Alexandra Mateescu
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cariatida.bsky.social
Alexandra Mateescu
@cariatida.bsky.social
330 followers 310 following 47 posts
RIP Social Media. Researcher @ Data & Society, living in Boston | labor, technology, care | tetrapyloctomy & entroponetics | Labor & Tech newsletter: http://bit.ly/2Fv5xfX | https://acmateescu.com/
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cariatida.bsky.social
This story just jolted a memory of being shocked reading about a similar project in Jonathan Crary’s book “24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep” and then breathing a massive sigh of relief that it was abandoned. Guess we're in the century of reviving grotesquely hellish ideas...
In the late 1990s a Russian/European space consortium announced plans to build and launch into orbit satellites that would reflect sunlight back onto earth. The scheme called for a chain of many satellites to be placed in sun-synchronized orbits at an altitude of 1700 kilometers, each one equipped with fold-out parabolic reflectors of paper-thin material. Once fully extended to 200 meters in diameter, each mirror satellite would have the capacity to illuminate a ten-square-mile area on earth with a brightness nearly 100 times greater than moonlight. The initial impetus for the project was to provide illumination for industrial and natural resource exploitation in remote geographical areas with long polar nights in Siberia and western Russia, allowing outdoor work to proceed round the clock. In any case, this ultimately unworkable enterprise is one particular instance of a contemporary imaginary in which a state of permanent illumination is inseparable from the non-stop operation of global exchange and circulation. In its entrepreneurial excess, the project is a hyperbolic expression of an institutional intolerance of whatever obscures or prevents an instrumentalized and unending condition of visibility.
October 22, 2025 at 12:52 AM
cariatida.bsky.social
National Guard at the LA riots in 1992, by photographer Gary Leonard.
Black and white photo of three members of the National Guard crossing the street in front of the MOCA museum mural by Barbara Kruger that reads: “Who is beyond the law? Who is bought and sold? Who is free to choose? Who does the time? Who follows orders? Who salutes longest? Who prays loudest? Who dies first? Who laughs last?”
June 12, 2025 at 2:32 AM
cariatida.bsky.social
Today in cursed images: defense tech company faux protesting itself with graffiti as ad campaign all over Boston South Station.
Large ads on display inside Boston South Station train hall. One billboard reads "Don't work at Anduril" with the word "Don't" in fake graffiti. The second reads "They're literally obsessed with America." with several words in between graffiti blocked out. Ad billboard featuring text of an employment offer from Anduril, crossed out with a fake graffiti "X."
March 18, 2025 at 3:54 PM
cariatida.bsky.social
Been thinking about this wise and ancient Tweet from 2016 lately - "when u do not view yr fears as a trap which restrains u but as a vehicle which u must use to navigate the world"
Screenshot of a tweet dated Feb 16, 1016: "when u do not view yr fears as a trap which restrains u but as a vehicle which u must use to navigate the world". The image features a gif of a white dog walking by pushing the gated pen it is trapped inside forward.
February 5, 2025 at 4:09 AM
cariatida.bsky.social
I used to have a Port Authority photo album. It's lost, but this pic is one of my favorites because it's just...so senseless. That sign stayed upside down for years!!!
Image of an upside down sign on a glass pane wall inside Port Authority in Manhattan. A person's hand is giving a thumbs up to the sign.
January 12, 2025 at 5:44 PM
cariatida.bsky.social
I love Robert Eggers' obsessive commitment to historical fashion in Nosferatu finally bringing us a vampire movie with Transylvanian peasants that don't look like they're wearing the Shrek costume from Party City.
Image still from Nosferatu (2025) featuring an elderly Transylvanian peasant woman with white head covering, intricate hair braids, and embroidered vest over a white blouse. Image still from Nosferatu (2025) featuring side view of an elderly Transylvanian peasant woman with white head covering, intricate hair braids, and embroidered vest over a white blouse. Historical photograph of a Transylvanian peasant woman with white head covering, intricate hair braids, and embroidered vest over a white blouse and skirt. Caption reads, "Nevasta (Wife), 1930-1931. Lunca Cernii de Sus, jud. Hunedura. Foto: D. Galloway."
January 2, 2025 at 7:50 PM