networked worlds

It’s only when we establish ourselves on our terms — as Pitchfork , RIP, once did — that we build durable worlds of our own.

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.

I should also reiterate here that my work is absolutely not trying to future-cast a singular vision or offer immediate solutions to the present, which is an impossible and dangerous brand of solutionism that we know well enough already from the technosolutionists in Silicon Valley. Rather, I’m using speculation to expand the atlas of shared... See more

In Mythologies , Roland Barthes discusses how wrestling (and now, politics) uses kayfabe, the convention of presenting staged narratives and spectacles as real to capture attention and elicit a desired response from an audience.

As your cyberfeminist cyber-guide, I am taking you through the digital wilderness, through the spectral, weird and eerie, the ultra-smooth and the extra murky. As a promise of an odyssey lures me into the digital ether once again. For today, I want us to notice the landscapes of the digital ether, hop on my rickety rowboat, look into its skies,... See more

Moving “the future” away from ideologies of dominance and control has become imperative. One promising model can be found in the collective known as the Tropical Futures Institute, founded by designer and gallerist Chris Fussner. Based on the party island of Cebu, Philippines, the “institute” is in fact a decentralized, roaming think tank that... See more

Embrace the Symbiotic Dance Between Culture + Technology

"Culture and technology exist in a dynamic reciprocal relationship." — Brenda Laurel

Once you understand the enshittification pattern, a lot of the platform mysteries solve themselves. Think of the SEO market, or the whole energetic world of online creators who spend endless hours engaged in useless platform Kremlinology, hoping to locate the algorithmic tripwires, which, if crossed, doom the creative works they pour their money,... See more

To me, it’s very important to think about speculative fiction and worldmaking as two approaches for better orienting ourselves to the present, rather than conjuring escapist utopian futures that will never arrive.