David Cox interviews Bruce Sterling about the significance, lifecycle and future of the New Aesthetic movement:
— Read the rest
First to the issue of "is the New Aesthetic really new?" I'd say those images are "new'" pretty much by definition. Aesthetics obviously is very old.
A New Aesthetic eruption I caught yesterday off Brick Lane in east London: this LCD adverscreen displaying rotating, chiding public safety messages beneath a CCTV camera, nestled among the graffiti-daubed old buildings above the cobbled and thronged street.
Bruce Sterling responds to Marius Watz's take on Sterling's manifesto about the "New Aesthetic" movement. Sterling is enthusiastic about Watz's views, and begins to move the discussion of "New Aesthetics" from total abstractions to slightly more concrete abstractions. If Sterling's earlier, dense missive left you somewhat mystified, this one might help you unpack things somewhat. — Read the rest
Bruce Sterling's "An Essay on the New Aesthetic," is a dense, difficult, exciting critical look at the New Aesthetic, a kind of art movement centered in my neighbourhood in east London ("If you wanted a creative movement whose logo is a Predator supported by glossy, multicolored toy balloons, London would be its natural launchpad."). — Read the rest
The M4 Mac Mini's small size won headlines but the surprising power of the chip is winning hearts and minds. Jerrod Hofferth designed a similarly tiny Mac Pro-style enclosure to give the new gadget the housing it deserves. Adorable!
— Read the restDo you remember the adorable miniature PowerMac G5 model on Steve's desk at his Palo Alto home?
One of Ye's fixations is American Parochial, a churchy vibe lately illustrated with another brainfeel of his, tearing out the windows (Hypobrutalism? Construction Liminal? His best work lately is a Malibu mansion he gutted to the cement frame and left to rot in the brine) While now best known for other work, the artist formerly known as Kanye West has a new aesthetic kink, one more literal than the rest: pornography. — Read the rest
For those of us who believe in the power of books and ideas to engender real and long-lasting change, here's a breath of fresh air in times of darkness. This post is an attempt to translate into words my enthusiasm for two of the most original, ambitious, and thought-provoking books I've ever read: The Listening Society and Nordic Ideology, both by Hanzi Freinacht. — Read the rest
For a majority of online users, video is king. The quality and impact of a strong visual can make all the difference. But once you couple that fantastic video clip with inferior audio, everything falls apart. A Hollywood-caliber film with horrible audio becomes almost unwatchable. — Read the rest
I reviewed No Man's Sky three years ago, after the stylish space-exploration game received big patches adding depth, detail and story to the poorly-received original release. But its creators didn't stop there, and today's No Man's Sky: Origins (officially v3.0 of the game) marks yet another massive free upgrade. — Read the rest
A growing community of music fans and makers love the old iPods that Apple discontinued years ago. When their devices die or need better batteries or more storage, they send them to people like Manuel Mantecon (aka Pichi) who refurbishes them in his North Carolina bathroom workshop. — Read the rest
James "New Aesthetic" Bridle (previously) is several kinds of provocateur and artist (who can forget his autonomous vehicle trap, to say nothing of his groundbreaking research on the violent Youtube Kids spammers who came to dominate the platform with hour+ long cartoons depicting cartoon characters barfing and murdering all over each other?).
For decades, the WELL has rung in the new year with a weeks-long public discussion led by Jon Lebkowsky and Bruce Sterling (2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2007, 2005, etc).
In 1918, there was plenty of speculation about 2018; in 2018, no one is talking about 2118. Bruce Sterling discusses the relationship of industrial design to science fiction; the New Aesthetic and Turinese architecture; and many other subjects with Benjamin Bratton. — Read the rest
Postcolonial Enlightenment is an exhibition of churches and movie theatres that were built in the wake of independence in 1947, with a bold new aesthetic in mind. As the curators describe:
Last month, James "New Aesthetic" Bridle published an influential essay exploring the prolific and disturbing video-spam that had come to dominate Youtube Kids, in which seemingly algorithmically generated videos endlessly recombined a handful of Disney characters and assorted others engaged in violent, abusive and even psychosexual conduct, over a soundtrack of a few repeated public-domain kids' songs, with all sorts of trickery designed to uprank them in Youtube's play-next, recommendation and search results — keyword stuffing, duration-stretching and more.
James Bridle takes a deep dive into the weird world of Youtube Kids videos, whose popular (think: millions and millions of views) genres and channels include endless series of videos of children being vomited on by family members and machinima-like music videos in which stock cartoon characters meet gory, violent ends.
James "New Aesthetics" Bridle (previously) wants to confuse your autonomous vehicle, so he's designed this Autonomous Trap 001, a sequencing scheme with lots of room for growth.
James "New Aesthetic" Bridle writes, "I wrote an SF short story about satellites, space weapons, UN inspectors, and the end of personal data! I hope you like it."
Todd W. Schneider analyzed 1.1 Billion NYC taxi and Uber trips "with a Vengeance", teasing straightfoward visualizations from an absolutely enormous dataset.
— Read the restTaken as a whole, the detailed trip-level data is more than just a vast list of taxi pickup and drop off coordinates: it's a story of New York.
Researchers are warning that ads could play coded sounds outside the range of human hearing to secretly communicate with other gadgets within earshot.
The technique, which several companies are reportedly working on, would allow marketers to associate devices with one another and paint a privacy-cracking picture of the owner's interests and behaviors. — Read the rest
