
The bizarre history of cellphone towers disguised as trees

The pursuit of spiritual retreat and technological disconnection has, of course, a long history in various religious traditions and cultural movements: the Zen Buddhists, the Luddites, the Transcendentalists, the Amish, the countercultural communes of the 1960s, the digital detoxers of today.
Shannon Mattern • How to Map Nothing
In the past, our timekeeping systems were synchronized with the systems of the earth. The rhythms and seasons of nature help us orient and make sense of when we are. Digital media has warped our subjective sense of time and thrown us into a state of atemporal confusion. Aside from surface-level features like “dark mode,” digital temporality is blin... See more
Aaron Z. Lewis • The garden of forking memes: how digital media distorts our sense of time
The atomic motif in particular represented, but also obscured America’s techno-military ambitions: Despite the atom’s violent wartime history, the organic forms of Atomic Age style were comforting and humanizing. Mutant structures adorned carpets, ceramics, and fabrics; their friendly, cartoonish designs rebranded the atom into something cozy and o... See more
Becky Alexis-Martin • Our Friend the Atom
From the same book, replace TV with the 'gram and and house with business/shopping locale this quote still bangs:
"The American house has been TV-centered for three generations. It is the focus of family life, and the life of the house correspondingly turns inward, away from whatever corresponds beyond its four walls. At the same time, the tele
... See moreBlackbird Spyplane • Too many places are STERILE and TORCHED — let’s make them COOL and FUNKY
Memory Banks | Are.na Editorial
are.na