I liked the paper on #Permacomputing #Aesthetics (https://monoskop.org/images/6/6a/Mansoux_Aymeric_et_al_2023_Permacomputing_Aesthetics.pdf) tremendously, especially in tone and clarity. I was left with the feeling that something was amiss, though, and after some delving I believe it to be the discourse on aesthetics. The term causes me trouble all the time, never quite being able to grasp its meaning or application.

The text is basically a juxtaposition of permacomputing aesthetics against maximalist techno-aesthetics. The former is a perspective of active engagement with one's environment.

> “Because of the need to reconfigure the modes of production and organisation within computational practices, this calls for a different understanding of aesthetics, one that goes beyond the formal evaluation of how things look, but addresses how aesthetics can also be systems of relations, sensing and making sense that are already present in the process of making.” (Mansoux et al., 2023, p. 1)

Maximalist techno-aesthetics on the other hands are a capitalist's tool to promise and sell a future that never arrives. Everything we acquire becomes just a bug-ridden preview for a sure to come updated version.