Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. In light of the global health crisis, we are currently highlighting events and digitally, as well as in-person exhibitions open in the New York area. See our picks from around the world below. (Times are all EST unless otherwise noted.)

Tara Donovan, Untitled (2015) Slinkys. Photo: Philip Scholz Ritterman. Tara Donovan courtesy of Pace Gallery.

1. On Tara Donovans Intermediaries: Finding Uniqueness in Mass Production at Pace Gallery, New York

If you, like me, have ever wanted to be able to articulate responses to Tara Donovans something-extraordinary-from-nothing-special installations that are fitter for intelligent company than, WTF, how did she do this?! then Wednesday afternoon presents a golden opportunity.

To provide the high-level context Donovans current solo show at Paces New York flagship (through March 6) deserves, the gallery will host an online panel discussion between Museum of Contemporary Art Denver curator Nora Abrams, University of Chicago professor and Smart Museum of Art adjunct curator Christine Mehring, and UC Santa Barbara art and architectural history professor Jenni Sorkin. Mark Beasley, curatorial director of Pace Live, will handle moderating duties. Join me on the path to enlightenment.

Price: Free with RSVP Time: 1 p.m.

Tim Schneider

Esther Kim Varet, co-founder of Various Small Fires. Courtesy of Various Small Fires, Los Angeles and Seoul.

2. Talks at the Academy: Gallerist Panel With Esther Kim Varet,David Klein, andMonique Meloche at the New York Academy of Art

The New York Academy of Art kicks off its 2021 programming with a panel discussion moderated by critic Dexter Wimberly and featuring a trio of gallery owners: Esther Kim Varet of Los Angeless Various Small Fires, and dealers David Klein of Detroit and Monique Meloche of Chicago.

Price:Free with registration Time:2 p.m.

Sarah Cascone

Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly published by Chronicle Books.

3. (At Home) On Art and Behaving Badly: Artist Talk With the Guerrilla Girls in Conversation at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC

Tune in to the HirshhornsYouTube channelor join on Zoom to see the art worlds legendary masked feminist activist collective the Guerrilla Girls in conversation with the museumsassistant curator Sandy Guttman about what they see as the most pressing issues facing the art world today.

Price:Free with registration Time:7 p.m.8 p.m.

Sarah Cascone

Karen Kilimnik, My Judith Leiber bag, the royal house of Scotland (2012). Courtesy ofthe artist and 303 Gallery, New York.

4. NOTHNG OF THE MONTH CLUB at Off Paradise, New York

In 2013, the critic Erik LaPrade had a chance encounter with the artist David Hammons, who hed never met, at a friends studio. As Hammons was leaving, LaPrade ripped a page from his notepad and asked Hammons for his number. Hammons dutifully wrote down a phone numberjust not David Hammonss phone number.

And this is how a work of ephemera attributed to Erik LaPrade called THIS IS NOT DAVID HAMMONS PHONE # (c. 2013) has ended up in NOTHNG OF THE MONTH CLUB, a group show at Natacha Polaerts Walker Street project space Off Paradise. Conceived by Polaert and co-curator Randy Kennedy as an exhibition under the sign of artist Ray Johnson, each selected work embodies that legendary trickster in some way. As Kennedy explains in his essay, the artists chosenRichard Prince, Marlon Mullen, Karen Kilimnik, Richard Hell, and othersare like Johnson in that they have a love-hate relationship with the lever-pullers of the art world. Johnson, Kennedy writes, was working by choice and temperament outside the walls of power while possessing the tools to pick the lock on the back gate and wander around surreptitiously inside.

The show also features several works by Johnson, who died in 1995, including whats thought to be the last work exhibited in his lifetime, Taoist Pop Art School (1994).

In other words: Go see the show. Call the phone number. You never know wholl be on the other end of the line.

Location: Off Paradise, 120 Walker Street, New York Price: Free Time:Opening, 4 p.m.8 p.m.; TuesdaySaturday, 12 p.m.6 p.m.

Nate Freeman

Martha S. Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. Courtesy of Hachette.

5. Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All at the New-York Historical Society

Martha S. Jones, author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, will talk on Zoom about how the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 did not in practice give all women the right to vote, and how Black women were an instrumental part the fight for suffrage from the days of Seneca Falls convention through the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to the present day.

Price:$20 Time:6 p.m.

Sarah Cascone

Hugo McCloud, pineapple express (2020). Courtesy of Sean Kelly.

6. Hugo McCloud and Sean Kelly in Conversation at Sean Kelly, New York

Dealer Sean Kelly will chat over Zoom with Hugo McCloud about the artists current show at the gallery, Burdened. On view through February 27, the show features paintings ingeniously made from single-use plastic bags, the ultimate symbol of waste and the environmental dangers posed by our reliance on plastic. The artist will speak to those issues, as well as about labor and geopolitics.

Price:Free with registration Time:3 p.m.

Sarah Cascone

Akbarnama, Mughal India, A party of hunters returning to camp (160304), detail. Courtesy of the British Library-Chester Beatty Library.

7. Tales in Connoisseurship: Appreciating Indian Painting at Asia Week New York

The latest virtual offering from Asia Week New York is this panel featuring Indian painting experts Brendan Lynch, co-director of London-based Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch Ltd.; Marika Sardar, curator of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto; and collector Gursharan Sidhu.

Price:Free with registration Time:5 p.m.

Tanner West

Amir H. Fallah, They Will Trick You For Their Own Rewards (2020). Courtesy of Denny Dimin, New York.

8. In Conversation: Artist Amir H. Fallah and Collector Liz Dimmitt at Denny Dimin, New York

Amir H. Fallahs latest show, Better a Cruel Truth Than a Comfortable Delusion, on view at Denny Dimin through February 20, is inspired by his young sons bedtime stories, but it still tackles hot-button issues such as racism, abuses of power, greed, and climate change. The artist will talk with collector Liz Dimmitt about the work, and the ways in which we pass along our value systems to children.

Price:Free Time:7 p.m.

Nan Stewert

Jean-Michel Basquiat performing with his experimental art noise band Gray at Hurrahs in 1979. Photo by Nick Taylor.

9. Time Decorated: The Musical Influences of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Part 2 at the Broad Museum, Los Angeles

This is part two of a new series at the Broad dedicated to the various musical genres that influenced Jean-Michel Basquiat. Tune in to see Afro-punk co-founder James Spooner play a selection of punk and No Wave classics from the likes of James Chance and the Contortions,Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Liquid Liquid,DNA, Mars, and Basquiats bandGray.

Price:Free Time:9 a.m. PST

Tanner West

Ai Weiwei (2012). Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio

10. Night of Ideas at the Brooklyn Public Library, co-presented with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy

Traditionally the Brooklyn Public LibrarysNight of Ideas was a powerhouse marathon that took place from sunup to sundown at the main Grand Army Plaza branch, and though the time and place will be a bit different this time arounda six-hour livestream eventthe speakers are no less impressive. Tune in to see Ai Weiwei in conversation withNew York Times editor Peter Catapano, a short film by Astra Taylor, a special appearance by Patti Smith, and a host of other conversations featuring Nell Painter, Suketu Mehta, and novelist Hari Kunzru, among others.

Price:Free Time:6 p.m.12 a.m.

