algorithmic anxiety

Culture has to follow the dominant modes of perception of a given era. While a twentieth-century building might have been designed to be photographed, the twenty-first century work of art is “designed for reproducibility” through algorithmic feeds…They each contribute and conform to a generic, flattened, reproducible aesthetic. Hence the general st

Filterworld consist of one fundamental, unavoidable reality: never in human history have so many people experienced the same things, the same pieces of content disseminated instantly through the feeds, to our individual screens. Every consequence flows from that fact.
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To resist Filterworld, we must become our own curators once more and take respons

All it takes to form your own taste is thought, intention and care.

In my conversations with curators, I found a tone of caring and caretaking that is missing entirely from massive digital platforms, which treat all culture like content to be funnelled indiscriminately at high volume and which encourages consumers to stay constantly on the surface…

We turn to art to seek connection, yet algorithmic feeds give us pur

Cavalconte said. "Curation is now companionship." That statement made me think about how algorithmic feeds are absent as companions: they just surface a piece of content and leave you alone with it until you lose patience and decide to skip to the next song or video.

— Filterworld, pg. 254

What we gain with algorithmic feeds in terms of availability-having instant access to a broad range of material to be scanned at will —we lose in connoisseurship, which requires depth and intention. It's ultimately a form of deep appreciation, for what the artist has done as well as the capacities of our own tastes.

— Filterworld, pg. 238