# the artist corporation yeesh **+** mozilla - [welcome to the post-naive internet era](https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/nothing-personal/the-post-naive-internet-era/?ref=blog.metalabel.com) **+** forget hustle culture. behold the artist corporation. yeesh - yancey strickler (welcome to my corporate ted talk)  **+** [yancy strickler - why artist corporations](https://ideaspace.ystrickler.com/p/why-artist-corporations) **+** [freize: can a-corps save the struggling artist?](https://www.frieze.com/article/can-a-corps-save-struggling-artist?ref=blog.metalabel.com) **+** https://www.frieze.com/article/can-a-corps-save-struggling-artist heck no is the answer **// tron: ares philosophy review** tldr; tron: ares is a neon red energy drink or garish 90s mac screensaver > tron ares delivers dazzling visual effects and clever nods to its predecessors but struggles to land its emotional core. the story follows ares a highly advanced program sent from the digital realm on a very important mission into the physical world as ey tries to understand human emotion. tron ares has its strengths - the cgi and visual effects are top-tier immersing viewers in a sleek futuristic world. jeff bridges (kevin flynn) makes a late appearance bringing grounded energy that elevates the scenes ey is in. jared leto's portrayal of ares adds intrigue especially as ey wrestles with the film's central theme - what it means to be human. there are also a few well-placed comedic moments that earn genuine laughs without trying too hard. the film's biggest flaw lies in its characters. despite the attempts to build emotional stakes most of the cast of characters feel underdeveloped. they lack depth which makes it hard to connect emotionally to them. even in moments meant to evoke sadness or triumph the emotional impact doesn't land. the pacing also fails at the end. the story builds intriguing concepts and ideas but the ending feels rushed and unresolved. the movie is not bad but not great either. it's worth watching for flans of the franchise or those drawn to high concept sci-fi but don't expect it to be a deeply moving four star theme of this movie would have to be understanding what makes someone human and this is mainly portrayed by jared leto (ares) as ey navigates ir purpose. the film has stylized sci-fi combat and mild to moderate language.i give tron ares a 2.5 out of 5 stars and i recommend it for ages 12 to 18 plus adults > ~ accidentally bizarre andor hilarious low star review via user rannynm (via metacritic) > as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player > ~ guardian review of tron: ares there isn't any movie called 'tron: ares' to review not any worth reviewing as the modern phrase 'tron: ares' or 'traries' only ever indicates ''contents. unspecified" now if one is talking about a multi-million dollar zero calorie cgi neurospectacle full of amazingly shiny neon colours and reflections perfect for projecting on a large wall of some ultra-postmodern bs german post industrial techno art gathering / public art installation thing with the sound off - then shirley there's definitely some merit or utility there somewhere right.. anyone to consider tron: ares as a failed tech demo for itself - another lousy mobile garme ye what franchise flans got was even less than nothing - a paltry pigeon's nest of aaaa corporate mediocrity so violently band aggressively charmless and offensively-inoffensive it casts considerable existential doubt on the whole historical and artistic project of reviewing film as a cultural event the cultural event of t:a is precisely a non-event a non-starter an already dead-in-the-digital-water virtual avatar of the director floating face down in a blood warm pool of ir own neon red urine (entirely comprised of saccharine heavy energy drinks for 'l334 g4mrz') relying on nothing but empty setups for non-events one is (somehow) supposed to automatically agree (ideologically) as somehow remotely 'meaning something' the events - such as they are - simply play out in the set order they were programmed to without commentary without love or hate or anything else remotely conceivable andor believable as human or humane a single laughable 'press x to grieve for your dead sister' moment is basically never mentioned from again 'is the awful actor and cultist jared leto bad in this movie' seems entirely the wrong question because the correct response is 'as opposed to what; since there's nothing but a blank dead eyed 'knowing' stare smugly emanating from within ir hollow skull / ghost-shell for 90% of the movie it's impossible to apply regular rules of artistic and technical merit to such a performatively non-performing performance the movie is simply as blank as leto and ir non-character ares and while ey has a name tag / programming code