syn·site
in Robert Smithson's terms*: (a partially generated and generative theory) The Synsite (an entangled situating) is an inter-dimensional picture that is amorphous, and yet it represents an interweaving of actual and virtual sites (an amalgamation of the Pine Barrens Plains, ML-scene processing, and the hyper-saturated yellow-green of a pool of disintegrated oak pollen, for instance). It is by this inter-dimensional metaphor that one entangled situating can represent another entangled situating, which does not resemble it—thus The Synsite. To comprehend this language of situating is to appreciate the metaphor between the syntactical construct and the complex of ideas, permitting the former to operate as a inter-dimensional picture that doesn't look like a picture. ... Between the actual-virtual sites in their respective planes and The Synsite itself exists a metaphoric space of collapsible significance. Perhaps "travel" through this space is a boundless metaphor. Everything in and between the entangled situatings could transform into physical metaphorical material devoid of natural meanings or realistic assumptions. Let us say that one embarks on many fictitious journeys at once if one decides to seek the site of the Synsite. Each “journey” is invented, devised, artificial; one might call it a syn-trip to a site from a Synsite. Once one arrives at the “assembly,” one discovers that it is man-made in the form of a network, and that she mapped this network in an aesthetic and temporal entanglement rather than specific political or economic boundaries.
This revisited theory is currently collaborative but could be surrendered to the faceless corpus of AGI at any time. Like the sources they scrape, theories are also both used and abandoned. That theories are constant is dubious; that sources are singularly credited is increasingly doubtful. Vanished theories compose the dense data layers of countless LLMs.
in Robert Smithson's terms*: (a partially generated and generative theory) The Synsite (an entangled situating) is an inter-dimensional picture that is amorphous, and yet it represents an interweaving of actual and virtual sites (an amalgamation of the Pine Barrens Plains, ML-scene processing, and the hyper-saturated yellow-green of a pool of disintegrated oak pollen, for instance). It is by this inter-dimensional metaphor that one entangled situating can represent another entangled situating, which does not resemble it—thus The Synsite. To comprehend this language of situating is to appreciate the metaphor between the syntactical construct and the complex of ideas, permitting the former to operate as a inter-dimensional picture that doesn't look like a picture. ... Between the actual-virtual sites in their respective planes and The Synsite itself exists a metaphoric space of collapsible significance. Perhaps "travel" through this space is a boundless metaphor. Everything in and between the entangled situatings could transform into physical metaphorical material devoid of natural meanings or realistic assumptions. Let us say that one embarks on many fictitious journeys at once if one decides to seek the site of the Synsite. Each “journey” is invented, devised, artificial; one might call it a syn-trip to a site from a Synsite. Once one arrives at the “assembly,” one discovers that it is man-made in the form of a network, and that she mapped this network in an aesthetic and temporal entanglement rather than specific political or economic boundaries.
This revisited theory is currently collaborative but could be surrendered to the faceless corpus of AGI at any time. Like the sources they scrape, theories are also both used and abandoned. That theories are constant is dubious; that sources are singularly credited is increasingly doubtful. Vanished theories compose the dense data layers of countless LLMs.
SYN (along with, at the same time | from Greek SYN, with | ~SYNTHETIC) + SITE (N: point of event, occupied space, internet address; V: to place in position | from Latin SITUS, location, idleness, forgetfulness | ~WEBSITE ¬cite ¬sight), cf. SITE/NON-SITE (from Robert Smithson, A PROVISIONAL THEORY OF NONSITES, 1968)
The magic we need more in today's technological world is of the latter kind. We should strive to increase deepness rather than outward complexity, human virtuosity rather than consumerism, flexibility rather than effortlessness.
The magic we need more in today's technological world is of the latter kind. We should strive to increase deepness rather than outward complexity, human virtuosity rather than consumerism, flexibility rather than effortlessness.
The magic we need more in today's technological world is of the latter kind. We should strive to increase deepness rather than outward complexity, human virtuosity rather than consumerism, flexibility rather than effortlessness.
“Indeed we are actively generating our tools and through them we are generating the world, but it is also true that those tools are hitting back on us and are generating us.”
“Indeed we are actively generating our tools and through them we are generating the world, but it is also true that those tools are hitting back on us and are generating us.”
“Indeed we are actively generating our tools and through them we are generating the world, but it is also true that those tools are hitting back on us and are generating us.”
Technology is how a society copes with physical reality...Technology is the active human interface with the material world.
Technology is how a society copes with physical reality...Technology is the active human interface with the material world.
Technology is how a society copes with physical reality...Technology is the active human interface with the material world.
A pocket-sized device, that when operated, renders us incapable of describing how great we feel in mere words. We need magic that works. Give me an app for that. Is this too much to ask?
A pocket-sized device, that when operated, renders us incapable of describing how great we feel in mere words. We need magic that works. Give me an app for that. Is this too much to ask?
A pocket-sized device, that when operated, renders us incapable of describing how great we feel in mere words. We need magic that works. Give me an app for that. Is this too much to ask?
“I want to introduce the idea of the footnotes as being totemic, as in related to totems, literally like a totem pole...as an applied read of footnotes, their strengths, and what they can do. Like totems, which chart indigenous histories with multiple global genesis points and localities, footnotes are structurally cumulative. They carry the corporal weight of the text. They also bring us closer to the ground... What footnotes can do is give us new models of invention that are built to sustain themselves on earth...a vessel of weird and wild and necessary labor."
— Legacy Russell, “On Footnotes”
“I want to introduce the idea of the footnotes as being totemic, as in related to totems, literally like a totem pole...as an applied read of footnotes, their strengths, and what they can do. Like totems, which chart indigenous histories with multiple global genesis points and localities, footnotes are structurally cumulative. They carry the corporal weight of the text. They also bring us closer to the ground... What footnotes can do is give us new models of invention that are built to sustain themselves on earth...a vessel of weird and wild and necessary labor."
— Legacy Russell, “On Footnotes”
“I want to introduce the idea of the footnotes as being totemic, as in related to totems, literally like a totem pole...as an applied read of footnotes, their strengths, and what they can do. Like totems, which chart indigenous histories with multiple global genesis points and localities, footnotes are structurally cumulative. They carry the corporal weight of the text. They also bring us closer to the ground... What footnotes can do is give us new models of invention that are built to sustain themselves on earth...a vessel of weird and wild and necessary labor."
— Legacy Russell, “On Footnotes”