New Views (Hoover Street)

Sometimes I think poetry will be the only art form that resonates from this era, the only thing that lasts. When you have too much of something, it becomes less valuable—and right now, even if we were to exclude all the AI filling the internet with slop, the mere technology jump we’ve had over the last 30 years has created an excess of available art. When art was regional, restricted by geography and analog methods of reproduction, sharing it was an experience in and of itself that became an integral part of culture.

Now with billions of interconnected screens, experiencing something new, and possibly profound, isn’t so much a desire, opportunity, or possibility—but an expectation. (Even worse is that experience is now integrated directly into the mechanics of capitalism.) The part of us, as humans, that can be affected by the inspiration of another person (and therefore building a sense of connection at a deep, spiritual level) is being bulldozed by a grotesque combination of algorithms and advertisements.

Thanks Metro (Wilshire / Vermont)

Thus, I think poetry probably matters most in this moment. The best poets are able to connect the dots of the human experience emotionally and physically with both the observable and ethereal aspects of reality that I don’t think any machine could ever reproduce. The one thing humanity will always have advantage of over any coded invention is a soul, and though all art forms can represent that depth of feeling alive, the best poems can touch the surface of what it means to be human, as opposed to what it feels like.

(Maybe I’ve just been putting off watching that Mary Oliver documentary for too long, a mistake I’ll rectify this week.)

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

—Mary Oliver, “Praying”

What living in LA is actually like most of the time

Today at LACMA I stood next to Jeff Goldblum in front of a giant Matisse for a few minutes. I didn’t want to bother him (plus he had a couple people with him that looked like they were there to protect him from public nuisance), but it is sort of just a thing that happens here and is always funny when it does.

Westmoreland and James M Wood

Beverly and Alvarado

Slow Rose bookended a wild, curated 26-hour show over the weekend at 2220 Arts and Archives and I only saw about seven hours of it and judging from what I did see, I missed out on not being there for the other 19. Nevertheless, a couple photos from driving around before and after.

The Stratford, Eighth and Hoover

My new LA snapshot method is just highlighting intersections while waiting for the light to change.

Wilton and Wilshire

For some time now, I’ve used the Adobe Lightroom mobile app to edit photos I take on my phone, such as this one snapped today on my drive home. However, when I went to edit the photo upon getting home, Adobe had an update to promote to me:

On Lightroom Desktop and Mobile, the headline feature is Generative Expand, which Adobe first rolled out in Photoshop in mid-2023. The tool uses generative AI to extend a photo beyond its original borders, filling transparent areas created by perspective adjustments or making room for new aspect ratios without leaving blank edges

The Generative UI in question

There’s plenty of debate about AI ‘art,’ even though most people who are pro-AI have little to no appreciation for creative process or results—however when it comes to photography, using Generative AI is somehow more offensive. Photography, by its fundamental nature, is documentation. Evidence. An account of reality, interpreted through a lens certainly, but otherwise, nothing that exists in a photograph was not in the scene that was shot.

To use Gen AI in any kind of photographic tool is to go against the very nature of photography. While the people who are shoving AI down our throats at every corner have absolutely no appreciation for the nature of the foundations of how we make things, they also disregard why we make them, or how significant these processes and results are to the relationship humanity has to itself and the world.

People promoting AI exist completely within the idea of technologically-driven bubbles that serve purposes of, well, I don’t even know, coordinating meetings better? Client pitches? Coding apps? A projected version of the world that doesn’t exist but serves the idea of selfish indulgence? Certainly nothing honest, nothing dignified, nothing human.

While there are likely ballistic wars coming over resources such as water, wealth, energy, and political domain, there’s this brewing existential, intangible conflict about the fundamental nature of how we relate to one another, how we share reality, how we celebrate it, and what it actually comprises that is becoming an increasingly depressing landscape.