Caroline Goldstein

11. Street Level: Instagram Live on @artnet featuring @museumofgraffiti

Join us on the @Artnet Instagram account on Friday! Were going live with Alan Ket and Allison Freidin, co-founders of the Museum of Graffiti, in honor of the Street Level sale on Artnet Auctions. Tune in to learn more about when the public perception of graffiti changed, how the internet has affected the evolution of street art, and get the stories behind some of the biggest names in the genre like Lady Pink, Blade, Futura, and more.

Price:Free Time:12 p.m. EST

Katie Rothstein

Courtesy Art/ Switch Foundation.

12. [re]Shaping Exhibition Practices at Art/Switch, Amsterdam and New York

This conference organized by Art/Switch, a young organization focused on sustainability in the arts, looks at the question of how to create environmentally sustainable exhibitions. With an emphasis on ways of systematically integrating sustainability into exhibition planning in a post-Covid world, topics include sustainability in curatorial practice, the structure and process of loans, what the art market can do to create environmentally-conscious exhibitions, and how to shift our thinking around blockbuster exhibitions.

Price:Suggested donation515 ($618) Time:4 p.m.7 p.m. CET (10 a.m.1 p.m. EST)

Naomi Rea

Mel Bochner, Language is not Transparent.Image courtesy of Magazzino Italian Art.

13.Resonance and Revelation: My Italian DaysatMagazzino Italian Art, Cold Spring, New York

In this livestreamed talk, artist Mel Bochner and art historian Tenley Bick discuss the odd resonances the artist found between his work and American and Italian art of the 1960s and 70s, which are captured in Bochner, Boetti, Fontana, on view at Magazzino through April 5.Bochner has been at the forefront of conceptual art since the mid-1960s, but the artists exhibitions and intersections with artists in Italy during the formative decades of his career are less well known.

Price:Free Time:12 p.m.

Eileen Kinsella

Djamila Ribeiro at the 2020 Verbier Art Summit. Alpimages.

14. Virtual Verbier Art Summit 2021 atVerbier Art Summit, Verbier, Switzerland

The fifth edition of the Verbier Art Summit, an annual conference that focuses on climate, innovation, and ecology, usually in the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland, will take place online this year. The two days of presentations and debates unites under the theme Resource Hungry and will include a talk by Swiss artist Claudia Comte, as well as a debate series featuring Daniel Birnbaum, Beatrix Ruf, and Philip Tinari, among others.

Price: Free withregistration Time: 9 a.m.5 p.m. CET January 29 and 30.

Kate Brown

Theresa Daddezio, Mother Orchid (2020). Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery.

15. Theresa Daddezio: Altum Corpus at DC Moore Gallery, New York

This is the last week to catch Theresa Daddezios solo show, which is her first since being represented by DC Moore Gallery. The exhibition consists of new paintings that give a contemporary twist to abstraction and hard-edge painting styles. Daddezio found inspiration for this work while visiting a Soviet bathhouse in Georgia, where the ruins were overgrown with vegetation, melding architecture with natural forms. The overlapping, curvilinear forms create a beautiful sense of movement and optical illusion.

Location:DC Moore Gallery, 535 West 22nd Street, New York Price:Free Time:TuesdaySaturday, 10 a.m.6 p.m.

Neha Jambhekar

Ensamble, Can Terra. Photo by Iwan Baan, courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum.

16. The World Around Summit 2021: Architectures Now, Near, and Next at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

TheWorld Around, a new itinerant cultural nonprofit, marks the launch of a year-long residency at the Guggenheim with its second annual summitheld online, naturally. Speakers will livestream from 14 sites around the world, presenting new work from architects, designers, researchers, and artists, including 20 groundbreaking architecture and design projects created over the past year.

Price:Free with registration Time:10 a.m.

Sarah Cascone

Read more:
Editors Picks: 18 Events for Your Art Calendar This Week, From a Chat With the Guerrilla Girls to the Music That Inspired Basquiat - artnet News

After wrapping the biggest film franchise of all time with Marvel's Avengers: Endgame, Anthony and Joe Russo wanted to go back home. Set in their native Ohio, Cherry, out Feb. 26 via Apple TV+, is their first non-superpowered project in more than a half-decade. Tom Holland stars as a young Iraq veteran, known in the movie as Cherry, whose battle with opioid addiction leads him to become a serial bank robber. For the personal project, the Russo brothers teamed with their sister, Angela Russo-Otstot, who co-scripted the adaptation of the semi-autobiographical novel by Nico Walker, who wrote the book while serving a prison sentence for bank robbery.

The siblings talked to The Hollywood Reporter about how social media for better and worse influenced the movie and their hopes of appealing to Gen Z audiences.

How did you first hear of the book?

JOE RUSSO It was recommended to us by a book agent that we know who really understands our [home] state, who called and said, "Listen, I know you guys are from Cleveland, I know you're passionate about your upbringing there. There is this book that's coming out that is really profound, it's in a really unique voice and it's detailing the opioid crisis in the industrial Midwest and it interweaves the Iraq War." The opioid crisis is a very personal issue to us. In a lot of ways, the industrial Midwest is ground zero for this crisis. We've lost people who are very close to us to opioids and have others that are struggling with their sobriety. I read it and passed it to Anthony and Angela.

Was that a similar situation for you, Angela? The story felt personal?

ANGELA RUSSO-OTSTOT It did. We, the three of us, grew up in the same pocket that a majority of the book takes place, and I had also been living there. It was almost like all your senses come alive when you're reading something that is that close to you. I'm pretty close in age [to the author]. I think also, to Joe's point, it offered such a specific and truly valuable perspective. The book gives you an entryway into the internal nuances of what these experiences in the war feel like, and then with PTSD and addiction.

Was it understood from the beginning that you three would work on this together?

ANTHONY RUSSO It evolved over time. We have a very fluid relationship and creative engagement with one another. I don't really remember the tipping point, but I think it just grew out of our shared connection over the material and what the movie should be. It was kind of a natural evolution.

What were those early conversations about what the movie should be?

JOE Gen Z is at the forefront of this fight. I've got four children, Angela has three, Anthony has two. This movie was engineered with a visual language to appeal to that generation. It's why Tom Holland is such perfect casting for this movie. The message of this film, the meat of the movie, is about making simple life choices that can cost you a decade and a half of your life. Both Cherry and Emily [played by Ciara Bravo] make those decisions without any life experience. This drug is scientifically engineered to make you addicted to it. It will cost you thousands of dollars and years of your life to get off of it. You may never get off of it it may take your life.

ANTHONY It's a difficult story but it's a very important story to tell now. We wanted to make the movie accessible to audiences. We didn't want to make the movie feel like you were taking your medicine by coming to see it. That was one of the key touch points for all of us in terms of understanding that we need to balance the movie in such a way as to make it entertaining and inviting to watch, because it is such challenging subject matter.

Angela, when you were writing, what was in Walker's book that you wanted to make sure made it into the movie?

ANGELA He has such a remarkable voice and there's so many gems in there. When I went back into the book, it was about, "How do we capture the specialness of what Nico Walker has put on the page and translate it here within the script?" We found different ways to do that, and more inventive and experimental ways to do that. That's when we started to get into more detailed conversations about shifting tone and genre.

This movie blends a lot of genres romance, addiction drama, war movie. Were you worried about fitting that all into Cherry?

ANTHONY We've always been drawn to an unconventional mixology of genres. We like taking the things that seemingly are incongruous and smashing them into each other and seeing what that does. That was definitely part of the essential appeal of this story to us. We also liked how it helped support this idea that this is an epic life arc for this character in this film. It's almost like an Odyssean journey.

