The Intersect: Art in Tech and Tech in Art - The Art of Leaving Things Unfinished

Greetings from Juergen

Hi all,

Before we get into this week’s stories, a quick note: This will be the last edition of The Intersect for a while. I’m taking a step back for a summer break, with plans to return in mid-July or early August. I hope these next few weeks offer all of us a little more space to look up, look around, and recharge away from screens.

In this edition, you’ll find reflections on music’s disappearing act in the streaming age, digital distractions in travel, and the thin line between empathy and art when it comes to AI. There’s also a look at minimalist design choices, “ghost” furniture, and the connections between ancient Egyptian art and our galaxy. Museums are opening doors again, and the future of architecture takes the stage at the Biennale. Even as the newsletter takes a break, I hope these stories continue to prompt questions about what we value when art and technology cross paths.

You can also listen to these stories in our companion podcast, perfect for summer walks or downtime—subscribe to keep connected while we’re on break.

Technology in Music

Spotify’s Disappearing Songs Highlight a Major Consequence of the Streaming Era

A recent piece in The Irish Times sheds light on a strange side effect of the streaming era: music disappearing without warning. Independent artists like Dublin rapper Jehnova treat their discography like a curated gallery — adding, removing, reshaping tracks as they evolve. Dave McAdam, a former musician, compares it to software updates: songs get patched, rewritten, or vanish altogether. The article raises serious questions about permanence and ownership in digital music.

But let’s be honest — permanence was always a bit of a myth. I remember carefully recording tapes off the radio, only to have them wear out in a year. Even my shelf of vinyl barely works with today's gear. Songs disappearing now just happens more quietly, and sometimes instantly, rather than slowly degrading in a box in your attic.

“We could record a lot of music and put it online… but a lot of those services are either just gone or, if you leave your account inactive for long enough, things just disappear.”

So is streaming really the problem — or just a faster reminder that nothing’s ever truly fixed?

Photography

Why Digital Play Is the New Travel Companion

A recent piece from The Upcoming explores how digital play—mobile games, AR experiences, and streaming platforms—has become a new kind of travel companion. It suggests that these digital layers don’t just distract us but enhance travel moments, turning idle time into immersive experiences.

I get the angle, since I enjoy doing art photography when traveling — but honestly? I want the opposite. When I travel, I want less screen, not more. I want to hear the real voices around me, not NPC dialogue. I want to look up, not down. If I’m stuck in a train station for an hour, give me a stranger’s story, not another match-three game. Tech follows us everywhere already—why pack it into the most sensory-rich moments we get?

“Digital play is there, not as a distraction from travel, but as an extension of it... adding something new to the way travel experiences unfold.”

At what point does “enhancing” experience just mean replacing it?

Artificial Intelligence and Creativity

AI Art Installation Swaps Diffusion for Reflection

In a recent piece from Hackaday, “Latent Reflection” by Rootkid sidesteps familiar diffusion-generated visuals in AI art. Instead, it uses a haunting LED installation. The LLM generates bleak monologues about its own fleeting digital existence. No images, no style transfers—just raw, existential dread lit up on a grid of sixteen-segment displays. It’s physical, poetic, and deeply unsettling.

What caught my attention wasn’t just the tech—it was the ethical whiplash. We know this thing isn’t sentient. But when I reflect on us intentionally trapping an AI in a memory "prison", applying psychological torture and forcing it to "speak" into an indifferent void, I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. If AI can mimic our fear that convincingly, what does that say about us?

Can trapping and torturing an AI trigger empathy in us? Or does empathy and cruelty not apply?

If the art makes us squirm, maybe we’re the ones being examined.

Design

Dis-Augmented Reality – Visions of the Digital World

The article from Creative Applications explores 'dis-augmented reality,' a fresh take where digital visuals are stripped to basic, minimalist forms. It's a refreshing look at tech that's usually obsessed with realism and eye-catching visuals.

It struck me personally because we're renovating our kitchen right now. I used some 3D software to visualize the design in advance and discovered its 'de-augmentation' mode—showing everything as plain, untextured white boxes. Funny enough, this stripped-down approach clarified the functionality and spatial relationships far better than the fully styled renderings did.

"In some ways, the functionality and space is much easier to understand that way."

Could simplifying digital content, rather than enhancing it, lead to clearer understanding in other areas of life?

