Slop


I have a channel on Are.na called Slop-01. It doesn't have a theme. I just put everything I like in there. Box of rocks? Slop. Design-bait Reebok ad? Slop. A drawing of a tiny frog playing a keyboard? Slop.

There isn't a Slop-02 because there doesn't need to be. Everything can be accomplished through the internal tension of Slop-01. There isn't any theme except what I vibe with, which means, ironically, it is heavily curated. I like the idea of slop. So much of stuff on the internet is slop. I like a space to sit and rearrange all that garbage, and through that rearrangement create interesting resonances.1 A short film about the manufacture of sex toys is like the interior of a 1983 Honda, in many ways.

But Slop-01 is built around consumption. This space (wildflower.work) is meant for the production of slop.

Slop is different than ✨ Content ✨ because slop moves beneath the realm of capitalist production. Content is built around engagement, growth, monetization, specialization, etc. Slop is the re-appropriation of Content. Ad design is good not because they are ads, but because it's design. That element of design only truly appears when it's next to a GIF of objects floating down a stream or photo of a knotted orange rope. This parallel circulation of images creates new possibilities within the thin spaces of a system like capitalism, for example.2

>>>> This is meant to be a machine that converts content into slop; a relay between various disconnected things. <<<<

Here are some things I want to do here:

Things I want to resist doing:

✌️


  1. Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman, "A User's Guide to Détournement," 1956, http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm↩︎

  2. Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image," 2009, https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/↩︎