culture

Though fake, the Vulgar Image is a more honest reflection of how we are inside and how the world really is than the photograph in the news or the painting on the wall. It shows life as it has become, meaningless, absurd, and misshapen. In short: it is about collapsing reality.

The Earth is a camera, so realism must be abandoned, and so must be the convincing illusion.

El fandom actual, heredero del fenómeno fan creado por el capitalismo cultural y posteriormente infantilizado y explotado hasta la saciedad, es una "tecnología social" que asegura la estabilidad del sistema: cuanto más se expande el culto al artista, más se disuelve la posibilidad de pensar en común. Administra la emoción colectiva para evitar que... See more

The Vulgar Image reflects the artificial and desireless qualities of the present. It is pornography for a society that is losing its lust and physicality, and it is very perverse, more perverse than tired old pornography, because it has such an unnatural relationship with the body and with fantasy. It is distanced from the fleshly, just as people,... See more

They are Vulgar Images. They share certain qualities: they are figurative, tasteless, illegible, stupid, fake, disembodied, grotesque, transformed. Some are ludicrously offensive, but it is unlikely that many are that offended by them, as the event horizon of trolling was crossed some while ago. They are also extremely contemporary images.

Ahí es donde la artista se mueve con agilidad: su lenguaje "espiritual", sus "apariciones marianas", su elevación sobre los conflictos y sus referencias a la pureza, la luz, la trascendencia son una estrategia adaptativa "deslumbrante" frente a un mercado regido por la intensidad emocional (y no la tensión política).

This century, content has overridden style all over – but here are very dumb images without content made in unpleasant styles. Here are counterweights to all the polite mediocrity, the unbearably literal messaging, the great deluge of information, the rationalized views of a world that can no longer be explained. Instead of refinement, there is... See more

El capitalismo no teme al fervor, teme a la dirección. Por eso necesita artistas muy luminosos, muy carismáticos, pero mudos. Artistas que movilicen la fe, pero nunca el lenguaje. De ahí surgen "nuevos formatos" como las listening parties o los "momentos virales" que ya no dependen de una canción, sino del acceso simbólico al artista. El fan paga... See more

The Vulgar Image is made out of everything. It is made of the internet, it is all the endless content of the everlasting now, exploded. It is made of information, but it imparts no information. It is meaningless and completely illegible. In a world that is all information, these are images without content, cobbled together out of nothing and... See more