On DLD and an Aesthetics of Digital Acceleration: Soft Retreats, Hyperdigitalism, Radical Empathy.

"It's gonna be wild": the theme of this year's Digital-Life-Design conference. AI underpinned nearly every conversation, naturally, but emerged as more a condition than a question: already, AI serves as a cornerstone of culture, economy, politics, and obviously technology. The question is now one of impact: what effects will increasingly-individualized (and commensurately addictive) algorithms have on the way consumers interact with culture, and how will creative practices and aesthetic leadership develop in response to breakaway digitalism?

A seemingly contradictory set of trends permeated cultural prophesies: digital fatigue and digitally-facilitated creation. Accompanying these trends were two parallel cultural movements: the first positions art as an escape-valve for dissatisfaction with the current conditions of optimization and networked efficiency, while the second embraces the digital currents of the 21st century (almost) fully. This latter current raised a question: do digitally-attuned creative practices exclusively serve the function of legitimizing the accelerationist (e/acc?) movement in mainstream culture? Or can the synthesis of human creativity and digital technology meaningfully further a culture of empathy and acceptance?

Soft Retreats: Digital Technology as a Tool to Escape Itself

AI materialized as the activator of both trends rather than the main point. As a system for analyzing human behaviour and data, AI furthers the applicability of services offered within the experience economy. For some creators and consumers, the deluge of digital marketing campaigns and algorithmic whirlpools drives the urge to seek refuge in analogue cultural experiences. The impact of the pandemic cannot be discounted here: frustrated with Zoom conferences and WFH desks but no less screen-addicted, people use digital infrastructure to facilitate in-person experiences.

Franziska Gregor of Serviceplan Culture, speaking in Amplifying Belonging: How to Create Global Fandom, introduced this trend of "algorithm fatigue" leading to consumer desire for IRL experiences and "soft retreats" (paint by numbers and gardening being her examples). As a result, retail brands have leaned into the creation of live experience: the eyeglass company Gentle Monster acted as a recurrent example throughout the conference. Sitting in the same panel, Adidas's Tobias Seemann discussed how brands integrate AI to synthesize consumer data into creating and marketing real-life experiences on social media, with Adidas's running groups providing the main touchpoint here. Despite consumer repulsion from digital experiences and hunger for real-life connection, digital technology--and particularly AI--remain a foundational collaborator in the purveyance of customer experiences.

This move towards digitally-mediated IRL experiences was mirrored by cultural institutions. Marc Spiegler of Art Basel staged the issue here, referencing the digital art initiatives of Refik Anadol: screen-based immersive art is already present, but not very good. Spiegler spoke with Florian Haller of Serviceplan Group, teamLab's Sakurako Naka, and Lars Hinrichs, who is heading the development of the UBS Digital Art Museum. The panel ubiquitously endorsed the power of immersive digital art as an exploratory--and, importantly, healing--experience. Like the digitally-mediated IRL "soft retreats" corporations have begun to build into their marketing schemes, the panel promoted digital immersion as a cure for digital fatigue: unexpectedly, digital technology emerged as a means to provide a reprieve from itself.

Maejor, a music artist employing solfeggio frequencies for their healing capacity, offered an example of how online cultural influencers have come to promote "soft retreats” through digital channels of creation and dissemination. Though certainly calming (I myself often find myself listening to a 528 Hz spotify playlist after a stressful day, and might well benefit from Maejor's app) the soundtracks the artist presented were markedly synthesized (and, sure, synthetic). In music again, the paradox of using digitally-mediated methods to provide a break from digitally-created stress remained apparent.

Maejor was not the only musician to theorise that an increasingly-digital reality has supported a mass movement towards the "soft retreats" discussed by Gregor. In her interview with Mumi Haiati of Reference Studios, FKA Twigs discussed how the act of intentionally slowing down has underpinned her success in the digital age. She introduced this as a positive externality as relates to the digital age's impact on creative practices: because everything seems to move so quickly, the act of slowing down is now increasingly prized due to its intentionality. Twigs and Haiati discussed how culture is not dead, but has largely gone underground as a response to the creep of corporate virality, pointing to London's secret rave scene as a response to overly-commercial festivals and concerts (sorry to report, though, that Twigs did not give any pointers of where to locate this scene...). 

In my own experience, Instagram has acted as the primary purveyor of analogue experiences like the ones for which Twigs and Gregor advocate. In-person chess nights like the one held at 180 Reference Point materialize, for me at least, as one of the first examples of mainstreamed, instagram-mediated, grass-roots IRL cultural events, alongside dinner clubs with link-in-bio tickets. More recently, accounts like metropol.world in London, have emerged to provide a digital access point for IRL events. Many of these instagram-to-IRL events have acted as a response to the increasing ubiquity of online dating, supporting the creation of in-person romantic connections.

