Severin Matusek

The fundamental tension of narrative control in the networked era is that most companies impose a hierarchical brand management model onto what has effectively become a distributed, permissionless process. And when the emergent meme-space of networked media meets censorship-resistant infrastructures, brands take on a life of their own.

As awful as all this is, the workarounds themselves are often delightful and clever, testaments to the wit and grace of marginalized communities. For example, sex-workers call themselves "accountants." Homophobia is called "cornucopia" and "LGBTQ" becomes "Leg Booty."

This creativity isn't limited to people I admire or agree with: anti-vaxers have a... See more

From Asparouhova’s perspective, the lesson we should draw is not that bad ideas should in fact be suppressed but that good ideas require the trussing of sturdy, credible institutions—structures that might withstand the countervailing urge to raze everything to the ground.

Creative Futures Counterstructures (CFC) is Mozilla Foundation’s 10-week cultural R&D residency where creative technologists and communities come together to imagine, test, and build alternative tech infrastructures.

Through critical learning sessions, hands-on workshops, collaborative play, and a public exhibition, residents will design and... See more

Memetic warfare is not new, but it’s beneficial to contextualise with new zeitgeists to identify new tactics of feed control.

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

What makes Eno especially relevant for me is his work beyond the songs. His impact as an artist has mostly been to define new forms, supply vocabulary, and arrange the vibe.

When I first saw this, I thought “Did anyone read this?” That’s always the question when encountering something that you think is god awful. But in the AI era, I found myself asking a follow-up question: “Did anyone write this?”

Our sense of it being effective to stick together, to do things like loan each other sugar, proactively participate in building neighborhood safety and infrastructure, or babysit each other’s children is dissolving, because in fact it is no longer effective or efficient to do many of these things.