Links

• • 1 Whereas photos allow us the control to mentally recreate past events as we remember them, online chat histories present past relationships, personalities, and memories as they really were. The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz covers the awkward aftermath of the recent Facebook bug that resurfaced years-old chat histories for users from across the globe. “The never-ending scroll means painful conversations remain there forever, and when those conversations do arise, moving past them can be hard,” Lorenz writes. In an era when online activities can be archived for, well, ever, Lorenz explores how this reality affects the ways in which we interact with and avoid one another.
  • 2 The “American South” often conjures up a series of stereotypes, especially in the Trump era. Lyndsey Gilpin explains the importance of nuanced, attentive reporting for the Columbia Journalism Review. “As journalists,” Gilpin writes, “we owe it to the places and people we write about to go into a story with an open mind, without writing it in our heads before reporting.” A Kentucky-native herself, Gilpin explores the ways in which publications can better understand and amplify voices that often go unheard.
  • 3 It took nearly four years of work for filmmaker Gary Hustwit to finally release his newest documentary. Set for global release this December, his portrait of design icon Dieter Rams has been reviewed on Wired: “Rams goes beyond mere character study; it’s also a film with an agenda. ‘I framed it for him as a way to get his ideas about sustainability and consumerism and design out there for the next generation,’ Hustwit says about the process of getting Rams to agree to the documentary.”
  • 4 Being a punk in the 1970s, declaring there was “no future” was also an empowering momentum, meaning while everything goes down the drain, one still had the chance to make the best of it until then. According to British artist, writer and publisher James Bridle, today, even making the best of it is not in our own hands anymore. About his recent book “New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future”, The Intercept author John Thomason writes that technology is dangerous when it disrupts our perception of the future and the past. Bridle, however, is set out to unveil again the infrastructures and inner workings of the internet that have been clouded by technology.
  • 5 According to this article on The Guardian, not even architects are immune to chasing social media likes. But when Instagram influences the way we construct our environment, is quality being compromised?