April 2012
8 posts
“Sterling rightly notes that the New Aesthetic blog is less criticism than it is collage, a collection of moments that look New Aesthetic-y. As it stands, the genre is a collection of data points, observations on what is happening rather than meditations on how or why it is happening, or what we can do with it. The reason for this absence, as Sterling hints at but doesn’t point out outright, is that the New Aesthetic is not yet an actual aesthetic movement. It’s just reality. The New Aesthetic isn’t Impressionism or Cubism. Revolutionary art is not shocking and provoking society, as it did in the case of Monet and Picasso. The New Aesthetic, as it exists in drone technology and Google Maps imagery and data surveillance, represents a ground-level change in our existence. Instead of shocking society, New Aesthetic art must respond to a shocked society and turn the changes we’re confronting into critical artistic creation. Artists are only just starting to take the raw material of the New Aesthetic and aestheticize it in a conscious, intelligent way.”
—In Response To Bruce Sterling’s “Essay On The New Aesthetic” | The Creators Project
“I think the primary concern is consumer literacy. Over and over, I think you should look at the source of information. There are lines sort of evaporating between what is marketing content and what is editorial content, what is government content — that all gets flattened out on the web so it all sort of looks the same, and the trade dress disappears. So are you reading news from a verifiable, reliable source, or are you reading propaganda? I think it’s sort of important to know where stuff came from.”
—The Verge interview: David Carr on curation, crowdsourcing, and the future of journalism | The Verge
