World, hold on
Thoughts or something like it
The last three months have been eventful: I got married and immediately after, that elated feeling just faded because Israel started committing a genocide on my people. I’m exhausted, and there is so much I want to say, but my energy levels for writing about how angry and heartbroken I am are limited.
I
I want to wean off big social media platforms because they censor 90% of Palestine content and are being weaponised against people now more than ever. We should all think of new ways of sharing information without relying on Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). Frankly, I never recovered from the late 2000s and early 2010s internet dying off fully (roughly 2014). The platforms are not fit for purpose unless you subvert them to turn everything into a product to be consumed and then maybe you’ll get more attention and not be censored. “But what are the alternatives?” Not only can I pin point to how people shared information previously (scale was different I know), it’s good to think of segmentation, audiences, and brainstorm new ways of “awareness”. At the end of it, these platforms are about short education and awareness, not long term action necessarily.
II
My husband has never seen Star Wars, so during the Christmas break we started with Episodes IV-V-VI, then I-II-III, and VII-VIII-IX, skipping Rogue One and Solo. It’s incredible how the first original films never explicitly tell the viewer what the Rebel alliance is fighting for (probably the status quo like most heroes?) except to destroy the Empire, but you go along for the ride. The Empire has stronger aesthetics and is better equipped, and the Jedi are super cocky. Also, who is funding the Rebels? The Empire also gets their hands dirty: how many times does Darth Vader get fed up with someone’s incompetence and goes out to do the work himself? He’s on the ground, unlike those Rebel generals hiding behind their big ships.
Further notes on Star Wars
The last three films centre humans much more than non-humans from the galaxy, and they emphasise quantity over quality. We never get to know the inhabitants of the planets because we are there for two seconds. Seems to contradict the shift in discussing the non-human in the time since those films came out.
I am grateful to have seen the originals on VHS before George Lucas fiddled with them in 1997 but seeing and reading about the number of changes is crazy. Few of the changes Lucas made actually contribute to the storyline, but replacing actors for ‘continuity’ and not to confuse viewers seems to limit people’s imaginations, and constantly iterating your work rather than being satisfied with the limitations of the medium at the time and moving onto something else. He also ruined the best musical number in Return of the Jedi.
BB-8 is cool, but R2-D2 is still the most rad character. I loved Boba Fett as a child (jet pack!), then they expanded his story into a show and it took away the mystery.
Films I-II-III give us more context into the Rebel fight but frankly, there are too many storylines that you lose yourself. Plus all the 2000s CGI effects are confusing.
I’m amazed how films from the Star Wars, Marvel, and DC universe, that are all about good vs bad/light vs dark resonate with people and they cheer on the ‘good’ guys but refuse to draw a line to the Palestinian cause. It is wise for someone to do a short analysis relating key scenes/moments from Star Wars to Palestine so people can begin to see the connection.
III
I spent most of my break organising the Apple Notes app (not my main note taking app), my Google Photos, and organising our flat. In this organisation mania, I continue to wonder why Google Photos is so bad. In fact, how does Google have so much money and most of its products are straight up bad? Anyway, I am stuck with it because of my reliance on Google Drive, and I’ve already catalogued seven years worth of pictures (two to go).
I took fewer pictures pre-2018. Unless they just didn’t sync. My screenshots have increased ten-fold, but it truly was easier to keep track when you clipped from newspapers and magazines.
Be well,
Danah (The Pessoptimist)
Things
Double feature: Countless Palestinian Futures was featured in Al-Shabaka’s Rethinking Palestine podcast and in Skin Deep magazine.
I wrote an essay titled “Design education, disrupted” for the Towards New Schools – epistemic shifts in art and design education series.
Important resource I developed some years ago that I refer to again and again. A complimentary resource is this one.
My work was featured in the bilingual book Her Stories in Graphic Design by Gerda Breuer (Jovis, 2023).
I delivered a lecture titled the ‘myth’ of Global Design History as part of BIPOC Design History’s latest course Design Histories in Southwest Asia & North Africa: Voices from the SWANA Diaspora. Full details of the programme and purchase the class here.
In case you missed it, last January my co-authored article The Case for Minor Gestures (with Pedro Oliveira) was published in Diseña. It’s open access and available in English and Spanish. Read it here.
Links
Read
This piece blew me away. Read Ghassan Hage’s interview with Ghassan Abu-Sittah about how the act of surgery becomes an anti-genocidal struggle.
Watch
In film, three cities exist: London, New York, and Los Angeles. It’s a repetitive story cycle that feels predictable, but the story of The Only Living Boy in New York captivated my attention, and the acting is great.
Listen
I love to move in here by Moby: so dance worthy
Can you even make money when an episode costs $30 million to produce? Listen to New TV/Old TV (LRB podcast), a conversation about the shift in producing TV shows.