The new aesthetic emerges when new technologies allow physical design objects to become a neutral comfort substrate and culture migrates into ambient, individualized experiences.
A perspective on new aesthetics by tomismeta in response to a post from rina prompted by a post from Patrick Collison...
Today, internet visual aesthetics feel largely ephemeral and niche with no clear dominant thematic characteristics. The impermanence of digital expression could be a primary driver.
That said, I believe we lack the "tools" to observe such a fluid and chaotic flow of an aesthetic across metaspatial experiences simultaneously. A good use of some of the grant funds referenced would be build a lens to more acutely observe and chronicle aesthetic flow and evolution at scale (physical, digital and metaspatial), which could serve as a hyperstitional mechanic in itself.
My sense is that we'll continue this "aesthetic thrashing" with a bias towards anchoring on nostalgic aesthetics for modern design objects (mid-century modern, farmhouse, etc.) for the next few years which allows for the deferral of cognitive load from the substantial, relentless, stream of options and chaos we experience today.
My intuition is that only major technology acceleration will catalyze an inflection point for the emergence of an organic “new aesthetic.”
Our world—the one humans experience—will be anchored on ambience, human connection, and human comfort. With the advent and broader acceptance and adoption of ambient intelligence (brain-computer interfaces) and robotics, we’ll see a deepening separation in physical design aesthetic between human spaces (connect, comfort, curate) and utilitarian spaces designed for robot and automation efficiency and effectiveness (cooking, home maintenance, etc.). Picture the outside or interior of a car versus the engine, or the stage versus the backstage.
The human-centered spaces will become more comfortable and physically sense-optimized, but visually aesthetically “dull,” functioning as neutral observatories to the naked eye (and mind). This neutrality will allow them to serve as a canvas for individually curated, shareable, digital aesthetic “skins,” streamed to each of us via brain-computer interfaces. The half-life of digitally and ambiently observed aesthetics will continue to accelerate, and we’ll change them like songs to suit our mood.
A "new aesthetic" will be rendered individually—metaspacial, ambiently experienced, and digitally malleable on a neutral, human-optimized, comfort substrate physical canvas. The emphasis of physical design objects will be on how they're felt or physically experienced, not seen.
Physical spaces will converge toward a hyper-abstraction of a comfort substrate, while the way we experience them continues to diverge—individually.
An additive perspective on new aesthetics by ꩜bstrxn...
This puts into words something I’ve been feeling lately. Which is that our current obsession of cycling through all the nostalgic aesthetics of the past in fashion (80s-90s) and architecture (art deco & mid century) is like a collective unconscious goodbye before we take off and fragment taste & aesthetics leading to the need for a universal comfort substrate void of embellishments or extras unless curated.
Which makes Ye’s droam concept make a lot more sense as an abstraction / comfort substrate