ANGELA A choice that Anthony and Joe made very early on, which I think was really smart, was that the anchor of the movie is the love story. It carries us through those different experiences so that there's that constant through-line. Emily is the one piece that keeps him surviving and keeps him afloat through it all.

Was having Tom Holland break the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience a part of that visual language you were talking about?

JOE Yeah. You want to invite the audience into the character, with an actor as charming as Tom Holland. Ultimately, what the movie is espousing is empathy. We feel like we live in a time where empathy is dangerously anemic and we lack empathy toward each other. And [addiction] is a disease and it requires an empathetic, holistic approach to treatment, otherwise we're going to be in a lot more trouble if we can't reverse the trend. Technology and social media they are all working against us, working against humanity and preservation of humanity. I think that you can draw a corollary between the opioid crisis and the advent of social media. We are becoming numb to crisis and we're becoming numb to pain, and that is not a good thing.

ANGELA Nico Walker, in the book, provides such an honest and transparent perspective. And it's unflinching. It felt very important to relay that within the film and with the level of detail that he does in the book. Our number one mission was to draw as many lines of empathy to this character as possible so that people who do not share these experiences, which is probably a vast majority of the audience, are able to feel compassion for him. And then for those who have experienced what Cherry finds himself going through, we would hope that there is some sense of appreciation on their part that their story is being represented. To us, the best feedback we could ever receive comes from people who share some of those experiences.

Directly talking to the audience is also how social media influencers engage with their audiences. Because you were targeting Gen Z, was that a conscious effort to create a familiar experience for them?

JOE Absolutely conscious. We are in a very unique period in movie history the advent of digital platforms. You're going to reach any inflection point and there are going to be people who want to champion and hang on to the past, and there are going to be people who are more interested in what the future holds. Having four children, I can tell you that their acumen for understanding visual language is so much more significant than mine was at their age. Narrative is going to go through an evolution over the next decade or two. And as technology infuses into it, it's going to become more experiential. They are less precious about how they receive it. I love and adore the theatrical experience. My kids like it, but they also have six other ways that they can process information.

What [Anthony and I] love so much about the Marvel Universe is that it was a grand experiment that had never happened before. You were combining narrative from different franchises with different movie stars into mega events. And that was fascinating to us. You go back and look at our career. Arrested Development: riotous. Community: riotous. Ultimately I think what Marvel was doing no matter how people want to ascribe it as some sort of commercial monster it's still riotous in structure. It's still a new event, something that hadn't been done before.

Arrested was the first narrative show on television to shoot with digital cameras at that scale. I remember the fight we had with the network over that, [saying], "Look, this is the future, it's going to allow us to do this and move around and get 40 setups a day and six location changes with available light." We get out of bed every day for the challenges of trying to discover something new.

Do you view this as a period piece?

ANTHONY We definitely approached it that way. This movie is very much about the post-9/11 experience and about the post-9/11 generation. It's always fun to do period, and it was fun to realize that the early 2000s is in fact period now.

JOE We didn't have to change that much, which is why we found the material timely. If you go back and source the post-9/11 moment, it really draws a direct line to where we are right now as a country, where we are as people, where the opioid crisis really started and where it took root.

ANTHONY The opioid epidemic doesn't resemble drug waves that have preceded it. It's very different in terms of who is using the drugs, how they are being used, where they're being used and how they're being obtained. It is a wholly unique phenomenon that Joe just pointed out we are still in now, but that started in this period when the film is set.

How is the experience of working with family in a creative and professional capacity?

ANTHONY There certainly is a shorthand because of the shared experiences that really inform a lot of your artistic sensibilities and instincts. That was definitely at work on this movie with the three of us. We were able to tap into a shared experience that helped feed this movie very specifically.

We grew up in kind of an old-school, Italian American family. You develop this pattern where you have to understand that you have to submit the ego to the collective. That's sort of a fundamental premise of the clan. I think that helps in a creative collaboration because you are certainly never going to agree completely. You have to have that ability to let go of your own ego at certain moments and just run with the collaboration.

ANGELA You can also talk really loudly, but it doesn't mean you're angry.

Have you had an opportunity to screen the movie?

ANTHONY We're just beginning that process.

JOE This is an issue film. It's about PTSD. It's about trauma. Whether you were in a war or not or whether you're a recovering addict or not, we are all victims of trauma right now. We are traumatized every day by our government, we are traumatized by a pandemic. And I think what is important about this film is how we receive trauma and then how we process that trauma and work through it. We are going to have a couple years of fallout from everything that has happened over the last two or three years. And trauma is going to be on a wide scale in this country and in other parts of the world. So again, I feel like the antidote for trauma is empathy and acceptance and inclusion. And I think that is really what this movie is about.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

***

From 'Riotous' TV Directors to Box Office Titans

Avengers: Endgame

The Russo brothers brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe's third phase to a close with this blockbuster that grossed a whopping $2.8 billion worldwide.

Captain America: Civil War

This installment launched the MCU's third phase, setting up the events that would culminate in Infinity War and Endgame.

Avengers: Infinity War

The first chapter of Marvel's star-studded two-film crossover event, this entry in the MCU ended with a shocking cliff-hanger that killed off many of the franchise's heroes.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The Russos joined the MCU with this sequel, the second Captain America installment in the franchise.

Community

The brothers served as EPs on the Dan Harmon-created NBC comedy, for which they directed the pilot. Anthony directed an additional 13 episodes, while Joe helmed 20.

You, Me and Dupree

The Russos' third feature film starred Owen Wilson as a house guest who outstays his welcome with newlyweds played by Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon.

Arrested Development

The brothers won an Emmy for directing the pilot episode of the cult-favorite comedy. Separately, they directed 14 episodes during its initial three-season run on Fox.

This story first appeared in a January stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

See more here:
How the Russo Family Switched From Superheroes to America's Opioid Crisis With 'Cherry' - Hollywood Reporter

Media: Lucia Thorne

Even though the world is forced to adapt to the pandemic, the fashion world may never be the same again.

By Jialin Xu January 26, 2021

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COVID-19 has heavily impacted the fashion world, which has led to more than a one-third drop in revenue within the fashion industry. Even though the world is forced to adapt to the pandemic, the fashion world may never be the same again.

As the pandemic changes our view of the world, it also changes how clothing companies view their products. A notable change would be the recent trend of sustainable fashion that consumers can participate in by purchasing less clothes in general or buying second hand apparel.

The clothing in your closet today has decades of history behind it, and it is important to look at how todays world will impact the meaning of these clothes. Before World War II, slinky and sumptuous evening dresses dominated womens closets. However, as women began to integrate into workplaceswhile men were busy fighting in WWII jumpsuits and pants became the new norm. Post WWII, Christian Dior introduced the New Look to bring back femininity into womens fashion, though trouser pants still remain a mainstay.

Through understanding history, we can discover that each major fashion movement has helped reshape the publics relationship with clothing. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.

During this pandemic, many fashion companies had to temporarily close down physical retail stores, in which 80 percent of transactions are done, and move entirely to e-commerce. Whats worse, many factories in garment-producing countries are shutting down because of the shortage of raw materials from China.

On the other hand, the pandemic has given the fashion industry a break, and has allowed companies to rethink the issue of overproduction.

According to McKinsey & Company, 100 billion items of clothing are produced each year when there are only 8 billion people living on the planet. In what is called fast fashion, businesses compress the production line to replicate runway pieces, regardless of the quality, focusing instead on generating huge revenue through the use of mass-production.

