Everything on a flat surface is an abstraction

 --- David Hockney, quoted in the Exhibition Guide, David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, 2026

Excerpt

The five still lifes in this series extend Hockney’s interest in abstraction and embody his belief that ‘Everything on a flat surface is an abstraction.’ From the well-balanced expanses of colour-field painting to the dense surfaces of impasto and squeegee techniques, each work explores a distinct painting style. In these recent canvases, Hockney continues to challenge the conventions of perspective, inviting audiences to look at the very act of seeing itself. 

When you draw from the eye, you are drawing from memory

 --- David Hockney, quoted in wall content at the show David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, Serpentine North, 2026

Quote

When you draw from the eye, you are drawing from memory. A memory of five seconds ago, a memory of ten seconds ago, a memory of a minute ago. If you think about it, it's all memory. 

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. . ., this system does not reform. It reroutes

 --- Louis Carbonneau, Founder & CEO of Tangible IP, in his "IP Market Insights" email newsletter, July 31, 2026

Excerpt

July is supposed to be the quiet month. Instead, inside of three weeks we got a UK Supreme Court judgment reopening the question of who gets to price a patent pool, a European injunction that millions of Disney+ subscribers noticed on their own television sets, the abrupt exit of the most consequential USPTO official of the decade, and a data set showing that the entire validity-challenge industry quietly moved house while everyone was watching the front door.

 I went looking for the thread connecting them and found it faster than I expected. Not one story in this issue is about anybody changing their behavior. Every single one is about somebody changing their address.

We start in Alexandria, where Coke Morgan Stewart cleaned out her desk on Monday after eighteen months spent rebuilding the PTAB in her own image — and where the architecture she built will now be maintained by people who did not draft it. Then to the numbers, which are extraordinary: IPR petitions at an all-time low, ex parte reexams at an all-time high, and a validity-challenge industry that did not shrink so much as emigrate. From there to Capitol Hill, where PERA reached full committee at last and where Senator Tillis, counting the days until January, has started handing the drafting pen to his opponents. Then across the Atlantic to London, where the Supreme Court just handed Tesla the keys to a rate-setting mechanism that patent owners spent a decade building for themselves — a lesson in careful-what-you-wish-for that deserves to be framed. And we finish in Düsseldorf, with the only patent story this month that your neighbors could see from the couch.

As I have often written, this system does not reform. It reroutes. The only question worth asking each quarter is where the water went.

'n Historiese wrok lig sy kop soos 'n pofadder agter die besemkas

 --- Anneliese Burgess in 'n Wrok lê en wag soos 'n pofadder agter die besemkas, ..., Binne+Land, July 2026

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'n Historiese wrok lig sy kop soos 'n pofadder agter die besemkas. Stadig, amper lui, maar die gif in jou are is net 'n tree, in die verkeerde rigting, ver. Ek ignoreer nou al weke die slang daar in die donker hoek, maak asof ek nie die dreigende gesuis hoor, soos 'n ou man op 'n ventilator. Die slang is knus en gemaklik in die bekende ou groef tussen kas en muur, nes dié ou wrok al dekades in die muurwerk van my lewe, en 'n paar ander vir wie ek lief is, lê.

. . . 

Wat my, met 'n lang ompad, terugbring by die wrok. Elke familie het 'n spesifieke argitektuur, maar dit is nie 'n geslote stelsel nie. Kinders word groot. Daar is huwelike en egskeidings en aangetroudes en aangelaptes wat met hulle eie ervarings en wonde die dinamika verander. Daar is liefde en afguns. Daar is vergifnis en vreugde. Ouers word oud en gaan oor na die hiernamaals. Die rolle in die argitektuur skuif. En dan is daar boonop ook altyd 'n paar ou koeie in 'n sloot – en 'n pofadder of twee agter 'n kas.

. . . 

Dit neem my drie weke om by dié besluit uit te kom: ek gaan van die pofadder wegstap – hom net daar los agter die kas. Die rol van die beskermer het te swaar geword om te dra. Ek wil vir 'n slag beskerm word.

En ek hou nie van slange nie.

Iemand anders gaan hom met 'n graaf moet doodslaan, of hom met die slangtang vang en in die veld vrylaat.

Dit gaan nie ek wees nie.

that thing looks like it could take a nasty bite out of you, and looks too clever by half

 --- Correspondent Matt Bell in New Scientist, responding to a back page's question, "Why do seals have such cute faces?" 

