Things Right Now 015
Week of 12.16.24
Anachronistic Contemporary or the Inverse of Nostalgia
Last week, a thread of objects described as “anachronistically contemporary” went viral. These were artworks and objects that feel like they were crafted by time travelers, their aesthetics anticipating eras, movements, and technologies decades or centuries to come. The Qing dynasty Peach Blossom Cave Glaze vases that kicked off the discussion would feel at home in a boom boom, eighties condo, despite their 18th century provenance.
Some of the examples fit this concept better than others. No, Corbusier’s Villa Savoye is not anachronistically contemporary. It’s very much an example of the International style. Being avant-garde—being early—is not the same as being anachronistic. The best example in the thread are the paintings of Alex Colville’s paintings, especially Dog and Bridge from 1976. As many have noted, this image bears an uncanny resemblance to early 2000s PlayStation 2 graphics.
If nostalgia is the importation of aesthetics of the past into the present, is the anachronistic contemporary an aesthetic with the aura of the future, regardless of vintage?
Palantir or Drone Wars
For the last 5 years, the defense tech firm Palantir has aired commercials during the annual Army-Navy football game. (They know their audience.) This year’s installment features a swarm of suicide drones attacking an enemy naval task force, rotors buzzing ominously. It turns out killer robots don’t look like the Terminator. Death doesn’t clank after you with a gun in its hand, it’s something the size of an iPad that sounds like a mosquito, which, if I’m being honest is far more horrifying.
With mystery drones lighting up the skies of New Jersey the past six weeks, the ad takes on a more ominous tone. The government has been tight-lipped about what they are, whose they are, or why they might be there. It’s been a boon for conspiracy theorists. Is it Project Blue Beam: the plot to use a staged alien invasion to usher in one world government? Are they classified government aircraft sniffing out a rogue nuclear weapon? Is it really aliens?
The fun side of drones—crazy aerial displays, sometimes involving fireworks—proves that their visual capabilities with continue to advance. We’re nowhere near the end of the 'is it a drone?' or 'is it a spaceship?' discourse.
Social Media as Dying Mall or Platform Preference Cascades
Ted Gioia points out that social media platforms bear some unfortunate similarities with modern urban planning. His high-level points on the matter:
“People go there because other people go there—but this is a fragile foundation for a community.”
A corollary of this is people avoid places because certain people go there as well. We saw this happen to Facebook, young users fled when older users began to dominate. We are seeing it happen now as left-leaning X users depart for Bluesky. This underscores the fragility point. When a user perceives that other users like them are leaving a platform, they rush for the exits as well. It’s a preference cascade, which while typically associated with a change in opinion, also refers to a changes in behavior.
“Malls died because there were too many of them. Social media is now entering that same phase.”
“Malls started to look identical, with the same merchandise, tenants, architecture, and ambiance.”
This was actually a point we made in K-HOLE #1 in 2011.
“Many malls, like social media platforms, became magnets for lurkers, losers, and toxic behavior of all sorts—and this made community-building impossible.”
“These bunkers were never real communities, and never will be. They’re just businesses—often run with distrust or contempt for their users.”
The last point reminds me of another similarity. These spaces are private, not public. As a result, free speech rights don’t apply. You can’t organize a protest at the mall without management’s permission. Similarly, it’s up to platform ownership what speech is allowed.
