https://dreamingbeyond.ai

Dreaming Beyond AIDreaming Beyond AI Languageen en Dreaming Beyond AI Menu Home About News Podcasts Index People Contact deutsch english español français türkçe About Dreaming Beyond AI is a space for critical and constructive knowledge, visionary fiction and speculative art, and community organizing around Artificial Intelligence. AI technologies reinforce existing injustices and discrimination. Decision-making processes are increasingly being outsourced to algorithmic systems – by the police and in court, in schools and in job application procedures, in government offices, at border crossings, and elsewhere. With Dreaming Beyond AI, we aim to challenge both the way AI is used today, and the societal structures that uphold algorithmic oppression. We use AI as a gateway to broader societal questions around marginalization, imagination, futurism, feminism, and how we experience the present. The goal is to de-center technology and create an experimental curated space for connection and coming together. We aim to enable : an understanding of how AI technologies can exacerbate oppressing power structures in our society a questioning of dominant narratives about AI, imposed visions of future, and oppressive structures that are amplified by the widespread and uncritical use of AI technologies a redefinition of how AI technologies might/should serve us, improve representation, equity and connection – create visions of the future from the margins The website itself and the process through which it is created reflect our intentions and challenge deeply rooted ways of thinking, knowing and being in the digital realm. For instance, we intend to challenge the expectation of seamless design interfaces and fast, frictionless digital experience, as well as consumerist attitudes towards online information and media. As such, Dreaming Beyond AI is a collectively shaped and deeply relational experiment that draws inspiration from Ursula Le Guin's text ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’, adrienne maree brown's ‘emergent strategy’ framework, Arturo Escobar's ‘pluriverse’, the Design Justice Network, and the work of many others. Team Members Nushin Yazdaninushin@dreamingbeyond.ai Nushin Yazdani is a transformation designer, artist, and AI design researcher working at the intersection of machine learning, design justice, and queer feminist practices. At Superrr Lab, Nushin worked as a design researcher and project manager, developing feminist tech visions and policies. Nushin has lectured at Universität der Künste Berlin, Humboldt University, FH Nordwestschweiz, and others, and has been part of the queerfeminist collective dgtl fmnsm. Nushin is an EYEBEAM Fractal Fellow, a Landecker Democracy Fellow alum, and a member of the Design Justice Network. Nushin is currently completing a Master’s in Science and Technology Studies in Vienna and Taipei, focusing on data worker struggles and AI impersonation. For Dreaming Beyond AI, Nushin heads creative direction, and works on concept development and curation. Iyo Bisseck (she/they) iyo@dreamingbeyond.ai Iyo Bisseck is a multidisciplinary artist, interaction designer, and programmer. Their artistic practice combines immersive digital environments, sculptural installations, animated images, and video games. Through their work as a website designer, she also supports many initiatives to own their digital archive. For Dreaming Beyond AI, Iyo has created the web design and undertook the technical realization of the platform. Sarah Diedro Jordão (she/her) sarah@dreamingbeyond.ai Sarah is a multi-passionate consultant, a Black Joy preacher and a Nap ambassador. The driving interests foundational to her work are Black feminism, intersectional justice as well as collective dreaming. She is Lisbon-based and consults for a diverse range of organisations worldwide. Most recently, she was a guest professor for International Masters Students at the Burgundy University, a Communications consultant for the Black Feminist Fund and served as the Board co-chair of the Digital Freedom Fund. For Dreaming Beyond AI, Sarah leads Communications. Dreaming Beyond AI's concept was birthed by Nushin Yazdani and Buse Çetin, but influenced and inspired by the works, thoughts, tireless love, care, and tenacity of many incredible feminist voices. The web platform is designed and coded by Iyo Bisseck, and the communication strategy has been created by Sarah Diedro. We received consistently incredible support from Ulla Heinrich as Creative Production Exhibition Lead. Special advisors for Dreaming Beyond AI were Sarah Chander, Dr. Nakeema Stefflbauer and Maya Indira Ganesh. Meera Ghani supported with the overall flow of the project, Zain Assaad helped with uploading, and Victoria Kure-Wu has worked on the UX quality assessment. Tadleeh provided the music for the Pluriverse. Dreaming Beyond AI has been created in cooperation with ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, and supported by Humanity in Action and the Alfred Landecker Foundation within the framework of the Landecker Democracy Fellowship as well as mur.at. We would like to thank our past partners for their support: Contact Hello ☀️ If you want to chat with us or are interested in contributing to Dreaming Beyond AI, please let us know: hello@dreamingbeyond.ai Since we each work various jobs, forgive us if we take a bit of time to get back to you. You can find us on social media, too! Home Themes You're entering a 3D interactive experience!We're excited to have you here in this space designed to provide an exploratory journey and enhance interaction.Please note: Accessibility guidelines may not be fully met, and high device performance may be required.Have fun!💫 This experiment is not available on mobile devices. Please access it using a computer. ✕ Enter Check the index Dreaming Beyond AI is a space for critical and constructive knowledge, visionary fiction & speculative art and community-organising. This website project uses AI as a gateway to broader societal questions around marginalisation, imagination, futurism, feminism and how we experience the present. The goal of the project is to de-center technology and use it as a tool rather than main instrument for connection and a coming together. It is an experiment to a curated space where people enter with a shared sense of values and agreements. About the collective Projects Sorry, we were unable to confirm your registration. If this problem persists, please send us a message to hello@dreamingbeyond.ai 🔆🔆 Your registration is confirmed ! 🔆🔆 Subscribe to our newsletter email-adress name By clicking on subscribe, you agree to receive our e-mails and confirm that you have read our privacy policy and legal notice. We use Sendinblue as our marketing platform. By Clicking below to submit this form, you acknowledge that the information you provided will be transferred to Sendinblue for processing in accordance with their terms of use Subscribe News 🌸 Happened lately 🌸 Critical AI, Rethinking Intelligence, Bias, and Control 19.11 2025University of Applied Arts ViennaThe conference "Critical AI: Rethinking Intelligence, Bias, and Control" investigates artificial intelligence as a cultural and design-driven phenomenon, foregrounding the ways in which agency is conceptualized, structured, and operationalized through AI systems. Rather than approaching AI as a neutral or autonomous technology, the event explores how design practices, software architectures, and human-machine interfaces embed normative assumptions about action, responsibility, and autonomy. workshop 🌸 Happened lately 🌸 Coalition Building: Public presentation 17.09 2025Online Public Presentation Sorry, we were unable to confirm your registration. If this problem persists, please send us a message to hello@dreamingbeyond.ai 🔆🔆 Your registration is confirmed ! 🔆🔆 Subscribe to our newsletter email-adress name By clicking on subscribe, you agree to receive our e-mails and confirm that you have read our privacy policy and legal notice. We use Sendinblue as our marketing platform. By Clicking below to submit this form, you acknowledge that the information you provided will be transferred to Sendinblue for processing in accordance with their terms of use Subscribe Critical AI, Rethinking Intelligence, Bias, and Control 19.11 2025 University of Applied Arts Vienna workshop Coalition Building: Public presentation 17.09 2025 Online Public Presentation Come hang with us in Barcelona Resident's presentation of their project 17.05 2025 Canodrom Barcelona Gathering Coalition Building: Meet our residents Coalition Building in Times of AI: Intersecting Struggles residency 12.12 2024 Residency Open Call: Unwired Currents Fellowship Imagining Technologies Otherwise 19.11 2024 — 14.01 2025 Online with Dezentrum, Futuress, Franca López Barbera and Materia Oscura Open Call Join us at Mesh Festival AI & Digital Justice Tools Roundtable 17.10 2024 Basel, Switzerland Discussion Open Call: DBAI Residency 2025 Coalition Building in Times of AI: Intersecting Struggles 02.09 2024 — 21.10 2024 Online Open Call European Colour of Surveillance 2024 Liberation Practices in times of Fascism 26.06 2024 — 27.06 2024 Berlin In-person collaborative creative meeting Systemic Justice’s “Revisiting Systemic (In)justices: Community reflections” 24.06 2024 — 25.06 2024 Berlin, Germany In-person collaborative creative meeting Join us at re:publica in Berlin Liberation through digital healing 29.05 2024 Berlin, Germany In-person interactive conversation Join us at re:publica in Berlin In the loop 27.05 2024 — 29.05 2024 Berlin, Germany Installation DBAI at Embodied Restoration Lab Planting seeds towards materialising our collective dreams 18.04 2024 — 19.04 2024 Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, Netherlands In-person collaborative creative meeting In the loop : Launch of the online platform On Artificial Intelligence and Time 28.03 2024 Launch In the loop : Exhibition, artwork presentations and talks On Artificial Intelligence and Time 26.10 2023 — 27.10 2023 Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany Symposium Kampgnagel Creative Technologies Meet-up Presenting our new In The Loop-residency! 27.06 2023 Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany Online talk In the loop : Start of the residency On Artificial Intelligence and Time 26.06 2023 Hamburg, Germany Residency In the loop : Meet our residents On Artificial Intelligence and Time 05.06 2023 Residency Presentation of Dreaming Beyond AI at “Design and Digital Justice” DGTF 03.06 2023 Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany Presentation In the loop : Call for application On Artificial Intelligence and Time 08.04 2023 Call for Application Any | One Day the Future Has Died. Conference on the Impossible Possibilities of Artificial Intelligence  27.10 2022 HGB Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany Online Talk Embodied Resistance: Healing and Liberation in the Age of AI during the AI Anarchies Autumn School 20.10 2022 Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany In-person collaborative creative meeting Bureau des questions importantes Important Issues Office 02.09 2022 — 17.09 2022 eeeeh!, Nyon, Switzerland Pluriverse exhibition Launch of the online platform Presentation 07.07 2022 Launch Tender Intelligences Exhibition Use, design and care of community-driven AI 07.07 2022 — 12.07 2022 (im)Mutable Studio, Los Angeles, USA Pluriverse exhibition 1. Introduction In the Loop Welcome to the whimsical and profound world of Dreaming Beyond AI! We're thrilled to have you here <3 This is a space where we invite you to ask questions, rant, create, reimagine and play. 2. hiba ali & digital networks as sites of healing In the Loop This first episode was recorded during our *In the loop* residency kick-off week in Germany and features our resident hiba ali - a producer of moving images, sounds, garments and words. 6. Dera Luce & heal chat-GPT (Generational Physical/Psychological Trauma) In the Loop This episode features our resident Dera Luce - essayist, speculative fiction writer, and multi-disciplinary artist whose stories explore queerness, linguistics, shifting realities, and other extraordinary experiences that he is still finding the words for. 7. Zas iehulee & Black Memes life cycles In the loop In this episode, we talk about Badushka, who is a digital character representing an introspective influencer, but who's also the main face of the 'Human dot bot' project. We talked about memetics, the wealth of black cultures and African spiritualities, among many exciting, beautiful, and meaningful things. 8. allapopp & coalition building through embodied technology Coalition building Hi loves! We have launched a new residency program called Coalition in times of AI: intersecting struggles for which we have four amazing creative sparring partners.For this episode we were in conversation with one of them: the fantastic allapopp (no pronouns) who is a Berlin based interdisciplinary artist  whose queer and non-binary gaze focuses on tech-positive visions .We discussed the practicalities of coalition-building among which care work, money and feminist values, we talked about pies and family recipes as communication device and building better worlds. 9. Mac Andre Arboleda & the sickness of the internet Coalition building Mac Andre Arboleda is an artist interested in exploring the sickness of the Internet through research and dialogue, art and text, organizing and publishing. Originally from the Philippines, he is currently based in Berlin, Germany while taking up an Erasmus Mundus joint master program in Media Arts Cultures.Mac was one of the residents for our latest resdency program: Coalition Building in times of AI: Intersecting Struggles 10. Xin Xin and strategies for community-built technologies Coalition building In this episode you’ll hear from the most amazing Xin Xin who was a mentor for our residency around Coalition buidling in times of AI - Intersecting struggles.Xin Xin is an artist currently making socially-engaged software that explores the possibilities of reshaping language and power relations. Xin is a multi-talented person, a dreamer, an inspiration, someone who embodies community love and collective liberation.Xin shares the current context of the US and its agressive push towards Gen AI, why we need to move away from the one-off honorarium and build more sustainable economic models for community-driven technology. Podcasts Options Show results now All results Themes Select all Deselect all Themes AI & Relationality✕ AI Violence✕ Future-Present Vibrations✕ Intelligence✕ Machine Vision & Feeling✕ Patterns✕ Planet Earth & Outrastructure✕ Refusal✕ Tags Select all Deselect all Tags ableism✕ accessibility✕ afrofuturism✕ article✕ artwork✕ bioacoustics✕ biometrics✕ care✕ carrier bag✕ categories & classifications✕ classism✕ colonialism✕ communities✕ consent✕ content moderation✕ counter-surveillance✕ datasets✕ deep-fakes✕ ecology✕ economy✕ embodiment✕ emotion recognition✕ exhibition✕ extractivism✕ facial recognition✕ future✕ GANs✕ gender✕ healing✕ hope✕ identity✕ imagination✕ indigenous✕ interfaces✕ intersectionality✕ intuition✕ labels✕ labour✕ manifesto✕ matrix of domination✕ meditation✕ meme✕ music✕ mycelium✕ natural language processing✕ nature & climate✕ neural networks & deep learning✕ non-binary✕ oppression✕ planetary✕ poetry✕ pop culture✕ practices✕ predictions✕ queerness✕ racism✕ reality✕ recommendations✕ refusal✕ resources & infrastructure✕ robots✕ science✕ sensors✕ sexism✕ shadow banning✕ social media✕ sound✕ surveillance✕ tech-solutionism✕ text✕ video✕ visionary fiction✕ Projects Select all Deselect all Projects Pluriverse✕ In the loop✕ Coalition Building✕ Imagine Technology Otherwise✕ AI Violence Violence and trauma open psychic wounds that harden us and limit our vitality. It is the heavy knot entangled with unacknowledged pain that we feel in our bodies and it disconnects us from the true self. Technological change and automation have been a cause for trauma across geographies and times, particularly for the most marginalised. As essential processes and functions such as hiring, medicine, and care are automated and the public space is increasingly curated by algorithms, how does this interact with individual and collective trauma? Does it create new psychic wounds that go unacknowledged and unhealed? How do the addictive patterns on apps and platforms create violence and reinforce trauma? How are some people and communities denied their humanity, existence, identity and so on through technologically-mediated ways? Can we envision trauma-informed technologies? What are the technologies of healing? Intelligence Intelligence is the main conceptual and philosophical underpinning of AI technologies and ideologies. What is considered intelligent has been influential in shaping the trajectory of AI technologies. The mainstream conception of intelligence, which favours abstract thinking, emerged out of oppressive structures and has been weaponized to justify domination and colonization. These radicalized and gendered understandings of intelligence prevail in popular AI discourse today. If intelligence is a foundational concept of AI, how can we understand, question, and redefine it? Are there other forms of intelligence that AI should reflect? Or are there some that AI already reflects but that are not yet acknowledged? Machine Vision & Feeling How do algorithms and machines see? How do we understand and imagine the machine vision? How does it feel to be seen by a machine? From CAPTCHAs that test our humanity to facial recognition algorithms at airports that verify our identity – how do these experiences make us feel? Who do the machines see? Who do they exclude? What politics of visibility does machine vision create? Patterns AI techniques such as machine learning and deep learning help find patterns, features, and correlations in large amounts of data. Pattern recognition systems for classification, prediction and optimization are highly marketed upon and are paving the way to a new knowledge regime – some argue that they are partly replacing theory as a means of knowledge production. However, AI pattern recognition can also be understood as marking the boundaries of ‘normalcy’ – leaving out noise and outliers that are usually those who can't fit in. Whose patterns are we looking at? What purpose does this pattern-finding serve? Are we talking about freeing patterns, or about patterns that extend the coloniality of power? Patterns in nature and our existence are portals to interconnectivity and signs of nature's wisdom. How can we think of nature’s patterns and AI patterns together, rather than seeing them as opposed to each other? Is there any way, any examples, demonstrations, or strategies, through which we can find where AI patterns act as portals and