My guest is Grimes, an artist and musician. Her new single, Artificial Angels, explores our unique technological and cultural moment on the eve of AI. We discuss the profound impacts of social media, her new album and the role of art during periods of political transformation.
In the 20th century, artists served as an avant-garde. Movements on both the left and right, such as the Bauhaus or Italian Futurism, offered radical new visions for a modernizing society. In the 21st century, we see a similar dynamic emerge through online folk art such as memes and other digital content. We explore the complex references and symbolism throughout the Artificial Angels music video and official album artwork:
Grimes: Pop Star Diplomacy and the Avant-Garde | Doomscroll
On this week’s bonus episode, Grimes and I map the possible future horizons for a politics beyond western-style liberal democracy and explore the philosophical impacts of AI. We discuss post-enlightenment thinking, the crisis of digital art and the aesthetic stagnation of creative work today:
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This has to be funded by Peter Thiel can you guys just go to grad school or do the coursework.
Can't lie, I found Grimes effervescent at first. Then it became some...reference-trading jam session that slowly edged me out as a viewer. A generous viewer, at that! Somebody who was actually investigating what the fucking fuck something like "Chloe21e8" EVEN IS (and I'm not that impressed, Grimes). I'm sitting there like "Okay, Josh just said the 'teleological implications' of a very specific form of ID excite him politically". Whereas I could just be anti-intellectual about it because I sincerely don't fucking get it at all, I just assume "He's being earnest, it probably has a basis in something I haven't investigated".
But what is so dark and wretched about this is that you two are just daintily musing about how AI could be guided by the avant garde in some fantasy draft of civilization while the surface tension of AI bubble IRL strains. And it will pop. And Grimes' proximity to that and her coping with a POP ALBUM and your high-concept artistic gain from it look really shitty to ordinary people. Just being honest.