Cluster Blog

It’s not a new idea that the constant accessibility of the internet has, while opening up vast stores of information, actually begun to limit users’ creative potential. Numerous studies have shown that the multiplication of media and information sources available to internet junkies is fracturing their attention and making it harder to focus on any one particular task. Creative work requires a certain degree of solitude and uninhibited cognitive processing, which is impossible when you are constantly “plugged in.” It can be hard to get anything done when you find yourself almost unconsciously shifting from your Word .doc to the front page of the New York Times site, and from there to an article about a particular artist showing in the Village, and then to the artist’s homepage, and then to his collective’s homepage, and then to the flickr of another artist in the collective whose work reminds you of this other guy from Sweden who was doing a similar thing with 3d imaging and stainless steel water fixtures and I should probably check him out again I wonder if they know each other… 

Oh, look at that. Two hours have gone by and you’re watching a youtube vid with less than 300 views of some ukrainian kid firing a desert eagle at his cat.

It can feel like you’re getting a lot done when you’re really accomplishing little more than aggregating information, which, given the tangential nature of your exploration, you’ll probably bookmark and forget about anyway, that is, unless you’ve got a blog like us.

Looo.ch is one of those gems that makes this activity worthwhile. Speaking of internet amnesia, I honestly have no memory of how I came across this site… last night. I was in the zone. 

Based (as far as I can tell) in Russia, Loooch is an art, music, architecture and theory blog which seems to be primarily devoted to the alternative use, and play with new digital technologies. According to their about page, it “is the space of evolutionary information aimed at the individual character, variety, and future.” 

You’re right, by the way, that quote doesn’t really mean anything. And that’s because most of it is in Russian, and the English version does not seem to have been translated by a human being. (I’m guessing). It is a strange experience to navigate theory-minded text that has been translated poorly by (apparently) a robot. There’s a disconnect in which you must first figure out what the sentence should say before you can begin to even read it as theoretical discourse and decide if you agree. That’s a topic for a whole other post, so I’ll leave it to you to parse out the ethical implications of reading philosophy using google translator. 

On the other hand, if you’re willing to forgo large slippages of meaning, and like the sound of robots that emulate graffiti handstyles, mini photo essays on door knob hentai, or short experimental films shot within the 3d universe of Counter Strike, I’d give it a shot.

Happy hunting!