markers of interconnectivity in the universe? Refusal Most of the time, our technological futures seem and feel quite inevitable. ‘Technological progress’ is a core characteristic of the discourse of modernity, and AI hype is deeply entangled with this. The idea of inevitable technological progress undermines the agency and decision-making power of collectives and erases moments of collective refusal. What are examples of technological refusal when it comes to AI technologies? How can we amplify these narratives? How can refusal be comprehended as not only a reactionary but also a generative response? What if refusal is the only way for some communities to claim agency? Planet Earth & Outrastructure What is the impact of AI systems on the earth? Why are AI's high energy consumption, carbon footprint, and dependance on rare earth minerals so unfamiliar to and absent from the collective conscious? How does AI rely on the same inequitable power structures that extract labour and creativity from people? How can we think of AI within a climate justice framework? What are the stories of the earth? What policymaking proposals could address the environmental cost of computation beyond monetization? Future-Present Vibrations Our future seems defined by data colonialism, extractivism, competitiveness, and all-destroying growth desire. It seems so much easier to dream up dystopian visions of the future than to create concrete ideas of worlds that are plural and worth living in for everyone. Yet these are all the more important. We can only live in a more just world if we dare to imagine it first. What are the visions, fractals, practices, sounds, and vibrations of future, present, and past – beyond linear thinking? Future/present/past, as all exists at the same time. How do we practice upwards? AI & Relationality The modern/Western world is structured and ruled by metaphysical assumptions embedded in binary thinking, naturalized universals, liberal humanism, social rationalization, economism, and entrenched ideas of progress, order, freedom, and agency. AI technologies are imagined, created, and designed to respond to the needs of racial capitalism, binary thinking, and atomized individualism. Solutions for mitigating AI harm that use the same logics are not enough. How would a radical ontological and epistemological shift feel? Can AI ever be relational? Pluriverse The website itself and the process through which it is created reflect our intentions and challenge deeply rooted ways of thinking, knowing and being in the digital realm. For instance, we intend to challenge the expectation of seamless design interfaces and fast, frictionless digital experience, as well as consumerist attitudes towards online information and media. As such, Dreaming Beyond AI is a collectively shaped and deeply relational experiment that draws inspiration from Ursula Le Guin's text ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’, adrienne maree brown's ‘emergent strategy’ framework, Arturo Escobar's ‘pluriverse’, the Design Justice Network, and the work of many others. In the loop This project is a digital garden to explore Dreaming Beyond AI’s very first Residency. Residents presentations, highlights and behind the scenes of the journey. Coalition Building in Times of AI: Intersecting Struggles residency Dreaming Beyond AI invites you to apply to its 2025 artist-activist residency that aims to explore coalition building in times of AI. We are looking for four artist-activists in residence who will work individually and together to interrogate this topic in a creative way from April to June 2025. All results A respite from algorithmic violence: Memes, platforms and content moderation Idil Galip Artwork One example of AI is *machine learning* where machines are trained to make judgments about objects, people, places and other variables and materialities like humans do. Computers are fed large quantities of data, from databases or repositories and asked to identify patterns. Click to read AI Violence article artwork categories & classifications content moderation datasets identity meme oppression natural language processing pop culture racism reality shadow banning social media sexism Available languages : en Algorithms and the Convenience Matrix Nakeema Stefflbauer Article In light of the rapid adoption of unregulated algorithmic optimisation around the world, unfortunately, many digital algorithms are neither fair nor a reflection of any ethical standard. The AI ethicist Sarah Wachter has put this into context: "if 96% of the world does not live in the United States, but a majority of our digital tools and platforms are based on US customs, political culture, and laws", how do we meaningfully talk about fairness in the digital world? Whose convenience are these digital tools and platforms really intended for? Click to read AI Violence article categories & classifications datasets extractivism identity intersectionality labels matrix of domination oppression racism recommendations surveillance predictions Available languages : en I Grew Up in a Click Farm Mac Andre Arboleda coaliton building "I Grew Up in a Click Farm" archives an ongoing investigation into the capacities and consequences of Philippine digital labor. The title twists a quote from fraudster and fugitive Alice Guo, a Philippine mayor and multibillionaire whose work is tied to Philippine offshore gaming operators and scam hubs in the region. Click to read AI Violence surveillance extractivism labour oppression reality practices resources & infrastructure matrix of domination colonialism Available languages : en Machine Unreadable Charlie Article When I look in the mirror I don't see a man's face nor a woman's face, what I see is just me, my face. Many people probably read me as a man when I'm out in the street but I am non-binary and my face does not come with a binary gender attached. Click to read AI Violence article categories & classifications colonialism biometrics consent datasets facial recognition gender identity labels matrix of domination oppression non-binary refusal sexism surveillance reality queerness predictions carrier bag Available languages : en fr Queer Feminist AI FaceFilter Alla Popp Artwork Queer Feminist AI - a game character from the latest project by BBB_, Songs of Cyborgeoisie, is intimidating and strong, soft-tempered and steel-bodied Artificial General Intelligence - an uncanny, techno-futuristic human-like robot, indistinguishably intellectually intelligent, but still controllable, hardwired vessel for digital soul with a capacity to feel, dream and master unbound creativity. Click to read AI Violence artwork communities datasets extractivism future gender healing hope imagination embodiment poetry pop culture queerness robots video visionary fiction oppression non-binary music Available languages : en fr The Web this Black Woman Wants temi lasade-anderson Carrier Bag Click to read Refusal carrier bag future imagination intersectionality oppression racism refusal sexism social media Available languages : en Wisdom of not knowing and decolonial AI Raziye Buse Çetin Article The article was originally published on Gunda-Werner Institute Feminism and Gender Democracy Click to read Refusal article colonialism extractivism future Available languages : en A [love] letter to [black and brown] [queer] and [disabled] [feminists], [dreaming] [beyond] AI Sarah Chander Carrier Bag The need to dream beyond becomes necessary when we recognise that some concepts [like AI] have no revolutionary or liberatory potential insofar that they are inherently welded to infrastructures of domination, extraction and oppression. Click to read Refusal communities colonialism carrier bag future oppression racism refusal surveillance visionary fiction matrix of domination intersectionality classism Available languages : en No Exit: Big Computing’s End Run Around User Rights and Refusal Seeta Peña Gangadharan Article Big Computing is making it harder to resist technological systems that make us less autonomous. Click to read Refusal tech-solutionism resources & infrastructure refusal oppression economy article AncestryandMe: DNA Processing Kit Zainab Aliyu coalition building AncestryandMe: DNA Processing Kit counters the colonial and capitalist legacies of biometric surveillance. Unlike commercial DNA kits that focus on quantitative data, this community resource offers a reflective and critical exploration of ancestry, supporting individuals in confronting the emotional complexities of unearthing ancestral histories. Click to read Refusal artwork article care categories & classifications colonialism consent datasets extractivism healing identity labels practices predictions reality refusal science surveillance tech-solutionism indigenous Available languages : en The Eye That Portrays and Self-Archive Bretas In the loop residency - Artworks Bretas's production for the DBAI residency consists of two pieces of art: “The Eye That Portrays.” and “Self-Archive”. Click to read Refusal artwork colonialism deep-fakes exhibition identity indigenous oppression reality racism text video refusal Available languages : en Age of Data: A.I. Industry Moisés Horta Video and Music Artwork Age of Data: A.I. Industry posits the question of our current epoch's economic and labor boom, that of the data industry, which now extends itself worldwide. Co-created between two A.I. systems and the artist, the piece aims to pose questions on the current direction of the A.I. and data industries towards humanity. Click to read Patterns artwork categories & classifications datasets economy extractivism labour GANs pop culture oppression classism sound resources & infrastructure natural language processing neural networks & deep learning Available languages : en fr Radical AI for Forest Conservation Joycelyn Longdon Article Counter to the way forests are perceived within the majority of machine learning and conservation projects, forests are not just sites of data, they are homes, sources of spiritual solace and cultural importance as well as sites of a wealth of medicines and resources for local communities. Click to read Planet Earth & Outrastructure bioacoustics categories & classifications communities embodiment ecology datasets extractivism mycelium nature & climate neural networks & deep learning planetary resources & infrastructure science sensors text article Available languages : en What does our feminist future look like? Ulla Heinrich & Nushin Yazdani Carrier Bag This virtual carrier bag, put together by Nushin Yazdani and Ulla Heinrich from the queer feminist collective dgtl fmnsm, is an invitation to immerse yourself in a stimulating and utopian world. A world in which artists and activists have long been laboring together on alternative futures from a feminist perspective - both aesthetically and politically. The selected videos, texts, works of art and audio pieces are made by people who help us to focus on the transformative potential of collective efforts – by dreaming up new futures together. Click to read Future-Present Vibrations afrofuturism care carrier bag categories & classifications communities facial recognition gender healing imagination identity music non-binary planetary pop culture queerness robots surveillance tech-solutionism visionary fiction Available languages : en de fromBattlefields toRoborders Maithu Bùi coaliton building A work on border violence from Battlefields to Roborders. The Walls Have Eyes – in the Author’s Note “The Power of Storytelling as an Act of Resistance” Petra Molnar writes: “Borders are violent. Yet they are also spaces of tremendous resistance and solidarity, often in very unexpected ways. Storytelling and story sharing is one form of resistance—and a profound and crucial element in any attempt to illustrate the opaque world of border technologies. [and] as writer Arundhati Roy reminds us: “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard. […] I do not and cannot attempt to speak for all. Nor do I want to fetishize human suffering or add to the spectacle of violence at the world’s borders. Instead, what helps me is the idea of story stewardship.” Click to read Future-Present Vibrations ableism accessibility article artwork biometrics classism colonialism communities counter-surveillance ecology refusal recommendations reality racism practices planetary oppression neural networks & deep learning natural language processing extractivism matrix of domination labour imagination facial recognition future exhibition robots video surveillance Available languages : en Heal-GPT (Slowed + Reverb) Dera Luce In the loop residency - Music Story Heal-GPT (Slowed + Reverb) is a music story about healing Generational Physical/Psychological Trauma. The lyrics explore the shape of time as it relates to the nebulous borders of generations. Our present healing reverberates through time. Neither time nor healing is linear. Click to read Future-Present Vibrations meditation care artwork labour music oppression science sound poetry text identity imagination hope healing Available languages : en I think it's fake biarritzzz coaliton building I THINK THIS IS FAKE is a triptych of three videos, one in English, one in Portuguese and one in Spanish, with AI-generated music based on commentaries made about memes dealing with artificial intelligence, either as a joke, as fear, or as subversion. Each commentary was collected from users in those respective languages. Click to read Future-Present Vibrations hope identity imagination matrix of domination manifesto meme music oppression pop culture reality refusal Available languages : en Sinthomatic Music / Digital Intimacy Elif Sansoy & Max Ardito Artwork In the album *Learning What To Do With Your Sinthome Instead of Enjoying It,* a deep learning model's auditory latent space is re-appropriated for the purpose of various *anti*-solutional experiments. Through the lens of a number of different frameworks—including Lacanian psychoanalysis, spectral séance, and homotopy type theory—the piece reimagines various *dysfunctional* audio signals generated from GANs and VAEs as adversarial probes into latent signal space. These adversarial perturbations function as an attempt to reveal the patterns and structures of a contemporary world-historical unconscious. Click to read Future-Present Vibrations artwork datasets GANs neural networks & deep learning imagination music pop culture sound surveillance text article Available languages : en Tequiologies: reclaiming the right to a dignified future Paola Ricaurte Carrier Bag This collection of resources is intended to inspire a journey of reflection and action for our collective dreams beyond AI. Click to read Future-Present Vibrations care carrier bag colonialism communities embodiment extractivism healing imagination indigenous oppression practices Available languages : en Unionizing the speculative: Speculative fundraising towards generative AI - creative worker unionization Noam Youngrak Son In the loop residency - Artwork How can creative workers unionize with generative AI? How can we as creative workers be accountable to AI-led automation? How did linotype and personal computers cause the demise of the International Typographical Union (ITU) which used to be one of the most influential unions in the US? What is the role and limitation of speculation as a strategy in this? Click to read Future-Present Vibrations economy imagination labour oppression visionary fiction exhibition datasets communities classism artwork Available languages : en Visions Kira Xonorika In the loop residency - Artwork Inspired by Sámi scholar Liisa-Ravna Finbog, this artwork explores axiological, epistemological, and ontological renewal in the context of technoscientific development. It conjures an origin for ancestral time and space in the future-present. The circle is a portal that represents sovereign new life springing forth from the land—a sanctuary and safe haven. The piece explores the regenerative interplay between plants, stones, and non-human kin, emphasizing the multiple forms of intelligence foundational to AI. Click to read Future-Present Vibrations artwork communities datasets exhibition GANs future gender hope identity imagination indigenous intuition oppression non-binary queerness reality video Available languages : en Watering the Somatic Oasis hiba ali In the loop residency - VR artwork "Watering the Somatic Oasis" is a VR project that uses the immediacy of technologies and somatic techniques to “slow” down time. Viewers are invited to put on the VR headset and tune it to the guided meditation. Click to read Future-Present Vibrations care artwork hope healing imagination meditation sound visionary fiction Available languages : en Light Bosons Zas Ieluhee Image Artwork The Light Bosons series was made to illustrate how close to the human psyche, AI and machine learning really are. Actually, I strongly believe what we call artificial intelligence (AI) today is, in reality, one layer of animal / human intelligence. Click to read Machine Vision & Feeling neural networks & deep learning datasets categories & classifications biometrics artwork Available languages : en fr Community of Intelligence Tabita Rezaire Artwork In the midst of scrolling and clicking, I invite you take a deep breath. Inhale, filling your whole abdomen with the blessings of oxygen. Exhale. Click to read Intelligence afrofuturism artwork communities ecology embodiment future healing hope intuition meditation mycelium nature & climate planetary practices sound Available languages : en fr A Carrier Bag Filled with Glitches, Errors, and Artificial Stupidity Adriaan Odendaal & Karla Zavala (Internet Teapot) Carrier Bag We are internet teapot, a small Rotterdam-based research & design studio created by Karla Zavala Barreda and Adriaan Odendaal. The “internet teapot” is our sigil of sorts, based on an obscure internet error you might not have known existed. Just like you often find a webpage returning a frustrating 404 “Page Not Found” error, you might also stumble upon the absurd (yet equally legitimate) 418 “I’m a Teapot” error. It’s an actual, albeit nonsensical, HTTP error that the Internet Engineering Task Force IETF (charged with the serious task of setting internet standards and protocols) created in 1998 as a joke in case anyone would “attempt to brew coffee with a teapot” on the internet. Click to read Intelligence carrier bag categories & classifications datasets economy content moderation extractivism text labour labels classism meme communities tech-solutionism recommendations pop culture robots facial recognition Available languages : en Mycelial Memory and the Mycelial Internet Neema Githere and Petja Ivanova Carrier Bag Click to read Intelligence afrofuturism ecology carrier bag communities future healing indigenous mycelium meme planetary visionary fiction Available