The Zoom Problem: What Smartphones Still Can't Do — Issue No.61 November 18th 2025

Greetings from Juergen

Hi all,

This week's newsletter is admittedly all over the map—no grand unified theory holding it together, just a collection of stories that caught my attention as I was reading through the week's news. SoundCloud just announced they're letting artists keep 100% of their distribution royalties, which sounds generous until you wonder if it's desperation from a platform losing relevance. An artist named Elias Marrow pulled off a reverse art heist by sneaking an AI-generated print onto the walls of the National Museum Cardiff, where hundreds of visitors passed it before anyone noticed. And we're apparently living in an era where smartphone cameras have gotten so wide that a Chinese brand is making news by bringing them back to a more natural focal length.

There's also a fascinating piece about pixel art's refusal to fade away despite our obsession with photorealism, the Korean collective d'strict creating immersive installations that actually prioritize human connection over spectacle, and the wild story of how Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg might have secretly sent art to the Moon on Apollo 12. The Met launched new VR experiences that I want to like but can't imagine actually using at home, and there's a sharp analysis of how Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance became a culture war battlefield before he even took the stage. Like I said—scattered, but hopefully interesting.

Don't forget to follow The Intersect podcast, where a conversational format explores the stories from each week's newsletter in audio form.

Technology in Music

Soundcloud Allowing Artists to Keep All of Their Distribution Royalties in Groundbreaking Decision

SoundCloud just announced something that sounds almost too good to be true: artists with paid subscriptions can now keep 100% of their distribution royalties—not just from SoundCloud itself, but from Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music too. Vice reports that the platform is also adding a direct donation button where fans can support creators without SoundCloud taking any cut. On paper, this looks like a genuine win for musicians who've been squeezed by streaming's fraction-of-a-penny economics.

But I can't help feeling cynical about the timing. SoundCloud was once at the leading edge of music streaming, especially in the early podcasting days. Since then, Spotify has swallowed the entire marketplace, leaving real competition scarce. So I find myself wondering: is this move about fairness, or is it a desperate reach for relevance by a platform that's been fading into the background?

The question isn't whether artists deserve to keep their royalties—of course they do. It's whether this generous offer signals genuine commitment or the last gasps of a service trying to differentiate itself in a market it can no longer dominate.

Will other platforms follow suit, or is this just a clever strategy by an underdog with nothing left to lose?

AI in Visual Arts

Art Troll Sneaks AI-Generated Print onto Museum Wall — Where it Hung Unnoticed by Hundreds of Viewers

Artist Elias Marrow pulled off what the New York Post calls a perfect "AI-mitation" last month—sneaking an AI-generated print onto the walls of the National Museum Cardiff, where it hung for several hours while a few hundred visitors passed by. The work, titled "Empty Plate" and complete with an official-looking plaque, depicted a boy in school uniform rendered in the style of a historical oil painting. Sharp-eyed visitors eventually caught on and alerted staff to the unauthorized addition.

What I find hilarious about this sort of guerrilla art tactic is that it's the reverse of an art heist. Instead of stealing artwork, Marrow is subversively "donating" his own work—forcing institutions to engage with questions about what deserves wall space.

Marrow claims his work is "about participation without permission," which raises an interesting question: if hundreds of people engaged with the piece before anyone realized it wasn't sanctioned, does that validate it as museum-worthy? Or does it just prove we're all terrible at spotting AI-generated imagery?

This isn't his first unsanctioned installation—he's previously placed works at Tate Modern and the Bristol Museum—so the pattern seems clear.

Photography

Have Smartphone Cameras Gotten Too Wide?

Most of us haven't consciously noticed it, but smartphone cameras have been steadily getting wider over the years—from the classic 35mm perspective to today's standard 24mm field of view. Sam Byford, writing from Tokyo for Fast Company, explores how Chinese brand Nubia is bucking this trend with the Z80 Ultra, bringing cameras back to a more natural 35mm focal length that was standard for decades in traditional photography.

I spent an entire year shooting only with my iPhone after ditching my DSLR and fancy lenses. What I discovered was exactly what this article highlights: iPhones are brilliant at wide-angle shots, but I really missed telephoto capabilities for landscapes and framing. During travel, though, hauling full camera gear became impractical. I eventually landed on a Sony point-and-shoot with fantastic zoom—truly pocket-sized but packing up to 200mm optical zoom.

Here's where I agree completely with this piece: smartphone lenses have gotten too wide, and what they haven't mastered is decent zoom levels and stabilization for everyday photography. My summer travels around Lake Champlain with that Sony were wonderful—I could go from 18mm wide to 300mm with digital zoom, all while staying light and pocketable.

But honestly, if iPhone ever solves the zoom issue, I'm all in again—one less thing to carry.

Design

From Minecraft to the Metaverse: the Power of Pixel Art

There's a curious paradox in our hyper-realistic digital age: pixel art keeps thriving. From Minecraft's blocky empire to metaverse spaces, those tiny squares refuse to fade away. A piece on TechBullion explores why this constrained medium born from hardware limitations has become an aesthetic choice that bridges nostalgia with contemporary creativity.

What draws me to this is the power of self-imposed simplicity and constraints. When you work within boundaries—limited pixels, restricted colors, deliberate placement—creativity doesn't diminish, it intensifies. Every choice carries weight. It's the visual equivalent of writing haiku: you're forced to make each element count, and that discipline creates something more expressive than unlimited options ever could.