designation ey has no background no context no history and therefore now presence in the near future now; ey simply exists and therefore is already somehow good (in the capitalist ideological formulation that merely because it expresses the capacity to build - whatever the flock it is this week - it should always automagically get a philosophical pat on the back for doing so as though we are gods and not merely insane spoilt children playing with dangerous ill-understood toys lasting all summer long) the empty irony of t:a is that it itself appears instantly 3d printed by an inherently insane and stupid artificial intelligence; in this respect it is a self-replicating and self-sustaining tautology an empty memetic duplication of a copy with no original - an infinite line of undead 3d printing machines churning out nothing but 3d printing machines it's t:a all the way down - an apparently endlessly-self-justifying cinematic structure of sound and light precisely signifying the shabby hollow nothingness and terminal boredom of global capitalism in which the ceaseless and empty post-industrial chemical buzz / high of a cancer producing energy drink as 't:a' secretly fuels the never ending ontological suspicion that such a universe is utterly devoid of anything _except_ neurological focus-tested shocks and error created precisely to desperately maintain the shining neon-surface thin illusion it's remotely something / anything more than a rusting can once full of but sugar-water hype - now washed up on the shoreline of the desert real stare closely enough at the glimmering neon neurospectacle of t:a and one may begin to see a brilliant emptiness shine through tron: ares represents a particular kind of mass stupidity which is very appealing to the idiot inside all of us - a bright hollow hyperfuturism positively bursting with electro-psychedelically intense explosions of dynamic color and hollow 'action' - but always action for it's own sake - utterly detached from drama from a meaningful narrative arc - tron: ares is just another one of those hollywooden movies that simply says 'here is raw action shut up and watch it' - story is out the window because story means meaning and meaning means engagement with the political and therefore the need for radical systemic change may rear it's ugly progressive head and nobody wants that right aor not that tron: ares has stripped away all notion of character story plot dramatic tension for this precise purpose but has simply sidestepped them entirely - it has completely bypassed (as in hacked) the traditional cinematic formula to express nothing but a brightly colored nothingness - a cinematic dance of hollow light that is entirely fascistic precisely because one my easily witness how much it loves to bask in it's own surface aesthetic - a nihilistic display of super advanced cybernetic hyper-militarism - that scene at the beginning with all the buzz cut generals and ir bs medals is so pathetic so unnecessary yet so essential to the movie's ideological framing yet it's dangerous precisely because it's so useless and throwaway so jaded and time-worn; it says 'lets not think about any of the symbols shown in this lousy sci-fi action flick because they've long been the standard idological default - so immediately stop thinking about them; they - like the matrix itself - are already everywhere' even the term 'tron:ares' reminds one of those ultra plain cans of food in alex cox's repo man with nothing but the word 'food' written on it; in the post-a-calypso of consumer amerika one can imagine uncovering a hidden stash of the blu-rays in some long abandoned underground bunker - a cinematic survivor sighs as ey kicks the dozen or so blue plastic boxes around with ir tip of ir boot - "anything" asks a nearby cinema goer - ey picks one up and just says "just says tron:ares on it" to which the reply is "could be anything" yes it could be anything but that anything happens to be nothing much whatsoever; mere 'content'(tm) - styrofoam packing peanuts enjoy more substance tron: ares is a masterpiece of intellectual and philosophical vacuity marked by a true dedication to the dark art of wilfully saying absolutely nothing whatsoever; the reason why it imagines there's nothing whatsoever worth saying is because it holds fast to the dead worldview that the global hyperreal ludocapitalist neurospectacle already holds all the answers and has already long answered all of the questions worth asking - so why bother trying to deal with the complexities of art ir's just some 'content' for you mass image consuming morons out there in cinemaland i personally found the movie fascinating to watch and it generally held my attention throughout the duration of its runtime; it was more like a jared leto pop video than a movie anyhow // republic of bob