economics
Baumol’s cost disease
Small economies
The economic value of old buildings
The mirror-image economy
You cannot consume what is not produced
The Fetish of human life
Avant-Garde and Kitsch
The trend is your friend 'til the bend at the end
The amorality of Web 2.0
An Essay by Nicholas CarrThe Internet is changing the economics of creative work – or, to put it more broadly, the economics of culture – and it’s doing it in a way that may well restrict rather than expand our choices. Wikipedia might be a pale shadow of the Britannica, but because it’s created by amateurs rather than professionals, it’s free. And free trumps quality all the time.
Tokenize This
An Artwork by Benjamin GrosserDifferent from the typical website whose URLs act as persistent indexes to a page and its contents, Tokenize This destroys each work right after its creation. While the unique digital object remains viewable by the original visitor for as long as they leave their browser tab open, any subsequent attempt to copy, share, or view that URL in another tab, browser, or system, leads to a “404 Not Found” error. In other words, Tokenize This generates countless digital artifacts that can only be viewed or accessed once.
Hints towards a non-extractive economy
An Article by Matt WebbThere’s a movement called the circular economy which is about designing services that don’t include throwing things away. There is no “away.”
A non-extractive economy is going to look very different to today’s economy. These points feel opposed somehow but they are part of the same movement:
- With CupClub, it’s all about infrastructure.
- With the battery-free Game Boy, it’s untethered from infrastructure: once manufactured, no nationwide electricity grid is required to play.
We’ll need better tools to track and measure. There will be new patterns for new types of services. New technologies to build new products. New language. So it’s fascinating seeing the pieces gradually come together.
The psychology of a discount
An Article by John MaedaFound on a wall.
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
Every So Often a Talking Dog Appears
Assemblages
Radić's texts are almost always assemblages of several pieces or paragraphs that, although written by an architect, do not attempt to refer to a particular project or work (and if they do, it is always laterally, avoiding explanations of the how and the why, or demonstrations and apologies).
Like notes from a fragmentary diary or a review of a collection of memories, at times they share the melancholy tone of the writings by Aldo Rossi and at other times they recall the obscure density of John Hejduk's poems.
— Patricio Mardones
Places I will never go
There are places I will never go. Due to laziness or boredom, or premature fatigue. But there are also landscapes or buildings I should have visited a long time ago. This text reviews those possible places. All of them are part of my story, and they are places I am familiar with in one way or another.
No Objection to the Moon...
An EssayA Guide to Abandonment
An EssayDeath at Home
An EssayThe Circus
An EssayEvery Thing
An EssaySome Remains of My Heroes Found Scattered Across a Vacant Lot
An Essay