Unlocked | NM x Heavy Traffic: Seth Price "Machine Time" (Part 1)

This reading was first released to subscribers: 05 Feb 2024 | To
join New Models, find us via patreon.com/newmodels &
newmodels.substack.com“ For millennia one had measured oneself
against the cycles of the seasons and the heavens, or against
changing social mores and geopolitical configurations. To now be
compelled to measure one’s life against the pace of machine time
invited madness.” In this long-form essay by Seth Price, a
“cultured middle aged artist from New York” attends a winter
solstice party at an “open-air, tropical-Modern” island villa
hosted by a man named Trader, “tanned, with a graying mane, khakis,
trainers, and a billowing linen Oxford.” The real drama of this
story, however, is arguably the “practice of divesting and
reinvesting meaning” in our world of signs, a world whose semiotic
layer is undergoing an epochal shift .. or so it seems. // This ep
is part 1 of 2. “Machine Time” by Seth Price was first published in
Heavy Traffic issue 1 (2022). We bring you this reading as part of
Heavy Traffic’s New Models residency, which features essays from
the magazine read aloud by their authors. Heavy Traffic issue IV is
out now. See: heavytrafficmagazine.com For a conversation with
Heavy Traffic publisher, Patrick McGraw, see NM75.