from the DeepMind of Josh Plough

Bring me back to the Collective DeepMind

13.

This doesn’t mean we have to all rush to the call, or feel guilty for not doing so. It would be reductive to frame the conversation like that. But admitting that the structures we have now are insufficient for the task is a start. We don’t have to reduce every project to some kind of working blueprint to address the inequalities that we feel. This is as much of a utilitarian-utopian dream as the content of the work itself. Two sides of the same coin. We have to learn how to be quick on the draw and shoot the coin mid-toss, before it lands. With a hole forced through we get matter transferred from one side the other, neither side is sovereign or pure anymore as they’re tainted by each other, boundaries bleeding. Interdisciplinary mingling in the non-pursuit of solution, with the added thrill and action of firing a gun.

The press release for re-FORMAT mentions the importance of language, ways of expressing what we see. We conceptualise our mad, incoherent disconnected culture by making it seem rational and belonging to a shared reality by neatly packaging it in publications, well designed websites, products and exhibitions. A thread of rationally thought out kerning holds at bay the terrifying cacophony of everything. And so back to language and thinking about how we can use it.

A lot has been written about digital metaphors and how they obscure and pastoralise our imagining of technology (clouds, streams, farming, cookies, etc.) However there is one that is deliciously prosaic: the news feed. It serves as an excellent example of the relationship between language and design, intention and action.