alice smith

Computers can see us as large groups, but they’re glum and only aggregate us to sell us stuff. In reality, the computers give great insight into the power of common identity between groups. No one’s using that. What’s sitting with the computers is a way of seeing new groups, new common identities between people.

Curators slow down the unending scroll and provide their followers with a way of savoring culture, rather than just inhaling it, developing a sense of appreciation.

The problem goes deeper than this. Increasingly our tech also opens us up to new vectors of anxiety. Regardless of whether you’re working more or less, your nervous system is now plugged into a neurotic and hypersensitive globe-spanning information system that’s constantly pushing unnecessary things into your consciousness.

In the last ten years, pattern recognition has become a cultural activity. You see that on the bad end, like QAnon, and on the more fun end with the pervasiveness of trend forecasting.

As Shumon Basar put it, we're living in the era of LoreCore: 'a prevalent stage of reality in which we're all characters; characters who are also audiences.' From Coquette to Mermaid fashion, from Doe to Siren Eyes, codified styles are 'guiding' our characters' journey, while optimizing it for digital consumption.

My perennial thought will always be, if the internet didn't exist in the state that it did now, we would have so many rich, interesting scenes, because people have to work to share that.

You must choose your way forward. The data shouldn’t tell you how to live—you train the AI to paint a more beautiful future - SSENSE

the idea of what “public space” looks like on the internet... Not as in anyone can see , but as in a place that can be crowded or empty. A place where you can run into people you know or interact with others who are there at the same time.

Despite all the crises we face – the cost of living, climate change, AI – any of which should surely be enough material to inspire real and meaningful art, the overwhelm of information paired with exhausting post-capitalist forces has created an atmosphere that is nihilistic and excruciatingly mid.