JANELLE MONÁE DOESN'T make albums. She builds worlds. You're swept up in a whirlwind of quirky characters and unique topography and briefed on the overarching social order that connects them. Monáe is a formidable actor, dancer, and singer-songwriter with a sci-fi heart. Her music has often used robotics allegories to unpack present-day trauma, wielding extraordinary machines to extract truths about the human condition, just as Yoshiyuki Tomino's Mobile Suit Gundam, Alex Garland's Ex Machina, and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot ponder ethics and morality beneath the glint of precious metals. Early Monáe works such as 2010's The ArchAndroid and 2013's The Electric Lady are part of an enveloping narrative about an android rising up against systemic oppression that dovetailed with intensifying calls for equal rights in the real world. To tell a story of Black people in the future is to express faith in our making it out of what ails us in the present. (Clashes over-representation in fantasy and science-fiction realms have this at the core: Why can't you see us there?) The tribulations of Cindi Mayweather, the artist's artificial avatar, communicate to the listener that to live is to fight for a fairer future; the slick, smart, slippery funk, soul, and rock vehicles employed to spread the message promise that beautiful music will always endure.
Esta historia es de la edición June 19-July 2, 2023 de New York magazine.
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Esta historia es de la edición June 19-July 2, 2023 de New York magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
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The Water-Tower Penthouse
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