🦤✨The Nexialist #0200dendrochronology | more-than-human aesthetics | ecomodernism | program or be programmed | hypernormative | technologies for liberation | chromakopiaWelcome to your weekly source of crunchy brainsparks, the nexialist hey, you! I hope this message finds you well! here we are at the 200th week of writing the nexialist, and it feels quite special! sometimes i can’t believe i’m doing this. thank you for being there on the other side reading, sharing, supporting, contributing and enjoying the brainsparks. if you can/want to show some financial support, consider going paid (or buying me a coffee). exactly a year ago, i was in lisbon for the web summit; this week i’m in london for the first time, so it feels like a celebration (thank you, juan, for the gift!). i was having some kind of urban anxiety before coming to this huge city, but all is good. i’ve been having a blast, visiting museums, walking around and seeing the spots i had only seen on screen/pages before. it’s also impossible to navigate the city and all its rich details without thinking of all the 1 year ago » 👜✨The Nexialist #0148 : record-breaking renewables | deactivated power plant | portuguese time capsule: lena d’agua | saudade de você | oral 2 years ago » 🎪✨The Nexialist #0096 : Anne Imhof's YOUTH | infoxication | content capital | bread and circus | sportswashing | rainbow flag as the enemy | the law of the instrument 3 years ago » 🛠✨The Nexialist #0046 : Tentacular Thinking | Tools for A System Thinker | Find True Belonging | Art, Science, Futures Studies | Mystic Truths | Trusting your Destiny | No Filter | Masculinity 🌳dendrochronologythis essay by robert moor for emergence magazine appeared in my inbox the day before going to the natural history museum, where they have a huge piece of a giant sequoia that lived more than 1200 years, along with some of the historical events it “witnessed.” it was one of my favorite items in that museum. robert moor narrates how just being around these trees can pull as back to think about out relationship to time, nature, past and future.
it reminded me of the haunting vintage photos of loggers around the ancient trees they were cutting, like prizes, and how tree stumps even became dancefloors. quite barbaric when you think about it. brainsparks: arboreal codes (tn#196), sumaúma(tn#122), ask nature (tn#86), shinrin-yoku (tn#137) 🦤more-than-human aestheticsthis interview with ‘ways of being’ author james bridle was shared at Sentiers and the brainsparks kept coming. the japanese magazine he is being interviewed for is focusing on gen-ai and art, so this discussion starts there, but it gets quite philosophical as well as practical. it connects so well to dendrochronology, on how our perception of time and space are quite limited when we think in terms of nature, but also the inorganic machines we are creating and using.
brainsparks: more-than-human rights (tn#131), umwelt, non-human perceptions (tn#86), nature disconnection (tn#137) 🌐ecomodernismthis article by Rianne Riemens was shared at the syllabus: Fixing the earth: whole-systems thinking in Silicon Valley’s environmental ideology. i have not read it yet, but just the abstract made me want to include it here today. it tieds back to themes like greenwashing + technowashing, which we need to be critical of. in a data-driven culture, even the planet gets datafied.
brainsparka: technowashing (tn#67), green colonialism (tn#145), solarpunk (tn#88), natural capital (tn#122), seedless fruit: futureless tech (tn#198) 🤖program or be programmedMatt Klein published the interview with douglas rushkoff on his ZINE celebrating the 15th anniversary of his visionary book ‘program or be programmed.’ and it’s such a gem. first, matt is so excited (and rightly so), so it did add a layer of interest /cheerfulness to their candid chat. it’s quite interesting to see how he gave us a heads up for things we started talking about only years later, such as anonymity x identity online, or the big tech domination and their interests. he also touches on how these platforms are built upon acceleration, and this is changing us, but we can still “reject what our platforms want and embrace our humanity.” you can hear the full conversation on zine’s podcast or read a snippet on zine. brainsparks: critic of technology (tn#121), social media x cults (tn#74), smartphones and rosaries (tn#44), deep doubt era (tn#193) 🫠hypernormativeThomas Klaffke shared this interview on current affairs on rabbit holes for his Creative Destruction newsletter, and it’s quite eye-opening. “How the Soul of New York City is Vanishing - Jeremiah Moss on what neoliberalism has done to the culture and soul of New York City” can also be about other big cities. he is a writer and psychoanalyst (jeremiah moss is a pseudonym of griffin handbury), and his view of what is happening holds lots of clarity, so it’s worth the read. the passage below felt like reading sci-fi written decades ago.
brainsparks: pseudonymous digital identities (tn#55), post-individualism (tn#196), digiphrenia (tn#191), age of average (tn#115), moodboard effect (tn#66), the fluid self (tn#85) ✊🏻technologies for liberationthank you, fernanda, for sharing this. astrea, the lesbian foundation for justice (again, lesbians being heroes) released this report (which also feels like a manifesto of sorts) and the kind of initiative we need more of. they offer a critical view of the corporate tech most of us use, point out pain points, ideas and suggestions for funders to help imagine and create alternative technologies.
brainsparks: queer the future (tn#5), critic of technology (tn#121) 🎭chromakopiai’ve been hooked on tyler, the creator’s new album, chromakopia. i couldn’t find the meaning of the word, but it seems like a mix of chroma (color) + kopia (cornucopia), which symbolizes abundance. afterall the album is abundant in the rhythms, sounds, featured artists and ideas. or from copy, maybe to reference the samples… it’s amazing to hear audios of his mother teaching him (and us all) about life — some of them got me laughing. this song made me dance like no one is watching. also, listen to sticky and balloon. brainsparks: orilature (tn#147), cowboy carter (tn#167), beat diaspora (tn#125) see you next week, nexialists 🫀✨❓Wait, what is a Nexialist?🔎If you want to see what I’ve already posted, visit the archive and use the search engine. Even I do that a lot.💌I want to know what you think/who you are! Your feedback is highly appreciated; you can e-mail me or fill in this short survey. Thank you! 🙏🏻🔌Let’s Collab?I truly believe innovation comes from bringing improbable areas together, and that’s why I called this project The Nexialist. Some sectors are known to be self-referencing and hermetic. Sometimes, teams are on autopilot mode, focused on the daily grind, which hinders innovation. As a Nexialist, I like to burst these bubbles, bringing references from different areas, and maintaining teams inspired and connected to the Zeitgeist. I offer inspiration sessions called Brainsparks, creative desk research (Zeitgeist Boost), Plug’n’Play deals for workshops and sprints, and other bespoke formats. If you want to know more about this, send me an e-mail with your challenge(s) and we can figure something out together. Check out my website and some work I’ve done below: You're currently a free subscriber to The Nexialist. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
🦤✨The Nexialist #0200
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