The prominence of algorithmically-fatigued migration towards in-person events does not preclude a more general trend towards in-person experiences. Alongside Gregor’s theory of soft retreats as a response to algorithmic fatigue sits a post-COVID rise in desire for in-person interactions, which has likewise underscored an overwhelming growth in the experience-driven economy. Lutz Leichsenring, of Vibelab, sitting alongside the Mayor of Munich, discussed how the nighttime economy has increasingly become a priority among policymakers, citing a statistic that 1 in 10 urban people work in the nighttime service sector, with the ratio reaching a staggering 1 in 4 in London (!). As AI takes over more and more urban jobs, the vibrance of the experience-based economy--and particularly what Leichsenring refers to as the "night economy"--will become an economic imperative for urban policymakers, with AI-driven technology acting as the motor of advertisement and organization for this economy.

Embracing Technology: Accelerationism or Empathy?

This regime of reliance-despite-repulsion with regards to AI was articulated succinctly in the conversation between journalist Caroline Busta, artist Simon Denny, and strategist Marc Spiegler, titled "Will AI Slop and Deepfakes Kill Culture?". Following a 30-second primer of Gen Alpha-level brain rot, Spiegler initiated the discussion by reflecting on the shifting perception of digital or hybrid artworks and cultural platforms. Referencing the Ted Talk of MSCHF founder Gabriel Whaley, Spiegler discussed how excitement around use of digital processes in creation has waned since virality moved from a celebration of independence ("doing something new and weird and cool") to a commercial equation. Denny provided an apology (in the rhetorical sense) for algorithmic media, exhibiting his use of AI to create chimerical paintings which reproduce defence department images in the manner of futurist artists. Busta hypothesised the key divergence between Denny's AI works and the vacuous "slop" haunting instagram feeds worldwide: while the latter operates purely at the content level, the value of Denny's work, by contrast, functions on a "protocol level": the content layer does not reside in the final product or even the process, but in the message of integrating this technology into his practice. From this standpoint, Denny's work provides an immanent critique of the systems he uses, even as he creates a commercial product. 

On the other hand, the commercial success of Denny's work shows that, at least to some extent, it must resonate on the content level as well. Though the message behind his recent exhibition with Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, "Forces of the Unknown", showing his works situated in the JW Marriott Hotel directly across from the German Defense Department, is certainly in prime place, the aesthetic function of the work is no less striking: a markedly digital painting with disrupted, stacatto-like brush strokes causes a cataclysmic rupture in the muted and inoffensive ecosystem of the eerie mid-century modern hotel room. The futurist works upon which Denny trained his models are not accidental to the work, indicating an almost paranoid eagerness for the developments of the "new age".

Denny's Marinetti-adjacent references point to a certain movement counter to the above "soft-retreat" approaches which, though they did not offer a wholesale rejection of AI, did maintain a degree of caution and criticality with regards to the digital age: or otherwise to promote analogue processes and connections, a tool to escape, rather than critique -- or much less celebrate -- the digital age in all its ennui and anomie. Digital technology in the prior examples does not represent an end in itself, rather, it is begrudgingly incorporated as a means to defeat itself.

Denny's work (on a content layer) begins to illustrate a lesser centred convention which ran parallel to that of pragmatic and critical incorporation: one of radical acceptance. This is not unexpected at DLD, which platforms tech entrepreneurs alongside thinkers: at the same conference, I heard Stuart Russell (of UC Berkeley) sound AI alarm bells and Tether CEO Paolo Arduino offer an overview of the company's initiatives with no reference to the current audit. While inviting critical thought and discussion, the conference also platformed protagonists of accelerated tech investment, including Margit Wennmachers's discussion of Silicon Valley's lessons for Europe, and Michael Förtsch's championship of optical computing. Though DLD itself does not push forward the message of accelerationism, the viewpoint is heavily present (Important! Lest we of such refined cultural standards forget that Venture Capital firms DO exist!).

The lyrics of DLD's featured musician and producer Mechatok do not immediately announce techno optimism, but his strictly quantized rhythm and synthetic timbres do indicate his allegiance with a flavor of "hyper-pop" which precludes any attempts to humanize elements of production, and excludes any sort of "retro" feel. Charli XCX--with whom Mechatok has previously worked--and her record-breaking album Brat, stand as the best-known examples of this sort of techno-pop. Up-and-coming Australian music artist Ninajirachi, with her new album I Love My Computer, or even more extremely, virtual musician Yameii Online produced by musician Deko, offer explicit examples of how the rise of hyper-pop has blended with a movement celebrating digital development and virtual reality. Mechatok referenced artist Billionhappy, alongside which I cannot help but relate to my reflections on Lawrence Lek's show at Goldsmiths.

