Wellsbaum.blog

Writing about life and arts

Tag: culture

  • Resisting the influence

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    Wells Baum
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    The urge to do the exact opposite of what everyone is doing tingles the predictive soul. To remain uninfluenced, resisting the harmonization of taste. Everything interesting must be excruciatingly different — social media endeavors to trap uniqueness with templated styles. The edited life is all chicanery, one stock cloud too many. All places and poses…

  • We used to pick up the phone

    We used to pick up the phone

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    Wells Baum

    Tethered to the phone hanging on the wall, we forfeited our anonymity to the unknown stranger. Every call felt like a cold call, with no indication of who was on the other line. Yet it felt surprisingly safe to answer even if it was a telemarketer. “No thanks, we’re eating dinner. Please call back later.”…

  • Losing our edge

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    Wells Baum
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    Being weird used to be lonely. But then the Internet happened. The web connected the vinyl collectors, the sneakerheads, and the want-to-be Romance novelists. Niches came together, competed, collaborated, cheered each other on while a select few took their micro, macro until their weird became the new standard. “Success blurs. It rounds off the rough…

  • Intimacy in the midst of indifference

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    Wells Baum

    The internet is a sea of intimacy in the midst of indifference.  We all hang within our tribes — the Picasso heads, the hip-hop enthusiasts, the mommy bloggers — without curiosity for a broader perspective of differing interests. “Your whole life informs your eye.”  Roger Deakins While no one can attain Da Vinci’s single holistic…

  • A mirror on information

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    Wells Baum
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    Journalists focus more on catastrophes than progress. They’re hard-wired to follow tragedy than highlight the good. Bad news and sensationalism sell eyeballs. Good news is ephemeral, quickly consumed and forgotten. When an avalanche of information aligns with a consumption-based based society, all becomes a blur. Knocked unconscious, we assemble identities that exceed the brain’s three…

  • Taste at first sight 👁👀👁

    Taste at first sight 👁👀👁

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    Wells Baum

    “The first taste is always with your eyes.” Everything is contrived, from the glowing burger buns, fresh lettuce and tomatoes, to the juicy fresh meat. Video takes food advertising even further, making it come alive from its static state. Tabletop advertising or food marketing is no different from any other product marketing: the illusion never…

  • “Stare at the world, not at your model.”

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    Wells Baum
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    Continually learning, constantly changing. The human mind is as fickle as the seasons. It is not mathematical models that predict the future but the law of nature. Writes Richard Bookstaber in his book The End of Theory. “The world could be changing right now in ways that will blindside you down the road.” Nothing is linear and predictable;…

  • Devouring optical information

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    Wells Baum
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    There’s optical information everywhere — on cereal boxes, to ads atop taxicabs, to the best quiche recipe on Pinterest. We are bombarded by the same signals we signal right back, purchasing the Nike sneaker posted on Instagram yesterday. Communicating through images negotiates a plausible reality. We consume and project, show and inspire others. Assume everything…

  • The bullshit detector

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    Wells Baum

    You know it when you see it. Bullshit rings like a magic lantern, giving artificiality a spotlight. More people are susceptible to believing bullshit than ever. Politics is mostly bullshit, as is mass marketing. The irrational tries to take all the mystery out of life. When storytelling becomes manipulation, people lose their heads. Evil spreads…

  • Nostalgic for bookstores

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    Wells Baum
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    Our online identities have become our real-life identities, one where the rapidity of instant communication breaks down the slow pace of life. Tech makes us impulsive and drains our patience–we demand things with a click of a button and expect a drone to deliver them the same day. So it’s no surprise that some people want…

  • Are video games design objects?

    Are video games design objects?

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    Wells Baum
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    Do video games belong in the museum?  I remember checking out the old Tetris and Pong video games at a MoMA exhibit in 2013. They certainly seemed to fit as artistic artifacts.  The world’s leading museum of art and design in London, V & A, is making its new exhibit Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt even more contemporary.  The show’s curator…

  • Digging in the crates

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    Wells Baum

    It had that barbershop vibe, the relaxed atmosphere where people kicked back, dug the crates, and talked music. There were posters and promotional displays but they couldn’t outshine the album artwork. Marketing started from the bottom up. Consumption was based on peer recommendations. The record shop was a place of giver’s gain, where the information…