Discourse

 View of Hito Steyerl, “This is the Future,” Portland Art Museum, 2023. Courtesy: the artist; Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York; and Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Mario Gallucci

View of Hito Steyerl, “This is the Future,” Portland Art Museum, 2023. Courtesy: the artist; Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York; and Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Mario Gallucci

Is artificial intelligence natural, perhaps even inevitable? Drew Zeiba tabulates how K Allado-McDowell, Hito Steyerl, and ricky sallay zoker use predictive tech to pry open or close off our ecological futures.

 © No Agency

© No Agency

When is a modeling agency more than a modeling agency? When “it’s a feeling.” Cara Schacter meta-texts a first-anniversary newsletter anthology from No Agency, NYC’s cloutiest new logo.

 Martin Parr. The Last Resort New Brighton, England , 1983–85. © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos. Courtesy: Rocket Gallery, London

Martin Parr, from the series “The Last Resort,”1983–85. © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos. Courtesy: Rocket Gallery, London

Photography documents people, who mimic in turn what they see in photos. In the medial vernacular of our digital era, are we more likely to find life in humans, or their mechanical images?

 Britney Spears objects with an umbrella to a paparazzo’s behavior, 2006

Britney Spears to a paparazzo’s behavior with an umbrella, 2007

In the mistake culture produced by an era of surveillance, our idea of the good isn’t defined by action, but its appearance, and the power to make truth boils down to who keeps the receipts. By Matilda Lin Berke

 Joan Didion’s pair of Celine faux-tortoiseshell sunglasses, which sold at auction in November 2022 for $27,000

Joan Didion’s Celine faux-tortoiseshell sunglasses, which sold at auction in November 2022 for $27,000

In times of it-girl inflation, everyone wants to live in a celebrity’s skin. Who better than Joan Didion to burst that bubble? Her spirit explains why style survives death and serious (prose-) stylists only buy Kim Kardashian’s shapewear.

 Yves Saint Laurent at the press conference for his first retrospective 25 Years of Design, Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1983. © Roxanne Lowit. Photo: Roxanne Lowit

Yves Saint Laurent at the press conference for his first retrospective, “25 Years of Design,” Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1983. © Roxanne Lowit. Photo: Roxanne Lowit

A short history of luxury designer retrospectives – of Armani, YSL, Alexander McQueen, et al – and their more experimental counterparts illuminates 20th-century ideas of nation-building and fashion’s many possible futures.

 Allen Jones, Table , painted fiberglass, resin, mixed media, glass, and tailor-made accessories, 61x 130 x 76 cm

Allen Jones, Table, 1969, painted fiberglass, resin, mixed media, glass, and tailor-made accessories, 61x 130 x 76 cm. Courtesy: the artist

In an age of burgeoning techno-feudalism, do artistic uses of kink aesthetics work as immunizations against societal violence, or do they amount to just another cope?

 Photo: Adina Glickstein

Photo: Adina Glickstein

Barely sated, Adina Glickstein gets to the bottom of a TikTok culinary trend.

 Vivienne Westwood in SS 2017, detail. Photo: Juergen Teller

Vivienne Westwood in SS 2017, detail. Photo: Juergen Teller

Is it possible to have style undressed? And what do we lack if we lack clothes? In her July column, Joanna Walsh ponders the hard work of taking (almost) everything off.

We feel either too big or too small for our clothes. In her June column, Joanna Walsh considers the monstrous feminine, oversize fashion, and the hard work required to make us “fit.”

 Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans: 16 , 1981, Gelatin silver print, 20 x 25 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans: 16, 1981, gelatin silver print, 20 x 25 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

While US Supreme Court’s May 2023 ruling against Andy Warhol’s “Prince” silkscreens might hamstring appropriative art, Sam Venis sees the legal system protecting human artists from generative AI.

The cultish bravura of New York’s most in-crowd shit-poster led to predictions of an in-cinema shooting at the premiere. But reflecting a scene back at itself is not an insight into our incoherent condition – it’s a hype tactic.

 Özgür Kar, Death with clarinet , 2021, 4K video with sound, 75" Samsung TV, custom flightcase, media player, speaker, 15 min, looped; open: 122 x 176 x 125 cm; closed: 122 x 176 x 38 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Emalin, London. Photo: Stephen James

Özgür Kar, Death with clarinet, 2021, 4K video with sound, 75" Samsung TV, custom flightcase, media player, speaker, 15 min, looped; open: 122 x 176 x 125 cm; closed: 122 x 176 x 38 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Emalin, London. Photo: Stephen James

Tramming backward through time to the score from Twin Peaks, Daniel Moldoveanu indulges the melancholy phantoms of failed revolutions and the relief of finally giving in.

 North Face x Gucci linen puffer from a campaign shot in Iceland, 2021. Courtesy: Gucci. Photo: Jalan and Jibril Durimel

North Face x Gucci linen puffer from a campaign shot in Iceland, 2021. Courtesy: Gucci. Photo: Jalan and Jibril Durimel

“Fashion is the future, clothes are what we already wear.” In her May column, Joanna Walsh ponders how fast fashion’s accelerationism plays with seasons, desire, and the virtual, projecting us into an elsewhere we’ll never venture into.

 Nile Koetting, Cherry script , 2023, e ink display animation, 9.5 x 12 x 2 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Parliament, Paris

Nile Koetting, Cherry script, 2023, e ink display animation, 9.5 x 12 x 2 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Parliament, Paris

Two exhibitions in Paris – Nile Koetting at Parliament Gallery and the group show “Au delà” at Lafayette Anticipations – conjure data’s limitations in the face of the divine.

