Long [-ish] reads

Out of context: Reply #61

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  • grafician-2

    "The most popular series of NFT collectibles are algorithmically generated. And what they reveal, compared to the rest of culture, is a broader and more prevalent trend of art and entertainment that has the uncanny feeling of having been made by algorithm, even though it wasn’t.

    A painter and performance artist once told me, in the brutalist basement of the old Met Breuer, that Future had destroyed the future.

    Trap music has taken over the world, and it all sounds more or less the same now. It might be amazing, but it sounds the same. It’s supposed to sound the same. That’s the idea, what makes it so powerful. A talented producer can make a song in ten minutes on a live stream. A talented producer can make a song in less time than it takes to listen to. It’s never been quicker to write a song than now. Songs keep getting shorter and shorter. Records keep getting shorter and shorter. It’s a numbers game. I can write these columns pretty quickly now.

    This is an age of great speed and competition. We’re all looking for more popularity, new ways to find an edge; and yet, all this competition only seems to lead to blandness and mediocrity, rather than breakthroughs. Nor does it lead to collapse; even accelerationism doesn’t work. We want too much content, too fast, and it just leads to this endless algorithmic churning, this paint-by-numbers effect.

    You see it in art. In Netflix documentaries. Spotify playlists. Op-ed pages. The news. The latest manufactured outrage. Well-reviewed first-person novels about nothing. All so dreadfully banal and repetitive. This is what results when everything is forged in economies of dollars, of ether, of attention.

    Most culture now has the feeling of having been made by algorithm; and the reason for this, is that humans have begun to act like algorithms."

    https://www.spikeartmagazine.com…

    • "Ever look in the mirror for too long and start thinking like, Damn I’m really a human being. I’m really in this bitch.
      KAWS, BFF (2020)"
      grafician
    • “Don’t speak to me about ‘Claude Monet,’ worm, I’m a graduated art teacher. I’m not saying the jpegs or videos aren’t art, I’m saying your whole system is a...grafician
    • ...mere pretence of an art scene for profiteering by platforms and crypto moguls.”
      Art Tyom Trakhanov
      grafician

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