languages : en Nichts als solide Vanessa Opoku Artwork The room installation "Nichts als solide" can be understood as an examination of those traces that people leave in their surroundings and that are burned into landscapes and places. In conversation with poems by the Jewish poet Mascha Kaléko and the Afro-German poet May Ayim, which serve as a data set for an artificial intelligence, a monologue emerges in which a new, fictional lyric self is formed. Click to read AI & Relationality neural networks & deep learning natural language processing categories & classifications datasets poetry oppression matrix of domination identity imagination embodiment video racism artwork Available languages : en Retrieval Petja Ivanova and Neema Githere Artwork Retrieval is a conversation between Guerilla theorist Neema Githere and artist Petja Ivanova inverting hierarchies ascribing technology as superior to the body. Reclaiming our body is central to the political struggle of transforming the social positions and relations of all non conforming subjects that capitalist white supremacist hetero patriarchy keeps devaluing and rendering vulnerable. Jean-Luc Nancys Concept of ecotechnics weaves visually through 3d scanned casts of Neema's and Petja's body parts, blending them virtually, materially, metaphorically and spiritually into each other. The visual language of the data body compared to photogrammetry of memory disc designs, copper wires weaving through magnets, refers to and amplifies the unspoken correlation between memories stored in bodies and in computing devices alike. Click to read AI & Relationality video text practices artwork Available languages : en X≠Y∴Z Lucas LaRochelle Article What follows is an experiment in weaving relations between stories produced by an artificial intelligence trained on an archive of queer and trans life, and my experience of processing a heartbreak-induced depressive epsiode. This text weaves together excerpts of AI-generated text (*in italics*), reflections on the nature of this AI, theoretical musings and memoir in an effort to explore what kind of meaning is generated in the spaces between seemingly incoherent ideas. The task here, dear reader, is to wade through this squishy ecology of fragments, searching for what leaks as a result of their collisons. Click to read AI & Relationality text queerness oppression neural networks & deep learning natural language processing identity gender non-binary datasets categories & classifications communities article Available languages : en fr No articles found – please select another tag :) Index People Dreaming Beyond AI is a collective, changing body of work that has been shaped by various artists, researchers, writers, activists, designers, scientists, community organizers, dreamers, and thinkers. These are the people who have contributed to Dreaming Beyond AI, in order of first name. Adriaan Odendaal he/him Designer / researcher Adriaan Odendaal is a multimedia and content designer from South Africa, whose work revolves around algorithmic literacy, critical and speculative design, digital culture, and game/software studies. He is a cofounder of the research and design studio internet teapot, which focuses on using design in socially transformative ways. www.internetteapot.com Twitter: @adriaan_o Instagram: @internetteapot Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A Carrier Bag Filled with Glitches, Errors, and Artificial Stupidity Alla Popp (no pronoun) Artist Alla Popp is a digital media and performance artist from Kazan, Russia. Alla’s feminist gaze focuses on our shared visions of the future, the emancipatory potentials of digital technology, and narratives for the future of humanity. Formally, Alla works at the intersection of digital technology, performance, and music, devel-oping interactive digital formats and live experiences in VR, AR, XR, and on the web. Alla is part of the technologically advanced interdisciplinary music and performance project BBB_ and the dgtl fmnsm collective. homepage-bbb.com allapopp.com Instagram: @allapopp Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Queer Feminist AI FaceFilter Anasuya Sengupta she/her co-director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge? Anasuya Sengupta is co-director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, a global multilingual campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalised communities online. She has led initiatives across the global South, and internationally for over 25 years, to collectively create feminist presents and futures of love, justice, and liberation. Anasuya is a co-founder and advisor to Numun Fund, advisor to the Flickr Foundation, the former Chief Grantmaking Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, and the former Regional Program Director at the Global Fund for Women. whoseknowledge.org sanmathi.org/anasuya linkedin.com/in/anasuya-sengupta-9466261 biarritzzz she/her artist biarritzzz (1994, Fortaleza, lives and works in Recife, Brazil) is an anti-disciplinary transmedia artist who investigates languages, codes and media. She believes that magic and low resolution are important counter narratives to live the current cosmological dispute of realities. She has exhibited in MAM Rio, Museum of Tomorrow, Kunsthall Trondheim, State Of Concept Athens, Delfina Foundation, Satellite platform (Pivô), A.I.R Gallery, Centro Cultural São Paulo, The Wrong Biennale, FILE, The Shed NY, among others. Her works are part of the Rhizome Artbase (New Museum), KADIST Foundation and Instituto Moreira Salles digital collections. She was a 2023 and 2024 PIPA Award nominee. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI I think it's fake Bretas he/they visual artist Bretas, 24, is a Black visual artist, born and based in São Paulo, Brazil. Academically, grad student in Architecture on FAU at University of São Paulo and researcher in the Demonumenta-FAUUSP group. The artist uses deep fakes to revive portrait-photography archives from the 1800's, of racialized persons from distinct regions of his country. A inspiring exercise on ancestrality, temporalities and race, using AI to create memory - without engaging in a neocolonialist approach on machine learning and data-driven escalation of real world inequalities. Bretas' most used art output is video mapping in places of memory. In 2021, at Demonumenta, Bretas was the first to bring together, publish and animate an archive of 421 photos depicting afro-indigenous people of São Paulo from the 1860’s, the biggest of its kind. 2022, the artist took part on his first institutional group exhibition at SESC Consolação in São Paulo. In the same year, Bretas gave a presentation at the Interactive Communication Program-NYU in New York on "Projection Mapping in Brazilian Territories". In 2023 Bretas was the youngest nominated artist for the PIPA Prize, one of the leading awards of contemporary art in Brazil. @bretasvj also works as VJ collaborating with groups such as Lollapalooza, Nike, HBO, Valorant and others. instagram.com/bretasvj Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI The Eye That Portrays and Self-Archive Charlie (they/them) Charlie has a PhD in physics and has worked as a researcher, data scientist, data cleaner, and scientific programmer, but mostly they have been extremely online and clenching their jaw. On their way to becom-ing a proper data luddite, they cling on due to seeing more and more awesome people working on critical studies of technology and algorithms, and being involved in cool projects and approaches to public interest technology and design justice. are.na/de Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Machine Unreadable Clemens Wildt he/him project manager at IFA Clemens is a cultural manager, researcher and mediator. He sees his work as building bridges between people, institutions and systems. Clemens strives to exercise his role in structures in a reflective manner and continuously question it. In doing so, he learns about queer-feminist and postcolonial discourses, as well as the complex relationship between humans, machines, animals, plants and the planet. Dera Luce he/him essayist, writer, and multidisciplinary artist Dera Luce is a Nigerian-American essayist, speculative fiction writer, and multi-disciplinary artist who calls Berlin home. His stories explore queerness, linguistics, shifting realities, and other extraordinary experiences that he is still finding the words for. Dera has written for Autostraddle, The Atlantic's CityLab, and Riverfront Times, among others. He is a Summer ‘22 Fellow of Voodoonauts, a grassroots Afrofuturist collective promoting connectivity and craft within the global Black SFF community. Dera is currently writing a novel for Black queer young adults. deraluce.com/ patreon.com/deraluce instagram.com/deraluce Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Heal-GPT (Slowed + Reverb) Elif Sansoy (she/her) Artist Elif Sansoy is a digital media artist from Istanbul, Turkey. The work she is most passionate about focuses on discoveries of forms of digital intimacy that are absent from nuance-free UGC ecosystems that make us repress our sensitivities about the world and each other. Coming from a video art background, she uses algorithmic processes and digital image manipulation to express her ideas about alternative narrative worlds that can unfold within the digital. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Sinthomatic Music / Digital Intimacy hiba ali they artist Hiba Ali is an Afrasian worldbuilder and digital somatics practitioner and shares their digital art in the form of immersive digital environments, sculpture-based installations, moving images, garments, and sound. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, they grew up in Chicago and Toronto and belong to East African, South Asian and Arab diasporas. They are a practitioner and (re)learner of Swahili, Urdu, Arabic and Spanish languages. They developed the term, digital somatics, to embody the body-mind-spirit connection to the principles of game design and narrative storytelling. They use virtual reality, 3D animation and augmented reality to slow down time and create portals of solace and care and consider the digital portal as a liminal space where they call forth more loving and healing into our world. hibaali.info instagram: @h3ba.hyba.xba Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Watering the Somatic Oasis İdil Galip (she/her) Researcher İdil Galip is a writer, researcher, and maker interested in exploring global memespheres, algorithmic cultures and the future of platform work through ethnographic methods and theoretical interventions. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Edinburgh and is currently a lecturer in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. She also runs the Meme Studies Research Network, which is an interdisciplinary network for people who study memes. idilgalip.com Twitter: @idilgalip Instagram: @cybervolta Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A respite from algorithmic violence: Memes, platforms and content moderation Joycelyn Longdon (she/her) Researcher Joycelyn Longdon is a twenty-three-year-old MRes+PhD student at Cambridge University on the Artificial Intelligence for the study of Environmental Risk (AI4ER) programme, researching the applications of AI to the climate emergency. Her PhD research takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining machine learning, bioacoustics, forest ecology, indigenous knowledge, and sociology to investigate the role of technology in forest conservation. She is also the founder of ClimateInColour, an online education platform and commu-nity for the climate-curious, making climate conversation more accessible and diverse. climateincolour.com Instagram: @climateincolor Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Radical AI for Forest Conservation Karla Zavala Barreda (she/her) Designer / researcher Karla Zavala Barreda works at the intersection of software, design, and education. She is a cofounder of the research and design studio internet teapot, a collaboration that focuses on speculative and critical design projects, digital culture, critical theory, and the use of design in a socially transformative way. She is current-ly a PhD candidate in media studies at the University of Amsterdam, where she researches apps ecology and learning software aimed at young children. www.internetteapot.com Twitter: @karlazavala Instagram: @internetteapot Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A Carrier Bag Filled with Glitches, Errors, and Artificial Stupidity Kira Xonorika she/her interdisciplinary artist, writer and futurist Kira Xonorika is a cross-disciplinary artist, writer and researcher. Their work explores the multidimensional connections between ancestry, temporality, world-building, restorative ecologies and magic. Through transcultural and AI-collaborative frameworks, Xonorika weaves worlds that center multi-species intelligence to reindigenize relations history. Kira has been the recipient of the Ars Electronica State of the ART(ist) award (honorary mention) and has exhibited internationally across the United States, Europe, Asia and South America including the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria; Frieze Seoul, Korea; Ford Foundation Gallery, NY; Vellum Los Angeles, CA; Kampnagel Hamburg, Germany and Arebyte, London, UK. In 2023 she became a resident at Dreaming Beyond AI and a Momus/Eyebeam Critical Writing Fellow. Their work has been published by e-flux, Momus, GenderIT, Cambridge University and the Fashion Studies Journal. She’s been a speaker at multiple universities and conferences including King’s College London, UK; the Salzburg Global Seminar, Austria; University of Eau Claire, WN; Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina and the World Summit on Arts and Culture, Stockholm, Sweden.Her work and practice has been covered by e-flux, Dazed, Hyperallergic and The New York Times. instagram.com/Xonorika Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Visions Lucas LaRochelle (they/them) Designer / researcher Lucas LaRochelle is a designer and researcher whose work is concerned with queer and trans digital cul-tures, community-based archiving, and co-creative media. They are the founder of Queering the Map, a community-generated counter-mapping project that digitally archives LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space. They have lectured, facilitated, and exhibited internationally, recently at the Guggenheim Museum (USA), Interaccess (Canada), Digital Writers’ Festival (Australia), MUTEK (Canada), LINZ FMR (Austria), Ars Electronica (Austria), Somerset House (UK), Onomatopee Projects (Netherlands), fanfare (Netherlands), OTHERWISE Festival (Switzerland), Ada X (Canada), and SBC Gallery (Canada). They have presented research at the Bartlett School of Architecture, the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras / School of Architecture, the University of Cambridge, and Stanford University, among other academic insti-tutions. Their work and writing has been published in Futuress, Immerse News, Queer Sites in Global Con-texts, Atlas Menor #1, QUEER.ARCHIVE.WORK #3, Diagrams of Power, IWAKAN, ROM, Accent, Echelles, and Perfect Strangers, among other books and publications. lucaslarochelle.com Twitter: @queeringthemap_ Instagram: @ontario.mom Instagram: @queeringthemap Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI X≠Y∴Z Mac Andre any artist Mac Andre Arboleda is an artist interested in exploring the sickness of the Internet through research and dialogue, art and text, organizing and publishing. Born in Makati and raised in San Pedro, Philippines, their past lives include leading organizations such as the UP Internet Freedom Network and the Artists for Digital Rights Network, co-organizing events such as Zine Orgy and Munzinelupa, and scheming with artist collective Magpies Press. They have completed residencies under Beta x transmediale, Digital Solitude, and the ESRC Digital Good Network. A recipient of the 2024 Judson-Morrissey Excellence in New Media Award, they've previously studied in Austria, Denmark, and Poland under an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI I Grew Up in a Click Farm Maithu Bùi They/them artist Maithu Bùi (b. 1991, Plauen) explores networks of human intervention and their entanglements with life forms at the intersection of collective history, science, and technology. They studied Philosophy of Language and Logic at LMU Munich and Fine Arts at UdK Berlin. Bùi co-founded the research collective Curating through Conflict with Care (CCC) and the working group art+computation at the Gesellschaft für Informatik. They are a 2024 Human Machine Fellow at Akademie der Künste, and a 2025 recipient of the Stiftung Kunstfond stipend Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI fromBattlefields toRoborders Max Ardito (he/him) Composer / engineer / artist Max Ardito is a composer, engineer, and artist from Brooklyn, New York, currently living in Montréal. Blur-ring the lines between sonic arts, computer science, and research, his work explores the complicated spir-itual relationships that manifest at the border between information and interface. Through a practice that involves reappropriating and obliterating the technocratic interfaces of modern neoliberalism – variational auto-encoding, cloud load balancing, signal encryption practices – his works attempt to deconstruct their own tools to the extreme limits and simulate the ways in which people are used, influenced, and radicalized by technology. Max has background in DIY experimental music, performing frequently as a violinist both solo and in collaboration with others in various noise/improvisational projects. maxardito.com Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Sinthomatic Music / Digital Intimacy Maya Indira Ganesh she/her Advisor 2023 Maya Indira Ganesh is a scholar, educator, and practitioner who works at the intersection of digital technologies, culture, and society. She co-leads a Master’s program in AI, Ethics, and Society at the University of Cambridge, UK, and is a senior research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. You can find an up-to-date list of her academic research and writing here, culture writing and essays here, and recent talks and public events here. Maya earned a Drphil in Cultural Sciences (Kulturwissenschaften) from Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany in 2022. Her doctoral work examined the re-shaping of what we mean by the ‘ethical’ and the shifting role of the human in the emergence of the driverless car. Her current research-pedagogy asks what kinds of learning and teaching methods and materials contribute to the shaping of expertise in shaping AI technologies as ethical, reponsible, and