Marcus Leis Allion | Undt

A graphical image with the logo of Grok being torn into pieces. A quote is running in a circle around the logo: The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying glass.

New article on NaNtxt:
Grok, A Logo a-λόγος — from @marcusleisallion.bsky.social

www.nan.xyz/txt/grok-a-l...

Marcus delivers a critique of the logo of xAI’s Grok that condenses and reveals the ideological logic of contemporary computation.

Interesting to see/read

Grok: A Logo a-lóyos
www.nan.xyz/txt/grok-a-l...

My essay exploring how the logo for xAI’s Grok condenses and reveals the ideological logic of contemporary computation.

Featuring original visual interpretations by Yang Yang
www.instagram.com/ooosheepooo

@nan-xyz.bsky.social

Pronunciation:
Logos (λόγος) > LOH-goss
Logos (logotype) > LOH-goze

A logo a–λόγος is not a symbol of unreason, but of that which renders λόγος inoperative.

a–
The prefix a– denotes absence, privation, or negation—‘not,’ ‘without,’ or ‘lacking.’ Thus, a–λόγος suggests not mere opposition to reason, but its suspension, suppression, or erasure—a condition in which the relational and reflective capacities of thought are voided.

Rather than composing a trademark from individual lead sorts, printers cast a single piece bearing the entire word or phrase: a logotype. This method streamlined production, ensured consistency, and marked the industrialisation and commodification of linguistic expression.

Logos
In typography and printing, the word logo comes from logotype, a compound of logos (word) and typos (mark, impression, or form). The term arose from the practicalities of movable type.

In ancient philosophy λόγος denotes not only rational discourse but also the underlying order or logic of the cosmos — the structured intelligibility of being.

λόγος
λόγος (logos) is a richly polysemous Greek term that encompasses a rich array of meanings, from reason, word, speech as well as measure, and account.

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay coming soon
nan.xyz/txt @nan-xyz.bsky.social

Image: λόγος / logos (letters loosely based on Grok wordmark, designer unknown)

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay soon
@nan-xyz.bsky.social

Image: Splinter

Not a sign of a synthetic sublime,
but our own over-cohered vision—where accretion irritates, and something slips in. Or, as Adorno writes in Minima Moralia: ‘The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass.’

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay coming mid-May
nan.xyz/txt @nan_xyz_

Image: Computotality

Computotality encloses emergence within recursive capture. What appears as possibility bends back into the system, where resonance is formalised and contingency absorbed.

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay coming mid-May
nan.xyz/txt @nan_xyz_

Image: Inversion

David M. Berry’s concept of ‘the Inversion’ describes a major shift in cultural production under the influence of AI and algorithmic systems.

stunlaw.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-...

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay coming mid-May
nan.xyz/txt @nan_xyz

The symbol ∅, denoting the empty set or the void, was introduced around 1939 by André Weil.

Image: Graphic of ∅
Typeface: Work Sans by Wei Huang

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay coming soon
nan.xyz/txt

Image: Dialectical movement proceeds through contradiction—each turn expanding, negating, and transforming what came before.

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay coming soon
nan.xyz/txt @nan_xyz

Image: Graphic made from Ben Feder’s cover of ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ (1961).

Grok: A Logo a-λόγος
New essay coming soon
nan.xyz/txt

Image: Auguste Rodin, Cariatide tombée portant sa pierre, agrandissement d'un tiers, Conceived Circa 1881–82 and carved in 1893–94.

Worth reading Lev Manovich’s short text, Artificial Aesthetics

Someone smarter than I am should write a Wikipedia entry for WhatTheFont. Did Lorp develop this tool? In fact there’s probably a book to be written about typeface identification tools, tags, tools for comparison—it’s a marginal but nevertheless fascinating and important part of type history imho.

API: Authoritarian Programming Interface Understanding digital media, technology, theory, culture and society.

API: AUTHORITARIAN PROGRAMMING INTERFACE
By @berrydm.bsky.social

stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/02/api-...

Notes on the Crises Until Further Notice, Comprehensive coverage of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025

NOTES ON THE CRISES
Currently: Comprehensive coverage of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025 www.crisesnotes.com

“If I ever abandon this research, it will be because I am weary of being dismissed as an eccentric—precisely because research appears absurd to those who are content to follow the well-trodden path.”
Apollinaire, letter to André Billy, 1918.

Plain Text by Plain Form, a semi-annual publication for exploratory type design (All texts in English and French)
text.plain-form.com/en/plaintext

Nice. I’d suggest that while there is no template, one can engage in critical reflection and position their practice in relation to the discipline (histories or Foucaltian genealogies), it’s technical media, and the socio-economic context.

While many uncritically accept and therefore adopt the methods of marketeers there is a richer and more considered approach that understands practice as the publishing of research / writing (a *comm-unicating with* and not a *talking at*
— @poem-editions.bsky.social,
Klim, neue, NaN, Plain Form etc

UT Prakta, wip

A showing of UT Prakta, a new typeface design by Marcus Leis Allion.

UT Prakta, a wip typeface