The Play in the System

“Anna Watkins Fisher's figure of the parasite offers us insight into the contemporary condition in which, due to ubiquitous appropriation and financialization, every oppositional gesture seems to have already been co-opted in advance. Her explorations illuminate the space in which artists and others are forced to operate today and outline ways in which it may still be possible, albeit quite ambiguously, to maneuver, resist, and express opposition.” - Steven Shaviro, author of The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism

“Brilliant and provocative, The Play in the System explores the question: what subversive possibilities might a complicit subject—the parasite—hold? In the era of constant co-optation and coercive hospitality, the citizen is increasingly framed as a parasite. Rather than simply condemn this situation, Anna Watkins Fisher bridges new media and performance studies to understand how parasitical tactics, from hacking Amazon previews to harassing patriarchy, operate as subliminal dissent. This book, however, does not glorify the parasite: it profoundly deals with its limitations and possibilities—its dangerous voraciousness and its refusal to respect boundaries.” - Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, author of Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media

“Fisher’s book reminds us unequivocally that insidious structures of racist, patriarchal, and exploitive neoliberal and corporate systems in which we are enmeshed (and even now, are laboring to uphold to survive within them) are porous and also potentially indestructible....” - Nora Almeida, College and Research Libraries

“After years of social research, carefully following the career moves of more and less known artists, Fisher defines an archetype of artistic work that was never meant to be seen.... There is an optimism in Fisher’s writing that wants to see the problematic parasitic artist as fraught but not completely useless.”

“The Play in the System...is highly recommended for academic libraries supporting curricula engaged with critical visual studies, culture and media studies, performance studies, gender and women’s studies, and contemporary art.” - Andrew Wang, ARLIS/NA Reviews

“The first half of [The Play in the System] is easy to love. It builds portable theories and applies them to a wide range of materials. . . . In the book’s second half, . . . [Fielder] deals frankly with her own shifting judgements and feelings—never more so than in the book’s bravura chapter on intergenerational conflict in feminist performance art.” - Christopher Grobe, Performance Research

“The Play in the System is an expertly crafted and widely accessible publication that bridges disciplines with masterful detail and precision. . . . The Play in the System differs from related literature by centering the practitioners as parasites to their respective institutions, and by privileging individual and collective acts of resistance over more generalized institutional critique.” - Camille Intson, TDR: The Drama Review