kenopsia
/kɛˈnɒp.si.ə/n.
The eerie, unsettling atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet — a school hallway on a weekend, an airport at 3am, an office after everyone's gone home.
From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig.
This is a notebook, not a publication.
I write here when something won't leave me alone. A book I can't stop thinking about. An argument I keep having with myself. A film that did something I didn't expect. An idea about AI that feels important but half-formed.
The name felt right because a lot of what I write about is absence — what's missing from a conversation, what a work of art leaves unsaid, what gets lost when a technology scales. Kenopsia is the feeling of a space after the people have left. That's the register I'm usually working in.
I'm not trying to be comprehensive or timely. I'm trying to be honest. These are notes, not essays — though sometimes they grow into something longer. I finish them when they feel done, not when they're due.
What gets covered
- Reads
Articles, essays, and long reads I found worth sitting with. Usually things that changed how I think about something, or confirmed a suspicion I already had.
- AI
Not hype, not doom — just honest thinking about what these systems are, what they aren't, and what it means that we're building them. I work adjacent to this space, which makes me more skeptical, not less.
- Books
Fiction and non-fiction, sometimes rereads. I write about books the way I'd talk about them with someone who'd actually read them — no plot summary, no star rating.
- Entertainment
Film and television, mostly. I'm interested in craft and structure — why something works, or why it almost did.
- Art
Visual art, photography, design. The things that earn attention through form rather than content.
A few positions I hold
- 01
Most takes are too fast. The interesting thing about a book or a film or an idea is usually not the first thing you notice about it.
- 02
Uncertainty is not the same as neutrality. I have opinions. I try to hold them lightly enough to change them.
- 03
The best writing about culture is also writing about something else — about time, or attention, or what it means to be a person right now.
- 04
I don't think the internet needs more content. I think it needs more thinking. These are attempts at the latter.
If something here made you think, or made you disagree, I'd like to know. There's no comments section — that's deliberate — but the email is real.
hello@kenopsia.online