society
The one reveals a subject and the other reveals an algorithm
We live in the aftermath
From consumption to production
Management and manipulation of fear
To create noblemen and kings
Cupcakes and froyo
Consumption
The proponents of technology in the 1840s were very enthusiastic about replacing workers with machines. But somehow I find no indication that they realized that while production could be carried out with few workers and still run to high outputs, buyers would be needed for those outputs. The realization that though the need for workers decreased, the need for purchasers could increase, did not seem to be part of the discourse on the machinery question. Since then, however, technology and its promoters have had to create a social institution – the consumer – in order to deal with the increasingly tricky problem that machines can produce but it is usually people who consume.
Millennials and Gen. Z
I made a prediction on Twitter on February 6th: If Millennials (b. 1980 – 2000) were the premium mediocre generation, Gen Z (b. 2000 – 2020) is going to be the domestic cozy generation.
Premium Mediocre vs. Domestic Cozy
Premium mediocre seeks to control its narrative. Domestic cozy is indifferent both to being misunderstood and being ignored.
Instagram, Tinder, kale salads, and Urban Outfitters are premium mediocre. Minecraft, YouTube, cooking at home, and knitting are domestic cozy. Steve Jobs represented the premium that premium mediocrity aspired towards. Elon Musk represents the relaxed-playfulness-amidst-weirdness at the heart of domestic cozy.
Premium mediocre looks outward with a salesman affect, edgy anxiety bubbling just below the surface. Domestic cozy looks inward with a relaxed affect. A preternaturally relaxed affect bordering on creepy. One best embodied by the rise of the ASMR-like sensory modality (which even the NYT has noticed) that has come to be known as oddly satisfying.
Premium mediocrity is the same everywhere, every patch of domestic cozy is domestic cozy in its own way.
We infantilize ourselves
Here in the US, we expect government and law to be our conscience. Our superego, you could say. It has something to do with liberal individualism, and something to do with capitalism, but I don't understand much of the theoretical aspect—what I see is what I live in. Americans are in a way crazy. We infantilize ourselves. We don't think of ourselves as citizens—parts of something larger to which we have profound responsibilities. We think of ourselves as citizens when it comes to our rights and privileges, but not our responsibilities. We abdicate our civic responsibilities to the government and expect the government, in effect, to legislate morality.
The Real World of Technology
A Lecture by Ursula M. FranklinThis is Water
A Speech by David Foster WallaceMan in the Middle: The Designer
A Book by C. Wright MillsThe Waste Land
A Poem by T.S. EliotBuilder Brain
An Essay by Charlie WarzelThe Builder mindset often eschews policy completely and focuses on the macro issues, rather than the micro complexities. It is a mindset that seeks to find very elaborate, hypothetical-but-definitely-paradigm-shifting, futuristic technology to fix current problems, instead of focusing on a series of boring-sounding and modest reforms that might help people now.
…The worst version of Builder mentality is that their dreams become reality, but instead of maintaining their creations, they simply move onto the next Big Thing, leaving others to deal with the mess they’ve made.
evermore, and other beautiful things
An Article by Linus the SephistIf all evidence of civilization on Earth was destroyed, and humans had to re-build society from the ground up, what would be different? Feynman reckons that pivotal scientific moments, like the discovery of the atom, will still happen in the same way. Perhaps mathematics will be similarly rediscovered.
Someone told me once in response to this question, no artwork would ever be recreated. The art we create – music, stories, dance, film – isn’t a fundamental element of the universe, or even of humanity. It’s unique to each artist. If you choose to create art, you leave something in the world that has never had a chance to exist before, and will never again have a chance to exist. There will never be another Beatles or Studio Ghibli or Picasso. Art, in its infinite variations of originality, is cosmically unique in a way the sciences will never be. Art immortalizes human experiences that would otherwise vanish in time.
The Third Way
An Article by Kevin KellyBut all the civilized cities of the world were also filled with third places that people loved. Not quite private, not quite public, these third places were intimate but open to anyone. Like settling down at a table at a cafe. It felt like your space, but you were not the landlord. They were public, open spaces that you could “own” for a while.
…We need a new third category of work — something between “employee” and “not an employee”—that encompasses digital gig laborers. AirBnB is neither a hotel, nor a private resident. It is a third thing, and we need to create a new category to deal with it…This is the era of the third way.
Class 1 / Class 2 Problems
An Article by Kevin KellyThere are two classes of problems caused by new technology. Class 1 problems are due to it not working perfectly. Class 2 problems are due to it working perfectly.
...Class 1 problems arise early and they are easy to imagine. Usually market forces will solve them. You could say, most Class 1 problems are solved along the way as they rush to become Class 2 problems. Class 2 problems are much harder to solve because they require more than just the invisible hand of the market to overcome them.
