The New Aesthetic tumblr is now closed.
The New Aesthetic project was begun one year ago by James Bridle on May 6th, 2011, with a blog post at RIG London, and continued with a series of talks and discussions, online and offline. Many thanks to all of those who have participated in and contributed to the conversation so far, particularly to everyone at RIG and BERG, and to Ben Bashford, Dan Williams, Joanne McNeil, Aaron Straup Cope, Chris Heathcote, and far too many other people to mention.
The project will continue in other forms and venues.
A mirror of this site can be found at http://new-aesthetic.com/, and an incomplete backup can be downloaded from http://www.mediafire.com/?1c4l11oezpwkfkg.
Tech City Central (by STML). Yes, that’s a purely-decorative QR code fascia.
“NPR reported this morning on a traffic jam in California caused by an algorithmic glitch “accidentally summon[ing] 1,200 people to jury duty on the same morning”. An excellent reminder of the tendency of algorithmic dysfunction to manifest as physical dysfunction, and (at a relatively small scale) of the potentially disproportionate impact of glitches when they are translated from dataspace into an infrastructural system. The glitch may be as simple as having accidentally swapped the 0 indicating “do not come in” for the 1 indicating “come in”, but the resulting jam is rendered in aluminum autobodies and on asphalt corridors where it is much more difficult to clear than it was to create.” — glitch jam – mammoth // building nothing out of something
Lost AR drone (by nicolasnova)
The New Aesthetic isn’t Tupac doing it, the New Aesthetic is everyone doing it.
TLC plan to resurrect Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes as hologram for 2012 reunion tour | Mail Online
white and black coding dots | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
(via submap)
More about this project by Jonathan Rennie here: www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2010/12/15/cinema-city/, via Julian
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“For the video installation Immersion Farocki visited a workshop organised by the Institute for Creative Technologies, a research centre for virtual reality and computer-simulations. One of their projects concerns the development of a therapy for war-veterans suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Farocki is interested in the use of virtual realities and games in the recruting, training and now also therapy for soldiers. Farocki explores the connection between virtual reality and the military – how the fictional scenarios of computer games are used both in the training of U.S. troops prior to their deployment in combat zones, and in psychological care for troops suffering battlefield trauma upon their return.”
Immersion, via Steve F.
“Google’s street view blurred the faces of some of the mural people. South Seattle, WA.”, submitted by Troy.
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Anonymous Analytics (AA), a mysterious group claiming to be a faction of the global hacktivist organization Anonymous, just released its second short-selling report, this time about the multi-billion dollar Chinese company Huabao International.
Entitled “Smoke and Mirrors,” it’s a comprehensive unraveling of fraud in China’s biggest flavor and fragrance provider. It accuses Huabao of lying about its suppliers and grossly overstating its profit margins to enrich the chairwoman and her proxies, to the detriment of shareholders. Since short-seller Muddy Waters released its first report in 2010, many firms have investigated fraud in public Chinese companies, making millions by publishing information that caused companies’ stock price to fall. But this is the first time a group as murky as AA has entered the fray.
“Since then, I’ve noticed similarly glossy-looking reports popping up on Newsnight and the like, so it may not be long until this is the norm. I’m guessing it’s a practical decision rather than an artistic one: this is how the new ultra-portable, ultra-useful digital cameras make things look: everything’s a teeny bit polished, a teeny bit Instagrammed. You see it everywhere: even Holby City looks like a movie these days. The news is just following suit.” — What is the difference between The Hobbit and the news? Not as much as there should be | Charlie Brooker | Comment is free | The Guardian