Books & Spoken Word
James Bridle – New Dark Age
- Artists
- James Bridle
Artist and writer James Bridle discusses his latest book, New Dark Age, in conversation with Laurie Penny.
We live in times of increasing inscrutability. Our news feeds are filled with unverified, unverifiable speculation, much of it automatically generated by anonymous software, while companies dominate their employees through surveillance and threat of automation. As a result, we no longer understand what is happening around us.
Underlying all of these trends is a single idea: the belief that data can provide a coherent model of the world, and the efficacy of computable information to provide us with ways of acting within yet. Yet the sheer volume of information available to us reveals less than we hope. Rather, it heralds a new Dark Age: a world of incomprehension.
Bridle offers us a warning against this future, discussing the limits of technology and how it aids our understanding of the world. Surveying the history of art, technology and information systems he reveals the dark clouds that gather over discussions of the digital sublime.
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