Subject Matter 10: Cults, Meaning, and Travel Log
I spent October traveling in Hong Kong, much of this time with @diversifiedbonds. We encountered a whole host of fascinating places, brilliant people, and challenging scenarios. I want to share some preliminary reflections from the journey, as well as updates from Subpixel Space, not necessarily in that order.
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A continued theme for the last 18 months has been working to understand meaning. This project has been a combination of intellectual exploration and personal practice. In the former case, I've been reading about identity and group formation, and identifying the predictable attributes of meaningful things and environments. Over the months, my Google Drive writing folder filled up with attempts to write about these environments—these systems of meanings. I first tried to approach the topic through the lens of a "lifestyle" by dissecting lifestyle branding, but my ideas then were not well-formed. Then I tried to write about astrology as a system of meaning, but the piece ended up too characteristic of a post-modern hot take. I've also tried to break down fashion as a meaning system, as well as graphic and software design. None of these ideas went published.
However, this idea of a system of meaning finally found its most pure expression yet in Cult Design Workshop—a 4-hour intensive workshop I ran as part of Pioneer Works' educational series "Fact Craft." The notion of "cult" is an excellent proxy for a system of meaning, because it is one—a cult is a demographically-targeted set of ideas, discourses, and symbols. Because the methods cults use to indoctrinate and manipulate people are in many cases just extreme versions of normal meaning-generating tactics, participants in the workshop were able to use lens of "cult" to deconstruct other systems of meaning, from brands like CrossFit to ideologies like Trumpism. I was very impressed with the level of discourse among participants, and with the way they applied this lens to design benevolent "cults" and positive institutions. If you'd like to run a Cult Workshop at your organization, feel free to reach out.
In part to organize my thoughts in preparing this workshop and in part to introduce attendees to the ideas, I also published "Preliminary Rules for Discussing Meaning." This short essay is a concise introduction to my learnings so far, as well as a guide to resources I found helpful. It's brief, but I think it's a starting place for talking about meaning in more specific and clear ways. I see discussions of meaning happening more and more, and I believe we are experiencing a cultural shift in low-level popular understandings of meaning. I would like my work to contribute to this shift.
..
I've also been learning about my own meaning-making. Meanings are personal, and for me it wouldn't have been possible to think with rationality about meaning without also experiencing my own struggle with it. We design little cults for ourselves, you see, and personal growth means deprogramming yourself. My raising, traumas, and fears have conditioned me to prioritize certain ways of obtaining meaning over others—meaning from achieving long term goals, and meaning from my career. On the other hand, I've de-prioritized ways of getting meaning like exploration of the sensory and of vulnerability. Changing my relationship with work has been one of my biggest projects over the last year, although maybe not one that has been visible to readers of my blog, like you.
In these 18 months I haven't taken a vacation, and traveling to Hong Kong and Japan provided me the much-needed opportunity to put these thoughts around exploration and experiencing of the here-and-now into practice. A 4-week trip is more like a miniature life than a vacation, but traveling without an itinerary is, in my opinion, one of the healthiest ways to be in conversation with oneself, and to practice acting out one's ideas and desires. It's an exercise in personal alignment, and in agency. On this trip I found myself able to find the sacred in individual moments and places, to express my feelings more clearly and articulately than ever before, and to allow myself to reach new levels of vulnerability with friends both old and new. On two separate visits to Lan Tau island with two different companions, I discovered new, radically different perspectives on making meaning.
..
In other news, I also published a messy and rambling review of Sanford Kwinter's "Architectures in Time." I'm not sure my treatment of the book has rendered it any less complex, so consider yourself warned.
It was a pleasure to meet some of you in person at the Cybernetics Conference this weekend. For those who couldn't make it, the livestream recording is worth checking out. It's missing the first third of the day, but contains some excellent talks. I recommend Allison Parrish's presentation of her ingenious computational poetry, Mackenzie Wark on Bad Cybernetics, and Wendy Chun's lecture "Cybernetics as Proxy Politics." This last talk was an incredibly nuanced and highly technical takedown of assumptions around predictive policing, algorithmic bias, and global warming research.
Check out @diversifiedbonds' new newsletter. Each of its three issues so far has been a home run idea.
Three things I've been listening to a lot of lately:
- Norwegian jazz vocalist Karin Krog's 1974 album We Could Be Flying
- London bassist Daniel Kasimir's 5-song cut Escapee (thanks to the wonderful cosmicegg for this pick)
- Japanese producer Metome's mysterious ambient series 50 min
Finally, I've occasionally been hosting LOT2046 Twitch streams. You can find me there sometime in the next few Fridays at 1PM EST.
