Are.na / florence fu

yet very little has been done to develop a theory of the still, as Roland Barthes once suggested, such that we might understand it not merely as one part of a greater whole, but as “the fragment of a second text whose existence never exceeds the fragment; film and still […] in a palimpsest relationship without it being possible to say that one is on top of the other or that one is extracted from the other.”

"Distance is a condition of knowledge : it allows you to focus on units that are much smaller or much larger than the text: devices, themes, tropes—or genres and systems. And if, between the very small and the very large, the text itself disappears, well, it is one of those cases when one can justifiably say, Less is more. If we want to understand the system in its entirety, we must accept losing something.”

— Franco Moretti, Conjectures on World Literature

"The avant-garde artist who categorically refused to participate in political discourse and tried to isolate himself by accentuating his individuality was coopted by liberalism, which viewed the artist’s individualism as an excellent weapon with which to combat soviet authoritarianism. The depoliticization of the avant-garde was necessary before it could be put to political use, confronting the avant-garde with an inescapable dilemma.” (143 Guilbaut)

"I like spam, loitering, and promiscuity as concepts because they make us rethink the types of contact that can happen. Spam can reach out to people and say, “I care about you enough to put you at risk; I like you so much that you’re on my list.”

"These algorithms also will sometimes recommend materials they know you won’t like in order to make you feel like you’re not being interpellated. Disidentification makes us feel singular. Moments of identification are not necessarily the most important; it’s actually moments of disidentification that nevertheless produce action."

"Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce."

"in mass art, from the consciousness of the production team. Not only are the hit songs, stars, and soap operas cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariable types, but the specific content of the entertainment itself is derived from them and only appears to change."

"The deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them."

"The ossified forms - such as the sketch, short story, problem film, or hit song - are the standardized average of late liberal taste, dictated with threats from above. The people at the top in the culture agencies, who work in harmony as only one manager can with another, whether he comes from the rag trade or from college, have long since reorganized and rationalized the objective spirit."