Severin Matusek

Young romantics working at the "intersection of art and technology" launched endless criticisms of big tech's overreach and in the process created the foundations for an entire scene of left-field internet aesthetics.

The internet is what allows what’s inside — our minds, our souls, our many selves — to interact with the insides of others. The internet is where our alts come alive, our internal monologues become dialogues, and a stray thought becomes a globally resonant meme. This is its miracle.

Once, we made sense of the world with sweeping narratives that provided a comforting sense of mastery. Now, with those narratives shattered beyond repair by a reality too complex for us to fathom, a new kind of coping mechanism is emerging—one where we make peace with the limits of our agency rather than pretending to overcome them. The task is no... See more

As artist and AI collaborator Refik Anadol says, “This is pure collaboration , imagination with a machine.”

“Don’t die,” says Bryan Johnson, “100 years is not enough.” But death is the only reason attention matters—and by extension, art.

Looking back five years after the initial Dark Forest essay and pangs of concern, what most stands out is something that those of us who are drawn to Dark Forests have felt longer than most: that the internet is real life. What we do “in here” matters just as much as — and for some of us, problematically, even more than — what happens “out there.”... See more