Sitting home waiting for you: The Pessoptimist Issue 2
The Pessoptimist
Vol.1 | Issue 02 | May 2020
Contents:
Thoughts, or something like it
Things and Links
Imagining the World, Anew session information
Thoughts, or something like it
I’ve gotten better at not having as many tabs open. Yet even with fewer tabs, the ones that are active are loaded. But I've managed to become worse at reading. I pick something up and immediately start something else.
During this lockdown, I have cooked approximately 45 different dishes, treating myself to take away very rarely. Take away has become even more expensive. I’ve always been hostile to the gig economy, and now is the time for me to pick up the phone and call the restaurant instead of using the app. Restaurants lose money through the apps, it’s only a convenience for you.
I wonder how people can spend so much time watching Netflix. I spend most of the time looking for something interesting to watch. Netflix UK truly is a Blockbuster liquidation sale, featuring every title rated 5.5 stars on IMDb.
The influx of online content has made me realise that we are attempting, with so much effort, to replicate the physical world. "Watch this talk! Listen to this song! Read artists talking about the pandemic over and over!" And then more of the same, the same theorists, the same ideas, discussion of surveillance, of new ways of living without imagining new ways of living.
And then I think of my own failures: failures to write anything, to complete all the books I have started reading. I have been trying to write. I emailed two design magazines a pitch for an essay and received no response (including follow-up). Looks like they are only interested in curators writing about design rather than people who teach design and write curricula? Or maybe my pitch was rubbish...
The only thing I’ve been completing are the New Yorker crosswords. Okay, I've also refreshed my redesign of Ghassan Kanafani's The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine pamphlet, and the Palestine Reading List.
Back to content overload: newsletters are hard work, and I appreciate the work put into them, particularly the ICA Daily. However, scrolling through these, the amount of things they expect one to “consume” daily just adds up…like those tabs I fail to close and books I fail to complete. I have a day job, one that is incredibly busy and requires the use of my brain.
I’m not sure if people think they are doing us a favour by cramming so much information for fear (god forbid!) we would get bored. The problem that got us into this mess was that we are incapable of being bored and are obsessed with convenience.
Things:
I wrote a very short piece for the Harun Farocki Institut and Journal of Visual Culture collaboration
I am still looking for researchers to participate in my research into referencing management software. With this research, I would like to investigate, from a design perspective, the ways researchers use referencing management software – how the software’s usability and interface impact the engagement of the user and how they hinder and/or help one’s workflow and process. **If you're interested in finding out more, reply to this newsletter.**
Links:
Listen:
An all time Aphex Twin favourite of mine (second to Windowlicker) is Avril 14th (which was on the brilliant Marie Antoinette soundtrack), and I was delighted to hear Yacht's version. I'm a fan of Bandcamp's model, but I can't navigate the site. It's a case of what I call "template malfunction design" so prevalent nowadays.
This song made me melt
I enjoyed this LRB podcast with Danny Dorling on slowing down, a topic of conversation during one of the Imagining the world, anew sessions.
Readings:
Why designers irritate me
When I watched Caligula some years ago, I had the same reaction as when I watched the PMs speech introducing the "Stay Alert" messaging: what is going on? Bob Guccione's (founder of adult magazine Penthouse) Caligula rendered me incapable of watching anything featuring Helen Mirren because I could not stop thinking about how such a renowned actress could make a decision to star in this film (in her defence, Gore Vidal was initially attached to the project). And just when I thought things could not get any crazier with Caligula, I stumbled on this
More reference to Sartre's hell is other people in the title, but a good essay nonetheless
Watch:
Edward Said's "The Idea of Empire" talks about his book Culture and Imperialism
The Last Dance on Netflix. I'm a big basketball fan and loved Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan as a kid. The documentary provides an interesting portrait of Jordan's competitiveness. I also began wondering if, almost 20 years later, I can still do a lay up...
Imagining the world, anew
When: Wednesday 27 May at 20:00 (London time) Where: https://meet.jit.si/worldanew (To join by phone: +1.512.402.2718 • PIN: 2847941328#)
In session 4, Dr Samer Abdelnour (Lecturer at UCL's Institute for Global Prosperity) will discuss possibilities for transitioning to a world without war.
This folder contains all maps produced from sessions so far
Participation Guidelines Imagining the World, anew will feature a new format. Each session will feature the presentation of short idea or proposition by a speaker followed by a moderated discussion. **If you would like to present an idea (whatever stage it's at), reply to this newsletter.** Anyone is welcome to join the call, as a participant or an observer. We ask that everyone include a name and introduce themselves to the group.
About Imagining the World, Anew We are scrambling to find 20th century solutions to 21st century problems. It seems the only ‘innovation’ we have lately is gimmicks (not value creation), and we’ve lost sense of what innovation means. Key decision makers are rarely diverse, and to come up with radical ideas, innovations, and embrace different ideas in decision making, we need diversity of opinions and perspectives from multiple disciplines. This requires us to move away from specialisation. The goal is not to replicate old patterns – we are facing wicked problems, and wicked problems are ill defined and have innumerable causes. If we continue to rely upon experience from a single domain, we end up with limited and at times disastrous solutions. The purpose of these proposed sessions is to draw sets of people with different experiences and backgrounds to think of new possibilities to wicked problems. We need, as James Flynn says, habits of mind to dance across disciplines. Now more than ever, we need to bring this breadth of experience from academics, intellectuals, cultural producers together to discuss new possibilities and imagine the world anew.
Be well.
Danah
(The Pessoptimist)