Mark Fisher talked about this phenomenon as a haunting from our past. That the past won’t let us go, won’t let us move on. In part because people are so burned out, they crave nostalgia to entertain. And the artists and art is so bound up with capitalism that works of art simply respond to that desire of modern man. We want something smooth, we don’t want controversy, because we are overwhelmed by it in every other capacity of life. So we look to our cultural forms to be calming and familiar. It’s a symptom of the idea that the future opportunities of newness and cutting edge has been turned into something for efficiency, and for the market, rather than for our own hopes and unbridled expectations. It’s a very very sad symptom of our way of being today.
This is not at all stale or redundant. I find your insights valuable.
I do think your last point makes sense, that capital is turning to machines because they (machines) require no motive to operate. However, the people making and programming the machines will still need a motive, so in a sense their motive (profit, workplace discipline, etc.) becomes essential to the functioning of the machine itself. Just my two cents. Keep up the great work!
Regarding homogeneity, I loved the article titled "Lawful Neutral" that was featured in Real Life mag by Sam Popowich. "Algorithmic intelligence, which depends on liberalism’s assumptions about proceduralism, is now being imposed to reinforce that logic — to reshape the world so that those governing assumptions are literally encoded into systems that administrate society." A more predictable world is easier to automate.
I started to notice what Alex Murray observed a couple of years ago in architecture and baking:
If you'd wake up in a different inner city today, you'd have a hard time recognizing where on Earth you are, as modern global architecture is indeed one global bowl of porridge. If a building in any inner city on Earth was built within the last five years, it will look the same everywhere. There is no distinctive local architecture anymore. This made architecture boring, I find.
As for baking: here in inner city Berlin in almost every restaurant you get New York Cheese Cake. Mind you, we Germans have a special word for a baker specializing in sweets ( ➜ Konditor) and as for Cheese Cake, there are even very famous local variants of it (like, say, ➜ Eierschecke in Saxony). So what do we offer? The one and only global cheese cake variant that is actually not a true cheese cake at all. Why bother eating a NEW YORK cheese cake when you are in Berlin, Germany? I have no idea. Do these tourists think that makes them globetrotters if they eat the same shit everywhere they go?
Mark Fisher talked about this phenomenon as a haunting from our past. That the past won’t let us go, won’t let us move on. In part because people are so burned out, they crave nostalgia to entertain. And the artists and art is so bound up with capitalism that works of art simply respond to that desire of modern man. We want something smooth, we don’t want controversy, because we are overwhelmed by it in every other capacity of life. So we look to our cultural forms to be calming and familiar. It’s a symptom of the idea that the future opportunities of newness and cutting edge has been turned into something for efficiency, and for the market, rather than for our own hopes and unbridled expectations. It’s a very very sad symptom of our way of being today.
This is not at all stale or redundant. I find your insights valuable.
I do think your last point makes sense, that capital is turning to machines because they (machines) require no motive to operate. However, the people making and programming the machines will still need a motive, so in a sense their motive (profit, workplace discipline, etc.) becomes essential to the functioning of the machine itself. Just my two cents. Keep up the great work!
Regarding homogeneity, I loved the article titled "Lawful Neutral" that was featured in Real Life mag by Sam Popowich. "Algorithmic intelligence, which depends on liberalism’s assumptions about proceduralism, is now being imposed to reinforce that logic — to reshape the world so that those governing assumptions are literally encoded into systems that administrate society." A more predictable world is easier to automate.
I started to notice what Alex Murray observed a couple of years ago in architecture and baking:
If you'd wake up in a different inner city today, you'd have a hard time recognizing where on Earth you are, as modern global architecture is indeed one global bowl of porridge. If a building in any inner city on Earth was built within the last five years, it will look the same everywhere. There is no distinctive local architecture anymore. This made architecture boring, I find.
As for baking: here in inner city Berlin in almost every restaurant you get New York Cheese Cake. Mind you, we Germans have a special word for a baker specializing in sweets ( ➜ Konditor) and as for Cheese Cake, there are even very famous local variants of it (like, say, ➜ Eierschecke in Saxony). So what do we offer? The one and only global cheese cake variant that is actually not a true cheese cake at all. Why bother eating a NEW YORK cheese cake when you are in Berlin, Germany? I have no idea. Do these tourists think that makes them globetrotters if they eat the same shit everywhere they go?