[On AI Algorithims Auto-Curating] ”… Ideally you just get a selection of perpetually “good enough” options. Taste is not something you cultivate through a process of education and experiment. It is something that happens to you”

As someone who’s old enough to remember going to the “CD store” and scanning them to hear 30 second samples of songs on an album to know if it was worth my 10 bucks or not, this is an art form lost to streaming.

If you’re not a person who’s fortunate enough in the streaming age to have exposure to a local music scene, have relatives/friends into music, or actively watch bald nerds in yellow flannel review music: your “Taste” has been formed by corporations. This is especially apparent in my most hated form of music consumption the playlist.

”We do not have to love one another to be obligated to build a world in which all lives are sustainable.”

To contrast with my prior extensive forum post: BARS!!! 🔥🔥🔥

”When the critique of continuing colonial violence is deemed violent (Palestine), when a petition for peace is recast as an act of war (Turkey), when struggles for equality and freedom are construed as violent threats to state security (Black Lives Matter), or when “gender” is portrayed as a nuclear arsenal directed against the family (anti-gender ideology), then we are operating in the midst of politically consequential forms of phantasmagoria.

To expose the ruse and strategy of those positions, we have to be in a position to track the ways that violence is reproduced at the level of a defensive rationale imbued with paranoia and hatred.”

Preceding this the author lays out presupposed notions of nonviolence.

1: it’s a moral position.

2: it’s inherently a calm and passive practice.

3: it can be fully committed to in practice. (aka it’s the absence of force or aggression)

4: it's a principle and not a state of being.

The author uses examples like human barriers to drive home the point that discussion and dissection of nonviolence is about the direction of force and to be cognizant of the difference between bodily force and violence.

My mind goes back to the LA riots last year over the summer (and countless other examples) and about how people online were complaining the protestors “violently” were preventing traffic on the highway and yet those same people did not decry the use of chemical weapons against the protestors. She goes on to explain that we have to expand our political vocabulary on violence/nonviolence, recognizing that as it stands, it is used as a cudgel to shield violent authorities against critique.

Going in cold needless to say I’m VERY impressed so far and excited to continue.

I feel much more out of my depth than I was expecting. Granted, the only art history I have even a modicum of knowledge in is relating to music. But up to this point it’s been a retelling of a few major events and individuals across the world as it pertains at the intersection of art and politics.

So if you’re similarly worried you won’t have enough knowledge to dive headfirst into this, I would put those fears to rest!

There’s a comparison that Ben draws on in the intro about how GenAI “art” is altering the definitions of creativity (defensively) in a similar fashion to how photography forced painting to redefine itself when film started to be all the rage. There’s a later chapter he’s devoting to just the discussion of AI in this context and I’m very interested to see his opinions fleshed out more.

Obviously he isn’t pro GenAI and these are not 1:1 comparisons. With the ethical and ecological costs not even being remotely close. But especially seeing how much GenAI has advanced in such a short time, I guess it’s somewhat comforting to know that this type of fight isn’t really that new.

Growing up having exposure to both, I would have never realized there was at one time a culture war between photography and painting. Similarly, babies born this year will most likely grow up having almost the same experience between GenAI art and REAL art without really knowing the difference. The important takeaway being regardless of what the tools of capitalism and/or fascism produce: real art can never be eliminated.