WMATA_4

when i sat down to start this year's set, i wanted it to speak to something that has fascinated me a lot in the post-covid world: the role news media and social media play in not just disinformation, but overall mental wellbeing. beyond the whole "it's not good" thing, but taking that a step further to the "what even is going on in my brain".

 

in the last few years, between bo burnham's funny feeling or porter robinson's nurture or everything everywhere all at once, it dawned on me that all the art that i've really resonated with is the stuff that attempts to speak, sympathetically, to that click-driven tap-driven don't-stop-never-stop algorithmic absurdity that actually ends up changing the way we think.

 

taking something sexy like an EDM drop and pairing it with something like ... public transportation services ... i mean, it will always be a fun joke to crack. but to be honest, the transit nerds out there who crack that joke are only half-joking. we want to change the narrative ... we, too, want to change the way people think. and in the last handful of years, we've made a lot of progress. today, more and more people are thinking critically about our built environments - the very framework in which we live out our lives - and are asking in productive ways, "can we be doing this any better?"

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the main sample porter uses in "mirror" is a mental health video that speaks to the voices in our heads, and how they are pretty much amalgams of the voices that surround us - how the inner voices always start as outer voices. on the more forgivable end of the spectrum, that might mean that the voices of my own self-doubt come from the folks who roll their eyes when "cole's talking about walkable communities again". on the inexplicable side of the spectrum, it might mean some lunatic pulls a weapon on a kid who knocks on their door by mistake ... because the news told them the world was coming to get them.

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all of us fall victim to bad voices at one time or another, and it's on us to consciously surround ourselves with the good voices as much as we can. the voices that are constructive, that make us better people, that equip us to make this world a better place. sometimes, those positive voices aren't even words, but the feelings you get from a joke, or a smile, or a song.

 

i hope this set is one of those positive voices!

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-cole