Pixel art reminds us that beauty doesn't depend on perfection or photorealism. It depends on intention. Whether you're designing for an indie game or building in a virtual world, constraints sharpen your creative voice rather than limiting it.

Maybe that's why pixel art endures—it reveals the human hand behind the digital creation in an age increasingly dominated by machine-perfect imagery.

Interactive Art

Redefining Immersive Media Art Beyond the Screen

The Korean collective d'strict isn't chasing novelty with their immersive art installations—they're exploring what happens when technology stops distracting us and starts connecting us to each other. In a detailed Observer profile, director L.J. Kim explains how projects like "reSOUND" at Rockefeller Center and their expanding "Arte Museum" network use sound, light, and tactile environments to create experiences that feel immediate and physical rather than screen-bound.

I find this approach refreshing because I've enjoyed immersive exhibitions like those Van Gogh shows that traveled everywhere recently. But that format has started to feel standard, almost predictable. Being surrounded by digital water lilies is still spectacular, but I keep thinking the form itself has so much more potential than we've seen. What caught my attention here was the collaborative angle—an ex-web design agency working with museum standards to create exhibitions that travel but adapt to each city, weaving in local history and character.

What Kim describes resonates with something I've been turning over: the difference between technology as spectacle and technology as invitation. She tells Observer, "My hope is to use technology not as a distraction but as an invitation, bringing audiences back into direct relationship with their surroundings and with one another."

Can immersive art move beyond the initial wow factor to become a genuine platform for shared, embodied awareness?

Art & Science

The Untold Stories of Apollo 12: Lightning, Laughter, and Art

Apollo 12 might forever live in the shadow of Apollo 11's historic first steps, but this mission—launched fifty-five years ago and struck by lightning seconds after liftoff—holds stories that feel almost mythological in their blend of danger, humor, and quiet artistry. Writing for FODMAP Everyday, the article uncovers how Pete Conrad and Alan Bean turned what could have been a catastrophic launch into a mission defined by resilience and wit.

What caught my attention wasn't the lightning strike everyone talks about. It was learning that Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg quietly sent their art to the Moon. According to legend, the "Moon Museum"—a tiny ceramic chip etched with six miniature artworks—was secretly attached to the Lunar Module's leg before launch. If the story holds, it means the first art exhibition in space happened without press releases or fanfare.

The fact that engineers and artists collaborated to smuggle culture onto a spacecraft speaks to something we're still figuring out: technology isn't just about reaching new frontiers—it's about what we carry with us when we get there.

Can exploration ever be purely scientific, or do we always pack our humanity along for the ride?

Virtual and Augmented Reality in Art

The Met Launches New Immersive Virtual Reality and Online Feature with Iconic Works from Its Collection

The Metropolitan Museum of Art just launched two ambitious VR experiences—Dendur Decoded and Oceania: A New Horizon of Space and Time—giving global audiences free access to explore iconic works like the Temple of Dendur and ceremonial Oceanic art through personal VR headsets or web browsers, as reported by ArtDaily. Developed with the Atopia platform, these immersive exhibitions feature high-resolution 3D scans, interactive storytelling, and soundscapes designed to let you virtually step inside these treasured spaces.

I find myself really wanting to like this concept, but I'm also wondering how consuming virtual reality experiences will actually play out. I'd be much more likely to experiment with VR during an in-person museum visit—as augmented content for a day out. But at home? The storytelling angle feels more like it should be a guided documentary experience. I'm very unlikely to walk around my house with a VR headset on.

To visit a Met experience from home, I'd probably rather consume that content as an arts and culture TV show with the storytelling done for me. Maybe I'm missing something about what this could be like in a web browser, but the in-person experience of a cultural outing is difficult to imagine translating to a screen at home.

Are museums building these immersive experiences for how people actually want to consume cultural content, or for how they imagine we should want to?

Art and Politics

Bad Bunny Is the Latest Product of Political Rage — How Pop Culture Became the Front Line of American Politics

When the NFL announced Bad Bunny would headline the Super Bowl halftime show, conservative influencers and politicians—including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and President Trump—ignited a firestorm before he'd even performed. According to Adam G. Klein, a Pace University researcher who studies propaganda, this reveals something crucial about how modern culture wars operate.

I couldn't agree more with Klein's insight: the backlash beginning long before the event itself is a clear sign that outrage is being manufactured. We're watching political operatives reverse-engineer controversy, priming audiences to be angry about things that haven't happened yet. From Pixar's "Lightyear" to Trump's military parade to Bill Maher's dinner plans, the pattern repeats—professional partisans introduce the outrage, then watch it spread.

What struck me most in Klein's research was his interviews with local protesters from opposing sides. Both recognized they were caught in something larger than their weekly standoffs—a system converting every difference into spectacle. They saw it, resented it, and yet couldn't escape it.

On Super Bowl night, there will literally be two halftime shows—one for each America.

The Last Word

Thanks for sticking with me through this eclectic mix of stories. I'm always curious to hear which ones resonated with you or sparked questions of your own. Feel free to hit reply and share your thoughts—these conversations are what make this newsletter worthwhile.

Best, Juergen