Delicious dreams
My heart races with anticipation before I know it’s… of course… another brilliant post from Suea. Her mesmerizing food designs were recently featured in T Magazine, and in an interview with MOLD she discusses her inspiring transition from the corporate world to food design. As I navigate my own path of uncertainty, Suea's leap has reignited my drive to spend time pursuing my own passions — writing, music, and even painting.
Denim deception
Continuing thinking on last week’s transparent leather looking like latex, we’re in another Is It Cake? moment: printed denim on non-denim materials. The earliest I can recall seeing this (other than simple denim on cotton) is from Balenc*aga back in 2021, a printed viscose blouse (unfortunately not silk), followed by Bottega Veneta’s printed leather jeans for FW22 (also these “socks”). This season, Y/Project and Jean Paul Gaultier join the trend with their SS23 collection (I just copped a coat), and this pretty cool skirt from ZARA.
This week in AL
AREA17 unveiled a new identity for OpenAI, the same week Sam Altman gave this kinda unsettling interview about the risks of his company and its products (I swear it’s worth the 22 minutes)
Glaze is a new tool for artists to protect their digital artwork, making it more difficult for AI to mimic and reproduce. With the rise of AI-generated fakes, excited for more security features to (maybe) protect artists and better understand what we’re seeing.
This week, @lndian_Bronson shared an AI-generated image of a salmon swimming in a river, highlighting the limitations of deep learning models. While the image is undeniably adorable (I would love to have an oil painting of it on my wall) it also demonstrates where AI can miss important bits of context.
Music memories
In my interview presentation this week (p.s. avail for part and full time hire!), I *briefly* reflect on my love for technology at an early age and the gadgets that shaped my interest in product design… my first experiments with tech, music, and culture that made me say “culture is for me”.
During the summers, I spent time with my cousin who installed custom audio equipment. We couldn’t afford home theater speakers, so I gathered up old tape players recorded my favorite movies from start to finish, and then played them back synchronized in “surround sound”. By an hour into a movie, the warped taped ribbons were so out of synch, I’d spend the remaining 30 minutes flickering pause buttons trying to get them back on track.
Then I was very much obsessed with Hit Clips, a 2000s toy music player with proprietary plastic cartridges, loaded with a low-quality 30-second clip of popular tracks. I got many “singles” from McDonals happy meals, but the best version was the Yahoo Hit Clips downloader, allowing you to record anything on tiny chip. It’s a dumb iPod, a novel transitional music device trapped somewhere between physical media past and a completely digital future, and in rural east Texas with 56k dial-up it was the best way for me to learn all the words to new Britney tracks.
Last, I saved up enough to acquire a Handspring Visor, the pinnacle of tech for an 11 year old in 2000s (lol). My imagination was ripe with excitement, envisioning all the ways to organize my 11-year-old life with a device a CEO barely needed. I used it with a 32mb compact flash card so I could convert MP3s to MIDI and play them back (like Michelle Branch’s “Are You Happy Now”). It was terrible :)
On rotation
Done (Let’s Get It) from Yaeji came out over a month ago, but I just got around to it and haven’t stopped listening this week. It follows the stellar For Granted, from their upcoming album With a Hammer out on April 7.
Locked in Closets from Solange’s True EP was a recent discovery... I was a late bloomer on Solange, only hearing singles and overplaying this Losing You remix all of 2013. When the When I Get Home film came out, I for the first time in a long time was proud to be from T*xas (have since regressed), then made my way backward to A Seat at the Table. Hoping for something new soon, but this will tie me over.
I refuse to be labeled as a “Little Monster” but this take about “witnessing this live was like experiencing the second coming of Christ” (true) is missing the context that the first three tracks leading up to Gaga’s 4th track during her Chromatica Ball tour were her mostly standing in place. The 180º shift in energy was quite incredible to see live.