In regards to making our surroundings more personable, that’s very true. Related to repetition, I think people like to find patterns and order where there isn’t any.

but yeah, maybe the link to what you’re saying about personification is maybe people are reacting to this digital world by trying to humanize the machines that are steadily becoming a larger and larger parts of our lives.

I think your observations are spot on, I was going to bring up a few artists but you already nailed one of them — Warhol. It goes back even further though — to pointalism movements when Monet would paint park scenes in small dabs, but never strokes.

We certainly do have a fixation for repetition, talk about a race that has a security problem. Lions hunt for food because that’s pretty much all they’re capable of to survive, yet humans do the 9 to 5 thing just because it’s what feels the most safe. And who can blame them? Take too many risks and society frowns on you for falling behind even if you are more satisfied with your choices.

Another thing you reminded me of is an essay a friend of mine wrote a long time ago — that showed how we are also obsessed with making sense of our unknown surroundings in terms relatable to humans. I’m not talking about simply creating language to describe objects, I’m talking about the obsession we have with personification. Tables don’t have pegs or blocks or beams for support. They have legs. We don’t put layers of paint on our cars, we put coats on paint on.

Bringing PCs into the ordeal definitely makes it much harder to understand though — your knitting argument is a great example, but I think it might all boil down to enjoyment from safe repetitions.

This is something I’ll definitely give more thought to later tonight. Thanks for spreading my art finds, and for putting in so much thought to your article.