Things
Behind the scenes at Standing Rock, the volunteer systems that kept everybody well fed through several seasons of protest were a thing of goddamn wonder.
"We are a violent species. It’s the great curse of our species.... I think it perfectly understandable that we’re fascinated by it, but violence in art doesn’t hurt anyone... When I create a monster character, the covers of the book are like the bars of a cage. He can’t harm you, but you can look at him." …This and more in a juicy interview with Martin Amis.
Jacobin has an alternate take on the Italian referendum that serves as a useful reminder that it’s not always about fake news, so much as the way you, and the media, choose to look at it.
This week’s episode of Love and Radio is great, pure and simple. Britt Wray interviews bioartist Adam Zaretsky on the manipulation of DNA, the fringes of genetic modification, and eroticism in bioethics. The episode takes an unexpected turn when Britt asks Adam to recount an experience they shared a few years ago. Amen, sister.
In this critique of lazy sharing of built stories we don’t understand, Owen Hatherley argues that swooning over Yugoslavia’s brutalist, magical, inexplicable spomeniks on Tumblr and cheap concrete clickbait sites neglects and devalues a complex history of architectural hope and resistance.
Freedom machines: JG Ballard, the driverless car and the end of the central myth of America.
Oakland was a horrible tragedy, but as The Creative Independent argue, while mourning, keep up the fight, everywhere, for the shambolic DIY artist space – everything depends on them.
"While she spent years immersed in introspective experimentation, [Pauline] Oliveros’s 'Sonic Meditations' shouldn’t be mistaken for escapism or disengagement. The composer described listening as a necessary pause before thoughtful action: 'Listening is directing attention to what is heard, gathering meaning, interpreting and deciding on action.’"
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