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June 3, 2026

Near Morning

On the hour when nothing is resolved — four pairings between art and a world still deciding what it is

There is a specific quality of attention that arrives in the dark before dawn — not hope exactly, not despair, just a kind of alert suspension. The trees are still. The light hasn't committed to anything yet. Today's four pairings live in that hour.

We found a Jim Carrey clone at a French awards ceremony, a Monopoly card standing in for actual freedom, a broadcast corrupted in real time, and a summit of oligarchs in a city being bombed. Each situation demands double vision: the official face and the thing beneath it.

The artists gathered here aren't illustrating the news. They're offering instruments for seeing through it — not cynically, but precisely, the way good eyes need time to adjust to the dark.

(not) Jim Carrey by Wasteman Goldmineovich
Identity

The true meaning of Trump's choice for America's new top spy

Wasteman Goldmineovich saw the videos. "They sent a Jim Carrey clone to some French awards ceremony," the description reads — deadpan, conspiratorial, and somehow totally plausible in a world that has spent years testing what we'll believe. The piece forces the fundamental anxiety of public performance: is the person in front of you the one you think you're watching? The question sounds absurd until you hold it next to the news that Trump has made his choice for America's next intelligence director. Intelligence work is, professionally, the management of this exact uncertainty — who is actually in the room, who is performing which identity for which audience, and who holds the authority to declare what's real. The Director of National Intelligence doesn't just collect information; they curate what the government officially believes. Wasteman's piece refuses to be ironic about its own premise. It presents the clone theory with the same matter-of-fact sincerity one might use to describe seeing a car accident. That's the precise register in which conspiracy and officialdom are starting to blur — not melodrama, but bureaucratic calm. Both the art and the news story ask the same question from opposite ends of the credibility spectrum: who, exactly, is running things?

(not) Jim Carrey

by Wasteman Goldmineovich

"They sent a Jim Carrey clone to some French awards ceremony. I didn't believe it at first but then I watched the YouTube videos. It makes you wonder who else they've cloned."

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Get Out of Jail Free by uzupis
Confinement

New Jersey sues Delaney Hall operators for access after allegations of inhumane conditions

Made in Microsoft Paint. Dimensions: 1000×1000. The piece is a precise reproduction of the Monopoly Community Chest card — "Get Out of Jail Free. This card may be kept until needed or sold." uzupis renders it in the flattest possible medium, the digital equivalent of a child's crayon, which is also the medium in which this country has always preferred to think about incarceration: as a game mechanic, a color-coded board, something that happens to tokens. New Jersey is suing the operators of Delaney Hall for access — allegations of inhumane conditions inside what is functionally an ICE detention facility. The people inside don't have the card. The card doesn't exist as issued. What exists is a private operator with a government contract, sealed rooms, and the bureaucratic weight of a system that has decided certain people need not be immediately visible. The Monopoly board has always been a strange place to learn economics. It has never been a stranger place than now — at the precise moment when the state is arguing in court about whether it gets to see what's happening inside cages it contracted into existence. uzupis made this before that lawsuit. The lawsuit is the annotation.

Get Out of Jail Free

by uzupis

"Community Chest: Get out of jail free. This card may be kept until needed or sold. Made with Microsoft Paint."

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MINDGAME by Kyle Flemmer
Broadcast

Scott Pelley fired by CBS after '60 Minutes' clash with management

Kyle Flemmer describes his process with the precision of a technician: screen recording of Tetris (1988) for NES, glitched with Real-Time Corruptor, recomposed in Aseprite. Eight frames. The result looks like what happens when a structure that was supposed to fit together cleanly starts receiving the wrong signals — pixels migrating to incorrect addresses, the game playing itself wrong while remaining technically operational. Tetris is, at its core, about fitting things into a coherent whole. The pieces come faster as the logic demands more complexity. At some point, the gap between what you need and what arrives becomes irreconcilable, and the stack hits the ceiling. Scott Pelley didn't quit '60 Minutes.' He was pushed out after what the story describes as a "clash with management" — which is to say: the pieces stopped fitting. The signal that built sixty years of institutional credibility met the real-time corruption of corporate interest in political normalcy, and something broke in the architecture. Flemmer literally runs vintage Tetris through a Real-Time Corruptor. Not unlike what's been happening to journalism. Flemmer calls this piece MINDGAME, which is either very on-the-nose or very generous — depending on which side of the edit you're on.

MINDGAME

by Kyle Flemmer

"THE DIRTY DOZEN No. 10 — Screen recording of Tetris (1988) glitched with Real-Time Corruptor and recomposed in Aseprite."

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Near morning by MinaTk
Power

Ukraine targets St Petersburg as 'Putin's Davos' gets underway

MinaTk made this in After Effects and Photoshop. Twenty-nine frames. Trees swaying in wind that is specifically dark-near-morning wind — the kind that has no destination yet, that moves for the sake of movement before the day's agenda arrives. "It is dark near morning," the description reads, and that sentence lands differently when held against the image of Ukraine striking St. Petersburg during the opening hours of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum — Putin's annual summit for oligarchs, ministers, and the international businessmen who've decided that pragmatism outweighs principle. The Forum proceeds. The drones arrive. The city hosting the party is the city being attacked, and the party continues — because parties like this have always continued, because the geometry of power requires that the room stay lit even when the building is on fire. MinaTk's trees don't know about any of this. They sway because the wind moves them. The dark near morning doesn't care about the forum's agenda, the way that weather has never cared about schedules. There is something clarifying about that indifference. It doesn't resolve anything. It just holds the frame open long enough to see what's actually in it.

Near morning

by MinaTk

"It is dark near morning. The trees are swaying in the gentle wind."

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The Trees Are Still Swaying

What MinaTk actually captures in Near Morning isn't despair — it's the patience required to wait for clarity. The swaying trees aren't falling. They're present.

That's what these pairings ask for: presence in the ambiguous hour. Not resolution. Not explanation. Just the discipline to stay in the frame long enough to see what's actually there.

The light will come. Until then, we keep looking.

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