Fast-fashion is a leading factor of climate change. After wearing certain clothes a few times, people will throw out unfavoured pieces, which will end up being burned or disposed of in a landfill. An article from The World Resources Institute reports that it takes 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton shirtthe same amount of water to meet an average persons drinking needs for two and a half years. It also said that garments made by non-biodegradable fabrics will remain in landfills for 200 years. This data demonstrates how fashion industries deplete the planets natural resources.

Fortunately, we can see that fast fashion is facing backlash and that sustainability could become the mainstream post-pandemic.

Designers are conscious about their relationship with nature even before the pandemic. In September of 2019, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri collaborated with the Paris-based environmental design collective Coloco to set up the Christian Dior Spring 2020 Ready-to-Wear Collection runway show. The catwalks were surrounded with jungles and trees. After the show, the trees were replanted around Paris.

The purpose of this, as Chiuri explained in an interview, is to translate this idea of a garden into concrete action: a support project that can create other gardens in the community.

Though it is unrealistic for brands, especially for luxury brands, to transfer its supplies into sustainable ones overnight, many designers reflect the concept either in their collections or on the runway.

Alongside COVID-19, sustainability has been brought back to the spotlight again. The pandemic has demonstrated how fragile human bodies are. If we continue indulging in fashion, despite the ongoing harm the industry inflicts on natural resources, then the sustainable solution will no longer be available to us.

Gucci, the leading luxury fashion brand, launched its first sustainable collection, Off the Grid, in June. In this collection, all garments are made from recycled, organic, bio-based materials. The brand is sending a message that if we lighten our environmental footprint we can enjoy the world with greater freedom.

From its fashion video, the producer kept a good balance shifting the scene from the modern buildings to a small-scale treehouse in the city. It implies that modernity can coexist with nature as long as we maintain reverence toward it.

Another crucial factor in accelerating the use of sustainability within the fashion world is consumer behavior. Due to COVID-led store closures, consumers desire to support fast-fashion has drastically decreased. Masha Birger, who runs sustainability consulting firm ESG alpha, confessed that the crisis pushed her to clean out her closet and focus more on buying well-made, classic, multifunctional pieces.

Birger is not the only case. According to a survey of U.S. consumers aged from 20-22, 63 percent of respondents reported that they expect to spend less on apparel. This result is not surprising since no one wants to buy new clothes when theyre stuck at home. This is a special period of time, where consumers aremore than evercautious about their spending.

Subsequently, when consumerism is forced to decrease, the fashion industry produces less to avoid a surplus of unsold stock.

Elizabeth Segran, a staff writer at Fast Company, commented that the next phase of fashions evolution will really come down to our individual choices. Industries always pivot to cater to what the market wants and needs. Not retailers, not influencers, not celebrities, but you and I can change the fashion industry. If we keep a sustainable mindset, purchase fewer clothing items, and keep a curated wardrobe, we can eliminate the damage that the fashion industry has and continues to bring to the environment.

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Could the pandemic get rid of fast fashion for good? - Berkeley Beacon

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- About 44 circuit-breaker halts were triggered in the first two hours of trading Wednesday amid the rapid ascension of amateur investors armed with Robinhood and their favorite social media platforms.From cult-favorite GameStop Corp. to stereo headphone and loudspeaker retailer Koss Corp., trading volume soared as gains and losses fluctuated by the minute.Day traders have taken to online forums like Reddit, posting bullish touts to encourage others to join an epic retail frenzy that has tested the mettle of short sellers. Reddit is also routinely used to drive up penny stocks that, unlike GameStop, have ceased publishing financial results and dont trade on regulated exchanges.Volatility halts are relatively common for small stocks that are surging or tumbling and are used by exchanges to help smooth rapid movement in either direction and prevent flash crashes. They are often done to force traders to digest the news and recalibrate their trades over the typical five-minute pause.Online brokerages including Robinhood Markets and Charles Schwab Corp. were hit again Wednesday by service disruptions as traders were transfixed by wild swings in shares of GameStop Corp. and other heavily shorted stocks. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., Morgan Stanleys E*Trade and Fidelity were also affected, according to Downdetector.com, which tracks user complaints.GameStop shares, which soared as much as 157% Wednesday, were halted at least twice, while movie theater company AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. triggered four halts as it more than quadrupled on volume that was roughly 13 times the three-month average.(Updates with number of trading halts, recasts lede)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Dimensional Fund Advisors Ltd. : Form 8.3 - WILLIAM HILL PLC - Ordinary Shares - Yahoo Finance UK

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- About 44 circuit-breaker halts were triggered in the first two hours of trading Wednesday amid the rapid ascension of amateur investors armed with Robinhood and their favorite social media platforms.From cult-favorite GameStop Corp. to stereo headphone and loudspeaker retailer Koss Corp., trading volume soared as gains and losses fluctuated by the minute.Day traders have taken to online forums like Reddit, posting bullish touts to encourage others to join an epic retail frenzy that has tested the mettle of short sellers. Reddit is also routinely used to drive up penny stocks that, unlike GameStop, have ceased publishing financial results and dont trade on regulated exchanges.Volatility halts are relatively common for small stocks that are surging or tumbling and are used by exchanges to help smooth rapid movement in either direction and prevent flash crashes. They are often done to force traders to digest the news and recalibrate their trades over the typical five-minute pause.Online brokerages including Robinhood Markets and Charles Schwab Corp. were hit again Wednesday by service disruptions as traders were transfixed by wild swings in shares of GameStop Corp. and other heavily shorted stocks. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., Morgan Stanleys E*Trade and Fidelity were also affected, according to Downdetector.com, which tracks user complaints.GameStop shares, which soared as much as 157% Wednesday, were halted at least twice, while movie theater company AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. triggered four halts as it more than quadrupled on volume that was roughly 13 times the three-month average.(Updates with number of trading halts, recasts lede)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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KSB SE & Co. KGaA: Adjustment of sales and earnings forecast 2020 - Yahoo Finance UK

For Sale For Lease

Property Type Single Family Townhouse/Condo Country Homes/Acreage Mid/Hi Rise Condominium Residential Lots Multi Family

Property Type Single Family Townhouse/Condo Country Homes/Acreage Mid/Hi Rise Condominium Residential Lots Multi Family

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Directors focus is to change lives and impact community - Midland Reporter-Telegram

According to a survey, around 76% women working in technology believe that Covid-19 and its effects have delayed their career progression while 54% Indian women are of the opinion that gender equality is more likely to be achieved through remote working structures.

The lockdown period should have been the time there could have been a significant move towards equal gender opportunity in IT posts, but lingering social biases have hindred that opportunity.

Kasperskys new report called Women in Tech report, Where are we now? which focused on understanding the evolution of women in technology, found that almost 38% Indian women working in tech/IT industry did prefer working at home over working from the office.

A similar number said that they work more efficiently while working from home, and as many as 36% revealed they have more autonomy when not working in an office.

However, a more concerning factor that has emerged from the survey highlights that the potential of remote work for women in tech is not being matched by corresponding social progression. Almost half of the women (44%) working in technology have struggled to juggle work and family life since March 2020 a figure that is at its most prominent in India but is also a consistent worldwide trend.

If one digs deeper, the reasons for this imbalance becomes obvious. When female respondents were asked about the day-to-day functions that are detracting from productivity or work progression,

- 54% said they had done the majority of cleaning in the home compared to 33% of men,

- 54% had been in charge of home schooling compared to 40% of men

- 50% of women have had to adapt their working hours more than their male partner in order to look after the family

Adding it all up, about 76% of women in India believe that Covid-19 and the lockdown have actually delayed their overall career progression.

