This week's best things

WTF are content credentials?

Structure- and protocol-focused moves like this feel increasingly essential.

“In an attempt to help people distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content, Adobe and the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity have proposed a system for disclosing how a piece of content was created.

Called content credentials, the system would embed information, such as who created a piece of content and whether it was made using generative AI tools, in the content’s metadata and append a watermark indicating such information was attached.”

“over the next 10 days, I’ll post about 10 moments in my work over the last 10 years”

Kati Price, Head of Digital Media, Publishing, and Experience at the V&A in London is one of the best digital leaders working in the cultural sector today.

I’ve spoken to Kati a couple of times on the Digital Works Podcast, (chat 1, chat 2) and always find her perspective insightful, inspiring, and refreshing.

Kati is celebrating 10 years working at the V&A, and is sharing some reflections of her time there. Here’s the first one:

“10 years, 10 moments | no. 1:
The Museum of Savage Beauty (2015) – As my brilliant colleague and curator Claire Wilcox was developing the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition she shared with me her wish to create an accompanying 'digital cabinet of curiosities'. She imagined it to contain some of the intriguing objects McQueen would have seen on his regular visits to the V&A and hoped that people might open up little windows into the ideas and design traditions that inspired him.”

Subsequent reflections have so far covered digital transformation, new ways of digitising and exploring images, immsersive experiences, and more.

Why is Elon Musk attacking Wikipedia? Because its very existence offends him

This is a good column from Zoe Williams that explores “the distinction between the good internet and the bad internet”.

“The X owner has no time for a democratic experiment dedicated to knowledge. He would rather yell puerile ‘jokes’ into the ether”

Wikipedia is a strange, and wonderful thing. A giant collaborative undertaking to articulate and share…all of human knowledge!

Reading Zoe’s column also reminded me of this fascinating article about “One Woman’s Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia” which gives an insight into the behind-the-scenes dynamics that keep Wikipedia alive.

The World’s Most Popular Painter Sent His Followers After Me Because He Didn’t Like a Review of His Work. Here’s What I Learned

Devon Rodriguez is an artist who became very (very) popular by sharing his work on Tiktok.

A few weeks ago, Devon opened his first gallery show, in New York.

Ben Davis reviewed the show for Artnet (fwiw I thought it was a thoughtful, balanced review).

“[I] woke up to a tidal wave of anger from Rodriguez on Instagram, tagging me across scores of posts. Hundreds of his followers went on the attack, swarming my Instagram: “loser,” “hater,” “pathetic,” “jealous,” “your a dick,” and on and on and on. There were many creative variations on “kill yourself.””

In this article, Ben reflects on the backlash he experienced, and what this might tell us about artists who become famous through non-traditional routes (and their fans).

“In fact, the only way I can understand Rodriguez’s incredibly thin-skinned reaction to my article is that he has managed to rise to this status of apex visibility without any kind of critical writing about him at all. It’s all just been feel-good profiles, so that the first critical word feels like a huge crisis.”

The Garbage Optimist Manifesto

The latest issue of Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day newsletter was some good thoughts about the current (decaying) state of the internet (and potential solutions).

“Right, so big companies led by men who think societies are sharks ate the web, filled it with bad automation, and have grown to a scale where they can no longer manage their platforms or themselves. OK, got it. Let’s talk about the solutions. […]

I sort of think whatever that new status quo is, it’s already arrived and that the rut we feel like we’re in is possibly already over. Somewhere, at least.”

Robin Miriam Carlsson

I live in Sweden, and in Sweden Robyn is basically the queen. So here’s Robyn’s best song being performed at the Nobel Peace Prize concert, which is extra Swedish.

It is, as an ex-colleague would’ve said, “a bop”.

If you’ve seen something interesting, stick it in the comments! The algorithms are invading our lives, but the best stuff is still discovered and shared through word of mouth.

Here’s last week’s round-up