political. Before transitioning to a PhD and academia, Maya worked with feminist and digital rights NGOs on securing freedom of speech and expression online and offline for human rights defenders, journalists, and activists, chiefly at Tactical Tech. Maya works as a practitioner writing about the digital, technology, and culture, collaborating with artists, critics, and designers, developing large-scale cultural symposia, and advising cultural institutions and curators. Her writing has been translated into Korean, Turkish, French, and German. Maya has won fellowships and awards from the Media Cultures of Simulation (MECS) Institute for Advanced Study (2018), Digital Earth/Hivos (2020), the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on Histories of AI (2021), and was a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Resident Fellow on AI (2019). Moisés Horta Valenzuela (he/him) Sound artist / visual artist / electronic musician Moisés Horta Valenzuela is an autodidact sound artist, creative technologist, and electronic musician from Tijuana, México, working in computer music, Artificial Intelligence, and the history and politics of emerging digital technologies. As 𝔥𝔢𝔵𝔬𝔯𝔠𝔦𝔰𝔪𝔬𝔰, he crafts an uncanny link between ancient and state-of-the-art sound technologies channeled through a critical decolonial theory lens in the context of contemporary electronic music and the sonic arts. His work has been presented at Ars Electronica, MUTEK México, Transart Festi-val, MUTEK: AI Art Lab Montréal, Elektron Musik Studion, CTM Festival: Music Makers Hacklab, among other events. He currently leads independently organized workshops around creative AI art practices centred around sound and image synthesis and the demystification of neural networks, developing SEMILLA, an interface for interacting with generative neural sound synthesizers, and OIR, an online channel for a semi-autonomous meta-DJ trained on thousands of hours of visuals and music from global electronic club mu-sic and techno. moiseshorta.audio Twitter: @hexorcismos Instagram: @hexorcismos Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Age of Data: A.I. Industry Nakeema Stefflbauer (she/her) Investor / ethical AI advocate Nakeema Stefflbauer is a Brooklyn-born tech digitalization expert, a business angel investor, and an advo-cate for ethical AI technology investment. Nakeema founded the FrauenLoop nonprofit in Berlin, and she is CEO of the US-based Techincolor venture and the Techincolor.eu network of tech professionals in Europe. She writes and speaks about the impact of digital technologies and AI on marginalized groups and has given keynotes at EU Parliament hearings, among other events. nakeema.net Twitter: @DocStefflbauer Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Algorithms and the Convenience Matrix Neema Githere (they/she) Artist / theorist / curator / writer Neema Githere (b. Nairobi, Kenya) is a writer, artist, and grassroots theorist whose work explores love and indigeneity in a time of algorithmic debris. Having dreamt themselves into the world via the internet from an early age, Githere’s work prototypes relationality-as-art through experiments that span curation, community organizing, social design, travel and image-making. Githere is a 2023-24 Practitioner Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University, where they are working on a project entitled “Data Healing: A Call for Repair”. presentism2020.com Instagram: @take.back.theinternet Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Mycelial Memory and the Mycelial Internet Noam Youngrak Son they communication designer Noam Youngrak Son is a communication designer practicing queer publishing. They explore revolutionary methods of disseminating deviant narratives. In their work, publishing concerns more than mere printed matter, since, in its etymology, the word "publishing" originally meant to populate communities and to breed interspecies relations. The term "queer" in this context is not used as a statement of identity but as that of methodology – small yet collective strategies of publishing that challenge the modern myth of a singular, heroic “Genius” designer. d-act.org instagram.com/noam_yr Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Unionizing the speculative: Speculative fundraising towards generative AI - creative worker unionization Nushin Yazdani Artist, Designer & Researcher Nushin Yazdani is a transformation designer, artist, and AI design researcher working at the intersection of machine learning, design justice, and queer feminist practices. Nushin is the co-creator of DREAMING BEYOND AI. Within the collective, Nushin curates events, organizes residencies, and builds spaces for critical and creative engagement with AI. At Superrr Lab, Nushin worked as a design researcher and project manager, developing feminist tech visions and policies. Nushin has lectured at Universität der Künste Berlin, Humboldt University, FH Nordwestschweiz, and others, and has been part of the queerfeminist collective dgtl fmnsm. Nushin is an EYEBEAM Fractal Fellow, a Landecker Democracy Fellow alum, and a member of the Design Justice Network. Nushin is currently completing a Master’s in Science and Technology Studies in Vienna and Taipei, focusing on data worker struggles and AI impersonation. nushinyazdani.com Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI What does our feminist future look like? Paola Ricaurte she/her Paola Ricaurte is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Digital Culture at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and co-founder of the Tierra Común network. She coordinates the Latin American and Caribbean hub of the Feminist Network for Research in Artificial Intelligence, fr. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Tequiologies: reclaiming the right to a dignified future Petja Ivanova (she/they) Artist Petja Ivanova’s intersectional feminist and transdisciplinary practice combines biology, spirituality, computa-tion, and the poetic in order to promote the poetic method as a counterweight to the socially dominant 'scientific method’ of capitalist, imperialist, white-supremacist patriarchy. The Berlin-based Bulgarian artist graduated from the University of Arts Berlin in the class for computational art/generative art in 2015. She runs Studio Poetic Futures and Speculative Ecologies (SPF) out of a little caravan and teaches speculative design at HAW-Hamburg, and at times at Linnaeus University in Växjo, Sweden. poeticfutures.com Instagram: @poetic_futures Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Mycelial Memory and the Mycelial Internet Raziye Buse Çetin she/her co-founder Dreaming Beyond AI R. Buse Çetin is a creative strategist and AI ethicist. Her work revolves around ethics, impact, and governance of AI systems and it is grounded in intersectional feminism. Buse is the co-founder of the AI research, advocacy and art platform Dreaming Beyond AI. Buse's work aims to demystify the intersectional impact of AI technologies through research, policy advocacy and art for the general public and various organisations. linktr.ee/busecettbuse@dreamingbeyond.ai Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Wisdom of not knowing and decolonial AI Sarah Devi Chander (she/her) Sarah Devi Chander is interested in anti-racism, technology policy, and justice. She is a senior policy adviser at European Digital Rights (EDRi), where she advocates on digital legislation and aims to build resilient coalitions to contest discriminatory and oppressive technology practice. She is also cofounder of the Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice, a PoC-led coalition of activists and actors organizing for racial justice. Twitter: @sarahchander Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A [love] letter to [black and brown] [queer] and [disabled] [feminists], [dreaming] [beyond] AI Seeta Peña Gangadharan (she/her) Seeta Peña Gangadharan is associate professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work focuses on inclusion, exclusion, and marginalization, as well as questions around democracy, social justice, and technological governance. She currently co-leads two projects: Our Data Bodies, which examines the impact of data collection and data-driven technologies on members of marginalized communities in the United States, and Justice, Equity, and Technology, which explores the impacts of data-driven technologies and infrastructures on European civil society. She is also a visiting scholar in the School of Media Studies at The New School, affiliated fellow of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and affiliate fellow of the Data & Society Research Institute. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI No Exit: Big Computing’s End Run Around User Rights and Refusal Seyi Akiwowo she/her founder and CEO of Glitch Seyi Akiwowo (pronounced Shay-Yee Aki-Wo-wo) is the multi award-winning founder and CEO of Glitch, the charity dedicated to ending online abuse. She is an expert on tech accountability and Black women's safety online, and the author of How to Stay Safe Online, a toolkit for developing digital citizenship. Seyi sits on TikTok's Trust and Safety Council, the Board of Multitudes Foundation and she is a Gates Foundation Global Goalkeeper. seyiakiwowo.com glitchcharity.co.uk uk.linkedin.com/in/seyiakiwowo Tabita Rezaire (she/her) Artist Tabita Rezaire is infinity longing to experience itself. As an eternal seeker, her path as an artist, devotee, yogi, doula, and farmer’s apprentice weaves healing arts and scientific systems through connections to the land, the ancestors, and the songs. Her cross-dimensional practices envision network sciences – organic, electronic, and spiritual – as healing technologies to serve the shift towards heart consciousness. Embracing digital, corporeal, and ancestral memory, she digs into scientific imaginaries and mystical realms to tackle the colonial wounds and energetic imbalances that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Tabita is based in French Guiana, where she is birthing AMAKABA. tabitarezaire.com Twitter: #tabitarezaire Instagram: #tabitarezaire Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Community of Intelligence Tadleeh (she/her) Tadleeh is the nascent project of Indian-born, Milan-based musician Hazina Francia. Her club-heavy, brooding debut EP, Ego Will Collapse, was released in summer 2019 on Berlin’s Yegorka label. shapeplatform.eu/artist/tadleeh temi lasade-anderson she/her PhD Student at King's College London temi lasade-anderson is a PhD Student at King's College London, completing exploratory research on Black women’s digital intimacy. Her research interests are "the digital" and Blackness; race, identity and social media (sub)cultures; Internet relationality; and platform governance. temi has a Master in Digital Media and Society from Cardiff University, where she was awarded Best Dissertation (2022). Alongside her PhD work, temi founded alaàṣẹ, a Black feminist internet lab. Here, she develops research and consults for tech policy civil society on advocacy, campaigning and policy. Prior to the above, temi worked for almost a decade in marketing and digital advertising. Altogether, her work seeks to reimagine and create equitable and joyful technological futures. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI The Web this Black Woman Wants Ulla Heinrich (no pronouns) Ulla Heinrich (*1987) is a cultural mediator, curator, and cultural manager (MA). From 2015–18, Ulla worked at HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts as Head of Digital Communication, assistant to the intendant and head of special projects. As a music curator and booker, Heinrich previously organized concerts and open-air festivals and currently serves on juries for the Musikfonds and Initiative Musik. For the past 10 years, Ulla has been involved in projects and workshops on the topic of digitality and gender for young people, young adults and educational professionals. As a feminist activist, Ulla gives lectures on the topic and organizes educational events. Ulla is also initiator, curator and producer of the festival dgtl fmnsm, which takes place since 2016 and deals with the emancipatory potentials of technology from a queer-feminist and intersectional perspective. Since June 2019, Ulla is the managing director of Missy Magazine and lives in Berlin. missy-magazine.de Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI What does our feminist future look like? Vanessa A. Opoku (she/her) Artist Vanessa A. Opoku is a visual artist living and working in Berlin. She recently graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, having already studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. With film and photography, animation, 3D scans, and AI, she explores the borderlands of mixed reality. Traces that people leave behind become visible between the worlds of virtuality and physical reality. Beings and objects turn into mediating mentors who ask questions and tell stories of identity and self-empowerment. Twitter: @vaopoku Instagram: @vaopoku Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Nichts als solide Xin xin they/them artist Xin Xin is an artist currently making socially-engaged software that explores the possibilities of reshaping language and power relations. Through mediating, subverting, and innovating modes of social interaction in the digital space, Xin invites participants to relate to one another and experience togetherness in new and unfamiliar ways. xin-xin.info instagram.com/xinemata Zainab Aliyu she/her artist, designer and cultural worker Zainab Aliyu is a Nigerian-American artist, designer and cultural worker living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). Her work explores how sociotechnological systems of control are interconnected and how we are materially implicated through time. Drawing upon her body as a corporeal archive as a site of ancestral memory, she crafts counter-narratives through sculptures, videos, installations, virtual environments, and social practice. Zai is a 2023-24 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow and co-director of the School for Poetic Computation. Her work has been shown internationally, and she has completed residencies and received grants for her work. Zas Ieluhee (they/them) Visual artist I create under the name (Zas) Ieluhee, which means ‘(the) moon’ in Medu Neter, the ancient Egyptian syllabary deeply linked to the majority of Bantu languages and in particular mine, which is Bamileke. I channel my inspirations by replicating patterns I see in nature, sacred geometry, and visual representations of how energies (light, sound, etc.) travel through various dimensions and bodies. My art reflects my current perception of the world, but also incorporate the lessons I have learned from facing reality as it is. My approach is supported by extensive research, particularly in astrophysics, astronomy, memetics, and ancient symbols and religions – overall, ways of understanding the dynamics of existence, consciousness, death, and the afterlife. zasieluhee.com Instagram: @ieluhee Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Light Bosons ✕ Adriaan Odendaal he/him Designer / researcher Adriaan Odendaal is a multimedia and content designer from South Africa, whose work revolves around algorithmic literacy, critical and speculative design, digital culture, and game/software studies. He is a cofounder of the research and design studio internet teapot, which focuses on using design in socially transformative ways. www.internetteapot.com Twitter: @adriaan_o Instagram: @internetteapot Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A Carrier Bag Filled with Glitches, Errors, and Artificial Stupidity ✕ Alla Popp (no pronoun) Artist Alla Popp is a digital media and performance artist from Kazan, Russia. Alla’s feminist gaze focuses on our shared visions of the future, the emancipatory potentials of digital technology, and narratives for the future of humanity. Formally, Alla works at the intersection of digital technology, performance, and music, devel-oping interactive digital formats and live experiences in VR, AR, XR, and on the web. Alla is part of the technologically advanced interdisciplinary music and performance project BBB_ and the dgtl fmnsm collective. homepage-bbb.com allapopp.com Instagram: @allapopp Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Queer Feminist AI FaceFilter ✕ Anasuya Sengupta she/her co-director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge? Anasuya Sengupta is co-director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, a global multilingual campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalised communities online. She has led initiatives across the global South, and internationally for over 25 years, to collectively create feminist presents and futures of love, justice, and liberation. Anasuya is a co-founder and advisor to Numun Fund, advisor to the Flickr Foundation, the former Chief Grantmaking Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, and the former Regional Program Director at the Global Fund for Women. whoseknowledge.org sanmathi.org/anasuya linkedin.com/in/anasuya-sengupta-9466261 ✕ biarritzzz she/her artist biarritzzz (1994, Fortaleza, lives and works in Recife, Brazil) is an anti-disciplinary transmedia artist who investigates languages, codes and media. She believes that magic and low resolution are important counter narratives to live the current cosmological dispute of realities. She has exhibited in MAM Rio, Museum of Tomorrow, Kunsthall Trondheim, State Of Concept Athens, Delfina Foundation, Satellite platform (Pivô), A.I.R Gallery, Centro Cultural São Paulo, The Wrong Biennale, FILE, The Shed NY, among others. Her works are part of the Rhizome Artbase (New Museum), KADIST Foundation and Instituto Moreira Salles digital collections. She was a 2023 and 2024 PIPA Award nominee. