This is an essay I wrote in 2022, inspired by Kyle Chaka’s 2016 viral essay, “Welcome to Airspace”. After seeing an excerpt from Kyle’s new book on the front of /c/Technology, I thought y’all might be interested in reading this piece of mine, which is less about the design of physical spaces, and more about The Algorithm™'s influence on creative practice in general.
This is a conversation I can have a million times, so I hope you enjoy.
And that’s what I’m disagreeing with. When experimental or edgy art moves into the mainstream, it always gets sanitized for the general public. It has never bled into the mainstream unchanged. Look at the bowdlerization of Shakespeare for mass-market publication in 1818. Look at the literal fig leaves added to works of art for display in the 16th century.