neo-medievalism | tarot through the ages | failures of globalization | un’s biggest global risks | apocalypse in the tropics | digital plastic | end of summer | independent girls & nasty | hide & seek

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Subscribe here for more 🃏✨The Nexialist #0236 neo-medievalism | tarot through the ages | failures of globalization | un’s biggest global risks | apocalypse in the tropics | digital plastic | end of summer | independent girls & nasty | hide & seek Rodrigo Turra Jul 31   READ IN APP   welcome to your weekly cyber-smorgasbord, the nexialist hey, you! i hope this divination message finds you well! last weekend, we had the pride walk in amsterdam (not the parade, which happens next weekend), and it’s always a joy to see people from different cultures, and of all ages, children and grannies, getting together to show support to the lgbtq+ community. of course, even pride and other lgbtq+ events have been hard to celebrate lately: brands and companies that are profiting from the genocide in gaza use these events to rainbow-wash or pink-wash, and we are not ok with that. so yes, that’s the energy i’m starting today’s nexialist with. the brainsparks are still there, so enjoy! 🫀✨ —Rodrigo Turra 🙏🏻the nexialist is a free newsletter, but consider going paid (or a one-time contribution) if you find this content useful for your life, soul or work. or invite me for a collab. read more at the bottom of this e-mail ✨ Upgrade to paid 1 year ago » 🦵🏼✨The Nexialist #0184 : olympic outrage | dutch utopia | underground cities | public.work | recession pop is back | creative manifesto | tribbing & tribadism | how big? 2 years ago » 📱✨The Nexialist #0132 : love, forgiveness and technology will bring us to another planet | second brain | neurorights | personal machines and portable worlds | non-playable characters | humancore 3 years ago » 👤✨The Nexialist #0081 : Renaissance | What Will Replace Religion? | Distributed Trust | How Did Consciousness Evolve? | The Earthquake That Changed History | Masters of Crowds | Three Waves of Media | The Vanishing Designer 4 years ago » 🃏✨The Nexialist #0031 : Scenius aka Communal Genius | Tropicália | Brazilian Jester | Fantastic Fungi | Getting Smarter | Europe in 1444 | WWII Dataviz | MTV Premiere | Mistress Violet Buy Me a Coffee? ☕️ 🏰neo-medievalism kalinaxkathy A post shared by @kalinaxkathy kathy pham got me with the perfect hook: pinterest’s castlecore, or how medieval aesthetics are a 2025 trend in fashion and pop culture. remember chappell roan’s presentations, haute & freddy’s songs (tn#207)… well, that’s all make-believe 😬 … neo-medievalism shifts to reality. it’s a term used in social sciences and seems to describe what’s going on in the world. maybe a reminder that art predicts (tn#1) culture and tech quite well. “Although the term has been used in various contexts for decades, we define the neomedieval era as a historical period, beginning around 2000, characterized by weakening states, fragmenting societies, imbalanced economies, pervasive threats, and the informalization of warfare.” — U.S.-China Rivalry in a Neomedieval World brainsparks: europe in 1444 (tn#31), cloud capitalism (tn#214), technofeudalism (tn#143), superindustry of the imaginary (tn#28), technocracy incorporated (tn#213), netocracy vs. consumtariat (tn#18), digital feudalism (tn#136) 🃏tarot through the ages coinciding with the end of the middle ages, is the emergence of tarot decks (or at least that is what we know). v&a brought so many beautiful decks from their collection in this video, explaining their context and symbology. i didn’t know about suzanne treister’s hexen 2.0, a more contemporary version of the tarot. Tarot can be seen to reveal clandestine knowledge and hidden powers at work in the world. These cards were designed in the early 2000s and brought tarot up to date into the age of the internet and reflected the anxieties of the 21st century. brainsparks: digital esoterism (tn#116), rivers of life (tn#146), shipwrecked treasures (tn#219) 🌐failures of globalization michael__mezz A post shared by @michael__mezz this 2023 article by patricia cohen resurfaced on my feed and i thought it was recent (but i would guess things are worse). “failures of globalization shatter long-held beliefs” was the original title when it was printed and makes quite a strong statement (which many of us knew already, but being in the cover of the new york times hits different). i remember in school the how hopeful the globalization discourse was, but i guess we hadn’t learned with the global system’s