Muse Mfg.

On the Deployment of Images

Why do humans make images? From ancient idols and religious icons to national flags, brands, and social media, humans have continually created symbolic forms to bring to visual form the private thoughts and feelings that coarse through our minds. Muse Manufacturing explores images as technologies for the materialization of significance and what we might discover by becoming more conscious participants in the images we create.

Notes written by Grandy Carson.

The ten sections below are published weekly between July – September, 2026. 

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01

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July 8, 2026

Humans and the manufacturing of images

02

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July 15, 2026

The real power of an icon may lie with something much more mortal than stone, paint, or canvas.

03

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July 22, 2026

Why humans value originals, and what happens when you literally pay with your attention.

04

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July 29, 2026

The Darwinian undercurrent of culture chooses survival for the most repeatable images.

05

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August 5, 2026

The industrialization of image manufacturing and its reshaping of active engagement into passivity.

06

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August 12, 2026

Why simulations feel increasingly more satisfying than the originals they imitate.

07

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August 19, 2026

Beyond art and representation lies a more fundamental purpose for images.

08

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August 26, 2026

 Examining modern culture’s manufactured significance and the untethered performance of rituals.

09

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September 2, 2026

From Viktor Frankl to Twinkies: what happens when significance becomes something we consume rather than cultivate?

10

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September 9, 2026

In the moment before we know what we’re supposed to think?