Andrés Vaccari

I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1971 and migrated to Sydney, Australia, in 1990. Then I moved to Melbourne in 2005, and I’m currently back in Buenos Aires for a brief spell. I’ve contributed extensively to major Australian newspapers as a critic of literature, music, film and theatre. I’ve also published a few short stories and a novel, Robotomy (1997). I created Saturn Press and edited Abaddon: A Journal of the Imaginary (1997-2000). I’ve written two other novels, one of which is presently doing the publishing rounds.

I have a PhD from the Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University, and am currently doing some independent research while teaching at the Department’s Open Universities program. My thesis is on Descartes and the emergence of mechanical images of life in seventeenth-century natural philosophy. In particular, I related the 17th century metaphysical shift in the life sciences to current developments in posthumanism and biotechnology.

I’ve been married, divorced, married again, and have three children (blended family, the bureaucrats call it). I’ve moved through a variety of jobs, mostly to do with photography and digital imaging, others involved scrubbing, washing dishes and making coffee. I’ve worked for the two largest media companies in Australia, as a corporate drone in photo libraries and imaging departments. I’ve taught at Macquarie University, across the Philosophy, Media, and Critical and Cultural Studies departments. I have also taught at Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne) and the University of Canberra. I’m currently working at REDES (Research Center on Science, Development and Superior Education) as an independent research, as well as my work on online teaching.

My main other interest is music. I’ve played bass, guitar and sang in a variety of bands that went nowhere, and presently I’m working on Machinic Demiurge, a solo studio project.