lightsinthedistance-modernlife

...we don't even have (very many) wild variants of crops to help alter them. Because they are considered "weeds." Because of agrilogistics. Oh dear. Thanks Cliff Gerrish. (Not for the lack of crops, of course.)

Sometimes my job is out of control depressing. Sure things are connected. And it sucks. 

@twitter, you really do need to look at your abuse policy. Like, formulate one, you know? Anyone who wonders what it would be like to live in a world where Spinozism actually ruled need only consider the gigantic descent of conatus upon the head of feminist Caroline Criado-Perez on Twitter today, for the successful campaign to put the head of Jane Austen on sterling notes. Blogger, Twitter, and Facebook are California, the dark side of, stripped for export, in a box. A world of dirty looks and instant judgment. What can a body do? Gang up on others... I fear that Mary Beard had it quite wrong when, having been dive bombed similarly a while back, she argued that in the end people would learn some kind of etiquette online. Hmmm, online etiquette--let's call it "netiquette"...only that already happened, in about 1990. Now that everyone  is online, as it were, we have descended from the vaguely libertarian days into pure superego suction. Mary Beard had it backwards. Etiquet...

Told you ! Been thinking about this for about three years now. The thing is, I've been reasoning that if tiny things can behave in a quantum way, it's because there is something about objects in general that enables this. So that larger things might also be able to behave in a quantum way, validating the idea that there is something general about objects. Which is why after reading a lot of quantum theory textbooks I got very interested in OOO. A thing is incapable of being grasped in some decisive way, even when it's considered as a unit such as a quantum. Even when it is totally isolated, beyond relations with others . It sort of aesthetically ripples: it is a little bit displaced from itself. It is not fully present, even to itself. Relation and processes don't account for why things are flowy and permeated with nothingness. They are like that all on their ownsome... Remember, the object these guys use is way, way  bigger than the quantum scale we've become used ...

Also adieu to the speculative Tate. Reza Negarestani, Robin Mackay and I and others wrote these weird labels for existing paintings by the Romantics. Such as the now absent Richard Wilson. That was in 2010 and would now be impossible. The nonhuman is nowhere to be seen in this new setup. Which proves the conventional wisdom that art history is usually about 15 years behind philosophy and literary criticism. The obviously post colonial vibe of Tate 2.0 sits uneasily inside its post-imprrial Tate sugar BP sponsorship shell. Reza--oil sponsoring history! Forwards--into the past!

The horseshoe in a boxing glove obviousness of the Tate Britain 2.0 omits the following lineages from its modern and thus less than contemporary purview: Ecology Nonhumans Things As a result, the following and more are nowhere or stuffed in corners: Bridget Riley David Hockney (Even) Francis Bacon Ian Hamilton Finlay Vanessa Bell Richard Long James McNeil Whistler John Sell Cotman John Everett Millais William Blake ... Dude who stole my Tate? My Tate got me to environmental philosophy, OOO, thing theory, Romanticism. Some of the things that will eject us from modernity with its complicated wheels, as Blake would say. That Tate is now a relic of the 70s, consigned to the dustbin of history as is the old ecology exhibit at the Natural History Museum, whose refit is now also sponsored by--BP. It's sad that the 1970s is now in the future.

This kind of injunction, identical to "Perfectly Ripe Mangoes," is why I don't visit the Tate Modern. But now the Tate Britain has been sucked into the orbit of Philistinism 2.0. It's an upgrade because now you are welcome to enjoy contemporary art: just look at how valuable and famous it is! And just like what the Americans and French had in the 1950s! I feel so cool Britannia! It's like commerce without imperial guilt! Seriously Guilt Free Money! What is now the entrance hall is bedecked with something like Matisse's snail, only it isn't. It's a huge waste of wall that says "Hey kids, this is modern art and it's fun. Enjoy!" Please please give me my blank fucking walls back. Then the central hall is empty, and impassable: no one, quite literally, is in it. Because a sound piece is enjoying it on your behalf. I'm a fan of pieces that roam around with cameras, the way it does. The dark ecology piece at the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague ...