Resistance
AI, without the hype
Interviews with Ray Kurzweil and Noam Chomsky in which they nuance and debunk a lot of hype surrounding AI at the moment.
Fac 1, Factory Communications 1979-1992
Factory Records was a Manchester-based British independent record label founded in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus.
The label featured several important acts on its roster, including Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, the Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, Northside, and (briefly) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and James. Factory also ran The Haçienda nightclub, in partnership with New Order.
Factory Records used a creative team (most notably record producer Martin Hannett and graphic designer Peter Saville) which gave the label and the artists recording for it a particular sound and image. The label employed a unique cataloguing system that gave a number not just to its musical releases, but also to various other related miscellany, including artwork, films, living beings, and even Wilson’s own casket and tombstone.
Two short clips about Factory artefacts
“I am not a piece of hash. I’m in charge of Factory Records. I think.”
Tony Wilson
Fac 51, The Hacienda or How Not To Run A Club by Peter Hook - #update
The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
The Haçienda was, as Hook says, in many ways the perfect example of how not to run a club – if you view a nightclub as a money-making business. But if, like the baggy trousered philanthropists Factory, you see it as an altruistic gift to your hometown and a breeding ground for the next generation of youth culture, it was, accidentally, purposefully, shambolically, anarchically, thrillingly, scarily, inspirationally, perfect.
Peter Hook is a founding member of Joy Division and New Order
See him talk about it.
See this short documentary about The Hacienda.
Hans Schnitzler - We Nihilists
Wij Nihilisten
An elite of tech entrepreneurs has succeeded in dominating people and society in a very short time. Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, services such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat or the cloud have become indispensable. In fifteen years, a collective digital conversion has taken place that has radically changed our lives.
In Wij nihilisten, Hans Schnitzler poses a question that is hardly ever asked: how did this virtual class manage to do this? Inspired by, among other things, Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings on nihilism, he goes in search of the cultural roots of this success. His quest immerses the reader in the wonderful world of the archetype of the internet age: the nerd. At the same time, he presents a mirror to us: in fact we are all nerds.
The data revolution threatens to eat its own children. With this book, Schnitzler urges us to face our own part in this. Because only when we are aware of this change is possible.
You can buy the book here (Dutch only):
https://www.debezigebij.nl/boek/wij-nihilisten/
'The one who sees it all, sees nothing'
C.S. Lewis
Videos about the book and discussions about the presented issues:
All rights belong to the owners of the works presented.
Adam Alter - Irresistible
People have been addicted to substances for thousands of years, but for the past two decades, we’ve also been hooked on technologies, like Instagram, Netflix, Facebook, Fitbit, Twitter, and email—platforms we’ve adopted because we assume they’ll make our lives better. These inventions have profound upsides, but their appeal isn’t an accident. Technology companies and marketers have teams of engineers and researchers devoted to keeping us engaged. They know how to push our buttons, and how to coax us into using their products for hours, days, and weeks on end.
Tracing addiction through history, Alter shows that we’re only just beginning to understand the epidemic of behavioral addiction gripping society. He takes us inside the human brain at the very moment we score points on a smartphone game, or see that someone has liked a photo we’ve posted on Instagram. But more than that, Alter heads the problem off at the pass, letting us know what we can do to step away from the screen. He lays out the options we have to address this problem before it truly consumes us. After all, who among us hasn’t struggled to ignore the ding of a new email, the next episode in a TV series, or the desire to play a game just one more time?
“We live in an age of addiction — seemingly benign and otherwise — and Adam Alter, mixing the latest in behavioral science with briskly engaging storytelling, wakes us to an age-old problem that has found troubling new expression in the era of ubiquitous technology. You may never look at your smartphone in the same way again.”
—Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic and You May Also Like
Check out this video to see him talking about the book
The Debunking Handbook, A must read for everyone in business or science
The Debunking Handbook
Stephan Lewandowsky (born 3 June 1958) is an Australian psychologist. He has worked in both the United States and Australia, and is currently based at the University of Bristol, UK, where he is the chair in cognitive psychology at the School of Experimental Psychology.[2] His research, which originally pertained to computer simulations of people’s decision-making processes, has recently focused on the public’s understanding of science and why people often embrace beliefs that are sharply at odds with the scientific evidence.
Get The Debunking Handbook here
The Debunking Handbook
John Cook is the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland. He created the website Skeptical Science.com, which won the 2011 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge. In 2015, John was elected as a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, who are selected for their ‘distinguished contributions to science and scepticism’. John co-authored the college textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis and the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. He won an award for Best Australian Science Writing for 2014, published by UNSW.
Get The Debunking Handbook here
Dior and I - Documentary about Raf Simons first collection at Dior
Dior and I brings the viewer inside the storied world of the Christian Dior fashion house with a privileged, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Raf Simons’ first haute couture collection as its new artistic director-a true labor of love created by a dedicated group of collaborators. Melding the everyday, pressure-filled components of fashion with mysterious echoes from the iconic brand’s past, the film is also a colorful homage to the seamstresses who serve Simons’ vision.
– Written by The Orchard
'I don't care where she is... I need her now'
Raf Simons
The Dior fashion house
In 1946 Marcel Boussac, a successful entrepreneur known as the richest man in France, invited Dior to design for Philippe et Gaston, a Paris fashion house launched in 1925.[10] Dior refused, wishing to make a fresh start under his own name rather than reviving an old brand.[11] On 8 December 1946, with Boussac’s backing, Dior founded his fashion house. The actual name of the line of his first collection, presented on 12 February 1947,[12] was Corolle (literally the botanical term corolla or circlet of flower petals in English), but the phrase New Look was coined for it by Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar.
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold - Morgan Spurlock
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold – Morgan Spurlock
A documentary about branding, advertising and product placement that is financed and made possible by brands, advertising and product placement.
Basically it’s post modern art that Marcel Duchamp would have loved.
Brand Sense - Martin Lindstrom
The definitive book on sensory branding, shows how companies appeal to consumers’ five senses to sell products.
Did you know that the gratifying smell that accompanies the purchase of a new automobile actually comes from a factory-installed aerosol can containing “new car” aroma? Or that Kellogg’s trademarked “crunch” is generated in sound laboratories? Or that the distinctive click of a just-opened jar of Nescafé freeze-dried coffee, as well as the aroma of the crystals, has been developed in factories over the past decades? Or that many adolescents recognize a pair of Abercrombie & Fitch jeans not by their look or cut but by their fragrance?
In perhaps the most creative and authoritative book on how our senses affect our everyday purchasing decisions, global branding guru Martin Lindstrom reveals how the world’s most successful companies and products integrate touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound with startling and sometimes even shocking results. In conjunction with renowned research institution Millward Brown, Lindstrom’s innovative worldwide study unveils how all of us are slaves to our senses—and how, after reading this book, we’ll never be able to see, hear, or touch anything from our running shoes to our own car doors the same way again.
An expert on consumer shopping behavior, Lindstrom has helped transform the face of global marketing with more than twenty years of hands-on experience. Firmly grounded in science, and disclosing the secrets of all our favorite brands, Brand Sense shows how we consumers are unwittingly seduced by touch, smell, sound, and more.
The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money
The film is hosted by Hollywood star Dennis Hopper and is directed by Hermann Vaske. Shot in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Hopper delivers a powerful performance. Arty as you’ve never seen him before, he puts advertising into perspective of popular culture at the end of the 20th century. Spitting colour, laughing his head off, destroying books, Dennis Hopper sends Hermann Vaske on a mission to talk to the greatest ad men, directors and artists to find out about the crossover between various creative disciplines. In a visually dazzling, wickedly funny slam of creativity and media obsession, Hermann conducts unconventional kinds of interviews
Epilogue
Interesting to see that part 4, which is about using shock as a paradigm and which you should surely skip if you detest shocking imagery, hasn’t survived the test of time. Pulp Fiction by Quintin Tarantino, quoted in this part of the film when it was just released, has.
