has ended. What comes next is still unclear. At a time when extrapolative futures designed for navigating more stable realities are proving inadequate, Prophetic Culture offers a possible angle of approach, through a new kind of worlding, for the hazy, futureless reality fast approaching from over the imaginative horizon." – Anthony Dunne, Professor of Design and Social Inquiry, The New School, USA.
“Campagna has written the score for a piece that allows its own end. It dies within and in its death gives us life in form of a humble prayer. A prayer whose words we have forgotten long ago but whose rhythm we still sing to ourselves.” – Nicolas Jaar, Composer.
“We are on the bridge between worlds: Federico Campagna shows us how we might remake the cartographies of the next. The ‘end of the world’, as seen through the prophetic attitude, becomes not apocalypse, but apocatastasis: a joyful restoration. Campagna offers the cosmic trip for our collective transformation, inadvertently becoming a prophet for our time. Prophetic Culture is the foundational book for the day after tomorrow.” — Sarah Shin and Ben Vickers, Ignota Books.
Reviews
- Riccardo Manzotti, Cultura Profetica: fatti e illusioni, Doppiozero, 13 January 2024.
- Alessandro Mantovani, Profezie Alla Fine Della Storia, Il Tascabile, 7 December 2023
- Anna Enström, Critique of the Power of Prophecy, Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 32 (65-66) (2023)
- Eduardo Savarese, Cultura Profetica, messaggi per il mondi a venire, Il Riformista, 8 July 2023.
- Edoardo Camurri, Alla Scoperta del Ramo d'Oro, Rai3, 6 July 2023. (video)
- Marco Petroni, Immaginare nuovi mondi. Il nuovo saggio di Federico Campagna, Artribune, 18 June 2023.
- Alessandro Mazzi, L’arte di costruire rovine: una cultura profetica per i mondi a venire, L'Indiscreto, 14 June 2023.
- Filippo Scafi, Sul Futuro Possibile di Ogni Apocalisse, Quaderni d'Altri Tempi, 26 May 2023.
- Giulia Bocchio, Il crepuscolo della nostra era: Cultura profetica di Federico Campagna, Poetarum Silva, 24 May 2023.
- Anders Dunker, Verdens ende eller framtidens begynnelse, Le Monde Diplomatique Norway, May 2021 (in Norwegian)
- Vents Vīnbergs, What does a Shaman, a Wizard or Metaphysician Have to Say to a Teenager, (also in Russian and Latvian), Arterritory, 23/06/2020.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Technic and Magic: the reconstruction of reality, (London, Bloomsbury, 2018)
Introduced by Timothy Morton.
- published in Italian as Magia e Tecnica, Edizioni Tlon, 2021.
- published in Turkish as Teknik ve Büyü: Gerçekliğin Yeniden İnşası, Vakıfbank Kültür Yayınları, 2021.
- forthcoming in Norwegian with Existenz Forlag.
- forthcoming in Spanish with Enclave de Libros.
- forthcoming in simplified Chinese with Eon Books.
Endorsements
"This is a book not only for philosophers but also for poets and their readers and for all those who try to uphold the dignity of their spiritual existence. Is magic still a liveable territory?Federico Campagna asks fundamental questions but also has original suggestions how to keep this high flame alive in a radically non-magical world."
- Adam Zagajewski
"Federico Campagna’s brilliant TECHNIC AND MAGIC is essential reading for our desperate times.
This stunning historical and philosophical exploration radically transforms our understanding of the global technological culture we now inhabit."
- Jonathan Crary, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University, New York.
"Federico Campagna's TECHNIC AND MAGIC will change the way you think about reality in strange and mysterious ways. Philosophy for the present, bringing together numerous strands of fascinating thinking."
- James Bridle, artist and author of New Dark Age
“Campagna breaks with tradition by advancing scholarship that explores a common past and common understandings of meta-philosophical concepts, crossing the geopolitical barriers between the East and the West. Rarely does one see such ability to discuss complex, metaphysical and philosophic themes in a light and poetic manner - Outstanding.”
– Ghoncheh Tazmini, Centre for Iranian Studies, SOAS University of London, UK,
"Federico Campagna's book is a brilliant tour de force that oscillates between lucid analyses of philosophical concepts, bridging the gap between Eastern and Western frameworks, and radical propositions for alternative worlds. By attempting to galvanise human perception out of its paralysed and bordered state, what William Blake refers to as ‘the narrow chinks of [our] cavern’, Campagna expertly unravels the very foundations upon which our contemporary reality sits. Technic and Magic gradually builds towards a new and striking reconfiguration of reality that merges together the past, present and future."
- Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, London, UK
"Both Technic and Magic are used by us to change the world. However, as Federico Campagna argues, Technic serves the accumulation of power whereas Magic, on the contrary, protects life and its value. In his fascinating book Campagna makes a parcours through the Indian, Islamic and old Gnostic sources to discover the hidden, hermetic tradition of magical thinking that keeps its relevance also for our contemporary condition."
- Boris Groys, Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, and Professor of Philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS.
“Campagna takes us on a philosophically rich journey that is signposted by new terms and concepts discussed with due reference to other philosophical settings, including as they developed in Persia. His engaging prose promises to make a distinct contribution to emerging fields of knowledge.” – Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of London, and Chair of the Centre for Iranian Studies at the London Middle East Institute, UK
Reviews
- Phil Ford and J.F. Mantel, On Federico Campagna's Technic and Magic, Weird Studies, Episode 134, 1 November 2022 (audio)
- Gilberto Pierazzuoli, A Partire da Magia e Tecnica di Federico Campagna, Per Un'Altra Citta', 04 April 2022.
- Marco Petroni, Non solo tecnica. Il saggio che aiuta a immaginare un altro mondo possibile, Artribune, 19 Novembre 2021.
- Alessandro Baccarin, Nelle Maglie della Tecnica: Cosmogonie e Narrazioni Assolute, Laboratorio di Archeologia Filosofica, 30 October 2021.
- Murat Güzel, Gerçeğin üzerindeki metafizik örtü, Açık Görüş, 19 September 2021.
- Alessandro Mazzi, Magia e Tecnica, Il Foglio, 25 August 2021.
- Roberto Paura, L'Egemonia della Tecnica e la Speranza della Magia, Quaderni d'Altri Tempi, 23 July 2021.
- Alessandro Longo, Magia e Autonomia, Speculum, 21 July 2021.
- Edoardo Camurri, Pagina 3, Radio 3, 5 July 2021 (audio).
- Saras Dewi, Mesin dan Magi, Kompas, 23 January 2021.
- Alessandro Longo, Reincantamento: la Tecnica e la Magia (part one, part two), Medium, April 2020.
- Helena Sederholm, Bioart, Aesthetic and Ineffable Existence, December 2019 (later published in Berger et al. (eds.), Art as We Don’t Know It, AaltoARTS Books, 2020)
- Oxana Timofeeva, What Lenin Teaches Us About Witchcraft, e-flux Journal #100, May 2019.
- Saras Dewi, Teknik dan Magi, 28/03/2019
- James Edward Draney, Federico Campagna’s Technic and Magic, Media Theory Journal, 14/12/2018.
- Jakob Horstmann, A Therapeutic Instrument, Review 31, 12/11/2018.
- Alberto Ventura, Tecnica e Magia nell'opera di Federico Campagna, L'Intellettuale Dissidente, 23/07/2018.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Last Night: anti-work, atheism, adventure (Zero Books. London, 2013)
With afterwords by Saul Newman and Franco Berardi 'Bifo'.
- published in Italian as L'Ultima Notte: anti-lavoro, ateismo, avventura (Milano, Postmedia, 2015)
- published in Spanish as La Ultima Noche: Anti-trabajo, ateísmo, aventura (Madrid, Akal, 2015). Also available in audiobook.
“By turns lyrical, acerbic and fabular, Federico Campagna updates existentialism for the 21st century. If death is certain, surely we can't afford to sacrifice our lives to the pointless labour which capital demands of us. Why do we continue to waste our lives doing it? What are the invisible bonds that keep us in servitude? The Last Night exposes the fondly held delusions that stop us from confronting these challenges - but, beware leftists and anarchists, it is our assumptions that the book dismisses most ruthlessly.”
- Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism: is there no alternative?
"Effortlessly moving between politics, philosophy and autobiography, Campagna has created an ethical compass for the lost generation of adventurers."
-Simon Critchley, author of Faith of the Faithless: experiments in political theology
"Federico Campagna’s provocative and poetic manifesto suggests we will not be atheists until we stop believing in capitalism. Contesting the abstractions that rule our lives The Last Night is an ethical manual for our warfare without welfare present."
- Benjamin Noys, author of The Persistence of the Negative: a critique of contemporary continental theory
"A precarious culture is emerging from the horizon of our time, and this book is a presage of the tide to come."