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI I think it's fake ✕ Bretas he/they visual artist Bretas, 24, is a Black visual artist, born and based in São Paulo, Brazil. Academically, grad student in Architecture on FAU at University of São Paulo and researcher in the Demonumenta-FAUUSP group. The artist uses deep fakes to revive portrait-photography archives from the 1800's, of racialized persons from distinct regions of his country. A inspiring exercise on ancestrality, temporalities and race, using AI to create memory - without engaging in a neocolonialist approach on machine learning and data-driven escalation of real world inequalities. Bretas' most used art output is video mapping in places of memory. In 2021, at Demonumenta, Bretas was the first to bring together, publish and animate an archive of 421 photos depicting afro-indigenous people of São Paulo from the 1860’s, the biggest of its kind. 2022, the artist took part on his first institutional group exhibition at SESC Consolação in São Paulo. In the same year, Bretas gave a presentation at the Interactive Communication Program-NYU in New York on "Projection Mapping in Brazilian Territories". In 2023 Bretas was the youngest nominated artist for the PIPA Prize, one of the leading awards of contemporary art in Brazil. @bretasvj also works as VJ collaborating with groups such as Lollapalooza, Nike, HBO, Valorant and others. instagram.com/bretasvj Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI The Eye That Portrays and Self-Archive ✕ Charlie (they/them) Charlie has a PhD in physics and has worked as a researcher, data scientist, data cleaner, and scientific programmer, but mostly they have been extremely online and clenching their jaw. On their way to becom-ing a proper data luddite, they cling on due to seeing more and more awesome people working on critical studies of technology and algorithms, and being involved in cool projects and approaches to public interest technology and design justice. are.na/de Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Machine Unreadable ✕ Clemens Wildt he/him project manager at IFA Clemens is a cultural manager, researcher and mediator. He sees his work as building bridges between people, institutions and systems. Clemens strives to exercise his role in structures in a reflective manner and continuously question it. In doing so, he learns about queer-feminist and postcolonial discourses, as well as the complex relationship between humans, machines, animals, plants and the planet. ✕ Dera Luce he/him essayist, writer, and multidisciplinary artist Dera Luce is a Nigerian-American essayist, speculative fiction writer, and multi-disciplinary artist who calls Berlin home. His stories explore queerness, linguistics, shifting realities, and other extraordinary experiences that he is still finding the words for. Dera has written for Autostraddle, The Atlantic's CityLab, and Riverfront Times, among others. He is a Summer ‘22 Fellow of Voodoonauts, a grassroots Afrofuturist collective promoting connectivity and craft within the global Black SFF community. Dera is currently writing a novel for Black queer young adults. deraluce.com/ patreon.com/deraluce instagram.com/deraluce Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Heal-GPT (Slowed + Reverb) ✕ Elif Sansoy (she/her) Artist Elif Sansoy is a digital media artist from Istanbul, Turkey. The work she is most passionate about focuses on discoveries of forms of digital intimacy that are absent from nuance-free UGC ecosystems that make us repress our sensitivities about the world and each other. Coming from a video art background, she uses algorithmic processes and digital image manipulation to express her ideas about alternative narrative worlds that can unfold within the digital. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Sinthomatic Music / Digital Intimacy ✕ hiba ali they artist Hiba Ali is an Afrasian worldbuilder and digital somatics practitioner and shares their digital art in the form of immersive digital environments, sculpture-based installations, moving images, garments, and sound. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, they grew up in Chicago and Toronto and belong to East African, South Asian and Arab diasporas. They are a practitioner and (re)learner of Swahili, Urdu, Arabic and Spanish languages. They developed the term, digital somatics, to embody the body-mind-spirit connection to the principles of game design and narrative storytelling. They use virtual reality, 3D animation and augmented reality to slow down time and create portals of solace and care and consider the digital portal as a liminal space where they call forth more loving and healing into our world. hibaali.info instagram: @h3ba.hyba.xba Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Watering the Somatic Oasis ✕ İdil Galip (she/her) Researcher İdil Galip is a writer, researcher, and maker interested in exploring global memespheres, algorithmic cultures and the future of platform work through ethnographic methods and theoretical interventions. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Edinburgh and is currently a lecturer in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. She also runs the Meme Studies Research Network, which is an interdisciplinary network for people who study memes. idilgalip.com Twitter: @idilgalip Instagram: @cybervolta Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A respite from algorithmic violence: Memes, platforms and content moderation ✕ Joycelyn Longdon (she/her) Researcher Joycelyn Longdon is a twenty-three-year-old MRes+PhD student at Cambridge University on the Artificial Intelligence for the study of Environmental Risk (AI4ER) programme, researching the applications of AI to the climate emergency. Her PhD research takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining machine learning, bioacoustics, forest ecology, indigenous knowledge, and sociology to investigate the role of technology in forest conservation. She is also the founder of ClimateInColour, an online education platform and commu-nity for the climate-curious, making climate conversation more accessible and diverse. climateincolour.com Instagram: @climateincolor Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Radical AI for Forest Conservation ✕ Karla Zavala Barreda (she/her) Designer / researcher Karla Zavala Barreda works at the intersection of software, design, and education. She is a cofounder of the research and design studio internet teapot, a collaboration that focuses on speculative and critical design projects, digital culture, critical theory, and the use of design in a socially transformative way. She is current-ly a PhD candidate in media studies at the University of Amsterdam, where she researches apps ecology and learning software aimed at young children. www.internetteapot.com Twitter: @karlazavala Instagram: @internetteapot Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A Carrier Bag Filled with Glitches, Errors, and Artificial Stupidity ✕ Kira Xonorika she/her interdisciplinary artist, writer and futurist Kira Xonorika is a cross-disciplinary artist, writer and researcher. Their work explores the multidimensional connections between ancestry, temporality, world-building, restorative ecologies and magic. Through transcultural and AI-collaborative frameworks, Xonorika weaves worlds that center multi-species intelligence to reindigenize relations history. Kira has been the recipient of the Ars Electronica State of the ART(ist) award (honorary mention) and has exhibited internationally across the United States, Europe, Asia and South America including the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria; Frieze Seoul, Korea; Ford Foundation Gallery, NY; Vellum Los Angeles, CA; Kampnagel Hamburg, Germany and Arebyte, London, UK. In 2023 she became a resident at Dreaming Beyond AI and a Momus/Eyebeam Critical Writing Fellow. Their work has been published by e-flux, Momus, GenderIT, Cambridge University and the Fashion Studies Journal. She’s been a speaker at multiple universities and conferences including King’s College London, UK; the Salzburg Global Seminar, Austria; University of Eau Claire, WN; Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina and the World Summit on Arts and Culture, Stockholm, Sweden.Her work and practice has been covered by e-flux, Dazed, Hyperallergic and The New York Times. instagram.com/Xonorika Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Visions ✕ Lucas LaRochelle (they/them) Designer / researcher Lucas LaRochelle is a designer and researcher whose work is concerned with queer and trans digital cul-tures, community-based archiving, and co-creative media. They are the founder of Queering the Map, a community-generated counter-mapping project that digitally archives LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space. They have lectured, facilitated, and exhibited internationally, recently at the Guggenheim Museum (USA), Interaccess (Canada), Digital Writers’ Festival (Australia), MUTEK (Canada), LINZ FMR (Austria), Ars Electronica (Austria), Somerset House (UK), Onomatopee Projects (Netherlands), fanfare (Netherlands), OTHERWISE Festival (Switzerland), Ada X (Canada), and SBC Gallery (Canada). They have presented research at the Bartlett School of Architecture, the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras / School of Architecture, the University of Cambridge, and Stanford University, among other academic insti-tutions. Their work and writing has been published in Futuress, Immerse News, Queer Sites in Global Con-texts, Atlas Menor #1, QUEER.ARCHIVE.WORK #3, Diagrams of Power, IWAKAN, ROM, Accent, Echelles, and Perfect Strangers, among other books and publications. lucaslarochelle.com Twitter: @queeringthemap_ Instagram: @ontario.mom Instagram: @queeringthemap Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI X≠Y∴Z ✕ Mac Andre any artist Mac Andre Arboleda is an artist interested in exploring the sickness of the Internet through research and dialogue, art and text, organizing and publishing. Born in Makati and raised in San Pedro, Philippines, their past lives include leading organizations such as the UP Internet Freedom Network and the Artists for Digital Rights Network, co-organizing events such as Zine Orgy and Munzinelupa, and scheming with artist collective Magpies Press. They have completed residencies under Beta x transmediale, Digital Solitude, and the ESRC Digital Good Network. A recipient of the 2024 Judson-Morrissey Excellence in New Media Award, they've previously studied in Austria, Denmark, and Poland under an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI I Grew Up in a Click Farm ✕ Maithu Bùi They/them artist Maithu Bùi (b. 1991, Plauen) explores networks of human intervention and their entanglements with life forms at the intersection of collective history, science, and technology. They studied Philosophy of Language and Logic at LMU Munich and Fine Arts at UdK Berlin. Bùi co-founded the research collective Curating through Conflict with Care (CCC) and the working group art+computation at the Gesellschaft für Informatik. They are a 2024 Human Machine Fellow at Akademie der Künste, and a 2025 recipient of the Stiftung Kunstfond stipend Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI fromBattlefields toRoborders ✕ Max Ardito (he/him) Composer / engineer / artist Max Ardito is a composer, engineer, and artist from Brooklyn, New York, currently living in Montréal. Blur-ring the lines between sonic arts, computer science, and research, his work explores the complicated spir-itual relationships that manifest at the border between information and interface. Through a practice that involves reappropriating and obliterating the technocratic interfaces of modern neoliberalism – variational auto-encoding, cloud load balancing, signal encryption practices – his works attempt to deconstruct their own tools to the extreme limits and simulate the ways in which people are used, influenced, and radicalized by technology. Max has background in DIY experimental music, performing frequently as a violinist both solo and in collaboration with others in various noise/improvisational projects. maxardito.com Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Sinthomatic Music / Digital Intimacy ✕ Maya Indira Ganesh she/her Advisor 2023 Maya Indira Ganesh is a scholar, educator, and practitioner who works at the intersection of digital technologies, culture, and society. She co-leads a Master’s program in AI, Ethics, and Society at the University of Cambridge, UK, and is a senior research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. You can find an up-to-date list of her academic research and writing here, culture writing and essays here, and recent talks and public events here. Maya earned a Drphil in Cultural Sciences (Kulturwissenschaften) from Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany in 2022. Her doctoral work examined the re-shaping of what we mean by the ‘ethical’ and the shifting role of the human in the emergence of the driverless car. Her current research-pedagogy asks what kinds of learning and teaching methods and materials contribute to the shaping of expertise in shaping AI technologies as ethical, reponsible, and political. Before transitioning to a PhD and academia, Maya worked with feminist and digital rights NGOs on securing freedom of speech and expression online and offline for human rights defenders, journalists, and activists, chiefly at Tactical Tech. Maya works as a practitioner writing about the digital, technology, and culture, collaborating with artists, critics, and designers, developing large-scale cultural symposia, and advising cultural institutions and curators. Her writing has been translated into Korean, Turkish, French, and German. Maya has won fellowships and awards from the Media Cultures of Simulation (MECS) Institute for Advanced Study (2018), Digital Earth/Hivos (2020), the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on Histories of AI (2021), and was a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Resident Fellow on AI (2019). ✕ Moisés Horta Valenzuela (he/him) Sound artist / visual artist / electronic musician Moisés Horta Valenzuela is an autodidact sound artist, creative technologist, and electronic musician from Tijuana, México, working in computer music, Artificial Intelligence, and the history and politics of emerging digital technologies. As 𝔥𝔢𝔵𝔬𝔯𝔠𝔦𝔰𝔪𝔬𝔰, he crafts an uncanny link between ancient and state-of-the-art sound technologies channeled through a critical decolonial theory lens in the context of contemporary electronic music and the sonic arts. His work has been presented at Ars Electronica, MUTEK México, Transart Festi-val, MUTEK: AI Art Lab Montréal, Elektron Musik Studion, CTM Festival: Music Makers Hacklab, among other events. He currently leads independently organized workshops around creative AI art practices centred around sound and image synthesis and the demystification of neural networks, developing SEMILLA, an interface for interacting with generative neural sound synthesizers, and OIR, an online channel for a semi-autonomous meta-DJ trained on thousands of hours of visuals and music from global electronic club mu-sic and techno. moiseshorta.audio Twitter: @hexorcismos Instagram: @hexorcismos Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Age of Data: A.I. Industry ✕ Nakeema Stefflbauer (she/her) Investor / ethical AI advocate Nakeema Stefflbauer is a Brooklyn-born tech digitalization expert, a business angel investor, and an advo-cate for ethical AI technology investment. Nakeema founded the FrauenLoop nonprofit in Berlin, and she is CEO of the US-based Techincolor venture and the Techincolor.eu network of tech professionals in Europe. She writes and speaks about the impact of digital technologies and AI on marginalized groups and has given keynotes at EU Parliament hearings, among other events. nakeema.net Twitter: @DocStefflbauer Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Algorithms and the Convenience Matrix ✕ Neema Githere (they/she) Artist / theorist / curator / writer Neema Githere (b. Nairobi, Kenya) is a writer, artist, and grassroots theorist whose work explores love and indigeneity in a time of algorithmic debris. Having dreamt themselves into the world via the internet from an early age, Githere’s work prototypes relationality-as-art through experiments that span curation, community organizing, social design, travel and image-making. Githere is a 2023-24 Practitioner Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University, where they are working on a project entitled “Data Healing: A Call for Repair”. presentism2020.com Instagram: @take.back.theinternet Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Mycelial Memory and the Mycelial Internet ✕ Noam Youngrak Son they communication designer Noam Youngrak Son is a communication designer practicing queer publishing. They explore revolutionary methods of disseminating deviant narratives. In their work, publishing concerns more than mere printed matter, since, in its etymology, the word "publishing" originally meant to populate communities and to breed interspecies relations. The term "queer" in this context is not used as a statement of identity but as that of methodology – small yet collective strategies of publishing that challenge the modern myth of a singular, heroic “Genius” designer. d-act.org instagram.com/noam_yr Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Unionizing the speculative: Speculative fundraising towards generative AI - creative worker unionization ✕ Nushin YazdaniArtist, Designer & Researcher Nushin Yazdani is a transformation designer, artist, and AI design researcher working at the intersection of machine learning, design justice, and queer feminist practices. Nushin is the co-creator of DREAMING BEYOND AI. Within the collective, Nushin curates events, organizes residencies, and builds spaces for critical and creative engagement with AI. At Superrr Lab, Nushin worked as a design researcher and project manager, developing feminist tech visions and policies. Nushin has lectured at Universität der Künste Berlin, Humboldt University, FH Nordwestschweiz, and others, and has been part of the queerfeminist collective dgtl fmnsm. Nushin is an EYEBEAM Fractal Fellow, a Landecker Democracy Fellow alum, and a member of the Design Justice Network. Nushin is currently completing a Master’s in Science and Technology Studies in Vienna and Taipei, focusing on data worker struggles and AI impersonation. nushinyazdani.com Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI What does our feminist future look like? ✕ Paola Ricaurte she/her Paola Ricaurte is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Digital Culture at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and co-founder of the Tierra Común network. She coordinates the Latin American and Caribbean hub of the Feminist Network for Research in Artificial Intelligence, fr. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Tequiologies: reclaiming the right to a dignified future ✕ Petja Ivanova (she/they) Artist Petja Ivanova’s intersectional feminist and transdisciplinary practice combines biology, spirituality, computa-tion, and the poetic in order to promote the poetic method as a counterweight to the socially dominant 'scientific method’ of capitalist, imperialist, white-supremacist patriarchy. The Berlin-based Bulgarian artist graduated from the University of Arts Berlin in the class for computational art/generative art in 2015. She runs Studio Poetic Futures and Speculative Ecologies (SPF) out of a little caravan and teaches speculative design at HAW-Hamburg, and at times at Linnaeus University in Växjo, Sweden. poeticfutures.com Instagram: @poetic_futures Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Mycelial Memory and the Mycelial Internet ✕ Raziye Buse Çetin she/her co-founder Dreaming Beyond AI buse@dreamingbeyond.aiR. Buse Çetin is a creative strategist and AI ethicist. Her work revolves around ethics, impact, and governance of AI systems and it is grounded in intersectional feminism. Buse is the co-founder of the AI research, advocacy and art platform Dreaming Beyond AI. Buse's work aims to demystify the intersectional impact of AI technologies through research, policy advocacy and art for the general public and various organisations. linktr.ee/busecett Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Wisdom of not knowing and decolonial AI ✕ Sarah Devi Chander (she/her) Sarah Devi Chander is interested in anti-racism, technology policy, and justice. She is a senior policy adviser at European Digital Rights (EDRi), where she advocates on digital legislation and aims to build resilient coalitions to contest discriminatory and oppressive technology practice. She is also cofounder of the Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice, a PoC-led coalition of activists and actors organizing for racial justice. Twitter: @sarahchander Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI A [love] letter to [black and brown] [queer] and [disabled] [feminists], [dreaming] [beyond] AI ✕ Seeta Peña Gangadharan (she/her) Seeta Peña Gangadharan is associate professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work focuses on inclusion, exclusion, and marginalization, as well as questions around democracy, social justice, and technological governance. She currently co-leads two projects: Our Data Bodies, which examines the impact of data collection and data-driven technologies on members of marginalized communities in the United States, and Justice, Equity, and Technology, which explores the impacts of data-driven technologies and infrastructures on European civil society. She is also a visiting scholar in the School of Media Studies at The New School, affiliated fellow of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and affiliate fellow of the Data & Society Research Institute. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI No Exit: Big Computing’s End Run Around User Rights and Refusal ✕ Seyi Akiwowo she/her founder and CEO of Glitch Seyi Akiwowo (pronounced Shay-Yee Aki-Wo-wo) is the multi award-winning founder and CEO of Glitch, the charity dedicated to ending online abuse. She is an expert on tech accountability and Black women's safety online, and the author of How to Stay Safe Online, a toolkit for developing digital citizenship. Seyi sits on TikTok's Trust and Safety Council, the Board of Multitudes Foundation and she is a Gates Foundation Global Goalkeeper. seyiakiwowo.com glitchcharity.co.uk uk.linkedin.com/in/seyiakiwowo ✕ Tabita Rezaire (she/her) Artist Tabita Rezaire is infinity longing to experience itself. As an eternal seeker, her path as an artist, devotee, yogi, doula, and farmer’s apprentice weaves healing arts and scientific systems through connections to the land, the ancestors, and the songs. Her cross-dimensional practices envision network sciences – organic, electronic, and spiritual – as healing technologies to serve the shift towards heart consciousness. Embracing digital, corporeal, and ancestral memory, she digs into scientific imaginaries and mystical realms to tackle the colonial wounds and energetic imbalances that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Tabita is based in French Guiana, where she is birthing AMAKABA. tabitarezaire.com Twitter: #tabitarezaire Instagram: #tabitarezaire Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Community of Intelligence ✕ Tadleeh (she/her) Tadleeh is the nascent project of Indian-born, Milan-based musician Hazina Francia. Her club-heavy, brooding debut EP, Ego Will Collapse, was released in summer 2019 on Berlin’s Yegorka label. shapeplatform.eu/artist/tadleeh ✕ temi lasade-anderson she/her PhD Student at King's College London temi lasade-anderson is a PhD Student at King's College London, completing exploratory research on Black women’s digital intimacy. Her research interests are "the digital" and Blackness; race, identity and social media (sub)cultures; Internet relationality; and platform governance. temi has a Master in Digital Media and Society from Cardiff University, where she was awarded Best Dissertation (2022). Alongside her PhD work, temi founded alaàṣẹ, a Black feminist internet lab. Here, she develops research and consults for tech policy civil society on advocacy, campaigning and policy. Prior to the above, temi worked for almost a decade in marketing and digital advertising. Altogether, her work seeks to reimagine and create equitable and joyful technological futures. Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI The Web this Black Woman Wants ✕ Ulla Heinrich (no pronouns) Ulla Heinrich (*1987) is a cultural mediator, curator, and cultural manager (MA). From 2015–18, Ulla worked at HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts as Head of Digital Communication, assistant to the intendant and head of special projects. As a music curator and booker, Heinrich previously organized concerts and open-air festivals and currently serves on juries for the Musikfonds and Initiative Musik. For the past 10 years, Ulla has been involved in projects and workshops on the topic of digitality and gender for young people, young adults and educational professionals. As a feminist activist, Ulla gives lectures on the topic and organizes educational events. Ulla is also initiator, curator and producer of the festival dgtl fmnsm, which takes place since 2016 and deals with the emancipatory potentials of technology from a queer-feminist and intersectional perspective. Since June 2019, Ulla is the managing director of Missy Magazine and lives in Berlin. missy-magazine.de Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI What does our feminist future look like? ✕ Vanessa A. Opoku (she/her) Artist Vanessa A. Opoku is a visual artist living and working in Berlin. She recently graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, having already studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. With film and photography, animation, 3D scans, and AI, she explores the borderlands of mixed reality. Traces that people leave behind become visible between the worlds of virtuality and physical reality. Beings and objects turn into mediating mentors who ask questions and tell stories of identity and self-empowerment. Twitter: @vaopoku Instagram: @vaopoku Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Nichts als solide ✕ Xin xin they/them artist Xin Xin is an artist currently making socially-engaged software that explores the possibilities of reshaping language and power relations. Through mediating, subverting, and innovating modes of social interaction in the digital space, Xin invites participants to relate to one another and experience togetherness in new and unfamiliar ways. xin-xin.info instagram.com/xinemata ✕ Zainab Aliyu she/her artist, designer and cultural worker Zainab Aliyu is a Nigerian-American artist, designer and cultural worker living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). Her work explores how sociotechnological systems of control are interconnected and how we are materially implicated through time. Drawing upon her body as a corporeal archive as a site of ancestral memory, she crafts counter-narratives through sculptures, videos, installations, virtual environments, and social practice. Zai is a 2023-24 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow and co-director of the School for Poetic Computation. Her work has been shown internationally, and she has completed residencies and received grants for her work. ✕ Zas Ieluhee (they/them) Visual artist I create under the name (Zas) Ieluhee, which means ‘(the) moon’ in Medu Neter, the ancient Egyptian syllabary deeply linked to the majority of Bantu languages and in particular mine, which is Bamileke. I channel my inspirations by replicating patterns I see in nature, sacred geometry, and visual representations of how energies (light, sound, etc.) travel through various dimensions and bodies. My art reflects my current perception of the world, but also incorporate the lessons I have learned from facing reality as it is. My approach is supported by extensive research, particularly in astrophysics, astronomy, memetics, and ancient symbols and religions – overall, ways of understanding the dynamics of existence, consciousness, death, and the afterlife. zasieluhee.com Instagram: @ieluhee Contribution for Dreaming Beyond AI Light Bosons We thank also our carrier bag contributors: NAYA (Fka Lux Venérea) Omnia Elbasheer Jillian Zhong Caroline Ward & Erinma Ochu of Squirrel Nation Yasmine Boudiaf Irene Fubara Manuel Laurence Meyer Esra Ozkan Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley Cleo aka Emotional Labour Queen Grace Kwon and Sam Vassor of Close Isn't Home Maria (Happy New Tears) Maxh Capacity & AORTA Films Hyphen Labs Anna Fries & Malu Peeters Sam Lavigne Amelia Winger-Bearskin Alia ElKattan Imprint/ Legal Imprint Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. 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Introduction, In the Loop ✕ No audiotranscription yet 2. hiba ali & digital networks as sites of healing, In the Loop ✕ Hello friends and welcome to this episodeof In the Loop by Dreaming Beyond AI.This podcast series focuses on our veryfirst curated residency where we exploredthe theme of AI, time and temporality.We started with an in-person kickoff weekand digital residency throughoutthe summer and a symposium happeningin fall in Kampnagel, Hamburg,Germany to close the residency.Our selected residents were the fabulousand amazing humans in the nameof Kira Xonorika, Dera Luce,Noam Youngrak Son, Bretas,and hiba ali.And they were in creative sparringpartnerships with the talented and belovedmentors, and in the name of Vanessa A.Opoku, Petja Ivanova, Idil Galip, NeemaGithere, and Moises Hortà Valenzuela.In the digital world and apps and the waythat technology circulates, there's a lotaround quickness, fastness, immediacy.I want to think about digital networksand technology as sites of healing.We yield best when we go at ourown pace and center slowness.In this episode,you'll hear from our resident, hiba ali,who's a producer of moving images,sounds, garments, and words.Their project for the residency is named"Cultivate the Somatic Oasis",a web VR project that uses the immediacyof technologies and somatic techniquesto slow down time and through threesomatic techniques: looking, rocking,and breathing restores slowness backinto our bodies by regulatingthe nervous system.This episode was recorded duringthe kickoff week of the residency,where we all together gathered in thisgorgeous house in the nature nottoo far from Hamburg in Germany.It was a beautiful morning where peoplewere chilling outside, brainstorming,having some creative ideation,some other were chilling.You might hear a lot of background noisehere and there throughout these episodesbecause we were tryingto keep it real and real.Yeah, so enjoy the episodes.I'm hiba ali.I'm a digital artistand thinker and an educator whouses 3D animation and world-buildingas part of my practice.The work I've been making with digital artlately has been aroundslowing downtime because the digital worldand apps and the way that technologycirculates is a lot around quickness,fastness, immediacy.I want to think aboutdigital networks and technology as sitesof healing affirmingourselves and practice of world-buildingbecause we can build the worldwhere there is slowness.We can build the world.There is a space for healing.We don't have to work,work, work, work, work all the time.I've been thinking aboutthat in relation to my projectfor the residency.Do you want to say more about yourpersonal relationship to time?Because I know we had some quite funnyconversations actually with the mentorswhen we had the very first meeting.What's up with everyone?Everybody's like, Oh,it's a bit f*** up.How do we show up and also sometimes notfit the stereotypical expectationsthat white supremacy has put on to us.We are lazy and lateand slow and whatever.But also it's just tricky in capitalism tojust have a healthy relationship to time.I don't want to make yourreflections on that.I grew up as an immigrant who's workingclass, grew up for working class inand outside of Chicago.I think the need to work and to befinancially stable was a lot of sacrificefor my parents, and in turn,changed the way that the idea of familyand community could not be practiced.A lot of isolation and working allthe time, there tends to be a price that capitalismextracts, whether it's through lackof connection, lack of family time,and other manifestationsthat really shape us towardsbeing isolationist and towards scarcity.Especially growing up,financially struggling,we internalize precarity as a norm.I will always be struggling,things like that.There are messages we tell ourselves,and we live in those worlds.Getting older and having the access to seeother ways of being that don't centerthat, especially as a Black and Brownpeople, being able to not center thoseways of being, we can take and imagineworlds where and enact those thingsthat we don't need to speed up,we can slow down,and the idea of scarcity,we don't need to internalize.It's a journey to get there.But when we...And we're always on that path.I think that's the challenge because the worldcontinues to, and the way capitalism,the way extraction,it's about speeding up-time and taking,and to not only taking from us,but also we internalize that mindset.Now we are enacting that balance, takingfrom others so we can lift ourselves up.It's a lot of work, and it requires to bepresent in our bodies,because that's what capitalism also does.It takes us away from our bodies into ourminds, and into compartmentalizingand putting everything away.What does it take to open that up,to be more present fully in our wholebodies, and use that as a spaceto imagine and enact?Because the imagination gives usinspiration and then enact to our bodyand our spirit for a different, a moreloving, maybe more calming way of being.I love that.Thanks so much.And just like, observations,reflections as to how has the residencybeen for you this three or four daysthat we've been spending together?Two more sleeps before the end?Yeah, it's unbelievable.It's really unbelievable.I feel like I'm in some fantasyworld, and I don't want to go.It feels like I've been here way longerbecause time has slowed down, and Ifeel so much more rested and present.My future self is like,What are the lessons and what are theexperiences of having hair that I want tohold with me and find a way to practice?It's like change of scenery,change of people can change yourwhole outlook on the world.I'm seeing possibilities that Ididn't think were possible for me.And I find that what's the most endearingthat I'm like,especially here from the US,and I'm like, Oh, it's better elsewhere.It must be better elsewhere.And then I'm like, oh,it's same but different.Meaning the challengesfor the decolonization,the challenges around racism,the challenges around classism,they're here too, and theyjust look slightly different.I have been thinking about the ideaof horizontal solidarities becausethe fight, the challenges are everywhere.And what that looks like can look verydifferent if we're isolated inrelation to having community andsharing our challenges together,sharing our healing togetherhas to be collective.Everyone's been so welcomingand so kind, and it's so sweet.And then I'm like, Oh,it's going over our soon?I feel full of light and I feel full of...We did a workshop with Care a few daysago, and we talked about howwe feel when we're leaving.I'm also like, how did Ifeel when I first came, too?I'm like, I want to...I want everything to freeze.That's what I want right now.But then also I'm like,I want to take these experiences and holdthem with me as I make the work,work with my mentor,and I also think about as mind-expandingexperiences and to hold that with me,because soon it will feel likea dream, a really good dream.So yeah, that's how it's beenmy experience at the residency.Amazing.Can I give you a hug?Yeah.Thank you so much.That was beautiful.I love that we have an archive of that.Thank you so much for listening to thisepisode of In the Loop,by Dreaming Beyond AI,a residency project made possible by ifa,Deichtorhallen, and Kampnagel.Make sure to subscribe on yourfavorite podcast platform.Share that episode with a lovedone who you think would enjoy it.We'd love to have you as an Instagramfollower, a newsletter subscriber,and a community lover.Also, never hesitate to reach outif you have questions or ideas.We are at hello@dreaming beyond.aitchous and take care. 6. Dera Luce & heal chat-GPT (Generational Physical/Psychological Trauma), In the Loop ✕ Hello friends and welcome to this episodeof In the Loop by Dreaming Beyond AI.This podcast series focuses on our veryfirst curated residency where we exploredthe theme of AI, time and temporality.We started with an in-person kickoff weekand digital residency throughoutthe summer and a symposium happeningin fall in Kampnagel, Hamburg,Germany to close the residency.Our selected residents were the fabulousand amazing humans in the nameof Kira Xonorika, Dera Luce,Noam Youngrak Son, Bretas,and hiba ali.And they were in creative sparringpartnerships with the talented and belovedmentors, and in the name of Vanessa A.Opoku, Petra Ivanova, Idil Galip, Neema Githere and Moises Hortà Valenzuela.And I was like, Okay, now I get it.I understand how by being present,you could still affectthe past and the future.Because if you are connected to everythingat once, then healing in the presentis affecting those spaces as well.So when I think about generations,then it's like, okay, then I understandhow you can affect your ancestors.Your ancestors are affecting youand your descendants and all of this.And so with HealGPT,I want to explore this idea further.Inthis episode of In the Loop by DreamingBeyond AI, you will hear from Dera LuceDera Luce is a Nigerian-American essayist,speculative fiction writer,and multidisciplinary artistwho calls Berlin home.His stories explore queerness,linguistics, shifting realities,and other extraordinary experiencesthat he is still finding the words for.Dera is currently writing a novelfor black, queer, and trans young adults.Hey.Hi, Derahi.Welcome to the Dreaming Beyond AI: Inthe Loop podcast.We're so happy to have you here and I'mreally looking forward to the conversationthat we're going to have together.I'm also looking forward to it.Awesome.Okay.I'm really happy to have youand the listeners cannot see,but we have big smiles on our screen.My first question is going to be,could you tell us a little bitof yourself, who you are,where you're coming from,what person you are, anythingthat you want to mention, really.Yeah, okay.My name is Dera Luce.I'm an artist.Interestingly,I used to identify primarily as a writer,but these days, especially this year,I've been doing so many different things.With Dreaming Beyond AI,my project is actually a music project.And then I've also gotten into the ideaof woodworking this year.I'm trying to learn how to do this.And what else do I do?I make videos, and I used to do that,especially when COVID startedand I had nothing to do.I was just making YouTube videos.I would like to maybe get back into doingthis at some point, but there's no rush.And when I got back from the residencykickoff, then I was filmingfor a TV show and I was an extra.But maybe now I'm doing some- acting?