Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

to dumbass and disproven “posthuman” and “singularity” stuff.

I'm not saying it's not dumb, but I think these ideas still come up all the time in tech-bro circles, so I'm not sure what "disproven" means in this context.

I think grimes' dorky boomer sci fi tastes predated Elon by awhile, she named an album giedi primes long before he was a thing, pre-visions.

everyone likes dune it's fine

lol @ the assumption that millennials in North America would have grown up with UK jungle

_This is a girl who grew up in the era of Gattaca and X-Files (media with lessons of how eugenics sucks), UK jungle and experimental dance music (Black led music genres with true innovation), If you look at other geeky millennials in the electronic, vaporwave, or even accelerationist hyperpop sphere, ‘00s, ‘90s or mid to late ‘80s works are their touchstones._

i don't really understand - gattaca, x-files, jungle, all of that was made by gen x and listened to by gen x

xp the internet existed for teenagers over there too I assume, especially if they were into music

Millenials in the US did grow up witj d&b via video games. Might not have identified it as such thom

lol tho, not thom, not bringing radiohead into this

xps right but like there's no reason jungle specifically should be on her radar - speaking as someone who is Grimes' age and is also a perpetually online music fan

i'm sure she knows what jungle is but it's not a pervasive cultural touchstone on the level of X-Files

The point is not that it necessarily should ito probability but all else being equal given growing up online that her touchstones could very easily have been something else. But clearly she is working from a certain set of values and is drawn to particular cultural touchstones more than others for reasons that are now clearer

fair enough

Grimes on boomer SF classic Solaris:

“This book scared the shit out of me. I picked it up after watching the film adaptation by Tarkovsky, which is one of my favourite movies. Sometimes I feel like the only explanation for human life is that our planet is a terrible god. I like thinking that planets are living, sentient behemoths that we completely misunderstand. I’m horrified to think what it would be like if such an abstract sentience had no regard for us, or enjoying toying with us. The act of repeatedly killing a doppelganger or a loved one seems so horrific; how could anyone think of something so awful? Whenever people pour cream into coffee in a clear glass, it reminds me of this book, because that’s what I imagine the surface of Solaris to look like.”

so much of this sounds like rich or successful artists who haven't had much formal philosophical/theoretical education latching on to ideas that sound kind of cool and that flatter their sense of identity, but who don't really go much deeper than that to ever reflect on the political consequences of this stuff

Moodles otm

the artists (Holly Herndon and her partner Mat Dryhurst come to mind) who tried conversing with Grimes about the actual philosophical and technological basis kind of got brushed off by her because they know more of what they're talking about

Yeah and at this stage Herndon is writing much better music as well

herndon & dryhurst are bitcoin idiots too and it wouldn't really shock me if they went down the technofascist rationalist path yet either as a result, but they don't seem to have yet

barf

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/03/07/how-can-information-be-free-but-expensive-holly-herndon-on-web-3-art-and-the-future-of-ip/

Oy had no idea. Cringe at Herndon and Dryhurst's thoughts on how web 3 will fix the "cultural desert" of the last 10-15 years at the end of the interview. Monoculture for sure - monetization as well (streaming vs vinyl/CDs etc), but web 3 isn't going to fix this. The interview is over a year old, however. I'm curious if they feel the same way now. Crypto has had some massively humbling moments, especially NFTs, over the last year, and more people are realizing what a scam it is.

so so so tired of techno futurists, we are all crying babies until we die.

they're still all in on cryptocurrency nonsense

honestly I kind of feel like there's three kinds of techno futurists: dummies, fascists, and fascist dummies

I got the impression the web3 crap is an engagement with the current trend, and I think it's very cringe, but they're actually personally working to comprehend that crap and work in that space where Grimes was just like "yeah you can do NFT stuff for me and slap my branding on it"

I did not mention them as an endorsement of all these things, just that they have more than a surface level understanding. I know a handful of people who dabbled enough to do an "is this anything?" assessment and bounced out.

