Severin Matusek

My new piece is live. I think it's one of the more important things I've ever written.

or an entire generation, the imagination of people making the web has been hemmed in by the control of a handful of giant companies that have had enormous control over things like search results, or app stores, or ad platforms, or payment systems. Going back to the more free-for-all nature of the Nineties internet could mean we see a proliferation... See more

A sponsored Instagram ad leads me to schedule a demo with a health-tech startup selling a headband that will stimulate my brain with little electrical pulses to make the worries disappear. It’s marketed as a life hack for people who are too busy to meditate.

We're witnessing what I call the "labor rebound effect"—productivity doesn't eliminate work; it transforms it, multiplies it, elevates its complexity. The time saved becomes time reinvested, often with compound interest.

Zines are best when they are about the artistic process, when you can see the marks of another human being making stuff in our human beingy ways.

The voices that helped shape Light and Shade include: Noman Bashir, computing and climate impact fellow at MIT; James Bridle, artist, writer and technologist; Alex de Vries, PhD candidate at VU Amsterdam’s Institute for Environmental Studies and founder of Digiconomist; Linda Dounia Rebeiz, artist, designer and writer; Shaolei Ren, associate... See more