Sublime

efficient glamour—a

It’s strange to think of a “feed” existing outside of a screen, but these apps work like an algorithmic Netflix home page for physical space.

At the same time, whatever remaining pockets of everyday life are not directed toward quantitative or acquisitive ends, or cannot be adapted to telematic participation, tend to deteriorate in esteem and desirability.

To Sartre’s celebrated examples of standing in line to board a bus, being stuck in traffic, and shopping at the supermarket could be added the unfathomable amounts of human time expended today in desultory electronic activity and exchanges. Whether in the mid twentieth century or today, seriality is the numbing and ceaseless production of the same.

A finely filamented electronic scrim has slipped between ourselves and the so-called “outside world.” The idea of spending a day, never mind a week, out of the range of all our devices sounds bold, even risky.

“Their business model,” he says, “is screen time, not life time.”

performer Laurie Anderson’s