The effect of the pandemic broadly differed for women. Some appreciated the greater flexibility and lack of commute from working at home, whilst others shared that they were on the verge of burnout. Its paramount that companies ensure their managers are aligned with their strategy to support employees with caregiving responsibilities, said Dr Patricia Gestoso, Head of Scientific Customer Support at BIOVIA, 2020 Women in Software Changemakers winner, and prominent member of professional womens network, Adas List.

The other significant trend that the pandemic has accelerated is the co-existence of remote and hybrid employees within the same organization. This can be a challenge for women working remotely as they may experience less access to top management working from offices. This may decrease their chances to be considered for the kind of stretch assignments that lead to promotions. Employers need to be conscious of those disadvantages and plan accordingly to minimise them, Gestoso added.

Truth be told, while social disparity is not tech-specific, they point towards a barrier that is preventing women from capitalising on the opportunities and the benefits of remote work.

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Lockdown has hindered career progression of Indian women in tech: Report - HT Tech

Army service means different things to different people, but everyone will agree that this is an important institution that makes us safe and secure. It is always better to prepare for war to avoid one, and over the centuries basic or advanced training has evolved just for this purpose. Today, men or women can join the troops if they will that patriotic fire in their hearts and the unquenchable desire for serving their country. Joining the military is a big step in ones life and it shouldnt be taken for granted or as just another job opportunity. Young soldiers should know what are they getting themselves into and learn some subordination or leadership principles before swearing an oath.

It is needless to say that an institution that is designed to defend our country needs some firm leadership rules in place. These rules are all about subordination, accepting authoritative behavior, and strict discipline. Orders must be followed without questioning which may be counterintuitive for those prone to critical thinking. This is why reading any army leadership essay and educating on these matters before making your decision to join the army can be a good idea. Being a soldier is not just about firing from machine guns, but also about building a certain mindset of a warrior, and reading some essay examples can help you with that.

We all have an innate dislike for authority so those who join must understand that there is no place for a large ego in the military unless you are a five-star general. Fresh recruits are expected to obey and stay in a good shape during their basic training. Nothing will prepare you for this if you are a rebellious individual who doesnt like being told what to do. If one doesnt realize that strict rules apply in every army, maybe he should consider a different career. All great military history writers agree that to give orders one must learn to obey first.

Those in power who want to develop good relations with their subordinates learned to adapt their management styles over the course of time. This relationship between officers and common soldiers requires mutual respect and admiration. We are talking about respect and honor that need to be among core values in every modern military. College students who are thinking about army service must study any essay paper they can find about these matters for better understanding. These are basic requirements for a solid organization to exist on good values and principles.

As any army evolves, the focus of leadership shifts toward creating a more brotherhood-like structure where everyone feels equal but very conscious of their duty and obligations. This creates an environment where future soldiers accept authority better and without complaining. They know their roles and the purpose of all these rules or regulations plus they understand that orders are a part of our everyday jobs. That is a proper way to organize any institution, not just our military. Every modern army learns constantly from many corporate firms and applies their newest management principles in its practice.

As technology progresses, even military personnel must keep in touch with modern high tech solutions. Continuous education is a must these days, as military technology evolves as the traditional role of trooper changes rapidly. Many modern schools or universities offer fresh recruits a chance to research and study modern military tactics and essay papers on contemporary warfare. We require a solid fighting force that keeps evolving into an institution that guarantees the peace of our nation as well as the whole world.

Many army historians were writing about the importance of knowing your enemy or ones ability for organizing counter-intelligence. These are those principles that drive new technologies plus the evolution of military doctrine. Maybe our forces are meant to constantly evolve until we reach some Star Wars level of technology. Until then, young soldiers around the globe will have to learn about the fundamentals of subordination, respect, and leadership.

If an army career is what you dream about, then we salute you. Only the best of the best get a chance to serve their country. Just be sure to know what is required of a future soldier. Go for it, if you think that you have what it takes for becoming a modern warrior.

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Fundamentals of respect, subordination, and leadership in the army for young soldiers - London Post

For decades, the Republican Party has used what's known as "the Southern Strategy"to win white support in the region through dog-whistle appeals to racism, sexism, and Christian nationalism.

Facing South recently spoke with political scientist Dr. Angie Maxwell, co-author with Todd Shields of "The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics," about the deep history of political division in the region and the future of Southern politics after Democrats won the presidential election in Georgia for the first time in 28 years and defeated two Republican Senate incumbents in the state.

Maxwell is the director of the Diane Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society, an associate professor of political science, and holder of the Diane Blair Endowed Professorship in Southern Studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Can you explain what you mean by the "Long Southern Strategy"and the role it played in the evolution of the Republican Party?

What we think about the Southern Strategy in general, I sometimes call that the "Short Southern Strategy"because it helps me distinguish it. The Short Southern Strategy that most people know goes something like this: As the national Democratic Party started to embrace civil rights post-New Deal but really in the 1960s, the Republican Party, or some strategists in it, saw an opportunity to win some Southern white voters who felt like the national Democratic Party was moving very far away from the Democratic Party they knew or what their state Democratic Party was. There starts to be this big gap.

After the 1964 Civil Rights Act is signed, the Republican Party at their convention that summer is really divided between the Rockefeller Republicans, who were moderately pro-civil rights, and a growing, primarily Midwestern, anti-labor conservative wing of the party. The party did a lot of work in the late 1950s and early '60s to try to find a nominee that they could push for. They finally found one, Barry Goldwater, the senator from Arizona, who'd been one of the few Republican senators to not sign the Civil Rights Act.

Goldwater became a star in the Republican Party and the Republican nominee in 1964. Southern Democrats who were upset with the national Democratic Party liked Strom Thurmond in South Carolina, changed their party ID to Republican, and really only stumped for Goldwater and pitched Goldwater Republicanism as a counter to this increasingly liberal Democratic Party. Goldwater succeeds in flipping five Southern states [Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina]. He earned 87% of the vote in Mississippi, which is one of the most radical changes in all of American political history.

Goldwater only wins those five Southern states and his state of Arizona and loses the rest of the country. But that moment was the first time the Republican Party became a real viable option in the Deep South at least at the presidential level. There wasn't much structure underneath that. There wasn't a strong Republican Party statewide, so it took a little more time. Nixon comes along four years later and manages to build on what Goldwater did but maybe not saying it so aggressively. Therefore the South goes red.

That's the story we tell. The problem with that is nothing is that simple. We forget that Nixon is successful, but in 1976 Jimmy Carter runs as a Democrat and wins the entire South back except for one state [Virginia]. Republicans have to go back to the drawing board and think of other issues that appeal to Southern whites.

There are two things in this next phase of what I call the Long Southern Strategy. They really adapted their coded racial language to fit the moment, which in the '80s became a pitch towards color blindness. Doesn't sound like a bad thing, but it's really a denial of structural racism. And then into fiscal conservatism, but not on everything just on social programs that were aimed at leveling the racial playing field, so to speak, or welfare reform issues.

The other thing that they did in rebranding the party in the Southern image, to earn these Southern white voters and cut themselves an electoral path to victory, is that they adopted a Southern style of politics, which is the politics of entertainment and big rallies, spectacle kind of politics, a real distrust of media, an us-versus-them politics. They pull some kind of George Wallace. Instead of defining yourself by what you are, you define yourself by what you're not. Sometimes they call that "positive polarization."

