networked worlds

The internet’s real magic is that it gives us the power to see what the previous systems did not want or allow us to see: how connected we all are. Yes, we are all unique individuals, but between us are islands of connection whose depths carry infinite potential and the path to a new world.

The magic of the internet is that it lets us build whole new societies on top of the existing one. These new, internet-led societies have repeatedly shown the power to evolve, push, and even overtake the physical society that created them (for good and for ill).

Le Guin and Butler use the world-building capacities of the speculative and science fictions as a cypher into the complex social, cultural, and ecological conditions of life here on Spaceship Earth[2]. In their work, Butler and Le Guin established a more empathetic kind of world-building, using the genres as a way to think critically about society ... See more

First I’d argue that the digital world and the physical world are already deeply interconnected and getting more so everyday. The internet is a global brain that increasingly orchestrates the global body. One of the myths around Jetsons-like robots is that automation happens visibly, with a 1:1 correspondence between the thing replaced and the thin... See more

Reality as we understand it is a phenomenon of social structures, language, and shared processes for engaging with the world. Digital media is remaking all of these in such a way that media consumption more and more resembles the act of playing an alternate reality game.

There needs to be serious regulatory thought about dealing with that, if we’re entering into a scenario in which our digital twins are potentially more economically productive than our physical corporeal existence.”

“How do you exhibit that? Does that create a new economy for artists? Does that require new governance structures between the institution and the artists exhibiting that work? How do we show people how exciting this is?”

“The model is the art work,”

Holly+ represents the future that Herndon and Dryhurst anticipate for music, art, and literature: a world of “infinite media,” in which anyone can adjust, adapt, or iterate on the work, talents, and traits of others.