-small acting things.I don't know, I just say artist nowbecause that encompasses a lot of stuff.Then my next question is you're an artistand you are one of the Dreamig and Beyond AIIn the Loop artists this year.Can you tell us a little bit about yourwork and particularly yourwork for Dreaming and Beyond AI?Yeah, can I read the thingthat I wrote for my project?Because I think that's the mostsuccinct way to describe it.Okay.My project is called Heal GPT,Slowed Plus Re verb.It's a music project about healinggenerational, physical,and psychological trauma.So that's what the GPTstands for in this case.The lyrics written in Englishand machine-translated Ebo, Ebo is myfamily's language,explores the shape of time as it relatesto the nebulous borders of generations.Our present healingreverberates through time.Neither time nor healing is linear.We can access peace if we are braveenough to process the echoes of our pain.Using the language of artificial neuralnetworks and machine translation asa mirror for EMDR, rem sleep,and trauma/data processing,I interrogate the pace at which weexpect healing to happen.Actually, when I saw the open callfor this, I was like,Oh, this is so exciting.This is perfect for me.I was just like, Yeah,I'm going to get this.I'll be there.I put the dates in my calendar.I didn't really know exactly whatmy project was going to be,and it actually changed.I don't even rememberwhat my first idea was.But I know when I was emailing Nushinand I was like, Can I just submit now?Because I'm so excited.It was a completely different project,and I didn't submit that one.Then I actually had a dream and I woke upand I was like, Oh, I needto change this completely.That's the project that I have now.I don't really remember what that dreamwas, but it was literally from a dream.I was like, Oh, that's good.I have a therapist who we meetonline and we do EMDR also online.Emdr is like,it's a form of therapy that'sspecifically for processing trauma.And the cool thing about it is you canprocess trauma a lot faster than youcould with just talk therapy alone.And it involves bilateral stimulation.So you can either move your eyes backand forth while describing the experienceor thinking about the experience,or you can tap.So I tap my shoulders at a certainspeed that my therapist sets.I think when I got this idea,maybe that night I hadbeen doing EMDR with my therapistand something was being processed.I was just like,Oh, yeah, I think I had been nervous aboutwhat would come up because EMDR reallyjust opens new things.Maybe during the session, you don't...Either I could be really overwhelmedand cry and all these things and floodedwith the things I was not processing,or you do the session and you're like,Huh, that's not what I expected.Then maybe it didn't work.But then later you find out,yeah, actually it's working.Maybe with this case,it was that I didn't feel so much and Ithought, okay, maybe it's not working.Then I was scared then, well, then what'sgoing to come up when I'm on my own?I don't really want to go to sleep becausewhat if I have terrible dreams aboutthis stuff I'm trying to process?Well, then actually,it was really nice because what happenedis I went to sleep,and then I woke up in the middleof the night and just was havinga bunch of memories about that time.I had been processing a traumatic thing,but actually whatcame up was all the positive memoriesthat I forgot from that time.It was really nice.When I say, Well, we can access peace ifwe're brave enough to process the echoesof our pain, it's like, yeah,because I was scared to dothis to dive into the pain.But then actually, the thing that Iwas afraid of didn't happen.What came out was all thesethings that made me smile.I was remembering the first timeI went to a queer bar in St.Louis and just all thesereally wonderful things.I also find it interesting,generational trauma.Why is it that we feel thingsthat is maybe not just our own,but it's stuff that was passed downand there's epigenetics, but it's more,I think, than just what'shappening at the cellular level?Because I knew about this open call,I kept thinking about time,and I realized, yeah, healing reallyisn't linear and neither is time.This is already something...These are things that I believe that nowand I was putting them together.I was even thinking with a generation,what is a generation?Why is it if you think aboutpeople asking, Am I Gen Z?Am I a millennial?We don't really know.Even this is very nebulous.Then if you think aboutwhen people say that you can healby healing yourself,you can also do the work of healing sevengenerations back and sevengenerations forward.Many cultures have this idea.Then I was like, How does that work?How are you feelingbackwards and forwards?But then the more I thought of it,I was like, Well, it's notreally backwards and forwards.It's not a line.If you think of it as maybe a spiralor everything happening all at once.The time that I've experiencedthat was when I was meditating.At that time in my life, I wasfeeling really stressed aboutfinancial security, housing security.I meditated.In that meditative space,I actually felt very safe.I realized, yeah, I feel abundant and Idon't have to stress about not havingthe apartment that I want or the moneybecause I know in thefuture I will have it.In that meditative space,it felt like I have it now because I wasconnected to the future self as well.I was like, okay, now I get it.I understand how by being present,you could still affect the pastand the future because if you areconnected to everything at once,then healing in the present isaffecting those spaces as well.So when I think about generations,then it's like, okay, then I understandhow you can affect your ancestors.Your ancestors are affecting you,and your descendants and all of this.And so with HealGPT,I want to explore this idea further andthink aboutjust all the ways that we're connectedand how doing the work of healing one'sown trauma also affectsyour entire family and...Yeah, I'm still playing with it.I think the AI aspect, so I talkedabout using machine translated Ebo.My family is Nigerian,but specifically our tribe is Ebo,and that existed before Nigeriawas even created, right?That's what I identifywith more as my family's tribe.I don't speak Ebo because manyreasons, but it's sad for me,and I would love to learn it.But since I don't really have accessto that right now, what I coulddo is use Google translate.Ibo is on there.I could put things on there,and it would not be very accurate,and it wouldn't even be in my dialect.But I was thinking if I do that, I'lljust be like, Yeah, it is what it is.And because of colonialism and all sortsof things,diaspora, having to move,I don't have accessas much as I want to my family's language,but I can use what I have and justsend it out as it is like an imperfectversion of me speakingmy heritage language.Love it, especially when you saidhealing isprocessing the echoes of your painand then all the other parts ofthat moment also comesup and maybe you have...It's a whole now.It's not like this fragmented,only painful experience and memory,but it's something more complexand that contains also pain, but alsomaybe happy, or other emotions and so on.How is this going to be a musicproject and how is it going right now?Yeah.I play piano and I can sing,but the technological aspectof it is very new to me.I wanted to play with electronic music,but also a specific sound of electronicmusic, which is slowed and reverb.Whatever the sound ends up sounding like,whatever this song ends up sounding like,I will then slow it down.I want to have this reverb becausethis is also a sound of our time.In the last few years,it's really caught up.Whether it's a slowdown song or a sped-upsong, this is something that isreally speaking to us right now.I want to include that in the analysisor whatever I'm doing.I still have to learna lot of things, actually.I have to learn how to use these toolsto do all the sound modifications.But I know I can do it.I'm excited.That's also where the AI can comeinto play because actually,my mentor, Moises, was showing methis software called Music Gen.Basically, you can just type somekeywords that describe thesound that you have in your head,and then it will do its best to producethat, and it producesit in 30-second clips.Basically, the way this works is ifon Spotify or whatever,the songs are tagged,whether it's by genre,chill, hip hop, whatever,you are using those kinds of keywords,and it's accessing songs that itknows that are tagged like this.Then somehow, I don'tknow what's going on.It's making its own version of this basedon a bunch of songs and producing a newnever before heard song or soundbite.I'll be using this as well, I think,and seeing what else I can playwith in terms of software.Then it's great that this is also likelearning and discovery and experimentationphase for you, which makes it,I think, all the more exciting.One other question aboutthe AI aspect of it.These tools that we're talking about,be it Google Translate or other AI tools,are also problematic on so many levels,whether it is about the data,where it's coming from,the way it is being used,and who profits from it,the taxonomies that they're governed by,so on and so forth.How do you deal with this aspectwhen you are bringing these toolsinto such also, I think maybe personal,vulnerable, or even spiritual orsacred part of your being and feeling.Yeah, that's a good question,and it's something that my stanceon it has changed and changes.I think in the past, I would feel like,What can I do to get away from Google,use DeepL instead?Which is DeepL is actually a bettertranslator, in my opinion, but also justfeeling really uncomfortable withthese big corporations having all of ourdata and not trusting that itwill even be there in the future.What if the cloud disappears or something?Just being like, How do we holdon to these archives and everything?Then with social media also just feelinglike we're just being sucked in and it'saffecting the way that we think and howcan I manage my relationship with it?But then this year,I think things are shifting for me,where actually my goal for the yearwas to become chronically online.I understand that people want to stepback, but I tend to be someone who doesa lot of processing alone,and then I just take so much timeand process that I end upmaybe not sharing something.I wasI want to be morein the moment, actually.I want to be able to just post thingson social media in the moment.Ithink it was helpful for me to goto an extreme so that I can know whether Ilike it or not, because if I'm just onlineall the time, then I would, I think,get past some internal hurdle that ismaking it hard for meto interact socially right now.Then after I've experienced enoughtime in that extreme, I could be like,Okay, now it's easier to dial backand have a more moderate approach.But then also when I was surrounded by allthese creative people for the kickoff,and I was having a conversation with,I think, Nema and some other people aboutsocial media and how youcan't really just reject it.I mean, you can, but it's like rejectingparts of yourself that you don't like.We're all putting ourselves out there.If we don't want to address what's goingon in this digital realm,that's just the same as notwanting to address things that wehave inside of ourselves.I was like, Oh, okay, interesting.With social media and technology,instead of running away from itand saying, I don't like how this isgoing, even with AI, people are like, Oh,this is happening too fast,or it shouldn't happen.It's happening.It's happening because we are creating it.It's coming from us.What can we do instead of trying to stopit is just maybeintegrate it and integrate it in a waythat feels safe in thesafest way possible.That's what I'm thinking now withGoogle and all these big companies.Ijust got a new phone and it's a Googlephone and I almost didn't want the Googlephone because then they have all my stuff,but they already have all my stuff.I'm just trying to figure out how tomove towards the future where it's like,yeah, to be honest,it probably will be very heavilyintegrated with technology and how do wecope with that and how do wemake peace with that also.Interesting.Yeah, I guess it's experimenting andmaking your own experience and opinionof it and appropriating it maybe in a waythat makes sense for youand also using it as aspace where you can push your maybeboundaries and certainlimitations that you might have aboutsharing parts of yourpsyche and in your person.Thank you for sharing that as well.My last question is,so we had our artistic residency,physical residency, which was amazingin Hamburg a few weeks ago in June.How did it go for you to be in communitywith other artists and mentors andpeople from the team.Did it change anything for youin terms of where you are?Yeah, just about your experience.Oh, my gosh.This is such a huge question.I mean, it's a huge questionbecause the answer feels very huge.It really changed me.I knew this going in.I was like, Yeah, this is a life-changingopportunity, and that's why I'mso excited to be a part of it.But I didn't anticipate exactlyhow it would change my life.So I thought maybe like,yeah, it's nice that I can be paidfor my work, and that's great.And alsobeing seen as an artist and havinga little bit more visibility,that's also great.But I thinkthe huge change that I'm still integratingright now is that the people that I metand the experiences that I had at thekickoff week alone really changed me.And it actually wasn't easy to do thisbecause I felt that at the residency,I was really being myself.Then that was hard to be seen in that way.Honestly, the beginning was pretty rough.I had so much anxiety becauseAndI didn't really make the connection thatwhy I was feeling anxious is because I wasnot masking as much as I mightdo around some strangers.So yeah, then I felt very seenand I felt very vulnerable.But then I realized, okay, butme not masking is actually a sign of trustand trusting myself to do that and alsotrusting people that are around me.And so even that was a healing experience,because I went through the discomfortand then towards the middle and the endof the residency, Iwas not feeling this anxiety.And I just learned so many things.I had this experience many times where Iwould think that someone else isthinking something unfavorable about me.And then I would figure out,find out that actually they thought that Iwas thinking somethingunfavorable about them.And then it was like, Oh, my gosh, weshould just not be worrying about this.Actually, we all like each otherand we're just trying to connect.The next times when that was happening,I was like, No, don't think that they'rethinking this because they're not and theyactually likedlike you, so just stop.That really helped.Then also this somatic workshopthat we did with Kare, it was...Wow.We had this whole thing where it's justlike, Yes, thank you so much, Care.This thing about just imagining thingsin your future self when we were supposedto imagine what we're like when we walkout of the house that we were staying in.It was very near future.Yeah, I was imagining all these things,but it actually happened.All of these ways that I wanted to feel.I was on the train to Hamburg,and I could feel it.I could feel in my body that I wasjust different and more confident.And it has just remained with me.I just felt like, Oh,I can't go back to the person that camethat entered the space.And now I just have to figure out howto navigate this new personwho is in this body.And another thing that I gotfrom the residency is justthe understanding of like, Yeah, I'man artist and I'm surrounded by artists.I really appreciated everyone'senergies at the residency.Also, everyone's so unique.I noticed people would nothide who they were.They wouldn't try to conform and maketheir energies like other peopleor show up in a different way.There were some people who were more quietand there were some peoplewho were more expressive.Seeing people really just stickto who they were made me feel more safeto do that for myself because I was like,If I'm appreciating this person'suniqueness,then I need to be doing the same formyself and just staying true to who I am.I also had so many moments during the weekwhere I would be like, Wow,this person is so creative,or I just love their outfit,or I was not expecting themto do this really weird thing.I like to do weird things,and this person likes to do weird things.What a great coincidence that I'm in thisplace with people who likethese things that I like.Then it was literally the last night whereI just figured outthat it's not because...The reason that I was having all theselittle pleasant surprises is because I'maround people who are also artists,and that's why everyone is so cool.It's like, Yeah,because they're all artists,and that's what artists are like,and I'm one of those people.I was also validating for myselfthat I'm in the right space and aroundpeople that I want to be with and that,yeah, I can validate myself as an artistboth internally and externally,which is something that I wassaying in the workshop with Care.So really life changing, body changing,mind changing, everything.And that was just the beginningof the residency, so wow.Wow.Okay, I need the moment to...Let's say this...I love, love, love everything you share.Thank you so much.Yeah, thank you so much for sharing thesethings with us, your lovely wordsand looking forward to the physicalexhibition in October.Thank you so much, Dera.Thank you.Thankyou so much for listening to this episodeof In the Loop by Dreaming Beyond AI,a residency project made possible by ifa,Deichtorhallen, and Kampnagel.Make sure to subscribe on yourfavorite podcast platform.Share that episode with the lovedone who you think would enjoy it.We'd love to have you as an Instagramfollower, a newsletter subscriber,and a community lover.Also, never hesitate to reach outif you have questions or ideas.We are at hello@dreamingbeyond.aiTschüss and take care! 7. Zas