So it took a much longer Southern Strategy to rebrand the party, and they rebranded it in these elements of Southern whiteness. They nationalized that. Now, it's not that those elements aren't anywhere else in the country we know they are, but not at the level of concentration they are among Southern whites. But they speak to it, and it becomes the rebranded Republican Party.

In the book you argue that the Southern Strategy was not only rooted in racism but was deeply influenced by the rise of gender equality and the GOP's alliance with the Southern Baptist Convention. Can you explain how the elements of race, gender, and religion were combined to formulate the Republican Party's strategy?

As political scientists, we used to measure racism using a scale called "old-fashioned racism,"which was basically racial stereotypes. People would rank whites or Blacks on work ethic and trustworthiness. After the civil rights movement, all those numbers start to look like maybe things are different, maybe some of the old-fashioned racism was diminishing. But its more that respondents didn't want to say those things anymore. So new scales were developed looking at symbolic racism, which really got at the idea that structural racism didn't exist, that we shouldn't have affirmative action programs, that generations in slavery and Jim Crow did not have a long-term effect on upward mobility, politically and economically all that.

So the Republican Party realized it was going to have to adapt its racial appeal. It couldn't go do what George Wallace did. You couldn't even say the things Nixon and Strom Thurmond said. It wasn't going to work. It might win you some voters in pockets in the South, but you're going to lose the country. You've got to code it better. Then they also started looking to see what other issues could help break up these Southern blocs. Southern white women started changing their party ID from Democrat to Republican much later. We sometimes see that the racialized appeal works for one faction of white women kind of at an extreme end, but what about the more moderate conservative women?

When the Equal Rights Amendment was on a trajectory to be approved by enough states to amend the constitution, the anti-ERA movement really went after Southern white women, because the Southern states were the states where they thought the ERA would have the best chance of failing because theyre the same states that had not ratified the 19th Amendment for women's suffrage. So if you're a strategist for the anti-ERA group and you're going, "Where might we kill this thing?,"you're looking at places where the 19th Amendment wouldn't pass in 1920. And when they started talking to Southern white women, they really misrepresented the ERA.

They realized that Southern white women had been politicized by the anti-feminist movement led by Phyllis Schlafly, and then other movements like WWWW Women Who Want to be Women [founded by Texas native Lottie Beth Hobbs] and efforts from the Southern Baptist Convention to portray feminism as a threat to traditional gender roles. Were starting to understand a little bit more about what happened. We talk about religion and Republicans in Southern politics, and we talk about race, but the bridge in the middle was the anti-ERA movement. It was one of their big sells. It's "family values."

The Republican Party finds it works. It helps them strengthen that growing allegiance with the Southern Baptist Convention and evangelicals and social conservatives. In the 2000s, for example, you see Republican strategists putting gay marriage amendments on ballots in states to really pull evangelicals to the polls, giving them much more of a place within the party.

It's important to know that they had to do all three of those things, because it turns out a lot of people are just one of those three. When we measure racial resentment and modern sexism, which is a measure of just anti-feminism, and Christian nationalism, there are some people that are all three, but a lot of people are two of three or one of three. It's just not enough that are all three, so it really takes that whole trifecta to define a new party brand.

It creates such a brand in the Republican Party that anybody who can come in and get those three elements the best can play to that hard right in a crowded field in a Republican primary. In 2016 Southern states move up their primaries, so whoever plays to those three things most effectively can gain quite a bit of momentum in the race for the Republican nomination.

How has this strategy been used, specifically the race component, to trick many white Southerners into voting against their own interests?

There's a couple of elements of that. First, that was not new for the Republican Party to do that. That long history of white elites in the South building an alliance with poor whites in order to suppress any kind of class-based politics led to the suppression of the populist uprisings in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and had really squashed any kind of labor union organizing in the region and led to the development of the right to work states.

Even some of Jim Crow and the way it was set up was an effort to give poor whites some seeming advantage, even in their poverty. We tend to think of it sometimes as just white elites, but Jim Crow was set up to make sure poor whites sided with elite whites, instead of siding with or building a common bond of politics or organizing with poor Blacks. Slavery's over so they create a new system that puts the voters they need on one side and African Americans on the other, and that made poor whites feel like they had something, that they were better than somebody.

When people have possibilities to rise economically, it doesn't work as well, creating these kinds of faux hierarchies. But when people don't, when people have no opportunity to rise, then those faux hierarchies become more meaningful. The Southern white elites knew that, and they were able to set that up. Theres a long history we often forget. We tend to look at poor whites who vote against their economic self-interest and say they're irrational, right? But we're basing that on what political scientists say rational voting is, which is you vote based on your economic self-interest. But for some people, no matter what the government does it doesn't feel like it gets better. For some of those who are lowest income, in rural areas where there is not opportunity, they don't see this changing that much in their life. So they become "rational identity voters,"is what I call it in the book. Who do I feel like gets me? Who do I feel like would fight for me? It's irrational only if we look at bottom line and pocketbook policy issues. It's not necessarily irrational if we look at identity values and political emotions.

You argue that the Southern Strategy was used to "nationalize Southern white identity and fundamentally altered American politics as a whole."What role did the Southern Strategy play in producing the GOP's base of voters that supported Donald Trump?

What we see is over the last 40 years, on measures of racial resentment and modern sexism and Christian nationalism, is the American people have sorted themselves. That doesn't happen in one election cycle. It doesn't even happen in a few. It takes a long time.

What's happened is people have moved and sorted themselves as the parties took these polar positions, and the Republicans did that specifically to break up the electoral bloc in the South. The consequences of it are that people have sorted themselves over time to which brands they feel closer to. Now, what was a strategy to break up a few Southern states has rebranded the party in a way in which Republicans who don't express racial resentment and modern sexism and Christian nationalism are in the minority in their party and have a really hard time controlling it.

And Trump played it hard, played it really hard, coming after Obama, which also caused a major sorting effect, and running against a woman. That on top of the 40 years of partisan sorting in this Long Southern Strategy grew a Trump base that is more vocal and more extreme. Trump could be that extreme in 2016 because he was coming after the first Black president and because he was running against a woman.

How was former President Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and exploitation of the Southern Strategy connected with the recent violent attack on the U.S. Capitol?

I think it's directly related. I don't think a lot of Trump's language is coded. Trump really uncoded it. He was coming after eight years of a Democrat, and it's pretty common historically for things to flip after eight years. There's also the rise of cable news and talk radio just this perfect storm. Trump was able to go that far because people had sorted themselves accordingly.

Because he didn't have to code it very much, he speaks louder and clearer to people for whom the dog whistle wouldn't work because they didn't quite hear it or didn't know what it meant. But when he says it explicitly, it can draw in whole other crowds. I know it's the first time people have breached the Capitol, but when I think about the history in the South of massive resistance, when I think about governors blocking doorways and civil rights workers getting beaten to death, people getting beaten on the bridge in Alabama, dogs being turned on people, people being assassinated mob violence is nothing new in the South.

You mentioned the history of racial violence in the South. I think that the South has a duality about it that continues to impact politics in the region this history of progressive movements and then this history of discrimination and division. What are some of the misconceptions about the South that you find yourself battling in your work?

Well, first and foremost, there's not one South, right?

There's a slightly higher percentage of whites in the South who call themselves Southern, but it is barely more than African Americans who call themselves Southern. I wrote a piece on that years ago in Southern Cultures called "The Duality of the Southern Thing,"about how the label does not belong to whites, and looking at what if anything there is in common between Blacks and whites who call themselves Southern, or is it just a completely divergent identity.

