Culture is the frontier
Our societies are changing in immense ways. Time spins sideways, fast-forwards, and crashes back with each news whiplash. Every jarring moment leaves us a little more desensitized, a little more unmoored.
In the middle of all this chaos, it’s fair to wonder: how much does creative work even matter right now?
But when we look around, the answer is clear: creative culture is everywhere.
When people want to enact change—or stop it—they turn to culture. They express themselves through art, language, symbols, and shared stories. They seek to inspire, to connect, to mobilize.
Even as the questions surrounding us grow larger and more existential, creative culture remains the arena where we wrestle with them.
Creative work isn’t insignificant. Creative work is at the heart of what’s most significant. Culture is the frontier.
RELEASES WE LOVE
Concept Country 01
Concept City presents itself as the first ever zine from a Network State. A Network State, if you haven’t come across the term before, is the idea of new, smaller-scale societies where people can choose to become citizens of internet-based states rather than the traditional governments and nations we’re accustomed to.
Our thoughts around the Dark Forest of the Internet have led us down similar trains of thought of how internet-based groups will increasingly be the center of society, and where most important decisions and work gets done. When the outside world feels unsafe or inhospitable, we shift our conversations to Dark Forest refuges rather than main.
But what if you could opt out altogether? What would that look like? What would you need? These are the areas that Concept City provocatively explores. “The old nations are ending, and the new ones struggle to be born,” the text reads.
How far the Network State movement ends up going will in part be decided by the fates of our existing institutions and nations, and how well they adapt to what is clearly a very different world. But another part of it, the aspect most in their control, comes down to how effectively its proponents paint a vision that inspires and motivates people to join them.
What we find interesting is the decision to make a zine for a Network State in the first place. It presumes that a place is about culture, that culture is about expression, and to invest the time and energy into expressing that culture (even if more proposed than actual) is a way of manifesting it.
We’ll save our personal thoughts on the upsides and downsides of Network States for our next meandering walk together, but we’re always interested in ideas that push the boundaries of what we know and build on deeper truths.
The call to be part of something smaller and more meaningful is real. The space we’re afforded to design a new world is far more immense than any of us realize. The need for better models of care and support is significant.
Take your own dive into the world of Networks States and their vision for what that could be here:
Maya Martinez, Theatrics
Maya Martinez is a New York City-based artist and playwright whose work has appeared at MoMA PS1, Hauser and Wirth, and other institutions. Theatrics, her first ever book, collects Martinez’s plays, monologues, and other theatrical compositions in print form for the first time. We've seen some of her work in the flesh and were left wowed. Limited-run first edition from Wonder Press.
InterAccess, IA flashDRIVE
We know we’re always on our soapbox about the infinite possibility of labels, but hear us out. InterAccess is a Canadian collective that technologically twists and manipulates what’s possible. With this Metalabel release, they’ve turned a new survey exhibition of Toronto’s digital art scene into both an IRL exhibit as well as this collection on Metalabel where digital works can be purchased, supporting the artist and organization itself. Fresh thinking, great work, and an excellent new use of Metalabel.
Philippa Schmitt, FARTBOMB
We’ve been following Phillippa Schmitt since artist (and curator here) Molly Soda put us on. Since then we’ve fallen in love with Phillippa’s demented-cute style as its spread across stickers, notebooks, and her latest: a cheeky take on exquisite corpse in collaboration with artist Paul Deacamps. Can’t wait to play with it.
Marek Poliks and Roberto Alonso Trillo, Exocapitalism
Our true North Star of things philosophical and metaphysical is our cofounder and architect Brandon Valosek. It’s through Brandon that we learned about Becoming Press, a special artist-run imprint based in Berlin who’ve been publishing some of the richest theories, critiques, and provocations about the world we live in. Their latest publication, by Marek Poliks and Roberto Alonso Trillo, wrestles with the dynamics of our current form of capitalism and theorizes what may lay beyond the status quo in horrifying or glorious detail (depending on your POV). Definitely a book Brandon would recommend, and one we’re not going to miss.
The Metalabel Gift Shop
Metalabel merch drop alert. Metalabel merch drop alert. For the first time ever, we’re releasing a small run of Metalabel merch to memorialize the world we’re leaving behind, and to make room for the world that’s yet to come. More will make sense later. Extremely limited editions.
LINKS WE LOVE
- A very Metalabel-core deep dive into the history of Peter Limberg’s The Stoa, an amazing Stoic community that very much operates like a label. Good look at how a long-running project evolves and becomes itself.
- Also of note: Nadia Asparouhova (of Antimemetics) will be speaking at The Stoa next week.
- A long piece about what it’s like to prepare for a TED talk written by us truly. More on this to come!
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