- Franco Berardi ‘Bifo’, author of The Soul at Work: from alienation to autonomy
"Like Stirner before him, Campagna has written something novel, singular and dangerous. Not a prayer book for ideologues, but something between an ethical meditation and Molotov cocktail that can be thrown against the abstractions that imprison us."
- Saul Newman, author of The Politics of Postanarchism
Reviews
- Katia Cicihoj, Stop working and start living, Review Journal for the Study of Culture, No. 40, Fall 2014.
- Daniel Whittall, The Last Night, Radical Philosophy, N. 184, March/April 2014.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Books [editor]
Quarant'Anni Contro il Lavoro: scritti essenziali di Franco Berardi Bifo, (Roma, DeriveApprodi, 2017)
- Published in Spanish as Medio Siglo Contra El Trabajo, Madrid, Traficantes de Suenos, 2023.
Federico Campagna and Emanuele Campiglio (eds), What We Are Fighting For: A Radical Collective Manifesto (London, Pluto Press, 2012)
- published in German as Wofür wir kämpfen – Manifest des Radikalen Kollektivs (Hamburg, Laika, 2013).
- published in Turkish as Ne İçin Mücadele Ediyoruz? Radikal Bir Kolektif Manifesto (Istnabul, Habitus Kitap, 2014).
"Here are the first flowers of spring: the beginning of an epochal dialogue about the human future. Inspired by the Occupy movements across the world, What We Are Fighting For should inspire all of us to join the conversation."
- Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and City of Quartz
"This collection provides a rallying point for all those who resist the dogmas of contemporary politics and seek a fresh set of alternatives. What We Are Fighting For is a manifesto full of urgent, articulate responses to the current situation."
- Simon Critchley, author of The Faith of the Faithless
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Books [contributor]
'The Ineffable as Life', in Meandering, edited by Sofia Lemos (London, Sternberg Press, 2024).
'Reality', in Speculative Facts, edited by The Department of Speculative Facts (Maastricht, Jan van Eyck Academie, 2021).
'Human', in Carrier Bag Fiction, edited by Sarah Shin and Mathias Zeiske (Leipzig, Spector Books, 2021).
‘Intelligenti Pauca: Prediction and artificial intelligence’, in Atlas of Anomalous AI, edited by Ben Vickers & K Allado-McDowell. (London, Ignota, 2020).
'Miracles', in Lisa Mara Batacchi: The Time of Discretion, edited by Veronica Caciolli. (Milano, Silvana Editoriale, 2020).
'Reality-Making: Politics and Metaphysics', in We Are Many: Art, the Political and Multiple Truths, edited by Jochen Volz and Gabi Ngcobo. (London, Koenig Books, 2019).
'Glossary', in The Shotgun, The Invisible Rail And The Spectacled Tyrant, edited by Ludovica Carabotta. (Milano, Nero, 2017).
'After Nihilism, After Technic', in Supercommunity, edited by Eflux, Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood and Anton Vidokle. (London and New York, Verso, 2017).
'Out of the House of Terror', in Symbolic Exchange, edited by Jack Self and Shumi Bose. (REAL (London, Real Estate Architecture Laboratory, 2016).
'Bridling Desire' in The Green Parrot Reader 2 (Barcelona, Green Parrot Gallery, 2015).
'Happy Precarity' in Open Office Anthology (London, Arcadia Missa, 2013).
'Foreword' and 'Nature's Nothing' in Nathan Witt, NOOO (Birmingham, An Endless Supply for SPACE Gallery, 2013).
'Hiding from the Gods: on Emancipation and the Public', in Rein Wolfs, The New Public (Cologne, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter Konig, 2012).
'Community is Dead, Long Live Community', in Art on the Underground, Central Line Series (London, Black Dog, 2012).
'The Politics of Adventure', in Rebecca LaMarre, Ideoglossia (London, The Art Writing Guild for Whitechapel Gallery, 2012).
'What Would We Do If We Didn’t Produce and Consume?', in Adelita Husni-Bey, Room For A Void (Milan, Mousse Publishing, 2012).
'Radicalizing the Armed Forces', in Alessio Longi & Seth Wheeler, Occupy Everything (New York, Autonomedia/Minor Compositions, 2011).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Exhibition Catalogues [contributor]
Catalogue for the exhibition of Alessandro Fogo. Vacancy Gallery, Shanghai, China / December 2023.
Philippe Parreno, Cahiers D'Art. Fall 2023.
In Unity as in Division, Sergio Suarez's exhibition, curated by Donovan Johnson. Johnson Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA. September 2023.