There was a little bit in common that had to do with a sense of family and a sensitivity to criticism, like the South's always behind, not cosmopolitan. But other than that, it's really different, so you've got to be very specific about what South you're talking about, what Southern you meanbecause it isn't a label that belongs exclusively to whites. I wrote a piece for FiveThirtyEightright before the primaries in March talking about the difference between being a Southern Democrat and a Democrat who's part of the South. The Democratic Party in the South, in many Southern states, has got a long history of being run by African American women. And African American men too, but African American women more so.

They take into consideration these racial politics as they choose their candidates, so they're pragmatists because they are very conscious of the racial politics that play within their state. That is a more complex political vision that I think most people misconstrue. So they tend to have a much more sophisticated and nuanced and multilevel assessment going on about the long march to progress.

Earlier this month Democrats were able to win the presidential election and flip two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia, a state that for years was known as a Republican stronghold. Do you take this as a sign that the Southern Strategy is beginning to collapse?

I think that progressives in Georgia have realized that they can counter it.

It is different in every state. Some states you've got to win people over who are moderate Republicans. Some states you don't. Some states you have 50% of your electorate doesn't even turn out. In some it's urbanization, in some it's in-migration, and in some it is disenfranchisement issues. I think Georgia looked and said, "Where can we build a coalition of all folks?" I feel like they were very clear in what they were running against, but they also were saying a lot about what they're running for, right?

It wasn't just run people over who once supported Trump or once supported [Republican Sen. David] Perdue or once supported [Republican Sen. Kelly] Loeffler. They painted a new vision and built a broad coalition. They reached out to rural voters, rural African American voters. And they said, "If anyone tries to take away your vote, we're here, and we're going to fight for it." They empowered people.

What does that mean for the future of Southern politics?

This time around, I think what's happening is real development of strong two-party competition. I think you see that in North Carolina. I think you see that in Georgia. I think you're starting to see that in Texas. I think you see that in Virginia. And not just a flip from one to the other thats the difference. What happened with realignment is the parties flipped. What's happening now is a growing, strong two-party system in some of those states. That is the best thing that could happen in the region, because two-party competition and a real contest of ideas holds politicians accountable. It keeps the electorate invested. It makes it a politics of problem solving and deliverables and not just personality, whether it was one-party Democrat or one-party Republican.

In Georgia I think what they're doing is building a truly empowered, strong party option for the Democrats, and they're going to have a lot of elections that are going to be really close. For a while, you're not going to see an entirely blue Georgia state legislature. You're going to see real two-party competition, and I think the state of Georgia's going to benefit from that.

Excerpt from:
Political scientist Angie Maxwell on countering the 'Long Southern Strategy' - Facing South

Towards the end of 2020, a year spent supine on my sofa consuming endless internet like a force-fed goose, I managed to finish a beautifully written debut novel: Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, which comes out next month. And yet despite the entrancing descriptions, I could barely turn two pages before my hand moved reflexively toward the cracked screen of my phone. Each time I returned to the novel I felt ashamed, and the shame only grew as I realised that, somehow, though the story was set in the present, and involved an often long-distance romance between two young people with phones, it contained not one single reference to what by then I considered a hallmark of present-day humanity: mindless scrolling through social media.

There was something sepia-toned about the book thanks to this absence, recalling love stories from previous eras even as it spoke powerfully to more urgent contemporary issues. Azumah Nelsons narrator mentions phones in the context of calls and private text messages, but the characters are never sullied by association with Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Was this because they were too sensible, ethical or self-assured to use such things, or is the omnipresence of these platforms now so implicit, in literature as in life, that they hardly seemed worth mentioning?

After an initial froideur, followed by some adolescent fumblings, fictions embrace of social media has now fully come of age. The success of outliers such as Tao Lins Taipei (in which the internet is perhaps the most potent of all the many drugs its protagonists ingest) and Dave Eggerss The Circle (a dystopian exploration of big techs assault on privacy), both published in 2013, paved the way for Jarett Kobeks I Hate the Internet, which riffed on the way the internet perplexes the literary novel, 2017s Sympathy (my debut, about the ways our identity and actions are shaped by surveillance in the internet age), 2018s Twitter refreshing Crudo by Olivia Laing, and Matthew Sperlings aptly named 2020 novel Viral, a satirical takedown of a social media startup.

Its clear that the digital colonisation of the literary world has not resulted in its predicted death, but an exciting evolution. We are hungry for writers who can parse our present, whether in essay form, in works such as Jia Tolentinos collection Trick Mirror (2019) and Legacy Russells Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020) or the fiction about to hit our shelves (or Kindle screens) that put social media front and centre.

Characters in todays novels are more likely to surprise us if they dont use social media. This is often put down to their age, or pious superiority, or eccentricity, or something very sinister in their past. In Raven Leilanis debut Luster, the narrators older love interest (met via online dating) uses retired internet slang, and is not even on Twitter. Unlike with men her own age, she cannot track his formative development online, and this adds to his allure.

Similarly, in Lauren Oylers forthcoming Fake Accounts, the narrators boyfriend appears to have minimal internet presence (suspicious), then turns out to have a secret online avatar with a considerable Instagram following. A famous author in Rebecca Watsons little scratch who is not on social media is described as seeming like a dead writer. Meanwhile, in Patricia Lockwoods debut novel No One Is Talking About This (published next month) the protagonist knows only two living people without a digital trail a former school friend, who seems to have escaped into a parallel universe offline, and her own newborn niece. Its a book Lockwood described (on Twitter) as about being very inside the internet and then being very outside of it.

Working on my novel about social media (which I started in 2014), I remember receiving numerous comments to the effect that such superficial features of what I considered to be real life would render it unserious and obsolete. Now, social media has taken over our lives to the extent that references to it in fiction furnish contemporary characters with plausibility, even humanity.

While the internet and mobile phones initially posed problems for fiction writers - not least for their potential to destroy traditional plots of desire and obstruction (chance encounters, missed connections, quests), the dangers of such instant gratification increasingly appear to spark the plot itself (as in Megha Majumdars A Burning, where a careless tweet sets off a dangerous train of events) and offer novels a natural home, so long as theyre game for a little renovation. As Watson wrote recently: When I started writing incorporating this digital compulsion was one of the first issues I ran into. I was writing a book that aimed to follow the mind of a woman in her 20s, non-stop, so ignoring it would be a plot hole. But quickly, I found that it opened up my protagonist, created a portal to others while still keeping her isolated. It inspired me to shake up form; the pressures of an age of distraction making me break up prose into columns and fragments.

As with all renovations-in-progress, (and perhaps I use this metaphor as it seems to be a burgeoning genre on Instagram) alterations afford us a glimpse of how the novel works which pipes go where, which walls are load-bearing as both the structural elements and stylistic choices are rendered visible. Reading Watsons little scratch the reader must clamber over and around London Underground announcements, texts, TripAdvisor reviews, scraps of other peoples writing, emails, snippets of conversation, unspoken thoughts, sounds and sensory impressions scattered across the page with little in the way of signposting.

With no predetermined way to navigate the text, the novel could be compared to the endless tabs and incongruous juxtapositions of digital life, or it could just be like living now, as writers such as Virginia Woolf (referenced repeatedly in both Oyler and Lockwoods novels) used a stream of consciousness to convey the experience of 20th-century living. These days, and especially post 2020, there is little meaningful distinction between digital life and life anyway. As Lockwoods narrator notes: This did not feel like real life, exactly, but nowadays what did?

