architecture of choice (13. 002)

Legacy media is such a derisive term for any among the establishment who is outside of the grasp and influence of new arbiters but such laurels still matter, and whilst knowing that the honour does not always go to the great and the good but rather to pith and moment and what is most impactful, we are a bit taken aback by TIME magazine’s person of the year (see previously) with an identity parade, a lineup of the usual suspects of billionaires, almost to a person tech bros, recreated of course by AI recreating the iconic photograph 1930 of construction workers of the Empire State Building taking their lunch break on a girder at the hundredth and thirty-fourth floor with no safety gear. Though the publication is owned by Salesforce founder and Oracle executive Marc Benioff, such a high-wire act may deserve a second glance as the vaunted technology does not seem to be delivering (a kind of bad imprint for a glossy cover and perhaps intentionally so), triangulated amongst economic ruin, environmental catastrophe and eschatological crisis and those responsible for it seemingly aloof of their situation and what might come next.