Until next time.
..
A continued theme for the last 18 months has been working to understand meaning. This project has been a combination of intellectual exploration and personal practice. In the former case, I've been reading about identity and group formation, and identifying the predictable attributes of meaningful things and environments. Over the months, my Google Drive writing folder filled up with attempts to write about these environments—these systems of meanings. I first tried to approach the topic through the lens of a "lifestyle" by dissecting lifestyle branding, but my ideas then were not well-formed. Then I tried to write about astrology as a system of meaning, but the piece ended up too characteristic of a post-modern hot take. I've also tried to break down fashion as a meaning system, as well as graphic and software design. None of these ideas went published.
However, this idea of a system of meaning finally found its most pure expression yet in Cult Design Workshop—a 4-hour intensive workshop I ran as part of Pioneer Works' educational series "Fact Craft." The notion of "cult" is an excellent proxy for a system of meaning, because it is one—a cult is a demographically-targeted set of ideas, discourses, and symbols. Because the methods cults use to indoctrinate and manipulate people are in many cases just extreme versions of normal meaning-generating tactics, participants in the workshop were able to use lens of "cult" to deconstruct other systems of meaning, from brands like CrossFit to ideologies like Trumpism. I was very impressed with the level of discourse among participants, and with the way they applied this lens to design benevolent "cults" and positive institutions. If you'd like to run a Cult Workshop at your organization, feel free to reach out.
In part to organize my thoughts in preparing this workshop and in part to introduce attendees to the ideas, I also published "Preliminary Rules for Discussing Meaning." This short essay is a concise introduction to my learnings so far, as well as a guide to resources I found helpful. It's brief, but I think it's a starting place for talking about meaning in more specific and clear ways. I see discussions of meaning happening more and more, and I believe we are experiencing a cultural shift in low-level popular understandings of meaning. I would like my work to contribute to this shift.
..
I've also been learning about my own meaning-making. Meanings are personal, and for me it wouldn't have been possible to think with rationality about meaning without also experiencing my own struggle with it. We design little cults for ourselves, you see, and personal growth means deprogramming yourself. My raising, traumas, and fears have conditioned me to prioritize certain ways of obtaining meaning over others—meaning from achieving long term goals, and meaning from my career. On the other hand, I've de-prioritized ways of getting meaning like exploration of the sensory and of vulnerability. Changing my relationship with work has been one of my biggest projects over the last year, although maybe not one that has been visible to readers of my blog, like you.
In these 18 months I haven't taken a vacation, and traveling to Hong Kong and Japan provided me the much-needed opportunity to put these thoughts around exploration and experiencing of the here-and-now into practice. A 4-week trip is more like a miniature life than a vacation, but traveling without an itinerary is, in my opinion, one of the healthiest ways to be in conversation with oneself, and to practice acting out one's ideas and desires. It's an exercise in personal alignment, and in agency. On this trip I found myself able to find the sacred in individual moments and places, to express my feelings more clearly and articulately than ever before, and to allow myself to reach new levels of vulnerability with friends both old and new. On two separate visits to Lan Tau island with two different companions, I discovered new, radically different perspectives on making meaning.
..
In other news, I also published a messy and rambling review of Sanford Kwinter's "Architectures in Time." I'm not sure my treatment of the book has rendered it any less complex, so consider yourself warned.
It was a pleasure to meet some of you in person at the Cybernetics Conference this weekend. For those who couldn't make it, the livestream recording is worth checking out. It's missing the first third of the day, but contains some excellent talks. I recommend Allison Parrish's presentation of her ingenious computational poetry, Mackenzie Wark on Bad Cybernetics, and Wendy Chun's lecture "Cybernetics as Proxy Politics." This last talk was an incredibly nuanced and highly technical takedown of assumptions around predictive policing, algorithmic bias, and global warming research.
Check out @diversifiedbonds' new newsletter. Each of its three issues so far has been a home run idea.
Three things I've been listening to a lot of lately:
- Norwegian jazz vocalist Karin Krog's 1974 album We Could Be Flying
- London bassist Daniel Kasimir's 5-song cut Escapee (thanks to the wonderful cosmicegg for this pick)
- Japanese producer Metome's mysterious ambient series 50 min
Finally, I've occasionally been hosting LOT2046 Twitch streams. You can find me there sometime in the next few Fridays at 1PM EST.
Until next time.
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