Flux Death Match: The New Aesthetic

So I’m obsessed with this (trigger word) “movement” that James Bridle and a bunch of his designer friends from London have coined: “The New Aesthetic”. Basically at its most essential can be categorized as a melding of the digital realm with the real world. We humans viewing the world through the eyes of our very own technology, and what beautiful aesthetic qualities we can pull from it.

Bridle’s work astonishes me to no end and I can watch his lectures from around the world a bunch of times. This new idea has seen plenty of discourse in recent months. A SXSW panel (featuring Bridle himself, members of his collective, and the editor of Rhizome) in March in Austin, an essay in Wired by Bruce Sterling, and of course Bridle’s recently defunct Tumblr account where he documented examples of the aesthetic on for a year.

I just received word from the director of my New Media program at school about this upcoming debate at the Flux Factory in Long Island City next week that attempts to take Internet discussions and place them into the real world (an idea that seems very new aesthetic-esque to begin with). Anyways they’ve decided to have a panel of four speakers debate the idea of the new aesthetic and it should be very excited! Flux Factory is located at 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, Queens. Hope to see you there!