DNR Holiday Gift Guide
Today, I was pumping gas and I went into the Konvenience-Mart to get some coffee (not like cappuccinos but real coffee). I bought my coffee, you know a buck 25 or whatever, and the lady behind the counter says, “ Happy Turkey day, sir!”.
I look around and I’m like, “WHAT? What did you say?”
And she goes, “Happy Turkey day, sir.”
And I said, real aggressive, “I think you mean Happy Thanksgiving? I don’t know where you come from but around here we say Happy Thanksgiving.”
And she’s like, “Look buddy, this is what they tell me to say, its Thanksgiving I don’t even want to be here…”
So I took the coffee and I dumped it out on the counter and I was like, “You just lost yourself a customer!” And I walked out. (I had to come back in and pay for the gas but she got the point.)
If people have wished you a ‘happy turkey day’, sound off in the comments and let us know what you’ve been doing to fight that shit. It seems like not much but the secularization and paganization of society starts one step at a time. Its like a frog in boiling water. Be on the look out. (Also, happy holidays everyone!)
1. The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet
It’s about the cozy web, the dark web, the dark forest, the clear net, the dark net, and a new social world emerging around us. The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet is a 208-page book that documents five tumultuous years when we learned how to live, create, and conspire on an increasingly adversarial internet.
The eleven authors include: Yancey Strickler (Kickstarter/Metalabel); Venkatesh Rao (Ribbonfarm); Maggie Appleton; Peter Limberg and Rebecca Fox (The Stoa); Joshua Citarella (Do Not Research); Arthur Röing Baer and GVN908 (Moving Castles); Leith Benkhedda (DNR, Trust, and New Models); and Caroline Busta and Lil Internet (New Models).
2. Personal Computers by Filip Kostic
In Personal Computers, Los Angeles based artist Filip Kostic compiles found images collected over the past 9 years that trace the history of custom computer building and modification. Kostic proposes this lineage as a new folk art, considering the difference between personal and impersonal computer, and by inserting his own work, proposes how artists using these technologies might engage with this history moving forward.
Available on Special Effects.zone
3. The Kawayoku Tales by Noura Tafeche
Kawayoku, a hybrid research area, explores the intersections of cuteness culture, digital warfare and the aestheticisation of violence in an era of semiotic ambiguity and post-truth. From the fetishisation of Weapons Grade Waifus and anthropomorphic warships in games like Azur Lane to the “Israeli” Defense Forces’ TikTok strategies, the essay reveals how cuteness and entertainment serve as tools of domestication, converging state-nationalism with the impish, and the uniform with the algorithm.
4. Techno Primitivism by Rachel Jackson
Styled as a pseudoscientific journal, Techno Primitivism examines manifestations of the ancient as they are mediated through contemporary technology. Issue 01 centers on evolving notions of “Anthropological Indexicality” as they relate to new imaging technologies, surveying how innate human pattern-making tendencies are interpreted through the lens of machines. Referencing the enigmatic symbology of petroglyphs, an essay accompanies a combination of found and constructed imagery, suggesting a pictorial lineage between antiquity and modernity.
5.Forever Magazine VI: RELICS
It was the [REDACTED] of times. It was the [REDACTED] of times.
Forever Magazine is a print project that began as a reading series at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Forever was named one of 5 up and coming literary projects by New York Magazine and has been written up in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Interview Magazine, Airmail, Nylon, and dozens of other outlets. Forever has published the likes of Eileen Myles, Emma Cline, and Sheila Heti and artists such as Ryan Trecartin, Jon Rafman, and Petra Cortright. The sixth print issue “Relics” is out from Metalabel on February 29th and features a cover design by long-time collaborator Joshua Citarella. The magazine is edited by Madeline Cash and Anika Jade Levy with Creative Direction from Nat Ruiz.
6. Internal Empire Zine by Spencer Longo
Released in conjunction with Spencer Longo’s 2024 exhibition ‘Internal Empire’ at TORUS, Los Angeles, the Internal Empire zine examines the historic use of independent print by a wide array of American fringe extremist groups and political subcultures.
7. Cycles, The Sacred and the Doomed : Inquiries in Female Health Technologies by Morgane Billuart
In the 21st century, as technology purports to comprehensively assess and address women’s conditions and physical discomfort, Cycles, the Sacred and the Doomed delves deeply into the realm of female health technologies, revealing a space where science, holistic methods, and mythology converge. Special edition of 8 books, each signed.
8. The Influencing Machine by Aaron Moulton
The Influencing Machine by Aaron Moulton is based on the true story of the Soros Centers for Contemporary Art (SCCA), a network of twenty contemporary art institutions that suddenly appeared throughout the former USSR in the early 1990s at the conclusion of the Cold War. This grand initiative had a brief intensity that radically changed how visual art and culture could be directionalized and purposed.
Available on Special Effects.zone
9. Extremely Online Delft Blue by Tibor Dieters
An increasingly uncertain future has seen many people journey online for answers. With the surge of fringe political identities gaining mainstream popularity in the Netherlands over the past few years, the separation between the online and offline worlds has dissolved. 'Pol/der' merges feverish memetic imagery, drawn from online communities, with a traditional symbol of Dutch heritage. This fringe internet ephemera is made tangible as a way to explore the emergence of conspiracy as collective myth-making — or, shared fictions that make themselves real.
10. Collected Drawings & Paintings by DJ Meisner
The conspiracy was a resume. He worked at Gilead before he was the Secretary of State for the second time. Oh shit he worked at G.D. Searle too. “Prior to its 1985 merger with Monsanto, Searle was a company mainly focusing on life sciences, specifically pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and animal health.” Christ. It’s a subsidiary of Pfizer too. I’ve only got two tabs open and am losing my fucking mind.
11. Do Not Research 2022-2023
Do Not Research is a platform for art, writing, internet culture and beyond.
12. Do Not Research 2021-2022
Do Not Research is a “detestable band of washed up millennial seapunks” and “zoomers obsessed with Mark Fisher”. It is also a highly active online community that publishes writing, visual art, internet culture research and more.
13. DNR Mapping Project
Do Not Research Mapping Project (2021 - 2023) 16 x 20", luster print. Map includes the title of every work published to the blog between 2021 - 2023.
14. Storm the Capitol board game
Relive one of the funniest days in American History! Storm the Capitol is the world’s first January 6 (parody) board game. Play as one of six "patriot" characters as you battle through the Capitol hoarding ballots, taking hostages, and fighting the cops. Or assume the role of the Capitol Police and use every tool at your disposal to prevent the patriots from ascending to the roof with enough ballots to Stop the Steal! This is a real board game designed for 4-7 players. Definitely 18 years and up.
15. A Cyberarchaeology of Checkpoints by Ruby Thelot
In an age defined by digital ephemerality, Ruby Thelot presents 'A Cyberarchaeology of Checkpoints,' a poignant tribute to a vanished online community. Born in the comments section of a now-deleted YouTube video by Taia777, ‘Checkpoints’ were deeply personal life updates, capturing a decade of human experience in miniature narratives. From love and loss to the mundane yet profound, these posts became digital totems in a fleeting online world—a place where, in a rare union, strangers bared their souls.
Available from Irrelevent Press