texts written for blogs, sites and zines
- Drauzio Varella thinks we are not spending enough energy A famous TV doctor says sitting at the computer spends no energy. Two lists, one challenge, and a self-citation with three orgasms.
- What is an artist? Part one: sign on the dotted line From the aurochs of Lascaux to Gutenberg: why image-makers were anonymous for millennia, and what "the democratization of media" did to that.
- The pursuit of happiness is a hoax A greasy pastel, a Coke can stamped with the word "Happiness", Mandela's 27 years in prison, and the media couple who moved to Berlin to "investigate happiness".
- Why is it so easy to hate Romero Britto? Repetition, depth, price: dismantling the three standard arguments against Brazil's most hated painter — and what the hate is really protecting.
- The death of literature is great business Seat belts, the Spanking Law, vegan wafers and why nobody wants to read Dostoevsky anymore: on the transfer of responsibility.
- The Guide to Lamentability A divinatory science for calculating, with two decimal places, the odds of an event being — or turning into — crap.
- The absurd in the talking traffic lights of São José dos Campos A robotic voice scolds pedestrians into respecting the signal — and goes silent at the exact moment a blind person would need it.
- Two brief notes on impermanence ready to leave this world at any moment; on travelers who never return the same.
- 8 years without television: a report Time dilation, a slower inner clock, fewer consumption desires and one absolute truth of the universe: 100% of what's on TV is crap.
- The emphatic guide to emotional survival on the Internet For the friend who wanted to bike back home to delete a Facebook status: nobody is thinking about what you posted. Only you.
- A story about two men A blind man who whistles like the birds, a young man shot dead on a Saturday morning, and the story that could have joined them.
- Meanwhile, in a not-so-distant future Testimony of a netnetnetbook user: a whole generation of hunchbacks with dangling little hands and aching wrists.
- The death of the printed book, prologue A 100-year-old lady reads again thanks to an iPad, and the world of computers made by people who don't like people shows its first cracks.
- Drawing without sketches or prior plans A drawing technique that is the opposite of concentration: put away the eraser, open up to every stimulus, and trust the accident.
- The last operating system LastOS: an operating system where folders burst, trash rots and windows shatter — exactly as the metaphors promise.
- “We”, by Yevgeny Zamyatin Twenty-three years before Orwell, a Russian engineer wrote the glass-walled dystopia that 1984 would make famous — and remain unknown for it.
- The advent of the sausage, the death of intuition Whoever can swallow a sausage can swallow anything: on industrial food, cheap culture and the deliberate cultivation of stupidity.
- The last printed book The last printed book will be about the history of printed books — and it will be a sales flop, leaked online by a disgruntled employee.
- Inexpressionist Manifesto A manifesto of retrogrades: we humbly accept our incapacity for contemporary art and return art to the mind of the public.
- Images we consume Surface thinking versus line thinking: how the images of mass media replaced the world and imprisoned man inside them. With Flusser.
- Plagiarism and the illusion of the unique From Duchamp to file sharing: plagiarism as method, the market of the "unique object", and the day every person becomes a special kind of artist.
- 1984, by George Orwell How a great novel eclipsed its own source — Orwell read Zamyatin, and the Cold War did the rest. A case of successful plagiarism.
The texts gathered here come from a period when I wrote regularly on my blog and as a guest on other sites.
It is no coincidence that they stop around 2014; that was the year I began taking tattooing seriously and dedicating almost all of my time to that language. Tattoo demands a lot: many techniques and kinds of knowledge have to be learned at once, and they need constant practice.
I feel a bit of second-hand embarrassment about some of what I wrote, and I have serious criticisms of how certain ideas are framed. I will try to fold those notes into the texts over time.
I sincerely hope the readings here add something to your life — but I would keep expectations moderate to low.