Preview | NM Special Report: Ye and the Future of Content w/ Dean Kissick

Full Ep released to subscribers: 08 Mar 2024 | To join New Models,
find us via https://patreon.com/newmodels &
https://newmodels.substack.com // One of the most compelling
examples, so far, of media made using AI content generation is the
video that artist Jon Rafman created for Kanye West’s new album
with Ty Dolla $ign, "Vultures." Rather than aiming for maximum
realism in these clips, Rafman leans into visual incoherence,
moments where the software experiences a collapse of distinction.
This, coupled with prompts that could have gone something like
“gang members in balaclavas imploding like the Pruitt-Igoe housing
project demolition 1971” with style tags “cult horror, VHS, America
1986, Norwegian black metal” meant the video also conveyed a sense
of what we thought might be a Witch House revival. So we called up
cultural savant and 2010s historian Dean Kissick to discuss. But
Witch House did not remain the central thread of our conversation.
Instead, all paths lead back to something more fundamental—the
struggle for iconicity in a time of infinitely available content.
// For more: https://twitter.com/deankissick (X) // NOTE: Dean will
be helping New Models resident Patrick McGraw to stage a very
special Heavy Traffic reading at EARTH, 29 Orchard Street, New York
City, on Easter Sunday, March 31st.