Excerpt

However, I think I’d also take issue with calling seals “cute”. They also have traits that many people find threatening, because they are also commonly associated with large predators (which is what they are). I certainly find they veer more to the “that thing looks like it could take a nasty bite out of you, and looks too clever by half” side, rather that the “aww, cute water doggy, can I cuddle it” side.

Your AI is not a tool. It is an environment, and you are in it. . . . AI [is] a denial-of-service attack on the human psyche.

 --- L. M. Sacasas, in Your AI Is Not a Tool, The Convivial Society, Jun 2026

Excerpts

Your AI is not a tool. It is an environment, and you are in it.

...

While there appears to have been a shift in the last 15 years or so in popular assumptions about the purported neutrality of technology toward at least the suspicion that our devices, etc. are not, in fact, merely neutral instruments at our command but rather frustrate, resist, or otherwise evade uncomplicated mastery by their users, such that their users might be properly said to be used in turn by their devices, it is nonetheless true that the myth of technological neutrality remains broadly entrenched.

...

I confess that I am astounded by how blithely some insist that it is all as simple as learning to use AI well, as if we had not just undergone a nearly 20-year, society-wide experiment showing that a so-called “tool,” say a smartphone or a social media platform, will (mal)form even the most vigilant and virtuous user into its own image and shape. This is the blindness at the heart of modern technological hubris. It is the firm but misguided conviction that our “tools” exist entirely outside of us and thus, if taken up with requisite skill, can be “safely” deployed.

But AI is not a tool in this sense, it is an environment which envelops the user and works on us from the inside out while we naively think that we remain unchanged by our use so long as we are using it carefully and intentionally. The care and intentionality is beside the point, and our confidence in such vigilance probably works against us in the long run.

...

I can pick up a tool and put it down, but the environment absorbs me into itself.

...

This is partially why I have been playing with the idea that one way of framing AI is as a denial-of-service attack on the human psyche.

...

I’ll draw things to a close by posing the following thesis for your consideration: the best response to emerging technologies, perhaps especially AI, is not media literacy in a cognitivist mode. Rather, what is required is the training of our perception in an ascetical mode.

Conspiracy theories are a sort of storytelling device. It’s a way of making sense of things that seem random and seem difficult to tie together.

 --- Mark Fenster, quoted in New testimony in Epstein case could address persistent conspiracy theories, CSMonitor, May 2026

Excerpt

Such beliefs often endure because they pull at threads of truth, says Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida who studies conspiracy theories. He says Mr. Epstein fits a common narrative about prominent people who abuse their influence. Reports about others involved with Mr. Epstein could fit that narrative as well, he says. “Conspiracy theories are a sort of storytelling device. It’s a way of making sense of things that seem random and seem difficult to tie together.”

die hartseer wat nooit huil word nie

 Anneliese Burgess, in ’n Slordige muisvoël met geel oë in die tyd van Groot Moeilikheid, Binne+Land, Jun 2026

Excerpt

Hulle was altyd swart, sommige dae duideliker gevorm as ander. As ek wakker word in die oggend. As ek wakker lê in die nag. Dáár iewers, op ’n telefoondraad in my kop. Altyd. Daar. Oomblikke van verontrusting afgewissel met ’n metastatiese onafwendbaarheid in my murg.

Branders. In en uit. En op die draai van elke gety, die hartseer wat nooit huil word nie. 

. . .  .

Ek leer dat voëls, as wesens wat tussn die aarde en die lug beweeg, gereeld as simbole verskyn.

Woorde is miskien te presies en daarom praat die psige in argetipes wat ouer is as taal. In jungiaanse sielkunde is hulle skade-simbole soos die verstand neig na natuurbeelde wanneer die onderbewuste iets probeer sigbaar maak. In amper elke mitologie ter wêreld dra voëls boodskappe tussen wêrelde: tussen die lewendes en die dooies, tussen die aarde en iets groters as die aarde. 

. . . . 

In argetipiese sielkunde word beelde nie weggeredeneer of na vaste betekenisse vertaal nie. Hulle moet gevolg, versorg en toegelaat word om hul diepte te openbaar. 'n Beeld is nie bloot 'n prentjie in die kop nie, maar 'n manier van ervaar en 'n manier van ken.

She goes on to quote Emily Dickinson

"Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul