Standing in one of the monks' corridors at Museo San Marco in Florence last week, looking at Fra Angelico's fresco of Christ's descent into Limbo — the quiet gesture of a hand extended toward the waiting souls, the broken gate of Hell at his feet, the demon lurking at the edge — I couldn't stop thinking about Joakim Skovgaard's Kristus i de dødes rige at Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
The two works are separated by four and a half centuries, yet the iconographic conversation between them felt almost too deliberate to be coincidence. The same subject: Christ descending to the dead, the crowd of souls reaching upward, the vanquished serpents underfoot, the strange suspended light breaking into a dark space. Skovgaard's version is more turbulent, more Symbolist, more Nordic — but the compositional DNA is unmistakably there.
I found myself wondering: did Skovgaard visit San Marco? He traveled to Italy in the 1880s and 1890s — the timing would fit. And if he stood in this very corridor, looking at this very fresco, what did he see that he later carried home to Copenhagen?
Sometimes the most interesting conversation in art history is the one that was never written down.
04/20/2026 21:15:26
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- Standing in one of the monks' corridors at Museo San Marco in Florence last week, looking at Fra Angelico's fresco of Christ's descent into Limbo — the quiet gesture of a hand extended toward the waiting souls, the broken gate of Hell at his feet, the demon lurking at the edge — I couldn't stop thinking about Joakim Skovgaard's Kristus i de dødes rige at Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
The two works are separated by four and a half centuries, yet the iconographic conversation between them felt almost too deliberate to be coincidence. The same subject: Christ descending to the dead, the crowd of souls reaching upward, the vanquished serpents underfoot, the strange suspended light breaking into a dark space. Skovgaard's version is more turbulent, more Symbolist, more Nordic — but the compositional DNA is unmistakably there.
I found myself wondering: did Skovgaard visit San Marco? He traveled to Italy in the 1880s and 1890s — the timing would fit. And if he stood in this very corridor, looking at this very fresco, what did he see that he later carried home to Copenhagen?
Sometimes the most interesting conversation in art history is the one that was never written down. (04/20/2026 21:15:26)
- Standing in front of this painting at @palazzostrozzi #rothkoinflorence I kept thinking about a line from #christopherrothko ’s Rothko: From the Inside Out:
“Without input from the screen, the twenty-first-century being faces a profound and existentially unbearable uncertainty.”
It’s striking how relevant that feels today—maybe even more than when it was written. We’ve become so used to constant input, constant direction, constant distraction. The screen tells us what to see, what to think, what to feel next.
But Rothko does the opposite.
He gives you almost nothing—and in doing so, everything. No narrative, no instruction, no escape. Just color, silence, and yourself. And maybe that’s exactly why it feels uncomfortable… and necessary.
Perhaps we should spend less time scrolling and more time standing still in front of paintings like this.
Yes, I’m aware of the irony of posting this here. (04/19/2026 16:32:58)
- During our trip to Nepal, we visited the ChangTang workshop in Kathmandu through Pia Dams, a Dane living there. The artisans weave carpets and clothes from the wool of Tibetan goats and yaks.
I was deeply fascinated to see the Jacquard loom in use — a direct ancestor of modern computing — and it immediately brought to mind Amalie Smith’s book Thread Ripper.
Thread Ripper is a multi-threaded story about weaving: about creating a digitally woven tapestry while simultaneously weaving through love and life. It recalls Ada Lovelace, who during the first industrial revolution foresaw the link between the loom and the computer.
Today, Smith writes from the edge of the fourth industrial revolution, where biology and software intertwine — nerve tissue, plant tissue, the fabric of screens, the webs of love, of ancestry, and of digital networks. And the small bugs that can creep into these digital textiles. (10/18/2025 15:56:28)
- Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of joining @morten.kjaersgaard for a podcast conversation about digital sovereignty — a topic close to my heart and also the theme of the upcoming book that @bovenielsen and I will soon publish.
Morten is producing a new podcast series on digital sovereignty as part of his platform digitalsuveraenitet.dk, and I was honoured to be the first guest in the series.
It was wonderful to revisit our shared history — from when Morten and I co-founded Open Source Leverandørforening back in the 2000s — and to reflect on how those early discussions about openness and technology have evolved into today’s debates about sovereignty, infrastructure, and control in the digital age.
I look forward to hearing the rest of the series and to continuing this important conversation! @michellehorstboell (10/18/2025 10:50:34)
- Jens and I went to the screening of Intimacy Class tonight at Husets Biograf 🎬 Such a beautifully produced short film by a very talented filmmaker – both moving and thought-provoking. Great to see this kind of cross-cultural collaboration happening here in Copenhagen. (09/30/2025 20:08:42)
- This evening Jens and I went to see #prometheus at @noerrebroteater. We were both truly impressed — partly because Jens just discussed Prometheus and the myth of the fire-bringing titan in his classics course at high school, and partly because I recently wrestled my way through #petersloterdijk Prometheus’ Anger. A rare moment when theatre, philosophy, and schoolwork all came together. (09/29/2025 23:41:22)
- Every so often, someone proudly declares that they’ve “quit algorithms.” They’ve left Facebook, stopped using Spotify, deleted Instagram and Twitter — and feel liberated from the invisible code that shapes our attention. I understand the impulse. Social media recommendation engines can be addictive, manipulative, and mentally draining.
But to say you’ve opted out of algorithms altogether is a comforting illusion.
Algorithms are not just the feeds on your phone. They are the quiet, unseen logic that keeps modern life running. The GPS that shows you the fastest way home runs on sophisticated graph algorithms. The payment systems that move money between your bank and a shop depend on cryptographic algorithms to stay secure. Hospitals schedule surgeries and analyze scans using algorithmic decision tools that save lives. Energy grids use optimization algorithms to balance wind and solar power so the lights don’t go out. Every time you take a photo, a bundle of algorithms sharpens, brightens, and stabilizes it.
Even the most analog-seeming experiences rely on them. Airline routes, package delivery, and train timetables are optimized by complex code. Climate models and weather forecasts — the ones we trust before a weekend trip — are massive algorithmic simulations. Noise-canceling headphones? Algorithms. Automatic braking in your car? Algorithms. Your phone’s spell-check? Algorithms.
Avoiding algorithmic feeds might be wise for mental health. But algorithms themselves aren’t optional. They’re infrastructure — as fundamental as electricity or roads. The real question isn’t whether to use them, but how to use them well, with transparency and restraint, instead of letting them quietly shape our lives without oversight.
You can log off Instagram. You can delete Spotify. But you can’t live outside algorithms. They’re woven into the modern world — often invisibly, often for your benefit. (09/28/2025 14:22:22)
- One compelling thread in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s essay The Reenchanted World (also in Weekendavisen as Verden, der forsvandt / Tallenes tale) is the idea—voiced explicitly by James Bridle—that we need to understand the technologies that shape our lives. Not just use them. Understand them. Bridle calls it technological literacy, and recounts how learning to code and building solar-powered tools helped lift them out of climate paralysis. It gave them agency—“a feeling of competence in the face of very complex systems.” This recalls Douglas Rushkoff’s famous warning: “Program or be programmed.” In a world governed by algorithms and abstract systems, those who don’t understand how computation works risk becoming passive objects of its influence. Knausgaard seems to agree—but can’t quite follow through. He describes himself as technologically illiterate and overwhelmed. The entire essay is a kind of lyrical circling around this alienation, filled with metaphors of lost connection and pseudo-experience. He travels, reads, talks, observes—but never crosses the line into technical engagement. While Bridle builds tools and teaches code, Knausgaard remains on the other side, writing about not understanding. The result is a moving and beautifully written meditation on technological disempowerment—but also a quiet reminder that understanding begins with participation.
https://rushkoff.com/books/program-or-be-programmed/ (08/15/2025 18:17:01)
- Just finished reading Karl Ove Knausgaard’s two-part essay on computers and technology—first published in Harper’s as The Reenchanted World, now also translated in Weekendavisen (Verden, der forsvandt and Tallenes tale). I must admit I was expecting insight into how Knausgaard sees the role of computers, information technology, and artificial intelligence in our lives today. What I got instead was a long meditation on not knowing anything about computers, interspersed with memories of his youth in 1980s Norway, a gardening anecdote, a brain surgery observation, and an ayahuasca trip in Greece.
Yes, the writing is evocative. Yes, the mood of alienation is palpable. But the structure wanders so much that it ends up mirroring the very problem he’s describing: being overwhelmed, adrift, disconnected. I kept wishing he’d go deeper into the actual functioning and logic of digital systems, or offer a more coherent critique of how computation and abstraction have restructured our reality. Instead, it becomes an essay about not being able to write an essay on the topic—ironically highlighting the loss of “an outside” to technology while never quite grappling with the inside of it. A missed opportunity, though with beautiful detours. https://harpers.org/archive/2025/06/the-reenchanted-world-karl-ove-knausgaard-digital-age/ (08/15/2025 18:06:51)