THE CMNSU BLOG
Art Never Dies
They say that the art industry is dying, replaced by generated works from artificial intelligence. But…
Mediatized Stimuli
All life becomes mediatized, experience now consumable via multistimuli form. An experience is not lived through in these conditions, instead you live a life of a perma-voyeur. Simultaneously hyperstimulated and unsatisfied, two magnetized points through which you cycle through.
Return to Form
We’ve witnessed a rapid resurgence of analog technology, with vinyl records and film cameras sparking revitalized interest among younger audiences. This phenomenon is a testament to our generation's collective fascination with the past, our attempt to find a semblance of authenticity or a connection to the tangible, in a vastly digitized world.
W7/WQ—Computers, Machines, & Cyberspace
Appearances from Brenda Laurel, Mark Poster, Tiziana Terranova, Sadie Plant, and more.
W6/WQ—Mass Media, Advertising, & Audiences
10 quotes from academics a week. Appearances from Smythe, Herman & Chomsky, Chun, Barber, and more.
The Importance of Student Union Involvement
There is currently still a lack of willingness to participate in university student unions as incoming students are unaware of the benefits of being involved in extracurricular activities outside their scheduled classroom hours. Sureeta Rai shares her experience with making the most of campus life. A sometimes daunting—but incredibly rewarding decision.
W5/WQ—Entertainment
Think of Entertainment as its own ideology, a funnel that shapes content that incorporates it. Entertainment dominates over any medium, media, genre, technology, or industry it is implemented in. It becomes the primary way we understand life. Appearances from Postman, Dyer, Byung-Chul Han, Artz, and more.
Phonewatching
Anyone else ever been jarred from what someone else has as their phone wallpaper? I have a bad habit of looking at other people’s phone screens on transit. I’m fascinated by it. Little glimpses into people’s lives.
W4/WQ—Accelerationism
This weekly segment focuses on the idea of Accelerationism, the belief that we must drastically intensify capitalism's growth and power to allow it to reach its breaking point. Appearances from Land, Fisher, Plant, Srnicek, and more. (Even a poem)
The Electrical-Umbilical Battery Status
I think my phone spends more time charging than it does vice versa. This is mentally sound. In fact, I don’t trust the battery status to just show me a green, yellow, or red to signify what my battery level is at. I want to see the exact percent I am currently operating at—how much abstract time remains for the object of my love and adoration to continue serving me.
The Spectaclist
The Spectaclist loves the news. They love popular culture. They love to consume, to watch, to stay up to date. They live in the now, present in contemporary understandings. Which could never be a futile feedback loop of hopeless misery.
Art on the Edge of the Abyss
What does it mean to see beauty amidst destruction and catastrophe? To create from a place of pain and desolation? Why is it that some of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of art come from the depths of human suffering and the abstraction of the banal?
Selling Out
It really sucks that selling out is not really criticism that holds much ground these days. We live in the age of the entrepreneurial artist, the era of ‘getting your bag.’ We have gone full simulacra; popular artists now aren’t even artists; they are just ornaments and decorations on the product.
Modern Mimicries of Creativity
The consequence of our contemporary era’s understanding of the utilization of creativity is a desire for control over the emotional/material conditions of life that leaves a wallowing want for more. Contemporary mimicries of creativity are realized as an unauratic, surface-level embodiment of segments of meaning that lost their genuineness long ago—appearing, but like lensless spectacles.