Christian Caliandro on Degradation and the Android Condition

Christian Caliandro, art historian and professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, publishes a series of reflections from Stockholm (July 8–11, 2017) on the theme of degradation. He opens with a quote from Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968) describing silence as a living, oppressive force. Caliandro argues that contemporary culture produces only low-fidelity copies of history, citing museum guides that offer banal, simplified narratives for tourists. He links this to a broader degradation affecting relationships, professions, texts, music, clothing, spirituality, and artworks. As an example, he notes that rock'n'roll originated as a degraded version of jazz, quoting Miles Davis on how white critics promoted free jazz to diminish black musicians' importance, leading to the rise of white pop music. Caliandro also critiques the theory that significant art has always been subordinate to power, calling it puerile and a projection of baby-boomer experience onto history. He suggests that the contemporary condition may be one of becoming androids, echoing Dick's novel. The article is published on Artribune and promotes the magazine's newsletters: Incanti (art market), Render (urban regeneration), and PAX (cultural tourism).