Adbusters Archive

The (almost) complete archive of all the stuff that Adbusters has ever made - Articles! Podcasts! Spoof ads! - in one convenient place for your viewing pleasure.

Articles

Usually exclusive to our physical magazine, we’ve treated non-subscribers to a selection of some of our best print pieces.

Ben Hickling

n an age of virtually ubiquitous mental illness, with ecological and political collapse just around the corner, Outsider Art deserves a second look. What once appeared most peculiar about the genre—its despairing creators, its blunt interfaces with the political, its pyromaniacal relationship to official culture—now belongs more to the center of modern life than its margin. Originally meant to provide establishment with a static frontier, Outsider Art today seems proof that borders everywhere are on the move, that the periphery is pushing in on the heart of our shared intellectual and artistic life.

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Ray Materson

Ray Materson’s works are all little tapestries stitched out of threads from socks. He was in jail for some 15 years and used socks were, apparently, the only fabric he had access to.

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Shock of the new

On January 2, 1911, German painter Franz Marc took his new friend Wassily Kandinsky to a concert by Arnold Schoenberg. On this fateful evening, the Viennese composer stunned the crowd with a strange new music in which tonality had been completely suspended. The crowd was confused if not dismayed, but Marc and Kandinsky – they were riveted.

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Deep Dives

Dive deep into long form features on everything from smartphone addiction to what a True-Cost global marketplace would mean for the economy.

YOU HAVE TO KEEP AT IT, AGAIN AND AGAIN, THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE

YOU HAVE TO KEEP AT IT,AGAIN AND AGAIN,THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE.From the moment you start dreaming as a teenager, start delving into philosophy and following artists, sense a first hint of awe at your existence and wonder if life has any meaning at all.Riddles wrapped in enigmas wrapped in mysteries. What the hell happened before the Big Bang? Does AI totally vanquish the idea of a human soul? And who is this "I" asking all these things, anyway?You'll keep asking questions like that ... again and again and again.

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Zen and Punk: A Path to Authentic Revolution

While punk emerged as a reaction to the hippie movement of the 1960s, it has faced its own challenges in maintaining its revolutionary spirit. The commercialization of punk rock and the descent into mere escapism through drugs and loud music have buried the movement's original principles. However, Zen philosophy offers a powerful framework for revitalizing punk's core values.The Convergence of Zen and Punk EthicsAt first glance, Zen's emphasis on silence and punk's loud rebellion might seem contradictory. Yet both share fundamental values: authenticity, rejection of materialism, and the importance of direct action over empty talk. As Zen teaches, "The more you talk about it, the less you understand" - a principle that aligns perfectly with punk's emphasis on action over rhetoric.Beyond Nihilism: Zen as a Tool for Punk Revival

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A hinge moment for planet earth

Near the end of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, the hero finds himself standing in the gallows, about to be hanged. In one minute it'll all be over. It suddenly occurs to him what an enormous amount of time that is. A full minute. He takes ten seconds to think about his family, then allows his mind to roam over the play of light on the church steeple in the distance, the granular subtleties of his entire life. His impending demise – or so he thought – had smashed his last moment on earth like an atom.You could say that's all of us now. We're standing on the gallows having an existential moment together. And performing in our heads what the writer Mitchell Jackson called "survival math" – a term he hatched after being held up at gunpoint and realizing his odds of living would swing wildly depending on what he said and did in the next thirty seconds.Call it a hinge moment.

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Spoof Ads

Our fingers are on the global pulse, counting beats as we stutter towards the throes of death. If you want to know what Adbusters thinks about the news, this is where you find it.

KalleCasts

We're in the middle of a guerrilla marketing war for the future of the planet. Conventional weapons are useless — all we have are ideas. These are the best of our culture jams.

Media

Listen to the voice of Adbusters proffering sweet ASMR vibes about the end of capitalism and where Occupy Wall Street went wrong.

Adbusters 161: Hope/Nope

The Pulse

Memes can be cinematic too. Turn up the volume and watch the chaos of the world unfold and disintegrate before your very eyes.

An "intergalactic memorial carnival" for David Graeber

"This is an invitation to come together across the world for a memorial carnival in the spirit of the one and only, David Graeber, who just left us so suddenly and unexpectedly.

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COVID-19 Strikes the President. What Now?

After months of downplaying the threat of the virus that has killed over 200,000 Americans (and, tragically, counting), the president and first lady have both tested positive for COVID-19.

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Can Universal Values Survive in the People's Republic?

In his book Rethinking China’s Rise: A Liberal Critique, Xu [Jilin] gives a wide-ranging analysis of China’s recent history. His main point is that China has headed down the dangerous path of historicism...

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