PROCRUSTES
Mark Zuckerberg: “Facebook has always tried to push the envelope. And at times that means stretching people and getting them to be comfortable with things they aren’t yet comfortable with. A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.”
Archive for October, 2008
29/10/2008
28/10/2008
CHICKEN
David Sedaris: “Can I interest you in the chicken?” … “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
27/10/2008
MULTIPLE NARRATIVES
The digital information explosion has nurtured the growth of multiple narratives. In the absence of a single master narrative, worth anything much, pragmatic attitudes (either avowed or concealed) have become pervasive. Today, people elaborate their own theoretical and ethical universes, in line with their own ambitions and projects, their own situations, their own psychological [...]
26/10/2008
THE FUTURE
A lot of time has been spent mourning the future lately. Inspired by Fred Jameson, Marxist critics have lamented our declining ability to imagine new futures, explaining this predicament in terms of the cognitive predations of late capitalism.
But when did the modern idea of the future – as opposed to the idea of “posterity” [...]
26/10/2008
INTELLIGENCE AND THE CLERKS
Is intelligence more or less common in academia than it is amongst the non-academic population? Probably about the same. Education is never a simple process; people learn different things from experience. Somebody grasps how to make themselves happy, someone learns how to make two books sound the same; someone discovers that they [...]
26/10/2008
LANGUAGE AND DRUGS
“Language is a virus,” said William Burroughs. Clusters of language function like drugs, producing effects in the body. The dilemma of information selection is one which the body decides. Do I want to take this drug? Do I want the sensations this language will give me?
26/10/2008
DISCOURSE/OBJECTS
Archigram: “Cities are first a number of events and only secondly a collection of buildings.” There is a divide in architectural theory between those who affirm idea, and those who reject it. This latter camp is ultimately less interested in the human events and relations that designs give rise to, and more interested in conducting [...]
25/10/2008
THE CHEF AS ROCKSTAR
Ferran Adrià is a fascinating feature of the contemporary landscape. The inventor of “deconstructivist” cooking he runs a restaurant in Spain which food critics speak of religiously. A reference to Adrià and his works is also an obligatory ingredient in the regular chef profiles that run in the New Yorker. A citation [...]
25/10/2008
THOMAS CROW
Thomas Crow on pages 168-9 of Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Artworld:
“I just try to keep myself out of the text. Half the battle is in the description. If your material is vivid enough, you don’t need to adopt an ego-driven voice where you’re always reflecting on your own formative experiences or your [...]
25/10/2008
PROHIBITIONS
In the lounge of Schoeneberg Airport there is an advert for Die Welt Kompakt. In the first panel, the advert shows one person reading a large broadsheet newspaper, with the other travelers near him craning their necks to read it over his shoulder. This panel has a large red cross over it. In the [...]
