֍ Folklore_0x ::: Drip

Art can speak to the soul. Reading this in the context of explorations around the role of media, this piece provokes thought around the ways that art (and media broadly) provokes beauty and shapes our understanding of values in a given community or society. Media having its own "silent theology" has been the idea keeping me up at night. via Folklore Published on July 24, 2023 at 08:56PM Link: https://ift.tt/XoY3rRT Curator: 0x70eCe45cDc64A768f936Ccb8aC851578251363e3 (0x70eCe45cDc64A768f936Ccb8aC851578251363e3)

THE GENESIS OF SCHISM: Schismogenesis literally means "creation of division". The term derives from the Greek words σχίσμα skhisma "cleft" (borrowed into English as schism, "division into opposing factions"), and γένεσις genesis "generation, creation" (deriving in turn from gignesthai "be born or produced, creation, a coming into being"). Gregory Bateson, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind describes the two forms of schismogenesis (complementary and symmetrical) and proposes that both forms are self-destructive to the parties involved. He goes on to suggest that researchers look into methods that one or both parties may employ to stop a schismogenesis before it reaches its destructive stage. via Folklore Published on July 22, 2023 at 01:26PM Link: https://ift.tt/l6moIuF Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

ON DAYDREAMING WITH TECHNOLOGY: Returning to the theme of technology's impact on our collective imagination (and increasing lack thereof), an old favorite from Astra Mag on the state of daydreaming. Much in the same way that Christopher Butler's piece from last week (on Personal Machines and Portable Worlds) explored the way modern personal devices remove the magic of exploring the unknown, this essay unpacks the ways today's internet has changed the terms of our daydreaming. Granting our daydreams fodder, but also taking away their breathing room. It fills in too many gaps. What does tech look like that makes space for imagined alternatives? via Folklore Published on July 21, 2023 at 10:41PM Link: https://ift.tt/fu61ZpR Curator: 0xFdD0EC9A0C36834FCa1B9bAd13F811c58574fB4b (0xFdD0EC9A0C36834FCa1B9bAd13F811c58574fB4b)

JAPANESE ANCESTORS: “ The young users of 2Chan were simultaneously obsessive consumers of media and animated by a deep animosity toward the press. The Japanese cynical romanticists loathed the media, yet were incapable of shutting up about it.” via Folklore Published on July 21, 2023 at 08:40AM Link: https://ift.tt/jntKAhL Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

WHAT SCREENS WANT: We need to work as a community to develop a language of transformation so we can talk to one another. And we probably need to steal these words from places like animation, theater, puppetry, dance, and choreography. Words matter. They are abstractions, too—an interface to thought and understanding by communication. The words we use mold our perception of our work and the world around us. They become a frame, just like the interfaces we design. via Folklore Published on July 19, 2023 at 08:45PM Link: https://ift.tt/wuHmK2v Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

"Walking through Dickinson’s real-yet-reconstituted house, I trailed my fingers over the shiny sofas. The psychedelically patterned floral wallpaper looked new and garish, like something onscreen. The house began to feel less like the home of a real dead woman than a hallucination produced by a TV show, or a palimpsest of dying media forms" via Folklore Published on July 18, 2023 at 12:56PM Link: https://ift.tt/UQk4CvV Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

HEIRLOOM MARKETING: You can't buy into class but people will try anyway, so the watch gets the nouveaux and nouveauxing rich as close to this lifestyle as they will ever get. Not only is it a visible symbol of their success but it broadcasts (as per the ad) that they are the kind of person that reflectively considers the next generation, what they will pass on to them, their legacy. via Folklore Published on July 16, 2023 at 05:56PM Link: https://ift.tt/NIw3AUG Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

The designers of complex adaptive systems are not strictly designing systems themselves. They are hinting those systems towards anticipated outcomes, from an array of existing interrelated systems. These are designers that do not understand themselves to be in the center of the system. Rather, they understand themselves to be participants, shaping the systems that interact with other forces, ideas, events and other designers. This essay is an exploration of what it means to participate. via Folklore Published on July 15, 2023 at 02:29PM Link: https://ift.tt/Wu1TLkt Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

