i recently wrote an essay, cultural darkness, that was included in a book accompanying after total darkness, an exhibition that opened this past weekend at workspace2601 curated by adam katz and david godshall in collaboration with the object control project.

this is my first foray into academic writing in a while – the piece compares the degradation of the natural commons, light pollution in particular, to the degradation of our cultural commons, specifically the public domain. this seems particularly fitting in regards the recent celebration of public domain day. cultural darkness is released under a CC BY-SA license – you can order/download the full book as a PDF as well.

The natural commons and the cultural commons share far more than a semantic similarity – both, due to rapid advances in technology and lack of public awareness, have gone through immense turmoil and change over the past century. For the natural commons, this degradation is readily visible (albeit crystallized through the work of activists) in the air we breathe, the food we consume, the destruction of our greatest natural resources and the privatization of our few public spaces. The depletion of our cultural commons is less apparent – great art has not ceased to exist nor has academia failed to expand our collective knowledge. By and large, the intellectual and creative output of humankind has seemingly evolved, with each decade bringing new advances and aesthetic innovation. This is a deception, to say the least. Our collective knowledge and shared cultural resources – the public domain – have been crippled as a result of extended copyright terms. As we don’t always feel or observe these slight changes in our cultural ecosystem, society at large remains oblivious to this threat.
Read More »