🎎✨The Nexialist #0158

margiela’s artisanal collection | levels of tension | meta trending trends '24 | polyfuturism | the tyranny of the algorithm | hiss | preparada | here and now

Feb 01, 2024

welcome to yet another cyber-collection of brainsparks, the nexialist

hey, you! i hope this message finds you well! the first month of the year is already gone and there seems to be a timewarp effect: it’s going slow and fast at the same time. this week, i wrote quite a lot, so i will leave the introduction short and sweet. get that coffee ready and enjoy 🫀✨

—Rodrigo Turra

Buy Me a Coffee? ☕️

🎎margiela’s artisanal collection

i was speechless, teary-eyed and shooting brainsparks while watching margiela’s new collection, and so was the internet and the fashion world. i’m not so immersed in fashion, but this collection (and the whole experience) punched a hole through the zeitgeist, and i can talk a little bit about that. it’s a perfect example of the age of re-enchantment (tn#123).

The ritual of dressing is a composition of the self. With the body as our canvas, we build an exterior expressive of the interior: a form of emotion. The Maison Margiela 2024 Artisanal Collection paints a picture of the practices and occurrences that shape the character reflected within our dress. Under Pont Alexandre III, bathed in the light of the first full moon of the year, Creative Director John Galliano captures a moment in time: a walk through the underbelly of Paris, offline.

first, john galliano absolutely killed it, thinking/coordinating every detail in creating this universe/experience, beyond the collection. apparently, this is a historical moment, as “fashion is back.” the shiny porcelain make-up, by pat mcgrath, has everyone talking. even the way the models moved and broke the fourth wall was calculated by movement director pat boguslawski.

margiela has done artisanal collections since 1988, but this time it hit different. when we live in age of artificial intelligence, the artisanal collection means more than that (remember artisanal intelligence (tn#149)? the invitation invokes the offline and the natural, mentioning the first full moon (and proceeding to make magic).

however, it’s not only about this purist artisanal, because the digital/virtual references are there: the shiny translucent make-up resembles AR filters or perfect AI-generated characters—some models, outfits and headpieces even reminded me of the haunting beauty of the visual dome or carnavais artificiais. the models are supposedly porcelain dolls coming to life, but because of their mannerisms, they reminded me video-game characters that crossed into the real world (or NPCs). it feels like a carefully crafted play on a real-world uncanny valley.

ai could never

i was thinking this while watching the collection. ai could never! but it could have helped them imagine this universe (and i think it did). what is impressive, however, is that all of this is brought to life with such detail and care, the larger-than-life proportions, textures, the illusions, and that is a new kind of artisanal. it shows how ai can challenge us: an engine for the imagination (tn#85). but humans are in charge of translating this into the real world. and the ones who are able to do it well, win. we are the only ones with this ability, at least for now.

or… are our minds so ai-colonized that when we see its physical manifestations visiting the concrete world, we are in awe, hypnotized? after all, what is more artificial than a thick layer of glossy make-up, tight corsets, (even pubic hair wigs—aka merkins) and modulating our way of walking? —i don’t know where that came from, but i decided to leave it here.

brainsparks: artisanal intelligence (tn#149), non-playable characters (tn#132), age of enchantment (tn#123), ai: engine for the imagination (tn#85),

🪼levels of tension

i had this saved in an old file and found it while doing my digital cleaning. gustavo introduced me to it after learning it in a course with punchdrunk, the immersive theatre company behind sleep no more. lacques lecoq’s 7 tension states is usually taught in drama classes, as an acting approach, but it can be put into practice for immersive experiences like margiela’s show.

🌐meta trending trends ‘24

Matt Klein

‘s yearly meta trending trends is out. and more than ever, it’s a state-of-the-art trends report. with the saturation of trend reports coming out everywhere, it is a relief to see a sober meta-analysis that challenges the sameness and puts into words what is happening.

the tension he brings is real: are we repeating the same trends year after year, report after report, because they take longer than our patience (or the market) to develop, or are we, in fact, stagnated? Or both?

take some time to read this distilled analysis of 70+ global forecasts and their 14 most reported social shifts.

