algorithmic anxiety

in preparation for the RADAR event

"The Taste Economy" by Daisy Alioto at FWB FEST24

link to data sovereignty?

In my conversations with curators, I found a tone of caring and caretaking that is missing entirely from massive digital platforms, which treat all culture like content to be funnelled indiscriminately at high volume and which encourages consumers to stay constantly on the surface…
We turn to art to seek connection, yet algorithmic feeds give us pur

In most areas of computing, programmers write code or train an AI model to achieve specific objectives, such as driving a car without crashing or generating humanlike text. Stanley creates systems that instead evolve, seeking novelty for its own sake. These systems sometimes discover stepping stones toward solutions that couldn’t be achieved via a ... See more

Maven Is a New Social Network That Eliminates Followers—and Hopefully Stress

Social media’s algorithms, Manifest Destiny style, took the wide-open space of my attention as empty land to be colonized. And to colonize desirable space, land has to be first defined as free, available for the taking. Which means, conveniently, the land has no life, or reason, or desire, unto itself and isn’t already a “home.” But my attention is... See more

Lia Purpura • The Ecology of Attention

The advent of Filterworld has seen a breakdown in monoculture… culture is meant to be communal and requires a certain degree of consistency across audiences; without communality, it loses some of its essential impact.

— Filterworld, Kyle Chayka

scrolling narrows the field of my curiosity. I take what I find there; I don’t make adventurous or consequential inquiries. I used to sit with boredom all the time—oh, I flinched and chafed, but I always found my way out, or around it. In habitually checking messages, I lost the chance for intimacy with slow dawnings, the feel of big decisions send... See more

Lia Purpura • The Ecology of Attention

What we gain with algorithmic feeds in terms of availability-having instant access to a broad range of material to be scanned at will —we lose in connoisseurship, which requires depth and intention. It's ultimately a form of deep appreciation, for what the artist has done as well as the capacities of our own tastes.

— Filterworld, pg. 238

The hollowed-out meaning of taste in the Filterworld era has something in common with the way engagement is measured by digital platforms: it's a snap judgment predicated mostly on whether something provokes immediate like or dislike. Taste's moral capac-ity, the idea that it generally leads an individual toward a better society as well as better c

Maniac fun is gone — originality, unprecedentedness, creativity and surprise disappears when so much weighs on culture’s ability to spread through digital feeds