ISSUE 1.33

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The Tides of Color

The politics of color, monsters of science, completely predictable football, generated inspiration, surreal memers and more.

[lokidesign.net]

The Propaganda of Pantone: Colour and Subcultural Sublimation

Here's a deep cut into aesthetics, color, culture, and the power that corporate designers can wield over the mainstream understanding of color and its implications. A deep criticism of Pantone for making Rose Quartz and Serenity the 2017 Colour of the Year, claiming they've "mined the subcultural landscape and used their monopoly within the creative industries to propagate their colour properties to the world." A bold claim. Does the article back itself up? Yes, it's a deep look into the power of color as a subversive as well as an oppressive tool as well as an exploration of appropriation from color aesthetics that were already on point, in seapunk, vaporwave, A E S T H E T I C, and soft/pink/queer aesthetic. Worth your time (if you like discussions about color, aesthetics, and art).

[nautil.us]

Monsters, Marvels, and the Birth of Science

A fascinating read into how the strange and uncanny (comets hellbent on destroying earth, narwhal horns (unicorns?), "monsters" like birth deformations and two-headed cats) caused an intellectual revolution in the Copernican times, a moment for Francis Bacon to say "Hey, wait up, let's not call these unexplainable outliers, but parts of the deeper rule which must be explained." This birthed the attitude of modern science as we know it today. Hey, we SAW that subatomic particle pop into existence! We can't just ignore that--we gotta throw out all of the old science and start over. (That's how science works. Don't look it up, just trust me.) And those monsters? Those are some f'real subatomic particles.

[sbnation.com]

What football will look like in the future

Here, check out this completely boring and expected story about football that isn't at all a multimedia art-lit piece about space probes and transhumanist minutiae in the year 17777 when--I mean, gee, sportsball, LAME, right?

[motherboard.vice.com]

Surreal Memes Are the Last Escape the Internet Has

God, I'm in love with this. Nitpick: these aren't so surreal as decontextualized--or rather, invented from a fabricated context of which the viewer is not informed ahead of time but rather has to derive context from the text's implication, with a spattering of weird that makes it seem surreal. Yet, the images spoken about here are quite internally consistent. Anyhow, I love the idea of an entire world of alter-spirituality that is implied by being "scrombled" (including experience of dust, vast energies, big jug hot cheese) and its obvious parallels to the "real-world" phenomenon of spiritual awakening and/or intense schizoid symptoms. Worth checking out the video linked within--it's strange and plays on many tropes to achieve sublime weird. (OK, the video is more surreal.)

I think I have a problem with using too many double-dashes and also parentheticals. Just a thought from me, to you.

[cbsnews.com]

Facebook, for the first time, acknowledges election manipulation

In the latest from "Duh" news, I present to you--this article. Facebook breaks down the type of techniques of influence into information ops (distorting political statements), false news (false news), false amplifiers (bots), and disinformation (lies, damned lies, and statistics). But you already knew all this, or at least probably suspected it. If not, welcome to the cynicensia! (That's a made of portmanteau of "cynicism" and "intelligentsia".)

[theoutline.com]

DEATH WHEN IT COMES WILL HAVE NO SHEEP

You're god damned right. An interview with a researcher who works on neural network proverbs.

HERE'S a question. When all the art possible is created by robots, what does that mean? I think it means that we may have to simply them. There's already infinite content. The trick is not to stay on top of things--it's to move deeply into them. To see patterns, similarities, the universal truths and models that we can apply to our own minds, lives, and situations. Or, you know, say fuck it and start a cult devoted to the all-holy Robo-Michelangelo.

[inspirobot.me]

InspiroBot

You've likely already seen this, because it is excellent. But if you haven't--you're welcome. Automatically generated inspirational motivational images from a robot. Some of them are quite nice. Some of them are... not. (I WILL NOT CUT MY HAIR)