culture
The prestige recession
ystrickler.com
Instead, art and culture have been safely neutralized as interchangeable commercial objects just like everything else.
At its best, cultural criticism is love and art that exists to give love to other expressions of art. It’s beautiful in its indulgence. A positive feedback loop that gives everybody exactly what they desire. Gods, scribes, muses, an audience, a culmination. This is what we want out of art. Something that feels grand, meaningful, connected to the ages. That doesn’t happen on its own. It needs context, dedicated space, deeper knowledge, appreciation.
In reality, Spotify was subject to the outsized influence of the major-label oligopoly of Sony, Universal, and Warner, which together owned a 17 percent stake in the company when it launched. The companies, which controlled roughly 70 percent of the market for recorded music, held considerable negotiating power from the start. For these major... See more
Liz Pelly • The Ghosts in the Machine
Cartographer
kuochinyun.wordpress.com
Who doesn’t love a good manifesto? A manifesto is a form of magic. You take mere words, mere gushes of air, mere lines and curves, mere tokens, and you alchemize them into something tangible. Manifest, manifold, manumission—from the Latin manus, meaning hand. Hands point and hold. Hands waive. According to Derrida, we cannot use our hands and look... See more
Zohar Atkins • Lightning: A Manifesto
Content will be commoditized by AI—but content isn’t culture
From Hamish McKenzie
... See moreThis same surge in AI-led content production will simultaneously fuel a tremendous need for cultural connection: real humans in communion with one another. These relationships help us make sense of the world, and to know where to direct our attention. Their value will