An independent research space concerning contemporary issues. This is neither a formal academic publication nor an opinion column: it is analytical work supported by data on topics I consider relevant and worthy of rigorous examination, even when they fall outside specialised academic circuits. Open to co-authorship. Proposals to: hola@juanesteban.art
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Entries: 137
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Neither authentic nor false
In the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, there resides a Greek statue that has spent forty years awaiting a verdict that remains elusive. It is a kouros, one of those rigid, naked youths that archaic sculpture replicated towards the sixth century BC, crafted from marble and slightly larger than life-size. The museum acquired it in 1985…
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Four separable components
I state my position at the outset: Kripties has been appointed by Eurosky as a trusted verifier on mu.social for art and culture accounts in Spanish. Eurosky has not reviewed this article and bears no responsibility for my statements, including any criticisms. I write from within; for this reason, I have taken particular care to avoid promoting...
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Burn it all
When Franz Kafka died in 1924, he left two notes for his friend Max Brod: that his diaries, letters, and manuscripts should be burned unread. In his possession, unpublished, Brod held three novels: The Trial, The Castle, and the one we know today as Amerika. He could either obey and strike the match or betray the final request...
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A year of clocking in
On 11 April 1980, Tehching Hsieh, a Taiwanese artist based in New York, installed a time clock in his studio—the type utilised by factories to monitor the arrival and departure of workers. He imposed a strict rule upon himself: to clock in on the hour, every hour, twenty-four hours a day, for a...
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The closed cone
Within the lodgepole pine forests of the Rocky Mountains, certain trees secure their seeds under lock and key for decades. Unlike almost all other pine species, their cones do not open upon maturation; they remain sealed by a hardened resin, year after year, with the living seeds contained within. They may persist in this state for twenty or thirty years,...
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There is no neutral map
Exactly 504 years ago, on 6 September 1522, a vessel named Victoria arrived in Sanlúcar with eighteen survivors from an expedition that had departed with over two hundred. Juan Sebastián Elcano was in command, and this arrival marked the completion of the first circumnavigation of the globe. They did not demonstrate that the Earth was round—that...
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I am sitting in a room
In 1969, the American composer Alvin Lucier created a work consisting entirely of a procedure. He sat in a room, recorded his voice reading a brief text, and played that recording through a loudspeaker in the same room while simultaneously recording it again with a microphone. He then played that second recording and recorded it a...
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For want of a comma
A ruling by a United States federal court in March 2017 commences with a sentence that appears fabled: 'For want of a comma, we have this case.' This is not a literary flourish by the judge; it is a description of the matter at hand. A group of drivers for a Maine dairy company, Oakhurst...
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You press the button
In 1888, a Rochester-based company offered a camera for sale with a slogan that encapsulated something greater than a mere product: 'You press the button, we do the rest.' The camera was named Kodak, the phrase is attributed to its founder, George Eastman, and those seven words described, without anyone noticing...
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Reserved for another position
In the National Gallery in London hangs a painting from 1533 that almost everyone views incorrectly, and not through oversight: it is because the artist intended it so. It is The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger. Two powerful, young, and wealthy men stand posing amidst the objects of their world: terrestrial and celestial globes,...