Episode 26: Living in a Glass Age, with Michael Garfield

Stone, bronze, iron... glass? In his recent thought and writing, transdisciplinary artist and thinker Michael Garfield defines modernity as an age of glass, arguing that the entire ethos of our era inheres in the transformative enchantments of this amorphous solid. No one would deny that glass plays a central role in our lives, although glass does have a knack for disappearing into the background, at least until the beakers or screens crack and shatter. Glass is weird, and like a lot of weird things, it can serve as a lens (so to speak!) for observing our world from strange new angles. In this episode, Michael joins Phil and JF to talk through the origins, the significance, and the fate of the Glass Age. Michael Garfield is a musician, live painter, and futurist. He is the host of the brilliant Future Fossils Podcast. REFERENCES Michael Garfield's website + Patreon + Medium + Bandcamp Michael Garfield, "The Future is Indistinguishable from Magic" (This is the essay we discuss that was unpublished at the time of the recording) Michael Garfield, "The Future Acts Like You" Michael Garfield, "The Evolution of Surveillance Part 3: Living in the Belly of the Beast" Artist David Titterington's Patreon page Richard Doyle, On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences Corning, "The Glass Age" (corporate video) Jean-Paul Sartre, Baudelaire John David Ebert, "On Hypermodernity" John C. Wright, The Golden Age J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, Who Built the Moon? Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage Spinoza, Ethics Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity Martine Rothblatt, Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality John Crowley, Little, Big Jose Arguelles, Dreamspell Calendar William Irwin Thompson, Lindisfarne Tapes Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past Karl Schroeder, “Degrees of Freedom,” in Heiroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future Michael Garfield, “Being Every Drone” Henri Bergson, Creative EvolutionSpecial Guest: Michael Garfield.