PERSONAL MACHINES & PORTABLE WORLDS: In this essay, Christopher Butler explores the world of personal devices — and the very different feel they gave than internet-connected devices of today, which, despite their efforts to feel hyper-personal, often feel anything but. On this older era of devices, he writes: "To be personal it has to be a certain kind of device — the kind that balances access to another world with the kinds of limits and boundaries that make a thing private....The most magical of personal devices are those which offer access to the experience of infinitude without measuring it for you. The unknown is the stuff of imagination." via Folklore Published on July 14, 2023 at 05:26PM Link: https://ift.tt/3pwbPlH This one's worth pairing with the NotBoring essay from a few months back, 'The Happiness Hypothesis' https://ift.tt/DwWG9C5. If, as Packy writes, "the purpose of technology is to increase the potential for happiness, but most people don’t feel like technology makes them much happier" — maybe getting back to personal portals that unlock imagination is the key. Curator: 0xFdD0EC9A0C36834FCa1B9bAd13F811c58574fB4b (0xFdD0EC9A0C36834FCa1B9bAd13F811c58574fB4b)

SUBCOMPACT PUBLISHING: “One of the great benefits of being part of the emergent publishing world is that you don’t have multiple mediums to publish across. You can and probably should focus squarely on digital. Perhaps later — contingent on market demand and content quality — you can consider publishing a print anthology to give your publication a stronger literal edge. So what are these so called ‘indigenous’ qualities of digital?” via Folklore Published on July 13, 2023 at 09:26AM Link: https://ift.tt/9xh5JAk Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

OUR INTERFACE SHAPES OUR ACTIONS: In this 1980 video called "Social Life of Small Urban Spaces" William H. Whyte and their team explore how urban design, like seating, shade and trees, influence the behaviors of crowds. via Folklore Published on July 12, 2023 at 12:18PM Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOFNJzp1yng Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

Tribes, Institutions, Markets, Networks: In this prescient paper from 1996 we learn about the different types of human organizations, their characteristics, and how they interact with each other. via Folklore Published on July 11, 2023 at 07:42AM Link: https://ift.tt/yCm8pVj Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

This essay explores the history and implications of images and their relationship with humans, delving into the philosophical perspectives of Aristotle and Kant regarding the mimetic nature of images and their emotional impact on viewers. It also discusses the cultural aversion to images, iconoclasm, and how certain religions and early Christians discouraged their use. The author then explores a future where AI-generated images dominate, questioning the authorship and authenticity of images as machines become creators in their own right. The conclusion is fascinating, and much of this conversation is relevant to the curation and publishing work we're doing at Folklore. via Folklore Published on July 10, 2023 at 02:39PM Link: https://ift.tt/wLXerZ7 Curator: 0x70eCe45cDc64A768f936Ccb8aC851578251363e3 (0x70eCe45cDc64A768f936Ccb8aC851578251363e3)

TWITTER's END - Eugene outlines in detail how Twitter has reached the end of its days. In a compelling and emotional essay, we learn about the lifecycle of Twitter. We explore how they stumbled upon (then destroyed) the interest-graph, its key innovation, moat, and differentiator in the hyper-competitive world of social media. via Folklore Published on July 09, 2023 at 09:00AM Link: https://ift.tt/ESlBZoP Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

Most research on digital divides and inequalities has focused on social differences within nations, such as divides between socioeconomic groups. This chapter takes a global perspective, focusing on how the production of content is distributed around the world and setting out to comprehensively uncover: (1) where Internet content is being created; (2) whether the amount of content created in different places is changing over time; and (3) the ways in which landscapes of content are structured and formed. Mapping the geographic diversity and concentration of a broad variety of sources of online content is ultimately crucial to developing more informed strategies to combat digital divides and ultimately benefit those who are left out of flows of information. via Folklore Published on July 08, 2023 at 02:55PM Link: https://ift.tt/9oOQZrA Curator: 0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD (0x1b4a302D15412655877d86ae82823D8F6d085ddD)

