IDEA PORN AND THE AGE OF OBSCURE COMMODITY by erik stinson

on my way to a fashion show at chelsea piers, my infinity SUV slowed to a crawl on houston street. traffic was terrible. threats of terror squeezed the normal flow of cars. the driver exclaimed and pointed to the guggenheim lab pop-up space sponsored by BMW. transparent walls showed bright charts and tables. people milled around, invited by a series of online and outdoor ads placed around the city to explore a venue where your new york city could be re-considered. a designated area for re-definition and understanding. 

personally, i dont want to re-think new york city. i want to try to continue my normal post-academic commercial existence. my thoughts are made in the context of my work. they are not collected and displayed by a third party. i need to project them myself, in the place of work, at various ad agencies and corporate houses. 

but we are encouraged, by many advertising efforts, to engorge ourselves with ideas for the sake of ideas, nestled together in infographics, or perched at the forefront of campaigns. we make ideas to be collected. TED talks make the ideas of our foremost thinkers accessible, but also random and impossible to see as a larger narrative. in the current fashion, ideas don’t come to us in the course of a research, we view them casually as a form of beneficial entertainment. we easily accept a campaign by pepsi that attempts to crowd-source and display good ideas for charity. our favorite news source, the new york times, makes us feel advanced when it shows us detailed visual information on our ipads. we gain lesuire-pleasure from these arrays of corrected hyper-order. 

the pornography of information is an invitation, but from who? are the multinationals distracting us once again from our ‘true lives.’ are they making some intentional effort to ensure our intellectual needs meet happy endings? the pleasing graphic does much more damage than the arduous essay, and is, of course, more honest. 

the explicit quality of new, sexy, good ideas is more than surface economics - it is appeasing a repressed need to rationally address something. we are seeking a truly engaged conversation - shedding light, on whatever brilliant new formula - or telling ourselves that, at least. and shouldn’t we want to understand all of this? shouldn’t we want of this modern tragedy explained? the pornographic vision untangles our emotions, focuses them sexually. the climate. our families. our slide into chemicals. we want and need clarity - or rather - most of us do. 

IDEA PORN AND THE AGE OF OBSCURE COMMODITY by erik stinson

on my way to a fashion show at chelsea piers, my infinity SUV slowed to a crawl on houston street. traffic was terrible. threats of terror squeezed the normal flow of cars. the driver exclaimed and pointed to the guggenheim lab pop-up space sponsored by BMW. transparent walls showed bright charts and tables. people milled around, invited by a series of online and outdoor ads placed around the city to explore a venue where your new york city could be re-considered. a designated area for re-definition and understanding. 

personally, i dont want to re-think new york city. i want to try to continue my normal post-academic commercial existence. my thoughts are made in the context of my work. they are not collected and displayed by a third party. i need to project them myself, in the place of work, at various ad agencies and corporate houses. 

but we are encouraged, by many advertising efforts, to engorge ourselves with ideas for the sake of ideas, nestled together in infographics, or perched at the forefront of campaigns. we make ideas to be collected. TED talks make the ideas of our foremost thinkers accessible, but also random and impossible to see as a larger narrative. in the current fashion, ideas don’t come to us in the course of a research, we view them casually as a form of beneficial entertainment. we easily accept a campaign by pepsi that attempts to crowd-source and display good ideas for charity. our favorite news source, the new york times, makes us feel advanced when it shows us detailed visual information on our ipads. we gain lesuire-pleasure from these arrays of corrected hyper-order. 

the pornography of information is an invitation, but from who? are the multinationals distracting us once again from our ‘true lives.’ are they making some intentional effort to ensure our intellectual needs meet happy endings? the pleasing graphic does much more damage than the arduous essay, and is, of course, more honest. 

the explicit quality of new, sexy, good ideas is more than surface economics - it is appeasing a repressed need to rationally address something. we are seeking a truly engaged conversation - shedding light, on whatever brilliant new formula - or telling ourselves that, at least. and shouldn’t we want to understand all of this? shouldn’t we want of this modern tragedy explained? the pornographic vision untangles our emotions, focuses them sexually. the climate. our families. our slide into chemicals. we want and need clarity - or rather - most of us do. 

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