Online publication accompanying the exhibition Under This Strange Sun, editoed by Denisa Tomková. Kunsthalle Bratislava, Slovakia, 2023
Pedro Wirz, monograph. Lauched at Nagel Draxler gallery. November 2023
Under this Strange Sun, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia. April-June 2023.
Tomorrow's Myths, edited by Nick Axel for the Korean pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale and e-flux. 2023.
Mudec United, 'Rainbow', edited by Carlo Antonelli for MUDEC Museum, Milan, Italy. April 2023.
Chrysalis, edited by Andrea Bellini. Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, Switzerland. 2023.
Margarita Gluzberg, Karsten Schubert, London, UK. 2022.
The Wall: Peter Peri , 'Night is also a sun', Almine Rech, Brussels, Belgium. 2022.
Russian Federation Pavilion, curated by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli. 17th Venice Biennale Architecture, Venice, Italy. 2021.
Nuovo Forno del Pane – A Logbook, MAMbo Museum, Bologna. 2021.
Chiara Fumai: Poems I will Never Release, 2007–2017, curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi and Milovan Farronato in collaboration with Andrea Bellini. Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Switzerland. 2020.
Scrivere Disegnando: Quand la langue cherche son autre, curated by Andrea Bellini and Sarah Lombardi. Cente d'Art Contemporain Geneve, Switzerland. 2020.
Againandagainandagainand, curated by Lorenzo Balbi. Mambo, Museo di Arte Moderna Bologna, Bologna, Italy. 2020.
Ambiente X, solo show by Benni Bosetto, curated by Giulia Civardi. Kunstraum, London, UK. 2020.
Cale, cale, cale! caale!!!, curated by Juan Canela. Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture, San Sebastian, Spain. May 2018.
Vita Interiore, solo show by Alessandro Bava. Museo Apparente, Naples, Italy. March-May 2018.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Journals
Concreta, vol. 21, Primavera 2023, Sermon Para los Padres de Maquinas Jovenes.
Design Issues Vol. 34, No. 2, Spring 2018 - Book review of Games | Game Design | Game Studies: An Introduction by Gundolf S. Freyermuth.
e-flux Supercommunity, July 2015 – After Nihilism, After Technic: sketeches for a new philosophical architecture.
Anarchist Studies, Volume 22, Number 2 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, January 2015) - We Have Nothing of Our Own But Time: Baltasar Garcian's strategy of disrespectful opportunism.
E.R.O.S. Journal, Issue 5, Death Vol.1 (London: Eros Press, December 2014) - The Root of Extinction.
E.R.O.S. Journal, Issue 4, Man (London: Eros Press, May 2014) - The Cunning Man.
Anarchist Studies, Volume 21, Number 2 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, September 2013) - Beyond the Anarch: Stirner, Junger, Pessoa.
...ment journal, Movement (London: Book Works, 2013) - From Resistance to Victory: on the Logics of Emancipatory Warfare.
Nyx a nocturnal: Skin, Issue 8 Spring-Summer 2013 - A Conversation With Federico Campagna (with Kevin Molin).
...ment journal, Issue 2, Spring/Summer 2012 - Discipline: on Writing and Collectivity.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Magazines
Gagosian Quarterly Magazine – Around and Around and Around: Federico Campagna and Carsten Höller. Winter 2023 (link 1 , 2 , 3)
Che Fare – L’intellettuale è chi si pone in ascolto, 14 September 2022 (link)
Parole.cc – Oikos: The Home as a Cosmogram, March 2022. (link)
Real Review #2 (REAL Foundation: London, 2017) - A Review of the Occupy Movement.
Lyra Magazine, issue 1. – Lust.
The White Review No.13, 2015 - The Pope Dressed in Armour.
Eutopia magazine, February 2015 - Europe is a "likely story".
The New Humanist, Winter 2015 - Imagine...A World Without Work, with Dawn Foster and James Meadway.
STRIKE! Magazine, Winter 2013 - Work Hard, Play Hard.
Universe Magazine, Issue 2, 2013 - Because Nature Has No Inside.
The Occupied Times, No.21, May 2013 - Sales Projections.
Adbusters UK, Vol.19 No.6, Nov/Dec 2011 - Brigades!.
Alfabeta 2, Milano, Italy - regular contributor since 2011.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Newspapers
Corriere della Sera, La Lettura, 4 May 2014 - Schiavi del tempo della produzione. La ragione insonne genera mostri. (in Italian)
The Guardian, 7 October 2013 - Listen to Britney Spears - Work is the new religion.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sound
La Favola della Realta', with Francesco Fusaro, October 2022. (audio)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -