“Let’s Wake Up from the Dream That We Are Someone’s Victims”
“How do we restore the value of words? By no longer hurling them at each other. Just because we click on different links doesn’t mean we can’t talk and listen to each other now and then.” Only we Bulgarians have May 24 and November 1: the day of the letters and the day of the people who turn them into a creative force. Ivan Landzhev is first and foremost a poet, though he heads the creative team at an advertising agency. He is one of the few who truly love words and, rarer still, words love him back. We talk about the awakeners and those who wake us, about words and deeds, about the awakeners, the wide-awake and the fools, about hope, and about the magic of language in the digital world and the meaning we will lose if we forget it.
02Can Algorithms Make Art? 15 Viewpoints That Matter
Can algorithms create? Is artificial intelligence a tool or an author? Could AI give birth to the arts of the future, or has creating already become a pointless pursuit? What will we do when its works in every field become indistinguishable from ours? For three years now, I have been collecting viewpoints on this site about the big questions of today's technological day. I believe it is vital to bring more and different voices into the discussions on important topics, and art and creativity is unquestionably one of them. Here are 15 of the most interesting and substantial opinions I have gathered in that time. Do the words of tech people, writers, artists, clergymen and… tomcats contradict each other, or do they complement one another?
03Boxing for a Peaceful World
Wrestling is mercilessly brutal. Boxing is no gentler, and worldwide it is a far more sought-after, contested and glorified sport. Two people stand in opposite corners of the ring with the open intention of landing as many hard punches as they can… while taking as few as possible themselves. Chivalry or barbarism? Poetry in gloves, or life without mask or makeup, laying bare the most unchanging human qualities?
