nicolas cevallos

Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF describes this phenomenon:

"No one talks about the future anymore. Instead, everything accelerates the present to a fever pitch, intensifying and weirding the dysfunctions of the current moment. There’s a hole where the future used to be, and all that remains is the increasingly spicy present."

simulated companionship

In the 1990s or 2000s someone created a social network designed to make it possible to tell that you were about to take a flight with someone with whom you have something in common. The idea was you could reach out to them and spend flight time in conversation with someone who might become a friend or at least a useful contact.

Cuteifying something was a way of making oneself its protector, rendering it powerless in a nonadversarial manner. One famous example took place in 1988, when high-school girls reportedly remarked that the dying Hirohito was kawaii, making a nonissue of his responsibility for the war. Hello Kitty, the white cat with a pink bow on her ear, is the ul... See more

This form of attention and the knowledge it yields not only elicits more of the world, it elicits more of us. In waiting on the world in this way, applying time and strategic patience in the spirit of invitation, we draw out and are drawn out in turn. As the Latin root of attention suggests, as we extend ourselves into the world by attending to it,... See more

phemeral content (Instagram Stories, Snap...) generates heightened emotional intensity precisely because it's meant to vanish. Its fleeting nature amplifies emotional impact. Content shared with a limited group ("close friends") acquires a special, intimate value, reinforcing an implicit bond between sender and recipient. Similarly, exchanging temp... See more

The problem is that asking the right questions requires the opposite of having zero education. You can’t just learn how to craft a prompt for an A.I. chatbot without first having the experience, exposure and, yes, education to know what the heck you are doing. The reality — and the science — is clear that learning is a messy, nonlinear human develo... See more

But even in this era, patronage was conditional. Artists served the ideological aims of those who paid. The church demanded piety. The state demanded civic glory. The Medici demanded immortality. As a model, patronship has always involved a tension between creative expression and institutional ambition. The artist received funding but also instruct... See more