Is there a name for the bracket of time in which children’s films including hip-hop-lite moments? I watched a couple of B-rated films with the kid at the weekend and just realised there’s some sort of time, maybe circa 1991-2001 in which bad hip hop entered the kids film lexicon before being abruptly removed again.
Two other things struck me on Monday: First, NVIDIA is close to becoming a trillion dollar company and all the reckons are around about AI and the potential market and secondly I saw a tote bag that said ‘Home of the most loved brands’ for some website or shopping centre or something. Both of these notions – and statements like them – jar me somehow. For one, I feel like the word ‘brand’ is increasing usage, or, at least I’m coming across it more. I feel like it was once constrained the domain of marketing, advertising and yes, branding where the symbolic presentation of an organisation was constructed, proliferated and protected.
This always seemed somewhat separate from the actual work of an organisation. This separation could lead to cynical ends; greenwashing being the most obvious but the point is that a business or organisation was engaged in serious, hard work and the job of advertising or branding was somehow to encapsulate that in a symbolic coat of meaning-making that could easily communicate it. The Pepsi brand guide from the early 2000s is probably the pinnacle of this idea that a company does something and the ‘brand’ seeks to represent it.
But (and this is hardly an original observation, as many of my bank holiday musings aren’t) the ‘value’ of the ‘brand’ and the financial value of a company seem increasingly to be ends in themselves. Maybe it’s because I’m more on LinkedIn but people seem to wave around the word ‘brand’ in the same way that I wouldn’t wave around the word ‘icon’ when referring to a piece of software. What exactly is a ‘most loved brand;’ the most perfect semiotics? Like I might suggest that I love (in purely parochial terms) The Expanse or Disco Elysium (I couldn’t think of a company or organisation I would say I love) but I’m not enamoured with their marketing outfit, I like the content, the thing itself. How can anyone love a grab-bag of symbols? Is that all we are?
And then there’s the ‘value’ expressed in £. To be sure this is older – as old as capitalism I guess. And there’s something interesting about a company that made hardware for gamers quietly becoming a trillion dollar company at the the centre of AI. But it feels like in the era of ESGs and social value production there’s more to be aimed for by LinkedIn-reckoners than ‘brand’ and £ amounts. I don’t know, there’s something here about the shifting weight of actual work to symbolic value whether financial or in publicity, something that reminds me of Talbot’s thing on vaporwave – all symbol devoid of any actual context similar to how ‘trends’ have lost all meaning.
PhD
There’s been a somewhat merciful break recently as I’ve been collecting feedback and waiting on details for upgrade. I’ve used it as an opportunity to catch up on reading and re-reading. I have a vast list of papers and references and sometimes I forget something I read months ago that is significant or something I read months ago has sudden new significance thanks to a new idea. It’s useful to periodically scroll through the library.
I’ve also made an active decision to read less about current AI hype and speculation. As you might imagine, it’s a big proportion of my feeds but it’s hard to see wood for the trees sometimes. I wish there was a Molly White-esque one that rather than a load of reckons is just a critical summary of news and other people’s reckons. Let me know if you know of one. I don’t even care about crypto that much but her bulletins are perfectly edited.
Recent
The Speculative Futures folks have done a great writeup of our panel in Milan here and I put the video and my scenario up here. Yesterday was the Copenhagen Institute of Futures Studies seminar on Design Futures but I don’t know how it went because I’m writing this before it took place. Edit: It went really well I think, but it was on a strange platform so I couldn’t see the audience or anything.
Reading
- Mapping the Catastrophic Imaginary presents a typology of climate activist writing and the tropes at play, how they shape and reinforce certain imaginaries.
- How Design is Governance by Amber Case who shows, through the metaphor of a cafe, how design structures social order. It’s obvious but really well put.
- Amusing and diverting diary of basically Dice Man but with ChatGPT. Not as shocking but pretty stupid.
- Yeah, NVIDIA is close to becoming a trillion dollar company which though interesting is a disheartening reflection of the world.
- US data centres consume 626 billion litres of water.
- Machine Decision is not Final looks like a great upcoming collection. There’s an excerpt up here.
I occasionally have to remind myself that the only think I’m interested in is 1.5. Amidst some less-than-salubrious conversations of recent about work and change and futures, just holding on to that simple, straightforward aim is strangely calming because the inequities, annoyances and silliness of everyday fade in comparison. Anyway, love you very much, yo know that of course. Speak later.