Can we have social media without crises? Etc.
A weekly newsletter on technology, media and culture.
Sources for thinking…
Last week I mentioned that I was hoping to write a couple of short pieces relating to my new book Georg Simmel's Concluding Thoughts. The first of those pieces was published this week in Berfrois. It looks at how Simmel turned to Rembrandt's art for inspiration and how those portraits helped him to further develop his theoretical position. Here is the opening paragraph:
In May 1913, German sociologist Georg Simmel wrote to the poet and essayist Margarete von Bendemann to express his joy at seeing some ‘magnificent Rembrandts’. The encounter got him thinking. His gushing praise might place him in the category of an enthusiastic fan, but Simmel’s interest went far beyond a mere affection for Rembrandt’s portraits. The following year, Simmel moved from Berlin to Strasbourg, taking up his first proper academic post at the age of 56, and developed an increasing interest in how to conceptualise life. Uncertain times in Europe and the wrench of leaving his beloved Berlin had an impact on both his writing and thinking. Life, experience and modernity had always been preoccupations for Simmel, but something changed. In pursuit of inspiration, Rembrandt’s portraits proved to be source of ideas and insight as Simmel sought out a new conceptual palette. These paintings seemingly gave Simmel a template for how to think about life. Suddenly, inspired by Rembrandt, the theories he had been wrestling with began to take shape.
You can read the rest here.
An algorithmic author…
Last week Springer Nature announced their first machine-generated academic book. They have created an algorithmic system called Beta Writer that can produce entire books. I've written a short piece about this development.
Also at Berfrois…
Berfrois has now been going as an online magazine of literature and ideas for 10 years. They've recently also published Berfrois: The Book, which is edited by Berfrois’ editor Russel Bennetts. The book has lots of short chapters, mixing poetry, essays, interviews and other stuff. A really great read.
Also, here is another piece from Berfrois magazine from this week on how philosophy should be like reading a letter.
It's just not funny anymore…
Will Davies has an interesting piece in OpenDemocracy. It looks at how comedy and politics are dissolving into one another (which, in some ways, could be seen to be similar to the collapse of distinctions he outlines in his recent book Nervous States - which I'd strongly recomend reading). The article goes well beyond obvious points about politics being beyond satire, opening up the way that the lens of comedy reveals something about the role of instant feedback loops in politics. Davies draws some interesting conclusions concerning humour and humourlessness. He pushes us to ask about the way that contemporary media facilitates a certain type of comedic politician and political interaction.
A new book on data…
Deborah Lupton, one of the foremost authors on data, has a new book coming out with Polity Press. Data Selves: More-Than-Human Perspectives will be published in October. It looks like it will make an important intervention in debates on the impact of data on social life.
AI now, AI futures…
The AI Now Institute has been rapdily developing as the key centre for creative interdisciplinary work on AI. In this podcast AI Now Institute founders Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker look at how AI might change our lives. There no hyperbole here though, this is considered, critical and informed discussion on AI futures.
Data costings…
I’ve previously linked to a podcast about this work, but in August Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias’ interesting sounding new book The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism will be published.
What is a city?…
Des Fitzgerald has delivered a Radio 3 essay entitled ‘The City is Not a Park'. The essay asks some far-reaching question about how we respond to and organise our urban environments.
How do you feel?
There is a long piece on the work of Laurent Berlant by Hua Hsu in the New Yorker. It explores Berlant's version of affect theory and how it can be used to explore the prominence and impact of anxiety.
Social media and crises…
Over the last few weeks I keep returning to one question: can we have social media without crises?
I've been trying to write something in response, but its proving difficult. The 12 years since social media took off, has seen almost constant rolling economic and political crises. Plus, there is aways a sense that more is only just around the corner. I started to wonder if social media and a sense of crisis are inseperable.
In Adam Tooze's recent book Crashed he points out that the financial crisis of just over a decade ago hasn't really ended. I've recently been reading various reports and commentaries that another one is on its way. Maybe a form of capitalism that is so reliant on immaterial data and future prediction can never be fully stable.
The relations between social media and crisis are perhaps more tangible. Social media undoubtedly enhance the polarisation of viewpoints and play to the tensions between different positions. By algorithmically prioritising content that we are more likely to react to, they make visible the extremes and encourage us to respond to views that cement those already held or react against those of others. By design, and in the cultures emerging within them, they act to divide and to push apart. The question is whether this then creates conditions in which heightened divisions feed into political turmoil.
There are, of course, wider forces at work and lots of structural and social issues feeding into the state of things, and I'm not imagining social media as the cause (or even a cause). But given that social media have not yet existed without crisis type conditions, maybe we can reflect on how they might exacerbate or perpetuate tensions and upheaval.
I might try to develop and write this up at some point, if I can work out how to do it.
David Beer