concept #100

A still from the music video for <n>Stay The Night</n> by <n>Zedd</n> and <n>Hayley Williams</n>, directed by <n>Daniels</n>.

<n>Maison Margiela</n> Artisanal Spring/Summer 2024 by <n>John Galliano</n>. Makeup by <n>Pat McGrath</n>.

From the series <n>La Plage Noire</n> by photographer <n>Camille Tinon</n>.

Film still from the documentary <n>Martin Margiela: In His Own Words</n>, directed by <n>Reiner Holzemer</n>.

A look from <n>Alexander McQueen</n>'s <n>What a Merry-Go-Round</n> Autumn/Winter 2001 collection.

In this final, stultifying stage of capitalism, we are moving from poetic technologies to bureaucratic technologies. By poetic technologies I refer to the use of rational and technical means to bring wild fantasies to reality. Poetic technologies, so understood, are as old as civilization.

<n>House of Errors</n>' <n>Black Market Crash Campaign</n>, 2023. Photo by <n>Tony Longe</n>.

A digitally manipulated painting by artist <n>Michelle Avery Konczyk</n>.

A spread featuring <n>Miss M</n> by <n>Shoji Otake</n> and <n>Legs</n> by <n>T. Nakamura</n>, 1957.

A film still from <n>Narcissus</n> (1958), directed by <n>Willard Maas</n>.

The desire to exclusively engage with media and art made by “unproblematic” artists is a direct result of Americans viewing media consumption as an inherently political act because that is the supreme promise of Western prosperity and the religion of consumerism, and because it’s seemingly all that’s left. We’ve been stripped and socialized out of any real political energy and agency. Our ability to consume is the only thing remaining that’s “ours” in late capitalism, and as a result it’s become a stand-in for (or perhaps the sole defining quality of) every aspect of being alive today — consuming is activism, it’s love, it’s thinking, it’s sex, it’s fill in the blank. When the act of consuming is all you have left and indeed the only thing society tells you is valuable and meaningful, the act must necessarily be a moral one, which is why people send themselves down manic spirals deciding what, who is “problematic” or not, because for us the stakes are that high now.

Cover art for music by <n>NO-FVCE</n>, <n>ASAAD</n>, and <n>Pet Deaths</n>.

'<n>Shalom</n>', 1978, by <n>Hilla Jacoby</n> and <n>Max Jacoby</n>.

Sin título (1992), a photograph by <n>Raúl Cañibano</n> from his <n>Tierra Guajira</n> series.

<n>flying birds print wallpaper</n> by <n>Nakamu</n>.

French singer and actress <n>Chantal Goya</n>.

A scene from the play <n>The Moon</n> by the theater company <n>Familie Flöz</n>.

From the series <n>Kada najviše te želim</n> by photographer <n>Ariel Cemović</n>.

A portrait of model <n>Sam Carter Whatley</n> for <n>The Face Paris</n>.