[003]
The Cell for Digital Discomfort (CfDD)
Collective
critical
Formed as part of the 2021/2022 BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice, the Cell for Digital Discomfort (CfDD)—composed of Cristina Cochior, Karl Moubarak, and Jara Rocha—are the guest editors of this special Prospections focus “Digital Discomfort,” a compilation of newly commissioned and archival resources such as texts, interviews, and videos that allow for a collective exploration of sensibilities around an affirmative repoliticization and redefinition of compu-relational practice.
18.01.25
[004]
Multidimensional citation
Collective
speculative
At the start of 2020 we announced our collaboration by sending around a postcard. Three women in stone-colored clothing sat on the ground, our faces staring directly into the camera in a diagonal cascade. The postcard also contained a link to our website where we described ourselves and our collaboration.
Our differences allowed us to come together in a complementary way. An alliance of islands intuitively felt like our symbol: and for this reason we used three dots cascading ⋱ for our website’s favicon — the small icon that appears near the web browser’s address bar.
“A citation should not be singular, but instead explicitly connected to the lineage of research that came before it.”
18.01.25
[026]
“Trust Us, We’re You”: Aspirational Realness in the Digital Communication of Contemporary Fashion and Beauty Brands
Individual
critical
In recent years, a number of fashion and beauty brands have developed promotional content that circulates an aspirational quality imbued with unstudied “cool” around their product. Despite the appeal of this conceit to tropes of the everyday, authenticity, and belonging, it presents a superficially relatable ideal whilst exploiting digital media’s capacities to foster intimacy and promote a postfeminist subjectivity based on consumption.
This article examines three brands that circulate “aspirational realness” around their product: Glossier, Reformation, and Maryam Nassir Zadeh. All remediate the conventions of prior fashion media to communicate discourses of neoliberal femininity to a media-savvy consumer. Aspirational realness is thus read as a means by which consumption is both encouraged and situated as a means of self-realization in the likeness of other aspirational “cool girls.”
18.01.25
[074]
Your Internet Browser Does Not Belong to You
Individual
critical
In the The WIRED article Showler explores how browsers not only serve as gateways to the internet but also influence the way we think, act, and are surveilled online. It examines how features like tabs and private search, initially intended to enhance user experience, reflect and shape our fractured attention spans and desire for privacy. However, the browser’s underlying mechanics, such as tracking and personalized responses to user behavior, expose the tension between browsing as a free, casual act and its deep ties to commercial and surveillance interests. Ultimately, it argues that browsers subtly dictate how we interact with digital spaces, challenging notions of neutrality and autonomy in online environments.
“To use a browser is, directly or indirectly, to participate in commerce. No act of browsing is ever really idle.”
18.01.25