The dangers of self-expression

The thread running through this week’s issue: what happens when more and more of life becomes something to optimize, perform, and monetize?

This is why we’re making DFOS: a different world becomes possible when we move according to our own rhythms instead.

1. What it costs to live as an artist in NYC (Cultured Mag) — We always appreciate explorations of artist economics that get specific. This piece goes into the actual costs and income of what it takes to live as a creative person in NYC. Obviously a more expensive place than pretty much anywhere else, but helpful to see actual numbers and math (even if some of the actual numbers — rent especially — feel low to us).
2. How our leisure time got monetized (The Honest Broker) — A good prequel to What even counts as underground? this piece from Ted Gioia tracks how leisure shifted from a personal and public good into the constant productivity-driven reality we know today. Pairs well with Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, about the gift economies so much creative culture originates from, and how far the modern world has strayed from it.
3. The dangers of self-expression (The Creative Independent) — This 2017 interview/essay we did with legendary BBC journalist and filmmaker Adam Curtis explores self-expression, which he contends has become the mass conformity of our time. It doesn’t challenge power. It feeds the beast, which depends on all of us constantly expressing ourselves for social status.

(Image from Curtis's Shifty)

The piece closes with Curtis saying:

“The hyperindividualism of our age is not going to be going back into the bottle. You’ve got to square the circle. You’ve got to let people still feel they’re independent individuals, yet they are giving themselves up to something that is awesome, greater, and more powerful that carries them into the future beyond their own existence. That’s what people are yearning for.”

This was an origin point for Metalabel, DFOS, and this whole trip we’ve been on.

One of our favorite projects on DFOS is a thoughtful exploration of the natural world called Otherwise.

Ryan, the spacerunner, describes it this way: “For a year, I am researching and curating one species of plant, animal, or natural phenomena per week. I am also building an ‘earthly book of hours’ with reading and images that change across the day.”

The project began with a feeling that “we need new calendars” and “we need new clocks.” Tired of the rhythms imposed by digital life, Ryan went “simultaneously medieval and digital,” drawing from plant taxonomies and books of hours as older technologies of attention.

Its main project, Lectio Terra, is a year-long experiment in “earth reading.” Each week Ryan chooses a plant, animal, landform, or natural phenomenon and gathers writing and images around it from botany, poetry, philosophy, geology, and art. He’s now 35 weeks in.

Otherwise moved its newsletter from Substack to DFOS in May and has published here every week since. In that time, the list has grown from 20 people to 238.

What Ryan likes is that DFOS gives him something between a newsletter and a world: “an open backend, semi-public but still feels like my own little universe.” His ambition is even bigger: a homespun, DIY digital research library.

Explore it for yourself: Otherwise

We spent the final week of August with family and friends, catching our breath and energy before the Fall sprint kicks off.

The work of producing, releasing, and promoting will begin again in earnest very soon. But for now, having a brief period of retreat feels like both a vital luxury and a reminder of why we do this at all.

In a world constantly asking us to produce, perform, and express, the most valuable thing can simply be having time that belongs to no one else.

We hope you’re able to find some too.

<3
𝑫𝑭𝑶𝑺