READING WITH RECIPROCITY: Getting meta on this Friday with a read unpacks how we might shift our reading mindset from one of extraction to one of reciprocity. "Reciprocity of thinking requires us to pay attention to who else is speaking alongside us. It also positions us, first and foremost, as citizens embedded in dynamic legal orders and systems of relations that require us to work constantly and thoughtfully across the myriad systems of thinking, acting, and governance within which we find ourselves enmeshed" via Folklore Published on July 07, 2023 at 03:47PM Link: https://ift.tt/ywxO4IH Curator: 0xFdD0EC9A0C36834FCa1B9bAd13F811c58574fB4b (0xFdD0EC9A0C36834FCa1B9bAd13F811c58574fB4b)

Dear all. I want to take a moment to celebrate. In August last year, I had a vision to create a more sustainable model of media—one where we can curate and create higher-quality content. Today marks the end of Season 1 and the beginning of our transition to Season 2. We just published our first externally commissioned essay by a professional researcher and published author, curated on our community webApp, distributed into an RSS, and announced on Telegram and Discord. An end-to-end POC of interfaceless media communities. Thank you all who have taken the time to participate, and I hope you have enjoyed the Folklore experience. I'll write a longer post on our Mirror, but I think you should all know what we've accomplished: 1. Gathered ~9k USD equivalent in our treasury 2. Published 3 commissioned articles, 1 external 3. Built a webApp for curation (submit.folklore.institute) 4. Created a basic website with Bonfire (folklore.institute) 5. Automated the flow from curation into an AI Mind Chatbot (Ark) 6. Curated >300 resources 7. Gathered 198 Paid Community Members 8. Recruited 3 supporting curators (Aron, Jihan, Keely) 9. Nurtured a squad of loyal contributors (myself, Josh, Moreese, Finn) 10. Have 436 public subscribers (thank you!) Our treasury now sits at about ~5.4k USD, and we're ready for Season 2. Our ambitions will now look towards building a brand, doing some IRL meetups, and doubling down on commissions and ARK, our Mind. Stay tuned for more. Folklore has just begun. Support us by collecting: https://folklore.mirror.xyz/nQ30ZabiOnn4BEtvGf1jPAjMYMCtMoFALDeo8wh4yQM

PROPHETS & PROFITS: An exploration of entanglements between technology, capital, and spirituality, with particular emphasis on the reshaping of maps & territories by would-be empires and their self-appointed messiahs ------------------- Welcome to Folklore's first externally commissioned essay. We are joined today by Wassim, a brilliant researcher looking at online cultures. In this article, Wassim explores the depths of Bitcoin and crypto cultures, asking the hard questions around the role of evangelism and the consequences of BELIEF in the development of our new charter cities and network states. -------------- Please support Folklore by collecting this article. Funds are split equally between Wassim and Folklore to support further commissions. via Folklore Published on July 06, 2023 at 11:31AM Link: https://folklore.mirror.xyz/nQ30ZabiOnn4BEtvGf1jPAjMYMCtMoFALDeo8wh4yQM Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

OUR OWN TRUTH. In the absence of trustworthy institutions, society has retreated into self-validating rubrics of meaning-making. We now attempt to posit anti-conspiratorial truth in a vacuum of credibility. via Folklore Published on July 05, 2023 at 07:48AM Link: https://ift.tt/pfmu1JX Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)

REVISITING THE WEB 2.0 VISION: “If Netscape was the standard bearer for Web 1.0, Google is most certainly the standard bearer for Web 2.0... The central principle behind the success of the giants born in the Web 1.0 era who have survived to lead the Web 2.0 era appears to be this, that they have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence” Web 2.0 was the intersection of Hyperlinking, Aggregation, Curation, Reviews, Markets, Wikis, Tagging, Sharing, and Peer Production. via Folklore Published on July 04, 2023 at 10:15AM Link: https://ift.tt/p4X80sy Curator: 0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E (0xe62d071Ea99A63798Fec7222c483c53e87F2A32E)