NEW WEAPONS—
FLESH MACHINES
the platform megastructures of the internet have made it such that the act of consumption and (re)production is the labor that maintains the flows of information and visualization; infinitely replicating content soup, forming a deluge of audio-visual stimulation made up of dismembered representations of the real—taking a doomscroll through amphetamine laced protocols, jpeg compressed paris filtered farcical fetishizations of reality. self conception within this mode is broken down and reflected back in an alienated form, which is quantified and packaged by the algo as to optimize user engagement, and drive ad spend—subjectivity debased and stratified by its equivalence to and assimilation into advertising images, which are nearly indistinguishable from organic content in many cases; brands have become people, people have become brands—bio-machines facilitating data packet transfers that feed server machines, which feed network machines, that feed analytical machines.
the "public space" that exists online and in the phone exists in a state of exception outside physical reality, where capital (which on this plane is malleable and gaseous) can assert control and mediate interaction in a way that is impossible in meat-space.
the foundation of the computing apparatuses lie in their naked form—integrated circuitry, microprocessor, network cable, etc. which then has a legible, interfacing system made of signs in the form of the operating system, dock, finder, error message, website, app, porn ad that bricks your phone, etc.—naming and deconstructing the ways in which techno-capital has colonized our cognitive function is imperative in beginning the process of disassociation from our social reproductive core—i don’t think anybody truly wants instagram being the primary mode of human connection—social arrangements are modified by programs made to capitalize on our attention and self-perception. modulated reality and artificial socialization, damages the ways in which we interact with each other in real life. some people think in terms of posting, nearly every waking moment thinking about content, reflecting on content, living content; content is an interesting word—it’s used to describe the material of the web. the word differentiates it from art, and brings it closer to something like a commodity, something to be exchanged, that only has value because you enjoy looking at it, you like it.
algorithms are weapons, which can be used to modulate and distinguish populations enmeshed in its calculable desires; content online, must conform to its biases and standards to effect the optimal number of subjects—given this, agitative content irl must conform to the vernacular and modes of perception that have been formed by algoculture.