That terms such as real life and digital life still exist in tension, despite the extent to which they overlap, is indicative of social medias contradictions. Connection and isolation, homogeneity and fragmentation, exposure and concealment, the order and simultaneous incoherence of the timeline the list is both familiar and endless. And yet our familiarity with social media can preclude critical understanding of it. Novels, by contrast, allow us to step outside our habitual experience and reflect on what it means that real life has been so swiftly overtaken by the virtual. Lockwood, for example, calls it the portal rather than the internet, to purposefully estrange the reader: It was in this place where we were on the verge of losing our bodies that bodies became the most important. You were zoomed in on the grain, you were out in space, it was the brotherhood of man, and in some ways you had never been flung further from each other.

In Watsons novel, such dualities are woven together in a helix, pointing to the nature of trauma as much as digital experience, but where the once separate worlds of work and home, say, might have permitted a way to compartmentalise and so navigate certain dangerous triggers, the breaching of stable boundaries (exemplified by the narrators rape), make it harder to escape intrusive thoughts. The membrane that suggests a separate outer and inner life is her skin, which she scratches compulsively until its raw and bleeding. The urge to scratch, like the urge to scroll, provides temporary relief (opening a new tab to find a dog on Twitter wearing a backpack is at least a means of distraction, not dissimilar to picking a scab), before worsening the condition.

As in Lockwood and Oylers novels, the claustrophobia of being trapped in ones own head alternates with the agoraphobia and disorientation of being (trapped) online, immersed in the collective mind of everyone else. No equilibrium can be reached when the two scales are so vastly mismatched. Oylers narrator is always conscious of performing for an audience that might as well have been everyone in the world for all your brain could comprehend. Lockwoods protagonist lies every morning under an avalanche of details, the world pressing closer and closer, the spiderweb of human connection grown so thick it was almost a shimmering and solid silk. Oylers narrator suffers from the panic of sleep paralysis (mirroring her waking experience of scrolling). Even when she is awake, it is as though the body has become two dimensional. The husband of Lockwoods protagonist comes up behind her while she was repeating the words no, no, no or help, help, help under her breath. Are you locked in? he would ask, and she would nod, and then do the thing that always broke her out somehow which was to google beautiful brown pictures of roast chickens maybe because thats what women used to do with their days.

These are scenes that do not typically lend themselves to fictional description or plot: a character who is outwardly inert, invisibly experiencing a kind of overload. Lockwoods protagonists face has a totally dead look, as her husband describes it, when engaged in mortal combat with someone online, despite the fact moments like this are when she feels most alive. That her husband has such a different impression of this scene is emblematic of how characters in these novels, to varying, often darkly comic degrees, struggle to communicate and sustain intimacy. No other person, not even a husband, can ever know you as well as your phone. Your phone, in fact, knows you better than you know yourself and alerts you whenever YOU HAVE A NEW MEMORY. Its not much of a stretch to say the phone could just as easily be the narrator.

Social media inflected novels are overwhelmingly narrated in the first person or the close third with relentless self-awareness, in the style of confessional essays and blogs. Their protagonists scrutinise themselves through the eyes of imagined strangers, pre-empting critique so that such hyper-connection actually breeds a particular brand of interiority. This is true at the thriller end of the spectrum also: husband and wife duo Ellery Lloyds People Like Her, a cautionary tale of influencer culture, relies partly on multiple first person perspectives to drive the plot.

In terms of form, social media has shaped contemporary fiction, even in novels that make scant mention of it. The dominant trend is to tell a story through fragments. Sometimes these make a point of concision only a paragraph, or even one line, which of course makes social media comparison easy, while others may be the length of a blog. Each fragment possesses no obvious bearing on the next, juxtaposing random facts with news articles, wry observation of a stranger on a commute followed by an unrelated emotional confession, in the manner of one individuals Twitter timeline. Its that first person voice that has to do the work of holding these fragments together, but it also makes allowances for internet-eroded concentration spans, our inability to stick to linear paths of thought.

Oylers narrator calls this trendy style melodramatic, insinuating utmost meaning where there was only hollow prose in its attempts to reflect the world as a sequence of distinct and clearly formed ideas, it ran counter to how reality actually worked. She later switches to parodying the style herself, which did, at least, make it easier for me to check my phone between paragraphs. The other trend does not, demanding you read its long, run-on sentences without even stopping to breathe. This is a tightly controlled art form in Luster, which reminded me of the knowingly tl;dr (too long, didnt read) variety of Instagram caption.

Lockwoods narrator also uses and self-consciously notes the prevalence of this style: Why were we all writing like this now? Because a new kind of connection had to be made, and blink, synapse, little space-between was the only way to make it. Or because, and this was more frightening, it was the way the portal wrote. This uniform way of speaking, as recognisable as those clapping emoji hands between words, illustrates how, as Lockwood writes, if the internet was once the place where you sounded like yourself. Gradually it had become the place where we sounded like each other, through some erosion of wind or water on a self not nearly as firm as stone. Add to this homogenisation the sociological phenomenon of context collapse (sharing everything online with everyone and without distinction), and the capacity to break the internet by going viral, and we are ourselves broken into pieces, flattened out, sprayed through an atomiser, losing our own specificity, our own voices.

Emmy, the influencer at the centre of People Like Her, is accused by a formerly loyal friend of having become 2D like her photos. Not a person anymore, just a phony caption and a posed photo. A fucking invention. Emmy has crafted a persona, or a personal brand, that is the perfectly imperfect Instagram mother, Mamabare, aiming for relatability rather than reality. Its a Faustian pact she has made, selling her own soul as well as those of her friends and family, so that when an Instagram role player begins to steal photos of her daughter and use them to craft their own fantasy life online, Emmy has little in the way of a moral high ground, or recourse. Even Emmys furious husband admits this is a trap of his wifes own making, and that the role-player presents a pretty convincing pastiche of the way that all Instamums, my wife included, write. The mangled metaphors, the breathless over-enthusiasm. The ingenuous clunkiness. The alliteration. Emmy has become so successful at influencing people to be like her, they have literally started to usurp her.

Plenty of social media novels explore the possibilities of pretending to be someone else, devising personas or even knowingly assuming someone elses identity, as in 2018s Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton. This kind of thing is still considered extreme behaviour, but more recent novels such as People Like Her highlight how much that personality we think of as our own is being determined by algorithm and then harvested for data. As Lockwoods narrator puts it, this is the stream-of-consciousness that is not entirely your own, that you participate in but also acts upon you. Participating involves a metastasis whereby a person might join a site to look at pictures of her nephew and five years later believe in a flat earth.

Our offline lives turn out to be just as much of a lie as our online ones. Having discovered her boyfriends deception online, Oylers narrator agrees manipulative insincerity was a fair response to the way the world was. She sets up a plan involving dating apps as a purposeful critique of the system. I could be anyone I wanted (or did not want, as the case may be) and my deception would not be selfish, cruelly manipulative of innocents looking for love, but a rebellion against an entire mode of thinking, which was not really thinking at all, just accepting whatever was advertised to you. Because there is no way out, the characters of these novels usually decide its better to be an agent of their own techno-dystopian futures than simply a victim of them. Its enough to make you put down your phone and read a book.

Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic is published by Bloomsbury (14.99).

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Page refresh: how the internet is transforming the novel - The Guardian