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Here are 5 things I was looking at (and loving/hating?!) this week:
I like seeing people push the envelope with AI. And I think Jonas Bendiksen’s project The Book of Veles was brilliant. I mentioned it in an earlier AI-intensive Substack, where Bendiksen used AI to talk about fake news and hackers. He successfully trolled the industry and passed it off as real under the nose of some of the biggest gatekeepers, which proved an amazing and effective point (to me).
Michael Christopher Brown’s “90 Miles… a post-photography, A.I. reportage illustration experiment…” however, strikes me as different. To me, this work serves no purpose other than to capitalize on people’s pain and make money off it. It strikes me as exploitative and ethically questionable on multiple levels. Or as one photographer DMed me to say: “I find it unbelievably naive, at best. It’s an egregious example of the worst combination of privilege, power, wealth, and commercialism.” Also, this post nails it. If nothing else, I’m thankful for the conversations we’re having about AI and I would love to hear your thoughts,
I haven’t stopped thinking about the comment “phones as the third space.” If you don’t know about third spaces (or places) here’s a primer and here’s a think piece.
I can get behind this version of: Move fast, break things. “From a height of three meters, porcelain figurines are dropped on the ground, and the sound they make when they hit trips the shutter release.” Want more? There’s also a terrific series featuring a steel bullet and stoneware vases from the same artist.
Pong — at 50. On a related note: I really should rewatch The King of Kong. I’ll probably watch Tetris. And I have zero desire to watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Speaking of movies, NYTimes film critic A.O. Scott signed off after 23 years and 2,293 reviews. He conducted his own exit interview.