...Class 1 problems are caused by technology that is not perfect, and are solved by the marketplace. Class 2 problems are caused by technology that is perfect, and must be solved by extra-market forces such as cultural norms, regulation, and social imagination.
Stepping out of the firehose
An Article by Benedict EvansIn 1800, if you’d said that you wanted something ‘made by hand’, that would be meaningless - everything was handmade. But half a century later, it could be a reaction against the age of the machine - of steam and coal-smoke and ‘dark satanic mills.’ The Arts and Crafts movement proposed slow, hand-made, imperfect craft in reaction to mass-produced ‘perfection’ (and a lot of other things besides). A century later this is one reason I’m fascinated by the new luxury goods platforms LVMH and Kering, or indeed Supreme. How do you mass-manufacture, mass-market and mass-retail things whose entire nature is supposedly that they’re individual?
...we keep building tools, but also we let go. That’s part of the progression - Arts and Crafts was a reaction against what became the machine age, but Bauhaus and futurism embraced it. If the ‘metaverse’ means anything, it reflects that we have all grown up with this now, and we’re looking at ways to absorb it, internalise it and reflect it in our lives and in popular culture - to take ownership of it. When software eats the world, it’s not software anymore.
The Cycle of Goodness
An Idea by Tadao YoshidaThe CYCLE OF GOODNESS® is the corporate philosophy established by YKK’s founder, Tadao Yoshida, who believed that “no one prospers without rendering benefit to others.” It expresses the basic belief of the YKK Group. Tadao Yoshida firmly believed that business belongs to society. As an important member of society, a company survives through coexistence. When the benefits are shared, the value of the company’s existence will be recognized by society. When pursuing his business, Mr. Yoshida was most concerned with that aspect and would find a path leading to mutual prosperity. He believed that using ingenuity and inventiveness in business activities and constantly creating new value would lead to the success of clients and business partners and make it possible to contribute to society. This type of reasoning is referred to as the CYCLE OF GOODNESS® and has always served as the foundation of our business activities.
Life as Protest
A Fragment by Craig ModI’ve written this before but I constantly need to remind myself of it, so, once again: A certain kind of work, lifestyle, mode of living — in and of itself — is protest. That is, work that is curious and rigorous is implicitly an antipode to didactic, shallow bombastity. It is inherently an archetype against bullshit. That to be committed to this work or life of rigor (be it rigor focused on “art” or, as they say in Japanese, sakuhin, or family or athleticism or whatever), and to share it with the world is to opt-out of being paralyzed by idiocy, and help others who may be paralyzed find a path back to whatever fecundity of life it is that they deserve.
Premium Mediocre
An Article from Ribbonfarm by Venkatesh Rao
My Life as an Architect in Tokyo
World renowned architect Kengo Kuma presents an enlightening tour of Tokyo, expressing his personal thoughts and reflections on the city's most influential buildings and its rich architectural heritage.
A collection of villages
I became a 'border person', as defined by the sociologist and philosopher Max Weber, viewing Tokyo from an outsider's perspective. Observing the city while walking around its streets enabled me to discover a wide variety of location, cultures and people, and that Tokyo is a collection of small villages, rather than one big city.
...When I design a building in any city, I believe that the world is a collection of villages, instead of a group of nations.
Low wooden silhouettes
While [Kenzo] Tange aspired to verticality, we looked to horizontality, believing that pre-1964 Tokyo, with its low wooden silhouettes, was a better model for the city of the future.
Occupied by a void
Roland Barthes wrote that the centre of Tokyo is occupied by a void...it is a quiet forest that lies at Tokyo's heart.
...The centre of Tokyo is certainly a void, but one that is protected by a circular train line, the Yamanote, which forms a 40-km (25-mile) loop around it. It seems to me that this ring of steel emphasizes the importance of the void, and the depth of its significance.
Such an enormous machine
In cities across the world, industrial zones beside rivers and canals have become the focus of attention, with their unique vivacity associated with places where things are made.
...Because the area is designated as a semi-industrial zone, we were able to get away with such an enormous machine inside [the Starbucks Reserve Roastery].
A more spiritual place
In the centre of the forest is the sandō, leading up to the shrine. It follows an L-shaped curve, and is very different to the straight processional pathways found in religious buildings in the West or in China. Curves ensure that the view changes constantly, helping visitors make the transition to a deeper, more spiritual place.
The building as less important than the path
In the design of Japanese tea houses, the building is seen as less important than the path (roji) leading up to it, and tea masters of the past believed that the journey along the roji allowed participants to better immerse themselves in the slow time of the tea ceremony.
The gentle light of shoji screens
Le Corbusier, the greatest architect of the last century, noted that 'architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in light', demonstrating to what extent light has been prioritized in the Western tradition. Tanizaki, on the other hand, spoke of the important of shadows, of extended eaves. Rather than the light that shines directly into a room, he praised the soft light that penetrates a space after being reflected off the floor, and again from the ceiling.
