Hello friends,
I originally intended to release this piece two weeks ago, but found myself unable to provide the words to accompany it. Both in title and accompanying letter. I quite like this piece and it felt a shame not to give it a name I’m confident of.
I toyed with “Always Crashing in Different Cars”, in a habit of referencing music in my titles. I do like that name and it felt apropos for the piece when it was just a painting. But upon digitally altering it, it didn’t seem so suited. Maybe I will use it for a different one.
Last night, I had the title “COMPUTER!” sifting around in my head. It might be something that we take for granted as physical appliances for work, but I find it evocative of a time when all this technology that we have sickeningly attached ourselves constantly to in smartphones could seem novel and universe expanding. Terminals for the information superhighway, the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, connecting us to faraway people and ideas.
But of course, nostalgia is lamentable. It ignores how those past feelings have paved the way to our present. These technologies are vectors of social and political pathogens. We may feel more informed than ever, but we seem to be more deluded than ever. Please look away from reality and into this precious, beautiful pane of glass where you have a constant stream of dopamine, endorphins, and norepinephrine to bombard your brain.
What’s the need for third places when we have this? What’s the need for truth when you can suckle from a timeline or an LLM that acts like your friend (never mind the hallucinations)?
If every photograph is a kind of lie in its staging, why not throw away reality altogether?
Truth is no longer an option. Accept the fascist religion, pray to their false idols, or find yourself pressed under a boot. True theologies be dammed. Empathy is a sin. Work sets you free. It is not so hard to pass through the eye of a needle if the camel has been liquidated.
And so, I find these fears and digital agonies reflecting in this piece I present to you. Here is “WEB HAGIOGRAPHY”:
With love.