Ricochet
by Alex Head

RICOCHET Cultural Epigenetics and the Philosophy of Change, Ljå Forlag (2021)
The term ‘ricochet’ is a means to discuss unintended consequences, rapidly delivered
information and viral outbreaks, but it is also used to describe the way in which sound echoes or
reverberates against objects in space.
As the saying goes, genetics loads the gun and the environment pulls the trigger. Initiated during
the return of politicised radical hatred across the globe in 2017, the author set out to understand
how Far Right ideas had begun to mutate. What he discovered throws light on mechanisms of
cultural imperialism and hegemony that stretch all the way back to the Fertile Crescent of the
tenth millennium, with consequences for the urban environments of future and current
generations.