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Tag: artists
0848 – New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle (2018 book)
As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. Underlying this trend is a single idea: the belief that our existence is understandable through computation, and more data is enough to help us build a better world.
In reality, we are lost in a sea of information, increasingly divided by fundamentalism, simplistic narratives, conspiracy theories, and post-factual politics. Meanwhile, those in power use our lack of understanding to further their own interests. Despite the apparent accessibility of information, we’re living in a new Dark Age.
From rogue financial systems to shopping algorithms, from artificial intelligence to state secrecy, we no longer understand how our world is governed or presented to us. The media is filled with unverifiable speculation, much of it generated by anonymous software, while companies dominate their employees through surveillance and the threat of automation.
In his brilliant new work, leading artist and writer James Bridle surveys the history of art, technology, and information systems, and reveals the dark clouds that gather over our dreams of the digital sublime. (VERSO)
James Bridle on New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future
man always makes it clear to himself: “You are using things which have the intention of not being penetrable.” 1180
0839 – Gauguin – Voyage de Tahiti (2017)
timespace coordinates: 1891 – 1893 France – Tahiti / French Polynesia
Gauguin – Voyage de Tahiti is a 2017 biopic / period drama directed by Edouard Deluc The film stars Vincent Cassel and Tuheï Adams,
In 1891 Gauguin settles down in Tahiti, where he hopes to find inspiration for his work as an artist and live as a free man in the wild, far from all the moral, political and aesthetic codes of civilized Europe. In the jungle, he faces loneliness, poverty and disease, and he meets Tehura. She eventually becomes his wife and the main subject of his greatest paintings.
828
“(…) perhaps the crash will look like a string of blockbuster movies pandering to right-wing conspiracies and survivalist fantasies, from quasi-fascist superheroes (Captain America and the Batman series) to justifications of torture and assassination (Zero Dark Thirty, American Sniper). In Hollywood, studios run their scripts through the neural networks of a company called Epagogix, a system trained on the unstated preferences of millions of moviegoers developed over decades in order to predict which lines will push the right – meaning the most lucrative – emotional buttons. Their algorithmic engines are enhanced with data from Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and others, whose access to the minute-by-minute preferences of millions of video watchers, combined with an obsessive focus on the acquisition and segmentation of data, provides them with a level of cognitive insight undreamed of by previous regimes. Feeding directly upon the frazzled, binge-watching desires of news-saturated consumers, the network turns upon itself, reflecting, reinforcing and heightening the paranoia inherent in the system.
Game developers enter endless cycles of updates and in-app purchases directed by A/B testing interfaces and real-time monitoring of players’ behaviours until they have such a finegrained grasp on dopamine-producing neural pathways that teenagers die of exhaustion in front of their computers, unable to tear themselves away. Entire cultural industries become feedback loops for an increasingly dominant narrative of fear and violence.”
New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future
James Bridle (https://jamesbridle.com/)
0826 – Birdman (2014)
timespace coordinates: 2013 NYC
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), commonly known simply as Birdman, is a 2014 American black comedy (a short list of the diverse forms of film genre associated with the film has included it being referred to alternatively as a black-humor film, a mental health film, a realism/surrealism/magical realism film, a dark-humor parody film, a film of psychological realism, a failed domestic reconciliation drama, or a film concerning theatrical realism and naturalism.) film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. It was written by Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., and Armando Bo. The film stars Michael Keaton with a supporting cast of Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts. The story follows Riggan Thomson (Keaton), a faded Hollywood actor best known for playing the superhero “Birdman”, as he struggles to mount a Broadway adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver.
The film covers the period of previews leading to the play’s opening, and with a brief exception appears as if filmed in a single shot, (wiki)
0824 – Dark City (1998)
Dark City is a 1998 neo-noir science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay was written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer. The film stars Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, and William Hurt. Sewell plays John Murdoch, an amnesiac man who finds himself suspected of murder. Murdoch attempts to discover his true identity and clear his name while on the run from the police and a mysterious group known only as the “Strangers”.
(themes) Theologian Gerard Loughlin interprets Dark City as a retelling of Plato‘s Allegory of the Cave. For Loughlin, the city dwellers are prisoners who do not realize they are in a prison. John Murdoch’s escape from the prison parallels the escape from the cave in the allegory. He is assisted by Dr. Schreber, who explains the city’s mechanism as Socrates explains to Glaucon how the shadows in the cave are cast. Murdoch however becomes more than Glaucon; Loughlin writes, “He is a Glaucon who comes to realize that Socrates’ tale of an upper, more real world, is itself a shadow, a forgery.”
Murdoch defeats the Strangers who control the inhabitants and remakes the world based on childhood memories, which were themselves illusions arranged by the Strangers. Loughlin writes of the lack of background, “The origin of the city is off–stage, unknown and unknowable.” Murdoch now casts new shadows for the city inhabitants, who must trust his judgment. Unlike Plato, Murdoch “is disabused of any hope of an outside” and becomes the demiurge for the cave, the only environment he knows.
The city in Dark City is described by Higley as a “murky, nightmarish German expressionist film noir depiction of urban repression and mechanism”. The city has a World War II dreariness reminiscent of Edward Hopper‘s (0049) works and has details from different eras and architectures that are changed by the Strangers; “buildings collapse as others emerge and battle with one another at the end”. The round window in Dark City is concave like a fishbowl and is a frequently seen element throughout the city. The inhabitants do not live at the top of the city; the main characters’ homes are dwarfed by the bricolage of buildings. (wiki)
Mr. Hand: We’re very lucky when you think about it. / Emma Murdoch: I’m sorry? / Mr. Hand: To be able to revisit those places which have meant so very much to us. / Emma Murdoch: I thought it was more that we were haunted by them. / Mr. Hand: Perhaps. But imagine a life Alien to yours. In which your memories were not your own, but those shared by every other of you kind. Imagine the torment of such an existence….no experiences to call your own. / Emma Murdoch: If it was all you knew, maybe it would be a comfort. / Mr. Hand: But if you were to discover something different…Something….better.
819 – Olivier de Sagazan
Olivier de Sagazan (born 1959 in Brazzaville, Congo) is a French artist, painter, sculptor, and performer. De Sagazan’s work typically centers around the artist building layers of clay and paint onto his own face and body. His work was featured in the 2011 documentary film Samsara by Ron Fricke. He has collaborated with the likes of Mylène Farmer inspiring and appearing in her video for À l’ombre and FKA Twigs (567) for her Performance Piece Rooms, he collaborated with Nick Knight and Gareth Pugh on the fashion film presenting Pugh’s S/S 18 collection. (wiki)
« I am flabbergasted in seeing to what degree people think its normal, to be alive.
Disfigurement in art is a way to make face to face to real life !
I have to dig my face and try to understand my true nature, between my Holy Face and my Meat Face. » ODS
TimeSpace Warps 