object-oriented ontology

Speculative Engineering

At the end of the 20th century, humanity had a curious strategy for regarding the techno-spaces unfolding with the advancement of digital technology. The newly arrived non-spaces of the World Wide Web had generated a cultural atmosphere of cognitive dissonance bordering on paranoia, a mindset of deep hysteria that had to be sedated with the …

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Levitated Mass

It has been almost two years since Michael Heizer’s 340-ton quarry boulder was delivered to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and exalted as “Levitated Mass.”  The media buzz is long gone.  What is left to say about it? Well, the on-ground oglers talk about it every day, and if Heizer has his way, …

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Moving from I to It

Writing from the perspective of the amateur who perceives his practice as the only thing he has – not the theory behind it, not the label on top of it, not the object at the end of it – why was I drawn to Formcontent? Because being a spectator at their four events…

The Image Object Post-Photoshop

We are living in a post-Photoshop era — or so Lorenzo Durantini postulates, with a wry smile. Durantini has curated Brush It In, a group exhibition at Flowers Gallery taking its title from a colloquial expression…

The New Aesthetic’s Speculative Promise

The interweb has been abuzz of late with talk of The New Aesthetic. A never-ending stream of polemical blog posts and autobot-regurgitated twitter commentaries (hashtag #newaesthetic) bombards us from every angle. What is this new thing? Why does it matter? Where will it lead? Is it even a thing at all? The stage was set …

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