Sougwen Chung and Carol E. Reiley echoed this unabashed embrace of technology in creative practice. In conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, the two artists discussed their use of AI technology as a "collaboration" with machines. Discussing her current work with silkworms, Sougwen emphasized her belief that technology is "not just about extraction and datamining", as well as an interest in the "beauty of non-homan movement". Carol likewise championed the incorporation of machines into human processes, repeating a conviction that "humans aren't perfect" -- I couldn't help but wonder whether she was suggesting that this is a problem to be solved... Reiley discussed how, through her work, she aimed not to centre robots, but to render them a sort of background element of everyday life. Within this conversation, there remained present a recognition of AI and robotics not as a tool, but rather as an active, though sometimes hidden, agent.

Culture’s unabashed embrace of digital technology is not new, having appeared first in the 90s with vaporwave aesthetics, and resurfaced with the “millennial culture” of MySpace and early Facebook (I think of Amanda Ullman). The current wave of digital consumerism certainly picks up motifs from these movements: as I write, a wave of 2016 photo dumps is circulating on Instagram, and young girls continue to scour the vintage stores of Shoreditch and the LES for y2k-inspired fashion. However, this romanticisation is not limited to nostalgia; through the application of technologies, and particularly of AI, figures like Chung and Reiley are embracing digital processes as tools for prototyping an empathetic and communal (though nonetheless digital) future reality. Videogame culture is also present in a way it was not before; DLD featured a number of games, selected through a peer-run competition at the nearby university. I didn't have the chance to see Bastian Bergmann's discussion on the importance of gaming, but having spoken to some of the students showing their videogames at the conference, I am convinced!

What differentiates the post-COVID movement towards technological utopianism is its full hearted positivity despite full awareness of the dystopian resonances which technological realities carry. Having witnessed the social-media fuelled atrocities carried out in Myanmar, knowing full well the role data-driven digital marketing campaigns played in Brexit or the election of Trump, and suffering first-hand the consequences of AI-driven job loss, creators are nonetheless reviving a culture of optimism around the digital age. This is not naïve positivity, nor is it some buddhist-like acceptance of the digitally-mediated lives, nor, even, some capital-driven willed ignorance regarding the risks of the digital age. No, the sort of fuck-it-we-ball-ism which has arisen, and particularly among digital natives, is a deliberate response to the obstacles of the digital age. Franziska Gregor's notions of “algorithmic fatigue” and “soft retreats” hardly seem to fit these movements.

Is this new aesthetics of digital celebration simply an artistic form of e/acc? Obrist's conversation with Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani did certainly suggest a mainstream, or at least institutional, acceptance of art being used as a vehicle for political messaging. If artistic alliances have proven useful in the diplomatic efforts of Qatar, why shouldn't big tech pick up this tactic?

Bjarke Ingels employed the term “Utopian Pragmatism” to describe an architectural practice which undertakes ambitious and projects with thorough acknowledgement of political, social, and environmental realities. I'd like to think that a majority of the artists at DLD would support this vision, where creative work is not just object-based or useful only as an escape from reality, but also valuable as a tool for research and development into how novel technologies can be used to create connections, not only person-to-person, but also with other species and with environment.

Harry Yeff (better known as Reeps One) offered an unmediated artistic point of view, showing us how art, when accepted in its capacity as an unbridled method of R&D, can bring about emotive change on a grassroots level. In a small-scale workshop setting, Yeff demonstrated his development of "agents" using his voicegems technology to give voice to a disappearing glacier and a now-extinct species of Rhino. Yeff illustrated how AI technology can be employed to build empathy and promote a change in mentality (and action), not just on a soft-power-state scale, but on an environmental one, as well.

In response to lamentations regarding Gen Alpha's reliance on technology (cue iPad kid memes), I often discuss how I've seen an insane rise in empathy among the younger generations: bullying just isn't cool anymore, and the visibility of so many different types of people has brought about a more general acceptance for otherness. For me, this generational shift speaks to the ability of technology (if not necessarily accelerationism) to invite a culture of compassion. Of course, it is critical to approach technology with a certain degree of caution -- maybe I am taking it for granted that everyone must have the same latent distrust for potential surveillance systems as I do -- but the speakers at DLD show that it is also necessary to approach technology with a sense of curiosity and optimism in order to apply it to creating a better and more actually connected world.