Rylie Blogs Rarely ／ blog.ryliejamesthomas.net

I am reading this on e-flux: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/too-much-world-is-the-internet-dead/—

[…] it has become clear that images are not objective or subjective renditions of a preexisting condition, or merely treacherous appearances. They are rather nodes of energy and matter that migrate across different supports […]

[…] artificial islands mimic genetically manipulated plants. Dental offices parade as car commercial film sets. Cheekbones are airbrushed just as whole cities pretend to be YouTube CAD tutorials. Artworks are e-mailed to pop up in bank lobbies designed on fighter jet software. Huge cloud storage drives rain down as skylines in desert locations. But by becoming real, most images are substantially altered. They get translated, twisted, bruised, and reconfigured. They change their outlook, entourage, and spin. A nail paint clip turns into an Instagram riot. An upload comes down as shitstorm. An animated GIF materializes as a pop-up airport transit gate. In some places, it seems as if entire NSA system architectures were built—but only after Google-translating them, creating car lofts where one-way mirror windows face inwards. By walking off-screen, images are twisted, dilapidated, incorporated, and reshuffled. They miss their targets, misunderstand their purpose, get shapes and colors wrong. They walk through, fall off, and fade back into screens.

In the past few years many people—basically everybody—have noticed that the internet feels awkward, too. It is obviously completely surveilled, monopolized, and sanitized by common sense, copyright, control, and conformism. It feels as vibrant as a newly multiplexed cinema […]

—and these things have stood out so far.

After printing and reading the whole thing I am a bit put off by the—I guess—anthemic tone to a lot of the writing (see one of the quotes above). But that final quote got me thinking about fashion and its appeal (which has always seemed odd to me): perhaps fashion acts as a sign for a fracture in the status quo and perhaps this is also behind the (short term) attracting force of Internet services (Twitter, Vine, Facebook, etc.) that seem to open up the Internet and how we use it, though they also strive to box it in, almost construct their own meta-Internets.