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Chris Gallo
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On Work - From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
On Work - From the Desk of Alicia Kenne…

When a letterform’s detail is magnified, it can be imagined at small sizes even though, perhaps, it cannot be actually perceived.

On Luxury - From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
On Luxury - From the Desk of Alicia Ken…
The Military Origins of Layering
The Military Origins of Layering
Nemesis | The Umami Theory of Value
Nemesis | The Umami Theory of Value
Coronavirus: The Routines That Keep Us Sane - The Atlantic
Coronavirus: The Routines That Keep Us …
Tank Magazine
Tank Magazine

But unlike garbage, which we contain in wastebaskets and landfills, the hideous nature of these words — their facility to warp and impede communication — is also their purpose. Garbage language permeates the ways we think of our jobs and shapes our identities as workers. It is obvious that the point is concealment; it is less obvious what so many of us are trying to hide.

The contrast between simple form and complex consequences brings to mind what the British writer Daisy Hildyard called “the second body” in her 2017 book of the same name. The phrase describes the alienated presence that we feel when we are aware of both our individual physical bodies and our collective causation of environmental damage and climate change. While we calmly walk down the street, watch a film or go food shopping, we are also the source of pollution drifting across the Pacific or a tsunami in Indonesia. The second body is the source of an unplaceable anxiety: the problems are undeniably our fault, even though it feels as if we cannot do anything about them because of the sheer difference in scale.

Similarly, we might be able to hold the iPhone in our hands, but we should also be aware that the network of its consequences is vast: server farms absorbing massive amounts of electricity, Chinese factories where workers die by suicide, devastated mud pit mines that produce tin. It is easy to feel like a minimalist when you can order food, summon a car or rent a room using a single brick of steel and silicon. But in reality, it is the opposite. We are taking advantage of a maximalist assemblage. Just because something looks simple does not mean it is; the aesthetics of simplicity cloak artifice, or even unsustainable excess.

The empty promises of Marie Kondo and t…
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