 Congolese Sapeurs

Congolese Sapeurs, members of the Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes (Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People)

What is style? It’s not fashion, or clothing; it’s only ever personal, but never entirely personal. In the first installment of Spike’s NEW COLUMN, Joanna Walsh ponders why we yearn for ten-piece wardrobe plans or call for Derrida to get style. 

 Izumi Suzuki. Photo: Nobuyoshi Araki

Izumi Suzuki. Photo: Nobuyoshi Araki

Translated into English decades after her death, the sci-fi stories of the avantgarde-writer Izumi Suzuki gently twist modern Japan into tales of unspeakable loneliness.

 All images: Jo Broughton, “Empty Porn Sets,” 1995–2007, C-type prints mounted on aluminum and set in sub box frames, 20.5 x 25.5 cm. All images courtesy: the artist and Michael Mckenzie at Hammer Lab, London

All images: Jo Broughton, “Empty Porn Sets,” 1995–2007, C-type prints mounted on aluminum and set in sub box frames, 20.5 x 25.5 cm. All images courtesy: the artist and Michael Mckenzie at Hammer Lab, London

Everything you always wanted to say about porn, but were too afraid to be asked: Lilly Markaki on Polly Barton’s Porn: An Oral History (2023).

 Rosemarie Trockel, Replace Me , 2009. © Rosemarie Trockel and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022

Rosemarie Trockel, Replace Me, 2009. © Rosemarie Trockel and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022

Claiming to automate labor, is AI actually creating more busy work for humans?

 Caravaggio, Narcissus ,1597–99, oil on canvas, 110 x 92 cm. Courtesy: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome

Caravaggio, Narcissus,1597–99, oil on canvas, 110 x 92 cm. Courtesy: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome

As the blender of post-modernity makes an ever-smoother paste of our selves and our projections, Daniel Moldoveanu asks if we are becoming front-row voyeurs of a death we could prevent.

 Still from “EVERY ANGEL IS TERRIFYING,” produced by Praxis Society, 2023

Still from “EVERY ANGEL IS TERRIFYING,” produced by Praxis Society, 2023

Hearing murmurs of crypto city-states in the making, Adina Glickstein ponders the complicated politics of exit.

 Michella Bredahl,  Siblings Martha, Alma, Asta and Olga in their home , 2022

Michella Bredahl, Siblings Martha, Alma, Asta and Olga in their home, 2022

Stephanie LaCava hovers over streams of online girlhood, scanning for the highly charged tropes and the transient beauty of the jeune fille 2.0.

 Miu Miu, fall 2022 ready-to-wear collection. Photo: Filippo Fior 

Miu Miu, fall 2022 ready-to-wear collection. Photo: Filippo Fior 

Forget Y2K; the 2010s are already back again. But retromania leads us down into a labyrinth of data horror, writes Adina Glickstein in her February column. 

 “The Happy Nut.” Courtesy: Kindred Black

“The Happy Nut.” Courtesy: Kindred Black

For her first column of 2023, Cara Schacter looks under the soft, draped gown of fashion’s obsession with everything angelic.

 Fourtnight Battlepass perform at Rash NYE, 2023. Photo: Nolan Kelly Mitchell

Fourtnight Battlepass perform at Rash NYE, 2023. Photo: Nolan Kelly

Minutes to midnight, Nolan Kelly wonders if hyperpop is a nostalgic rehash of too-recent hits, or a consolation for a culture exhausted by novelty-seeking?

 Stills from Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling , 2022. All images courtesy: Warner Bros. Pictures

Stills from Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling, 2022. All images courtesy: Warner Bros. Pictures

Where Don’t Worry Darling styles itself as a critique of retro-patriarchy, Steven Phillips-Horst sees a vision of womanhood stuck in a cul-de-sac of moral escapism.

 Still from Toshi Hoo, Raymond Kurzweil, Anthony Waller,  The Singularity Is Near , 2010 (detail)

Still from Toshi Hoo, Raymond Kurzweil, Anthony Waller, The Singularity Is Near, 2010

Will we still set New Year’s resolutions when our consciousness lives on computers? Adina Glickstein rings in 2023 with transhumanists, goblins, and worms. 

 Vegas-Lady delivering announcements over the microphone, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, October 2022

Vegas-Lady delivering announcements over the microphone, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, October 2022

Invited to expertise at a speed-date swap meet for discourse in twenty-seven languages, Daniel Moldoveanu looks askance at the doomed pageantry of trying to get one’s point across. 

 Courtroom sketch of Elizabeth Holmes being cross-examined by prosecutor Robert Leach, November 30, 2021. REUTERS/Vicki Behringer

Courtroom sketch of Elizabeth Holmes being cross-examined by prosecutor Robert Leach, November 30, 2021. REUTERS/Vicki Behringer

This month, Adina Glickstein considers three girls’ grifts – and the startup-ification of subjectivity that might be the real crime after all.  

 Urbit graphic design by Romina Malta

Urbit graphic design by Romina Malta

Is Dimes Square a Network State? At Urbit Assembly, Adina Glickstein looks for an exit.

 BeReal meme remixed by the clothing brand Praying, posted to Instagram @praying

BeReal meme remixed by the clothing brand Praying, posted to Instagram @praying

Adina Glickstein clocks some parallels between social media’s latest compulsion and cinema’s angsty Danes.

 Extinction meme via @angelicism01archive2 on Instagram

Extinction meme via @angelicism01archive2 on Instagram

Adina Glickstein writes a travel diary from the end of the end of the world.

 Katonah Yoga "Wraps for Rapture"

Katonah Yoga "Wraps for Rapture" diagram. © Katonah Yoga Center

In her new column "User Error," Spike Editor-at-Large Adina Glickstein charts the volatility of love and the crypto market, and finds solace in nightcore and Avril Lavigne conspiracy theories.