I agree, they're far too self-aware to go down any fascist roads. At worst they're annoying techno-optimists who are ok with ignoring the downsides to pursue crypto/NFT/AI art projects (although at least they're making an effort with things like their tracking/opt-out Spawning project).

blockchain possibilities seem pretty shallow so far but herndon and dryhurst's explorations seem 90% very good faith, clear-eyed, hopeful thinkings about how this tech could actually be useful. (and 10% taking advantage of the silly NFT market to make some money, which i did too!) i disagree with those think there is nothing redeeming or potential in so-called "web3," it just isn't useful yet.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily FOMO but more cost of not engaging with some things when they might go somewhere interesting, and you can get some press/audience by engaging with these dopey emerging technologies and get people interested in your core project

I always come back to thinking to the David Letterman show bit "is this anything" where someone would do something weird for the audience and then Dave and Paul would say "hmm" and kind of riff back and forth about whether they thought it was something but usually wouldn't draw any solid conclusions

So, she was invited yesterday to speak at an event in Stockholm dubbed “brilliant minds 2023”.

Her bio for the event:
A provocateur and philosopher, Grimes has been both criticized and lauded for her theories on AI, futurism, and luxury communism, among other topics.

LOL

Writing shallow tweets is enough to call yourself a philosopher and playing with midjourney prompts makes you an expert on AI apparently.

"provocateur" is definitely the most high brow word for "asshole"

Hey now

stupid asshole

that video clip of her speaking at some event where she replied to some comment about "smashing the patriarchy" with "I really like the patriarchy!" and one of the things she listed was "supply chains" was *chef's kiss*

brilliant minds

She saw Taylor Swift's keychain and took it literally.

Russia and Ukraine should fight in Fortnite.

Is that a quote of her? It is isn’t it? ffs

Appalled I ever contributed to her wealth.

sending her a few dollars today in the hopes she says some even funnier shit

Save it. She gets plenty of money from Peter Thiel.

ok, I give up,p. I’m posting it

she actually said this pic.twitter.com/JKaXhN7TxK

— MOSCHINODORITO (@moschinodorito) June 13, 2023

So… Cringe Claire apparently was at Curtis Yarvin’s birthday party a few nights ago evidenced by a leaked drawing wishing him HBD YARVIN on a whiteboard.

I don’t even

This is a good read on the shockingly stupid and somewhat dangerous views she and the people around her are into

https://viewpointmag.com/2017/03/28/the-darkness-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-artificial-intelligence-and-neoreaction/

yawn - roko's basilisk again? (J/K, I love you, future AI)

Techno Marie Antoinette

(Googles "roko's basilisk," googles "Newcomb’s paradox," gets a headache ... )

she's one of those artists i can't imagine ever touring again, and i'm guessing her absolutely demented associations aren't getting more blowback and backlash because ppl don't care about her anymore, unless they're extremely online stans.

i think she's playing some festivals in south america later this year

as far as backlash being reduced, she's barely put out any music in the last few years so that's surely a factor. if the new album ever comes out then that'll be enough for her to get more attention and get more backlash

It’s a weird standard. Ariel Pink and John Maus got cancelled and get removed from festivals (eg: https://pitchfork.com/news/john-maus-exits-electronicon-2023-lineup-curator-george-clanton-apologizes-for-booking-him/ ) for attending the Capitol riots, which yeah sucks and fuck them, but meanwhile Grimes is partying with facists and she’s still around.

I guess you get a pass if you’re not explicit enough and tweet racist dog whistles instead.

at the risk of getting canceled myself, while her comments are bad, it sort of seems like if you accept a crude definition of patriarchy, as many do, then you sort of have to come to her conclusion. if a system of oppression is total then it’s responsible for the good things too. put another way, by trying to show just how deep things go, we can sometimes grant them more power than they really have. i think a lot of nu-fascism comes crawling through little conceptual openings like that.