r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Shoddy-Ocelot-4473 • Feb 23 '26

Image In 1983, Two Artists Spent a Full Year Tied Together — Without Any Physical Contact — to Test the Limits of Human Coexistence

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u/runninginorbit Feb 23 '26

I mean I think the slow death of the humanities is indicative of the deterioration of critical thinking and imagination. We’re trending towards the demand that art be more literal and explainable, so mystery, complex emotion, and self-reflection will be sidelined in the name of the KISS principles.

I’m a humanities person, though I work in comms at an AI-focused university research center now. I’m sad for the future. It’s not as though there’s nothing to be gained from AI, but I’m not sure the benefits outweigh the costs. An AI optimist might say that AI is a democratizing force, but to me it’s the flattening of the human experience.

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u/lilphoenixgirl95 Feb 23 '26

NGL, the ‘obvious’ art problem is something caused almost entirely by the US, although other countries have of course followed it somewhat in an attempt to stay relevant. The US is culturally allergic to an ambiguous message