Benign Malevolence is a navigating the HYPERREAL

Vision:

The global village has brought incredible advances in human connectivity. In particular, it has transformed how we share ideas and build communities across borders.

However, like all significant innovations, it comes with significant challenges. For example, mental illness rates are rising, and information overload is a growing concern.

Consequently, we must ask ourselves critical questions: Are we equipped to handle the sheer volume of available information? Moreover, is our privacy being compromised by the culture industry’s push to commercialize our data?

Mission:

Benign Malevolence is an online community where artists and researchers collaborate to better understand the culture industry.

By artists, for artists.

Want to join BM?

01. OVERVIEW

Our Story

2019

Strokes

Started a streetwear brand called 'Strokes' to explore the relationship between art and fashion. This project gave me firsthand insight into how the culture industry operates, raising questions about the commercialization of art and its effects on both creators and consumers.

2020

Post-Secondary Studies

While studying philosophy and the creative industries at university, I dove deeper into understanding the relationship between content producers and consumers. My research revealed how the culture industry shapes society and consciousness. This led me to close Strokes and refocus my mission within the culture industry.

2022

Jaustindev

I established a blog to share my experiences with the culture industry. While running the site, I discovered many other creators who shared these same sentiments. A community naturally began forming in this online space.

2024

Benign Malevolence

Now, inspired by thinkers like Adorno and Debord, we actively research solutions rather than simply criticizing the system.

02. Branding

Email List

INSPIRATION

Constructivism

“For the Constructivists, artworks were part of a greater visual program meant to awaken the masses and lead them towards awareness of class divisions, social inequalities, and revolution. The Constructivists believed that art had no place in the hermetic space of the artist’s studio. Rather, they thought that art should reflect the industrial world and that it should be used as a tool in the Communist revolution.” – Shira Wolfe

Cartoon Characters - Peter Griffin, Yosemite Sam, etc.

Dr. Strangelove

Eugène Delacroix - Liberty Leading The People

Fallout

Franco "Bifo" Berardi's The Politics of Irony

According to Berardi, late capitalism is not simply an economic position, but also a moral and ontological one, which leads individuals to exhaustion, depression and anxiety. Drawing on the analyses of post-industrial capitalism informed by Deleuze, Guattari, Baudrillard, Negri and Marazzi, Berardi’s writing focuses on the ways in which the development of capitalism and neoliberalism have entered the human psyche, emotions and desires as well as working practices.

K-Punk

k-punk.org

A series of blogs by Mark Fisher

Logos - Kool-Aid, Monopoly Man, Pringles, etc.

Mark fisher - Acid Communism

Mark Fisher - "No One Is Bored, Everything Is Boring"

“One of the most intriguing and provocative pieces on politics and culture this year was We Are All Very Anxious by the Institute of Precarious Consciousness (the essay gained a great deal of attention when it was republished on Plan C’s website). It argues that the key problematic affect capitalism now faces is anxiety. In an earlier, Fordist era, it was boredom that was the “dominant reactive affect”. Repetitive labour on production lines engendered boredom, which was both the central form of subjugation under Fordism and the source of a new oppositional politics….”

Theodor Adorno - Aesthetic Theory

““The subjectivist approach to art simply fails to understand that the subjective experience of art in itself is meaningless, and that in order to grasp the importance of art one has to zero in on the artistic object rather than on the fun of the art lover.” – Adorno, Aesthetic Theory

“The darkening of the world makes the irrationality of art rational: radically darkened art.” – Adorno, Aesthetic Theory

“Art respects the masses, by confronting them as that which they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.” – Adorno, Aesthetic Theory

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer - The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception

The ruthless unity in the culture industry is evidence of what will happen in politics. Marked differentiations such as those of A and B films, or of stories in magazines in different price ranges, depend not so much on subject matter as on classifying, organising, and labelling consumers. Something is provided for all so that none may escape; the distinctions are emphasised and extended. The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of mass-produced products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification. Everybody must behave (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his previously determined and indexed level, and choose the category of mass product turned out for his type. Consumers appear as statistics on research organisation charts, and are divided by income groups into red, green, and blue areas; the technique is that used for any type of propaganda….” – Theodor Adorno, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception

Walter Benjamin - The Work of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction

When the age of mechanical reproduction separated art from it’s basis in cult, the semblance of it’s autonomy disappeared forever. The resulting change in the function of art transcended the perspective of the century. (226)…” – Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Benign Malevolence Slogan

DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI

"IT IS SWEET AND FITTING TO DIE FOR ONE'S CREATIVITY"

History Lesson: The Roman poet Horace wrote ‘It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country’ during Rome’s civil wars, promoting patriotic sacrifice. Yet in his only battle at Philippi, he dropped his shield and fled at first sight of blood. This gap between his words and actions mirrors the ironic contradictions we study in today’s culture industry.