01. Global. Burn. Out. 🔥
02. AI Colonization 🤖
03. Late-Stage-Wellness 💊
04. Play Time 🪁
05. Environmental Vaporware ♻️
06. Consensus Collapse ⁉️
07. Age Play ⏳
08. Airplane Mode 🌲
09. Economic Erosion 🐷
10. The Human Touch 🖐🏼
11. Niche is Nice 🔗
12. Conditional Invites 🌎
13. Sportsing ⚽
14. Ego-nomics 🔐

✨polyfuturism

theo priestley’s post, one world, many futures, is very aligned with matt klein’s report and brings a new term for me. “Is that corporate strategy and foresight or nothing more than what Generative AI is being accused of — just regurgitation of trend analysis and data projection?”

There is no room for diverse futures in the boardroom when all they’re concerned with is hitting the next quarter’s KPIs.

he mentions afrofuturism, africanfuturism and a bunch of other movements (take a look at the brainsparks), and how it helps envision different futures.

All diversity — whether cultural, societal, biological, religious or whatever ceases to be considered because humanity at this point all moves forward at the same time and under the same vision.
But this is not the case, nor should it be. And this is why cultural futurism, or as I want to call it, Polyfuturism, needs to become a pivotal and central theme in all future studies and foresight practice going forward.

via sentiers

brainsparks: queer the future (tn#5), indigenous futurism (tn#65), protopia (tn#69), cozy futurism (tn#17), cypherpunk, solarpunk, lunarpunk (tn#127), solarpunk (tn#40), aperture for foresight, foresight as activism (tn#143)

☕️the tyranny of the algorithm

trends predicting the same, foresight envisioning the same, and cafés looking and feeling the same. these things are all related, and what connects them is globalization, digitization and algorithms. in “the tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same” kyle chayka brings a perfect example of a real world effect caused by the centralization and ubiquity of tech. it is a long, eye-opening and necessary read. when everything around us becomes a non-place, what happens?

It wasn’t just the spaces that were homogenous, but also the customers, Gonzalez observed: “If you go into the cafes, they’re predominantly white. But [Kloof Street] is historically a neighbourhood for people of colour.” Only certain types of people were encouraged to feel comfortable in the zone of AirSpace, and others were actively filtered out. It required money and a certain fluency for someone to be comfortable with the characteristic act of plunking down a laptop on one of the generic cafes’ broad tables and sitting there for hours, akin to learning the unspoken etiquette of a cocktail bar in a luxury hotel. The AirSpace cafes “are oppressive, in the sense that they are exclusive and expensive”, Gonzalez said. When whiteness and wealth are posed as the norm, a kind of force field of aesthetics and ideology keeps out anyone who does not fit the template.

brainsparks: age of average (tn#115), moodboard effect (tn#66), counterculture x counter-futures (tn#10)

🐍hiss

i’m not informed about the beef between megan and nicki minaj, and i’m also not an expert on rap, but wow… megan is doing it as an independent artist and she is killing it.

brainsparks: cobra(tn#146), robyn, from pop puppet to indie icon (tn#8)

👄preparada

duda beat’s new releases are so good: tropical, horny, romantic and bangers. press play and thank me later.

brainsparks: saudade de você (tn#148), T3 4M0 L4 F0R4 RMX (tn#110)

🏃🏼here and now

delaporte’s new album appeared in my “release radar” with corre que te mato and i fell in love. the whole album brings techno and edm to an indie vibe and it’s perfect. it’s a treasure.

see you next week, polyfuturists 🫀✨

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I truly believe innovation comes from bringing improbable areas together, and that’s why I called this project The Nexialist. Some sectors are known to be self-referencing and hermetic. Sometimes, teams are on autopilot mode, focused on the daily grind, which hinders innovation. As a Nexialist, I like to burst these bubbles, bringing references from different areas, and maintaining teams inspired and connected to the Zeitgeist.

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