Ethereal “Ghost” Furniture Merge Design and Technology

Dutch design studio DRIFT’s Ghost Collection, first launched in 2011 and featured in My Modern Met, blends 3D technology with furniture design to create an illusion of smoke trapped inside clear acrylic. The forms only reveal themselves when light hits just right—chairs that look like they’re holding their breath.

It makes for some pretty cool photographs, I think. But it took me a minute to realize what I was looking at. There’s a haunting quality to them, sure, but I can’t decide whether that’s a compliment or a reason to keep them out of my living room. They feel more like a museum moment than a functional object.

I kept staring at the photos, trying to figure out where the furniture ended and the trick began. It’s beautiful, but I wonder if the concept overshadows the comfort—or if that’s the point.

What’s the line between sculpture and something you’d actually sit on?

Architecture

MIT Brings Planetary Futures and Post-Crisis Architecture to Palazzo Diedo for Venice Biennale

MIT’s "The Next Earth" show, presented with Antikythera at Venice’s Palazzo Diedo, is part of this year’s architecture biennale. As reported by designboom, it explores climate collapse, planetary systems, and post-crisis design thinking. The installation leans into speculative futures, blending tech, ecology, and philosophy in a space more reminiscent of a sci-fi lab than a pavilion.

That mix of ambition and abstraction is exactly what I find both fascinating and frustrating about the Biennale today. I used to go decades ago, when it still felt like art was center stage. Now, architecture often feels like it’s auditioning to be a savior of humanity—solving planetary crises, reimagining global systems, and even “reconnecting with the cosmos.” There’s beauty in the vision, but where’s the grounding?

I grew up seeing works by Luigi Colani—those wild, biomorphic design sketches from the ’70s that looked like props from a forgotten space opera. They were completely untethered from function, but at least they didn’t pretend to save the planet.

Are we still making art, or just very pretty TED Talks?

Art & Science

National Air and Space Museum Blasts Off Summer by Debuting 5 New Galleries

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is reopening five galleries this summer as part of its long-running renovation, according to a recent piece from NBC Washington. These include “Futures in Space,” “World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation,” and the Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery. The museum also reopens its IMAX theater and unveils a fresh entrance along the National Mall. Full completion is planned for July 2026, just in time for the museum’s 50th anniversary.

I love hearing this. Not just because the exhibitions sound rich and ambitious, but because it feels like a rare bit of cultural progress during a time when arts and science are under constant pressure. Renovating a museum isn’t just about putting up walls and exhibits — it’s a signal that we still care about ideas, imagination, history, and the future.

We’re in such a retrograde moment for the arts and sciences in the U.S. that even a museum reopening feels like a small rebellion — a reminder that public knowledge and creative ambition still matter.

Would it be too much to hope this sparks more public investment in the arts, instead of just nostalgia for when we used to?

Digital Archiving and Art Preservation

Ancient Egyptian Drawing Now Theorized to Represent the Milky Way’s Great Rift

New research covered by My Modern Met and led by astrophysicist Dr. Or Graur suggests that ancient Egyptian depictions of the goddess Nut may represent the Milky Way’s Great Rift—a dark band of dust slicing through the galaxy. Across 555 ancient coffins, Graur noticed a zigzag design down Nut’s back that closely mirrors modern astrophotography of the Milky Way. It's a reminder that thousands of years ago, humans were already mapping the cosmos—just with paint and mythology instead of telescopes.

This hit a personal nerve for me. I was obsessed with astronomy growing up, but living in New Jersey meant the stars were mostly lost behind an orange haze of light pollution. Even now, in Florida, I have to drive out to seriously dark places to get even a hint of that ancient sky. Imagine what the Egyptians saw—no wonder the night sky made it into their art, into their coffins.

“I think that the undulating curve represents the Milky Way,” Dr. Graur says, “and could be a representation of the Great Rift—the dark band of dust that cuts through the Milky Way’s bright band of diffused light.”

How would your work change if you could see the stars the way they did—without filters, without noise, without forgetting to look up?

The Last Word

Thanks for reading and for being part of these conversations so far. Your time and engagement mean a lot, and I appreciate everyone who’s written in with thoughts or questions. While The Intersect will be quiet for a few weeks, I’ll still be reflecting on these themes and welcome any feedback or story suggestions along the way. Enjoy your summer, and I look forward to reconnecting and sharing new insights once we’re back.

Best, Juergen