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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Extras in another person's video
At the end of July 2026, a small craft and antique shop in Nantucket hung a wooden sign inside, featuring the local nautical aesthetic, which read: 'Influencers prohibited.' The photograph circulated online, and controversy erupted. Some applauded the business; others accused it of disparaging a profession. However...
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To declare is not to demonstrate
At the beginning of 2026, Elon Musk wrote five words on his social network: 'We have entered the Singularity.' Months later, on a podcast, Sam Altman stated that we were 'as if inside the singularity.' Two of the most powerful individuals in the technology industry were announcing, with the casualness of one discussing the weather, that humanity...
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Vulnerability as material
At the 2024 Venice Biennale, the Holy See pavilion was installed within a women's prison. The inmates guided the tours and authored a portion of the texts. At the 2026 Malta Biennale, nine prisoners from Corradino exhibited their work in a historic armoury. An Italian foundation carries on...
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Harold’s arrow
Almost everyone has seen, perhaps without realising it, a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry: a warrior standing with his hand to his face, an arrow embedded in his eye, beneath the embroidered word HAROLD. Perhaps that arrow was not embroidered by anyone in the eleventh century, but rather by a hand from the…
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Finish no longer serves as proof
For centuries, a work well executed spoke volumes of its creator: a polished surface, precise draughtsmanship, a refined voice, a clean development, the visible mark of a craft. Achieving such standards required time, study, and trained hands. The finish served as a credential. Upon observation, one could discern the skill behind it, and that skill was part of the…
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Repetition is not verification
October 2012. An Australian research vessel was navigating the Coral Sea, between Australia and New Caledonia, when it set a course for an island appearing in its navigational data. It was named Sandy Island, measured approximately twenty-five kilometres in length, and had featured in cartography for over a century. The captain…
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To encode is to decide
The graph effectively records all that may be asserted regarding a work: author, date, provenance, iconography, the various interpretations it has received, and the proponents thereof. It serves, in its optimal iteration, as an exhaustive map of what is expressible concerning the piece. And what is expressible is substantial; it merits documentation. Yet that which renders a work…
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Restore or invent
In August 2025, the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz was projected onto the immersive screen of the Las Vegas Sphere, expanded and transformed through artificial intelligence. Filling a giant screen necessitated three distinct actions, even if they were marketed together under the same label. One involved increasing the resolution of the original image:…
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The machine removes our easy answers
Whenever a machine learns to perform a task we once considered our own, there are those who hasten to assert that such tasks were never truly significant. When machines surpassed our capacity for calculation, we dismissed calculation as mechanical. When they triumphed at chess, we claimed chess was merely calculation governed by rules. When they began to compose coherent paragraphs, we argued that writing is not…
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Eight arcminutes
At the dawn of the seventeenth century, Johannes Kepler spent approximately five years grappling with the planet Mars. He possessed the finest astronomical observations compiled to that date: those of Tycho Brahe, a Dane who had measured the positions of the planets with the naked eye, devoid of a telescope, using immense instruments and unparalleled persistence,...