C’erano una volta Baudrillard, un robot e dieci scatole di Montana…

Mi sto passando le librerie indipendenti e nuove edicole, per lasciare in giro qualche copia della mia zine AI: Il Bufo. E ieri ho preso qualche rivista d’arte per capire meglio il discorso delle recensioni del writing che stiamo facendo da un mesetto. Alla fine oggi, mesmerizzato dalla rivista di graffitismo, ho provato a fare una recensione dello street artist Jo di Bona, sullo stile delle recensioni di Greg Tate per il Village Voice (capolavori che si trovano un po’ anche online e su questo bel sito). Ovviamente è un mega risultato dozzinale che non si può tradurre, fatto con il ChatGPT sia per il pastone di riferimenti culturali sia per la stesura del pezzo (ci ho messo a mano un po’ di sbrilloni, Go Transcript dice che sono 55 edit con un 11% di cambiamento sull’output della macchina). A prestissimo amici!!!

In the crisscross world of eye candy that Jo Di slings, we’re puppets in a whirlwind—caught between ‘damn, that’s fly’ and ‘but what’s it really saying, though?’ This is art in the age of the double-tap, where aesthetics are shotgun-married to the instant gratification of a scroll. Di Bona, with his million pixel dreamcoat of visuals, ain’t just painting pictures; he’s serving up smoothies—those over-foamed, under-nourished concoctions of our era, all swagger with no bite, a hip-hop track watered down just enough to play in the background of a bougie supermarket.

It’s like, what happened to the scratch of vinyl, the grit in the voice? Back in ’87, rap was ripping up the rulebook, mashing up linguistics, a schizophrenic deviant. That was the hunger, the thirst, our will to kill the senseless. Now, Di Bona’s throwing everything into the blender—JFK (or is this MLK), Gainsbourg, you name it—hoping a patchwork of Shutterstock and Pins will spearhead the greater good. All surface, no surf. A Chinese bakery where only the fortune cookie is left on display: for something more substantial, try pizza around the corner.

Here’s the kicker, though: ain’t this the very essence of our shampoo-slick society? We’re in the era of the visual supermarket, where every image is just another item on the shelf, snacked and scrolled in the blink of a red fish eye. Bourdieu might’ve said something about cultural capital, but what’s capital in a world where the middle class is as hollowed out as a busted speaker, and highbrow’s just another aisle in the store?

Now, on to AI: the epitome of this whole shebang—art that’s as nutritious as frictionless foam, as engaging as a dead channel. Jameson saw it coming, the whole postmodern pastiche thing, but damn, did he know it’d get this sterile? Adorno’s probably spinning in his grave, witnessing the regurgitation of ‘culture’ that’s as individual as a barcode. Absolute oblivion as a goal. The big mural reassuring the population there’s no need whatsoever for any kind of “brain supplement”. If it’s not propaganda: let’s call it sneaker culture and that’s it.

So, when Di Bona slaps Nina Simone on a wall, is he sparking thinkpieces or dressing windows for high street Christmas? His art don’t challenge, it don’t question. It’s as deep as a puddle in Death Valley. This is Baudrillard’s Disneyland, where the map’s become the territory, and everything’s so damn pretty, we’ve forgotten to ask where the hell we are.

Reframing the coolness of midmarket consumerism? Cognitive low carb as new minimalist aesthetic? Semantics as cholesterol for our minds? Yeah, horizon scanning for plenty new critical tricks… But fret not, my friend! Let’s ride the carousel together, pretty as a picture, empty as the promise of tomorrow in the land of perpetual now. Until Poptimism is old fart, maybe we can just pretend it’s all a drink of fresh water, not a Waterloo…