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HELLO ME!

Fuck everything I type looks like the bbs version of Memento anyways. I need somewhere easy to drop thoughts and docs for an upcoming talk.

new aesthtic - bruce sterling http://booktwo.org/notebook/sxaesthetic/ https://www.wired.com/2012/04/an-essay-on-the-new-aesthetic/

Reflections and connections

  1. Embracing glitch and artifacts: You note the acceptance of AI hallucinations, chaos, bad code, and compression artifacts as meaningful and even desirable aesthetic qualities. This aligns with Sterling's point about the New Aesthetic celebrating the "eruption of the digital into the physical" and finding beauty and interest in the quirks and errors of machine processes.

  2. Holistic, systems-based approach: Your comment about magick and systems thinking practiced on rosary beads first suggests an interest in finding overarching frameworks and holistic approaches to technology. This resonates with Sterling's call for the New Aesthetic to develop a more cohesive metaphysics and aesthetic philosophy, rather than just collecting disparate examples of machine-generated weirdness.

  3. Semantic and cognitive effects: You mention compression as "semantic serotonin" and rewards for finding meaning. This touches on the complex interactions between machine outputs and human perception that Sterling sees as crucial to grappling with. How do we find beauty, value and reward in machine-generated content?

  4. Apophenia and pareidolia: The notion of "accepting hallucination as intended" connects to the human tendency to find patterns and meaning (like faces in clouds) even in random or nonsensical data. Sterling cautions against projecting too much human-like intention and intelligence onto machines, but this natural inclination is part of what makes the New Aesthetic compelling.

  5. Artifacts as a record of reality: Describing glitches and bad code as "time lossy artifacts" frames them as an imperfect but meaningful record of a technological moment. Sterling emphasizes engaging with machine-generated content "as it exists" without trying to clean it up or anthropomorphize it. Authentically grappling with the raw output, bugs and all, as a portrait of our current technical reality.

So in summary, your observations extend the New Aesthetic conversation by connecting it to deeper continuums of esoteric and systems thinking, exploring the cognitive effects and subjective experience of engaging with machine-generated content, and finding philosophical value in the authentic artifacting generated by digital processes. These are rich avenues for further developing the metaphysics of the New Aesthetic.

Several of the key principles and insights from Bruce Sterling's 2012 essay on the New Aesthetic remain relevant and have arguably become even more pertinent with the rise of consumer-level generative AI a decade later:

  1. The need for a robust metaphysics: Sterling criticized the New Aesthetic for being too superficial and not developing a coherent philosophical framework. With tools like DALL-E and Midjourney now widely available, it's even more crucial to deeply examine the aesthetic, ethical, and ontological implications of AI-generated art and content. How do we understand and value machine creativity?

  2. Engaging with the raw output: Sterling stressed the importance of grappling with machine-generated content as it actually is, without trying to clean it up or anthropomorphize it. This principle holds true for contemporary generative AI, which often produces surreal, glitchy, or nonsensical results. There is value in engaging authentically with the unfiltered strangeness of these outputs.

  3. The inadequacy of projection and anthropomorphization: Sterling warned against projecting too much human-like intention, emotion, and intelligence onto machines. As generative AI tools become more prevalent and seemingly intelligent, it remains crucial to remember that they are not sentient and operate on very different principles than human creativity.

  4. The importance of human curation and meaning-making: While Sterling emphasized grappling with raw machine output, he also stressed the vital role of human perception, judgement, and creativity in the artistic process. With powerful AI tools accessible to many, human curation, prompt engineering, and the construction of meaning become even more essential.

  5. The need for collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches: Sterling called for greater cooperation between artists, scientists, and technologists to develop robust aesthetic frameworks for the digital age. Generative AI heightens the need for such collaboration, as it raises complex technical, philosophical, and social questions that require diverse expertise.

  6. The social and political dimensions of machine vision: Sterling touched on issues of surveillance, privacy, and power in relation to machine perception. Generative AI adds new layers to these concerns, such as the environmental impact of training AI models, the labor of human workers behind AI tools, and the potential for AI to perpetuate social biases.

While the specific technologies at play have advanced significantly since 2012, Sterling's call for a rigorous, philosophically grounded, and socially engaged approach to the aesthetics of machine-generated content remains highly relevant in the age of consumer AI. If anything, the New Aesthetic project has become even more urgent and consequential.

CONDENSED CHAOS an introduction to chaos magic by phil hine

systems rituals, attention,

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You wouldn't steal a Car. You wouldn't steal a Handbag. You wouldn't steal a Mobile Phone. You wouldn't steal a Movie. Movie Piracy is Stealing. Stealing is Against the Law. Piracy. It's A Crime!