ExploreSequenceShopCareers
Try
'vitsoe shelving'
Log in
Sign up

Sequence is read by 4 million creatives every week

Join Cosmos to get Sequence in your inbox

Get the app

© 2026

ConnectInstagramTikTokX
MoreTermsPrivacy

© 2026

CareersTermsPrivacy

June 2, 2026·Edition 27

A 20-year-old breaks a box office record

Internet Microdoses

Martin Scorsese backs an AI startup, signing on as partner and adviser to Black Forest Labs, a generative image company. The move is dividing fans who respected him as the “absolute cinema” guy. But if anyone can teach AI about 35mm film grain, it’s him.

Pace Gallery is cutting 50 artists and 50 staff, shrinking its roster from 135 to 85 in the sharpest contraction yet from a mega gallery. It’s a sobering reality check for the art world, and a sign the old art world model is cracking.

A24’s Backrooms is now the studio’s biggest hit, earning $81 million domestically in its opening weekend. The film was built by 20-year old Kane Parsons from his viral YouTube series based on 4chan creepypasta. That’s a lot of attention for a liminal space.

Apple finally upgrades Siri. The solution? Bring Google’s AI models on-device, years after they first promised them. Rather than a total surrender, it feels like a tactical alliance. Apple keeps the local privacy, while Google’s servers handle the thinking.

Does a sport have a sound? The NBA is trying to brand itself with a new composer. Nicholas Britell and Nas are bringing dramatic piano keys and hip-hop to the court. Maybe we’ll see Kendall Roy courtside.

Over 100 Venice Biennale artists are threatening to sue the exhibition for keeping their names on a public award ballot they never agreed to. The Biennale introduced the vote after its prize jury resigned over ICC-related politics, and now artists want out. In the city of sinking buildings, could this be another institution headed under water?

More from Sequence

The Louvre is getting an overhaul
Edition 26 · May 26, 2026

The Louvre is getting an overhaul

Why does everyone smell the same?
Edition 25 · May 19, 2026

Why does everyone smell the same?

Aesthetic Study

Landmine Girls

Jirai kei — "landmine style" — is sweetness wired to explode. It emerged from Tokyo's Kabukichō nightlife and crystallized during COVID thanks to SuReRo's viral "psycho girlfriend" makeup challenge. The look: pink and black, oversized bows, Peter Pan collars, platform Mary Janes, twin tails, and the "jirai line" — a heavy under-eye flush that reads as recent crying. Bubbles, Liz Lisa, and Ank Rouge sell it in Japan. In the West it surfaced untranslated — Sandy Liang’s bows, Simone Rocha’s pink-and-black tulle, Shushu/Tong’s frill-and-platform pairings.

Two years of coquette's bow obsession prepped us for this very moment. After years of "clean girl" and "old money" restraint, something had to break. Jirai uses the same bows to mean the opposite — sweetness with detonation right beneath the surface. After a decade of fashion telling women to look composed, the clothes demonstrate that being a girl can be hard.

  • Jirai's Kabukichō origins
  • The full visual taxonomy
  • The melancholy at jirai's core
  • Meet the Toyoko Kids of Kabukichō
Cover of Landmine Girls collection
Landmine GirlsBy @sequencebycosmos
An image uploaded by ta0_mwahh on Jun 01, 2026.
An image uploaded by appiepoo on Aug 12, 2025.
An image uploaded by ⋆·˚ ༘ on Dec 01, 2025.

June 2, 2026·Interview

Emma Backman

The film editor who cuts like a dancer on the music that unsticks her, and what keeping the body moving does for the work.

Emma Backman
Emma Backman

A moment with

Emma Backman

The film editor who cuts like a dancer on the music that unsticks her, and what keeping the body moving does for the work.

Emma Backman edits film with the rhythm and continuity that could only come from her past life as a dancer. Based between Stockholm and Berlin, the filmmaker came up through music videos and commercials before stepping into features with J.M. Harper's 2024 Sundance documentary As We Speak. She was an additional editor on the BAFTA-nominated Daughters and has a shelf of Ciclope, ADC, and Clio Gold from the commercial side. This June, she's among the editors on Alicia Keys: Girl From Hell's Kitchen, One9's documentary tracing the musician's path from her Manhattan childhood to the Broadway stage, closing out the Tribeca Festival. We talked to her about the music she turns to when stuck, the films and books that still hit, and what keeping the body moving actually does for the work.

What do you do when you hit a creative block?

I listen to music and try and get to the source of what I want the viewer of the film to feel when they watch my work. For me music is the highest art form. It makes me feel the most. I make a playlist and try and step away from the screen if I have the time.

What's the last film you watched that moved you deeply?

I rewatched C'mon C'mon by Mike Mills the other week and it hit me. The film shows humanity and small moments in life in a very poetic way. Simply beautiful.

What's the last article you sent to a friend?

Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical

Who is your forever inspo?

Erykah Badu, Agnès Varda and Chloe Sevigny.

What book have you gifted most?

Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn is a book I gave to at least 5 of my friends. It was years of therapy bottled up in that book for me.

Write us a fortune cookie message.

Your best days are yet to come.

Follow Emma on Instagram and Cosmos.

Object Love

Television (1963) and Cryptogamme (1969)

Television (1963) and Cryptogamme (1969)

In 1963, Téléavia asked Roger Tallon to make a TV that didn't look like furniture. He gave them the Portavia P111 — an ovoid ABS case on a white pedestal "neck" the sculptor César suggested, with a tinted screen that fades into the body. The tagline: l'esthétique compte aussi — "aesthetics matter too." Six years later, asked to furnish an unbuilt Grand Palais cafeteria, Tallon designed the Cryptogamme stool — a lacquered polyester base topped with a polyurethane cushion in colors borrowed from Smarties.

Set them next to each other and they're basically the same object — pedestal and bulb, base and cap, swelling at the top. The P111 now lives at the Centre Pompidou, but it’s fun to imagine kicking back with it at home. It’s the exact kind of setup where you can watch The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives without sacrificing taste.

Quick Hits

  • Björk opens Echolalia at Iceland’s National Museum.
  • Someone made the first straight-to-VHS movie in 20 years.
  • The Obama Presidential Center is an architectural win.
  • Loro Piana is funding a restoration of Renaissance masterworks.
  • Why the New York Knicks’ decades-old logo is still a classic.

Through the liminal,

Tania