The year after
... and what will come
Suddenly, the ex nihilo blog is now a whole year old – and like a child at this age taking its first independent steps, the project’s taken on a momentum of its own. It seems much of what's become a habit wasn't anticipated – that we would record video conversations with other intellectuals, for example, and that we'd also put a lot of effort into post-production. That our work has nevertheless developed in this direction was due solely to our belief in this type of conversation as being something quite precious - and that we’re blessed to have the time and opportunity to pursue the clearly neglected questions in our short-lived Attention Economy with greater depth of focus which, for whatever reason, aren't considered appropriate to ask. And we take it as proof that this is precisely lacking in our contemporary discourse from the sizable international audience now following us. For this reason alone, we’d like to thank all the thinkers who’ve taken the time – and given us the opportunity – to look at the most diverse areas of reality.
So, what new things will the coming year bring? Just as the fantasies are born of a growing child, ex nihilo will also come up with some unusual surprises in the coming year. With this in mind, we've taken the compliment paid to us by one of our interviewees (namely that ex nihilo salon is something of a ‘unicorn’ in the world of Substack blogs) as an encouragement to take further, much more far-reaching steps in this direction which we’ll reveal when the time comes.
One of our upcoming projects, which we’re starting work on, will be a series of conversations exploring the question of the Attention Economy. The importance of this topic is how, in almost every one of our conversations, we touch on it in one way or another - but always in a rather casual way, like talking about the weather or some other inevitability. Going one step further here and, in the form of a Platonic dialog, our tracing of the historical and philosophical conditions of this protean figure will be something like an audiovisual companion to the Psychology of the Machine series, the second volume of which will be published by Matthes & Seitz next year.
And, of course, we're always open to the wishes of our viewers. So, if you'd like to recommend an interesting interviewee, feel free to just drop us a line.