Benze De Ream: The Blue Flower Syndrome

The Blue Flower Syndrome is a discussion on palatability, power and computation encoded in a single rushed train _[of thought] // [commute]_ to an interview on a Dutch iris farm. Blending autofiction, media theory and myth, it traces the entanglements between public-facing interfaces, machinic mathematics and the data that fuels them. The work reveals how life as a product of purely probabilistic and statistical decisions expresses and roots itself through both our daily essentials, such as clothes and food, as well as historical practices and technologies that shaped them. In the afterword, Metahaven expands on the text by outlining influence design – a project in which computation operates as an ideological carrier – placing The Blue Flower Syndrome within a contemporary media landscape read through a historical-materialist lens.