An introductory sequence for the annual Motion Design conference we hold at Ringling College, built upon the theme of illumination. Let’s shed some light on the subject.

Vesky + Low + aLone + GRXGVR.

Imagine you have a hammer. That’s machine learning. It helped you climb a grueling mountain to reach the summit. That’s machine learning’s dominance of online data. On the mountaintop you find a vast pile of nails, cheaper than anything previously imaginable.

That’s the new smart sensor tech. An unbroken vista of virgin board stretches before you as far as you can see. That’s the whole dumb world. Then you learn that any time you plant a nail in a board with your machine learning hammer, you can extract value from that formerly dumb plank. That’s data monetization.
What do you do? You start hammering like crazy and you never stop, unless somebody makes you stop. But there is nobody up here to make us stop. This is why the “internet of everything” is inevitable.

S.Z.

“I am an anarch in space, a metahistorian in time. Hence I am committed to neither the political present nor tradition; I am blank and also open and potent in any direction.”

E. J.

Thomas Dubois, Montpellier, France.

What would hold society together in the absence of the rules and rituals of clan and kin? Durkheim’s answer was the division of labor.

S.Z.

David Cronenberg is one of the most influential horror filmmakers, especially renowned for his ground-breaking body horror films. But his later films have branched out beyond his early sci-fi and horror work, amounting to a filmography that’s highly worth studying for its singular artistic voice, and powerful themes explored across a wide variety of genres.

Written and Edited by Anantha Venkataram.

PayPal.

Blue Sirens + Kazukii + Infrared + Ryke.

The real psychological truth is this: If you’ve got nothing to hide, you are nothing.

S.Z.