redflags. The economic conventions that policymakers had relied on since the Berlin Wall fell more than 30 years ago — the unfailing superiority of open markets, liberalized trade and maximum efficiency — look to be running off the rails. brainsparks: monobloc (tn#213), (post-)apocalyptic imaginary (tn#97) ⚠️un’s biggest global risks another infographic for your polycrisis / permacrisis slide on your deck: The 28 Biggest Global Risks, According to the UN. i was going to keep the comment to myself that it’s not the best infographic but who said this kind of data needs to be pretty? it’s supposed to get our attention. notice how half of the top 10 are environmental risks. brainsparks: permacrisis (tn#94), nature disconnection (tn#137) ☄️apocalypse in the tropics When does a democracy end, and theocracy begin? Apocalypse in the Tropics investigates the increasingly powerful grip that evangelical Christian leaders hold over politics in Brazil. Weaving together past and present, the film holds a mirror up to the rest of the world. this has been in my watchlist since i saw the trailer. even though i haven’t watched it yet, i’ll share it because i trust petra costa: i was evangelizing ‘edge of democracy’ (tn#23) to brazilians and non-brazilians when it was released. brainsparks: evangelical missionaries x indigenous people (tn#89), social media x cults (tn#74), smartphones and rosaries (tn#44), what will replace religion (tn#81), crypto as ritual and religion (tn#58), the edge of democracy (tn#23) 🧴digital plastic @mattprebeg posted about this term, coined by leon furze, and this analogy has been phrogging in my mind. you’ve probably heard how search results are better if you add before:2023, how ai is ruining pinterest, the dead internet theory, ai slop or model collapse (tn#211). these are all cases of how our digital environments are becoming littered with digital plastic (just like our real world, with microplastics in every nook and cranny). furze defines it as: “mass produced, synthetic form of data that like its physical counterpart doesn’t degrade much over time.” also, there is nuance like real-world plastics: there are positives and negatives. i was already impressed at this point, but leon goes further in his analysis, bringing semiotics and meaning-making into the mix. Consider the default “settings” of an AI model. These aren’t as obvious as font choices or slide layouts, but they’re just as impactful. The model’s training data, its architecture, safety features, even the prompts used to generate responses – all of these act as invisible defaults that shape the production. And just like how most people stick with Times New Roman or Calibri, many users of AI tools accept these defaults without question. brainsparks: synthetic media (tn#18), capitalists killed the internet (tn#212), the new aesthetics of slop (tn#215), phrogging (tn#188), enshittification lifecycle (tn#106), deep doubt era (tn#193), fracking eyeballs (tn#150), critic of technology (tn#121), hyperindustry of the atificial imaginary (tn#118), chatgpt won’t make you dumb (tn#232) 🌅end of summer this week it hit me that summer’s peak has already past, at least here in amsterdam, so i better enjoy whenever sun shows up. but tame impala’s new track adds such a beautiful soundtrack to this part of the cycle. a mean, a song with more than 7 minutes feels like a summer treat 🥰 🏳️‍🌈independent girls & nasty evil gays jeangu macrooy is a surinamese-dutch singer. i saw him for the first time in 2020, representing the netherlands in the eurovision song contest. he was also in the jesus christ superstar musical, so i was happy to see this hopefull release from him. 🎛️hide and seek Where are we? What the hell is going on? yes, the first lines of imogen heap’s 2005 hit are what my brain asks every day. can you believe it’s been 20 years? i don’t remember listening to it at the time (or when it was featured in the oc), but whenever i hear it, i get so many chills down my spine. and its influence in pop culture is undeniable: switched on pop made a whole episode about it, calling it “one of the defining sonic textures of our time.” brainsparks: alchemy of pop (tn#182) see you next week, neo-peasants (?) 😬✨ 🫀✨thank you for reading The Nexialist. This post is public, so feel free to share these brainsparks 🧠✨ Share ❓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: thenexialist.xyz You're currently a free subscriber to The Nexialist. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. Upgrade to paid   Share     Like Comment Restack   © 2025 Rodrigo Turra Amsterdam Unsubscribe