HEXEN 2.0 is the sequel to HEXEN 2039, which imagined new technologies for psychological warfare through investigating links between the occult and the military in relation to histories of witchcraft, the US film industry, British Intelligence agencies, Soviet brainwashing and behaviour control experiments of the US Army. HEXEN 2.0 delves deeper into the histories of scientific research behind government programmes of mass control, in tandem with histories of countercultural and grass roots movements, and creates a space for the imagining of alternative future scenarios. HEXEN 2.0 charts the coming together of diverse scientific and social sciences through the development of cybernetics, the history of the Internet, the rise of Web 2.0 and mass intelligence gathering, and the implications for the future of new systems of societal manipulation towards a control society. Furthermore, HEXEN 2.0 investigates specific critics of technological society such as Theodore Kaczynski/Unabomber, current profiles of Anarcho-Primitivists and Post-Leftists, and traces the precursory ideas of Thoreau, Heidegger, Adorno and others, in relation to fantasies of utopic/dystopic futures from science-fiction literature and film. HEXEN 2.0 brings all this material together in the form of drawings, alchemical diagrams, photographs, text works and designs for a 78 card Tarot deck, with an accompanying set of working Tarot cards published alongside the book. HEXEN 2.0 is published to coincide with an exhibition of Suzanne Treister's work at Black Dog Publishing's affiliate gallery, WORK, and a major presentation of HEXEN 2.0 at the Science Museum, London, both in Spring 2012. 130 colour Tb/w illustrations
