‘What fresh hell is this? There’s an inferred question in the title of this issue. But it’s a rhetorical one. Because we know exactly what fresh hell this is. Fossil Fuel – that paralytic drug – has leeched into our collective bloodstream. It’s difficult to recognize the beasts that are eating us in this very moment.’ – Sophia Al-Maria, from the Editor’s note, The Happy Hypocrite 8 The Happy Hypocrite – Fresh Hell treats in different ways the subject of oil. Adopting an exploded methodology for intake, image and text contributions, this issue takes a hoarding, brutally accelerative approach and considers reading, too, as an unsustainable activity. Guest editor Sophia Al-Maria’s archive acts a sort of proto-Tumblr composed of school notebooks, war games and oil industry pamphlets scattered as a series of identifying clues. All windows are open, all browsers are burning: The Happy Hypocrite asks what happens when reblogged information is translated into paper-based print.
With contributions and new work by Abdullah Al-Mutairi, Monira Al Qadiri, Stephanie Bailey, Alex Borkowski, Judy Darragh, William Gibson, Navine G. Khan-Dossos, Malak Helmy, Raja’a Khalid, Omar Kholeif, McKenzie Wark, Simon Sellars, Francesco Pedraglio and Lena Tutanjian.