...In Japanese architecture, the gentle light that passes through shoji screens serves a key purpose. It reaches right to the back of the room, so that the space feels bright, even without the aid of artificial light. The soft light filtering through the white film at Takanawa Gateway Station represents a form of light that was forgotten about by Japanese Modernism.
The thin lip of a teacup
To give the building a sense of the delicacy associated with such crafts, as well as a feeling of warmth, I designed louvres from white porcelain panels, and used them to cover the outer walls. The louvres are tapered, to make their tips as fine as possible. (In fact, making tips as thin as possible is one of my key design principles: the thin lip of a teacup allows a better experience of the subtleties of tea - this is always at the forefront of my mind when I pay such close attention to edges.)
Skyscrapers are frowned upon
During the twentieth century, much importance was attached to things that were big and tall, but, as we moved into the twenty-first century, I felt that being big and tall had become embarrassing.
...Today, skyscrapers are frowned upon in Japan, and are seen as the product of the mistaken mindset that prevailed during the country is period of enhanced growth.
The Metabolist philosophy
Tange put Tsukiji as the centre of his plan, which now seems grandiose and delusional. His design for the Dentsu building had much in common with the Metabolist philosophy of the 1960s, which maintained that buildings needed to continually evolve in a flexible way.
...With [the Nakagin Capture Tower], Kurokawa's Metabolist philosophy was fully realized. After it was completed, however, it became almost impossible to switch over the capsules - indeed, since its completion, not one of the capsules has been moved. As a result, the Metabolist movement has been forgotten. Yet its core principles, which sought to draw architectural lessons from living organisms, has much inspiration to offer society today.
A city of hills
Many of the stations [on the Yamanote Line] have one entrance on the uphill side and another lower down, and the neighbourhoods around them have a totally different feel, depending on which exit you use to leave the station.
The hilly areas in Tokyo are mostly made up of quiet, well-to-do residential districts, while the lower sections often have more of a populist feel, with shopping arcades and small urban factories. As a result, the atmosphere outside the entrances are dramatically different in character. Take the wrong exit, and you might find yourself lost in a completely different kind of neighbourhood than you were expecting. In Tokyo, elite and working-class cultures exist alongside one another and mix together. I think the fundamental cause of this is the complexity of the city's topography.
...Tokyo is a city of hills, with most of it lying on an alluvial plain between the Tama and Kanda rivers. It is via these hills that the upland, elite neighbourhoods are connected with the more working-class areas down below. The slopes are thus a key part of the co-existence of these two worlds, used by people to come and go between them. Kagurazaka is particularly notable in this respect.
They can smell the wood
All of the wooden shelves used for storing books were on the warehouse's first floor. We decided to keep these shelves as they were to form a library, and we also created a small lecture hall for holding talks by writers and makers. Although contemporary society is moving away from books and towards computers and information technology, people nevertheless have a strong feeling of connection to – and nostalgia for – trees and things that are made from wood. La kagu is a space where visitors can really get a sense of the culture of books. When they step inside, some even say that they can smell wood.
As a kind of gateway
Historically, Japan's shrines have been built in order to worship the gods who live in the sacred mountains or seas; They don't reside in the shrine itself, but in the space beyond it. This belief that the spirits and deities exist beyond the confines of the shrine, and that the shrine itself acts not as a centre, but as a kind of gateway, is very different to the grand, imposing churches and cathedrals of Christianity.
The majority of shrines are not found in the mountains or in the middle of the fields, therefore, but at the borders of mountain villages – which is to say, at what is seen as the edge of the mountains. The tori gate, marking the entrance to a shrine, indicates that there are gods on the other side of it.
The golden poo
On the opposite bank of the Sumida River lies the Asahi Beer headquarters (1989), a strange building with a golden sculpture mounted on top of a granite-plated black box. It was designed by Philippe Starck, and completed in 198g when the Japanese economy was still going strong. The sculpture, with no clearly defined use, is a clear representation of its time. Today, the building is known as the 'golden poo', a reference to the shape of its crowning object.
Like crossing the sea
The Sumida is a symbol of Tokyo, but is not like the Thames in London or the Seine in Paris, or other rivers that are woven into the geography of the city. Its banks were pushed back, so that the river became extremely wide and travelling across it feels liberating, like crossing the sea.
These thrown-away items
I decided to furnish the restaurant [Tetchan] with the kinds of discarded items one wouldn't normally use in interior design, from recycled LAN cables to acrylic by-products.
When using discarded objects in interior design, it gives even brand-new places the feeling that they have always been there. I think this is due to the inherent history of these thrown-away items, which lives on inside of them.
Kengo Kuma's sketches