iehulee & Black Memes life cycles, In the loop ✕ [00:00:00.000] - Speaker 1I believe that today we see AI as this big terrifying thing without really understanding that it only just represents phases and layers of our own intelligence. [00:00:18.530] - Speaker 2Hola, lovers and friends of Dreaming Beyond AI! Welcome back to this podcast series, In the Loop. It is really good to be back. It has been a minute, it has been a minute, but you know, episodes come out when episodes come out, because what is time anyways? If you have been here before, welcome back. If you're new here, welcome also. Dreaming Beyond AI is a platform for critical and constructive knowledge, visionary fiction, speculative arts, and community organizing around artificial intelligence. And in this podcast series, we're all about opening up new dimensions of interaction and challenging the current perceptions and narratives around AI, technology, algorithms. And we want to reclaim technology as a space for marginalised bodies and build an archive of alternative realities. I'm your host, Sarah, and I'm so excited today for this episode that is going to be really fantastic with this amazing artist called Zas Ieluhee, who's a visual artist and independent researcher based in France. Their work revolves around memetics, quantum physics, in particular light as a physical phenomenon. And they work with a mix of education with introspections with collages, abstract art, internet memes, and workshops. And you might have heard that name before because Zas Ieluhee was part of the contributors of Dreaming Beyond AI back in the days, with a piece that was called Light Blosons, that was a series made to illustrate how close the human psyche, AI, and machine learning really are. [00:01:51.160] - Speaker 2The artist strongly believes that what we call AI today is in reality a one layer of animal/human intelligence. In this episode, we talk about Badushka, who is a digital character representing an introspective influencer that the artist can just play with with no pressure, but who's also the main face of the 'Human dot bot' project. We talked about memetics, we talked about the wealth of black cultures and African spiritualities, among many exciting, beautiful, and meaningful things. So enjoy the episode. [00:02:27.330] - Speaker 2So Zas, thank you so much for being part of In the Loop by Dreaming Beyond AI for this new podcast recording. I really, really appreciate your time, your presence, your existence. We're going to spend a few minutes together just talking about you, about your work, your inspiration. We've had the privilege of collaborating with you before and being in community a little bit. We just really wanted to take the opportunity to just highlight you and be in conversation with you about the things that you're working on at the moment. Yeah, To start with, maybe just if you could tell us about your artist's name, its origin, how did it came about, and a bit more about who you are. [00:03:09.150] - Speaker 1I took a class when I was in second year of business school where you had this old white man teaching us about mythos and their correlation with sounds. And he had me realize that my language, my native language, which is Bamiléké, more specifically, Bayangam, is something that is closely related to ancient Egyptian. And so I decided then to choose my artist's name depending on ancient Egyptian language. And so when I was translating the world, the moon, into ancient Egyptian, it gave me Zas Ieluhee. So that's where it comes from. I have a very close relationship with the moon. I always end up being connected to it somehow. For example, my partner is Algerian, and she's Muslim. At least she was born in a Muslim faith, Muslim confession. And basically, when she asked me what was the name that I would think of if I wanted to be converted into Islam, I said that I wanted to be called Badr بدر. And that is actually a name that I find very beautiful in itself, and it still means the moon, it means full moon. I always end up really connected to the moon. [00:04:47.600] - Speaker 1That's where my name comes from. [00:04:49.510] - Speaker 2Amazing. Beautiful. I love that. Isn't there a... Because I try to be more and more connected to the moon myself, actually. There's an upcoming moon in Taurus, no? Full Moon in Taurus? [00:05:00.520] - Speaker 1There's a full moon coming indeed. I don't know if it's in Taurus, to be very honest, but I usually just work with the different phases of the moon. So usually the full moon is the moment where you want to release energy, where you want to let go of stuff that maybe make you more heavy or you feel are not serving you anymore. And the new moon is the moment where you actually are just affirming intentions and goals and aspirations for the future cycle coming. [00:05:34.230] - Speaker 2Beautiful. I try to also be more intentional about that. So yeah, thank you for that. [00:05:41.090] - Speaker 2Can you maybe tell us a bit more about your practice? I know that there's a lot of beautiful links. Actually, if we go on your website, which I will link in the description of the episode, there is also, yes, a mention of the moon, but it's very clear that you also work with technology, a bit of AI, visual art as part of your practice. If you can tell us, what are your inspirations? What are you excited about in your practice these days? [00:06:05.750] - Speaker 1I am a neurodivergent person, so I think a lot, and I think about a lot of things and connect them together. I think that's why my art somehow touches many different subjects. My main inspiration and my main goal when I was creating was to make sure that black people could identify themselves. And then it became more broad, and that statement became, I just want humans to know what a human is. So that's why I created, for example, my YouTube channel called Human dot bot. That's the name of the original project. And basically there I wanted to maybe study and comment on different phases and different events that took place and are taking place in our lives as human beings living on Earth, whether it be pop culture, political events, climate change, all of that. I wanted us to relate to it in a more incarnated way rather than having this very false idea of what a human is. And then just try to distance yourself from it because you were so traumatized or like disgusted by the culture and people that you may be interacted with. Then on the other side, I also like to research memetics. [00:07:25.020] - Speaker 1I love memetics, I got to learn about it, I think about four years ago when I was working with the UN on their study called Metaphors in Domination. And the study that I actually asked them to maybe rephrase and call Metaphors in power because domination is a very strong world. And so from that collaboration, I created a type of language that did not have words. It had colors. It had symbols, and they were taking some type of universal inspiration in different mythos and different sciences all around the world. And from there, I started getting more into memetics and what concepts really meant for human beings. And from there, I became more like an abstract artist. [00:08:22.500] - Speaker 2I love how you just dropped that you worked with the UN like that. Please tell us more. [00:08:29.120] - Speaker 1I mean, it It was luck. It was not only luck, but it was also network. So I think that it's super important to still state this. I don't think that's just my raw talent that had me work for them. I think it's the fact that I knew people also who worked there and believed in my work. And so I was first offered the proposition to illustrate this specific study. But when I read the study, I could see that it was not in alignment with what I believed in. And so I asked him if I could maybe rewrite it with him and just rework the whole concept and the different images that they were trying to convey. For example, during one of the first sessions, I could read that one of the studies was comparing stuff like crime to a virus. And I was like, you can't really see crime as a virus because crime is not...Things are not outside of their own context. When you put crime into context, crime is a byproduct of poverty, of oppression, and just global violence taking place in people's lives. So because the human mind is reproducing what it is most accustomed to. [00:09:49.040] - Speaker 1Of course, if you're treating people with violence, they will become violent themselves. So to me, that's not like a virus. And if we see it as a virus, then there are chances that maybe be you are the person who is creating that virus. So that was one of the very first points that we had to be right together. I don't know if I have the right to say that, but anyways. And then following along the different months that we kept on collaborating, I started becoming more and more interested into using this opportunity as a way to display my attraction and appeal for many different sciences and also for AI, because I believe that today we kind of see AI as this big terrifying things without really understanding that it only just represents phases and layers of our own intelligence. So I took as an event that was my biggest inspiration for this whole series That was the meeting between AlphaGo and one of the first, the best Go player in the world who is Korean. I don't remember his name, but basically a tournament was organized that lasted, I think, six days between AlphaGo and that specific player. [00:11:19.630] - Speaker 1And AlphaGo is an intelligence that is still being developed by Google, Google and their labs. And so that very cocky Go player thought that he would win because to him, losing against an AI just wasn't possible. But AlphaGo already beat many people before him. And so when he was confronted to AlphaGo, he lost five times out of six. The only time he actually won was when he believed in luck. Basically, what happened is that he was like, "fuck it, I'm going to play something very random and see how it goes". And because AlphaGo couldn't predict what was happening then, it lost track of the whole game and lost. So they call it the God Hand today, the specific position. And I used it for one of my images, and I actually used the different positions of the little Go pieces to represent different human beings and how they were being developed in the world, depending on where they came from and the atmosphere and all of that. So yeah, that's the main piece of this collaboration to me. [00:12:45.610] - Speaker 1Wow. And also just real quick to reframe, because I think we still see these institutions, of course, elitist and prestigious, but really, obviously, clearly from everything that you just described and in general, it's not like, Oh, my God, you work with the UN. It's like, Oh, my God, the UN work with you. They're lucky that they were able to work with you. So let us reframe real quick. [00:13:08.080] - Speaker 1Thank you. [00:13:11.580] - Speaker 2That's such a wild story as well. The Go platform is still being developed? [00:13:19.840] - Speaker 2Yeah. Basically, it's an intelligence that is basically just basic... Sorry. It's basic machine learning. You are confronting one intelligence in front of different players, and from that they learn, and they keep playing against themselves. And because they keep playing against themselves, they can predict tons of different scenarios. I think at the moment that he was playing against this specific player where he had about 10,000 different scenarios playing. And so that's why whatever the player was doing was so predictable, because AlphaGo already knew that and already played that against themselves. So yeah. But to me, it's really just like a faith. It's like allowing one human being to have the time and the luxury to just play with themselves. We don't have that luxury at the moment, so of course, we're not going to get to AlphaGo's level. But if we are ever given that moment and that chance, I think that it wouldn't be so difficult. We have so many intelligent, thoughtful minds living on this one and they had lived on in this world that, I don't know. To me, it's just one layer of intelligence. [00:14:36.960] - Speaker 2Absolutely. I think also the notion of time and leisure and being able to try things and take our time with things is massive. It's obviously a major focus that Dreaming Beyond AI had over the last few months with our reflections around AI, temporality and time. I also want to dive in one of your projects that's called Universe Other Memories, where there's a focus on time and temporality as well, which I found super interesting. Maybe if you can tell us more about the creation process of that digital exhibition. I know there are also links with mental health, and how do we deal with that as well? [00:15:17.420] - Speaker 1So The Universe and Other Memories is a project that I grew over the years. It didn't start with abstract art. It actually started with my first exhibition, physical exhibition. That's how I first called it. And the reason why I call it The Universe and Other Memories was because I was referring to the idea of a mother. During this exhibition, I was showing pieces that I made, collages that I made that really were telling of the story of the divine feminine, and what I believe is the love and affection that you're seeking from a mother. So being what it is, the feminine force, To me, represents God. It represents creation, creation of life, and creation of different stories, because through your children, you are experimenting different spaces of life. So that's where it comes from. That's its origin. Now, when I translated it to the digital world and to IMVU, which is the places where you can actually see the exhibition now, my goal was to make sure that people could kind of get the same feeling without looking at figurative work, but more like abstract work. Those are pieces that for some I didn't, I never showed. [00:16:42.170] - Speaker 1And also, those were also pieces that for some I showed on my Instagram, but because they were seen as flat images, people don't really have the time and the opportunity to lose themselves into that. The abstract pieces that I make, they reach to me as being more emotional, emotional base. So I just wanted a place for people to maybe connect with that emotion themselves that they have, they themselves possess and sometimes maybe lost touch with. Because of life in this Earth at the moment, many people, especially Black people, don't have the luxury to deal with their own emotions, even though they have to and they're forced to in order to regulate themselves and not completely be insane. I wanted it to be a place where you can have healing. And also IMVU is a platform where you can, for less than maybe a euro, you can get yourself a very fancy dope outfit. You can just maybe come with your avatar, look very good, and just take pictures in front of great pieces. [00:17:52.700] - Speaker 2Amazing. I absolutely love that. You did mention this aspect that specifically for Black people, it is tricky to have access to your emotion. I do see that Blackness, maybe in terms of identity or personal experiences or inspiration, is something that's important in your work. I want to also talk about the importance of Black feminism, specifically, and the influence that this has in your work. I know that you worked with really cool Black-centered platforms. I also saw on your website, Afropunk. For the French people who will be listening, Mwasi, Revue assiégé.E.s who are amazing platform that I super admire, who are a big inspiration to my work and my Black feminist practice as well. In terms of the impact that this has, the things that you may be reading, listening to, the people that you're hanging out with that are embodying this Black feminist practice, how does that look like? [00:18:45.250] - Speaker 1So I first was introduced to Black feminism, or more like womanism, when I was about 14 years old. I was on Tumblr, scrolling down stuff, getting more and more interested with the... Specifically the American political climate. And at that time, Black Lives Matter was already something because they were very much concentrated on talking about the violence happening in Harlem or the Bronx. I remember that I was already 14. I already saw people getting shot in the street. But then I was introduced to Audrey Lord, Maryse Condé, Toni Morison, all of those beautiful Black femmes that actually build such a very strong legacy for people today. And so growing up, I already knew that I... Not really that I identify with Black feminism, but I was concerned, and I felt concerned with issues concerning, like regarding Black women and Black femmes all around the world. Now, when it comes to my work with Mwasi, with Science Girls, with Revue Assiég.é.E.s. It's thanks to Fania Noël, I'd say, because Fania Noël is the common denominator in all of those events. Most of them, actually, She created Revue Assiég.é.E.s. She is one of the founding members of Mwasi, and she trusted my work a lot. [00:20:25.850] - Speaker 1I even did the cover of her first book. And so, yeah, I think that it's thanks to her believing in me, not only that, but also me collaborating with my partner in those different projects that we were able to build a stronger presence and have a stronger personality for those different projects. When it comes to Afropunk, it was me working in Science Girls. People were very happy with my humor. And I still have in my other home the posture that I was displaying on our stand in the activism role, which was pretty much like an homage to Solange, where you had this big, like wireship, that's basically representing white people wanting to touch people's hair. You can also see it on my website, actually. But And I even translated it because it's a bit of a comic. It's a comics, basically. So that's when I first tried to play with different mediums. Now, when it comes to Revue Assiég.é.E.s, I joined it because I love the concept. I was there for about 2-3 years. The first year, we were talking about the notion of utopias and what they were representing for Black people. [00:22:00.690] - Speaker 1And I was so happy because I could first connect with the poems made by Kiyémis, where she also was talking about the different ideas of utopia, not only that, but also Afropessimism, which is a current that I relate more to today than Afro-feminism, to be very honest. I also participated in the creation of the second issue that I worked on, which was the one about transmission. And in that review, in that issue, I was able to first dabble with memetics and write papers on it. And the one that I wrote in it was titled Memetics. And basically, it's a bit between means and ethics. And I was talking about how this notion of memetic warfare, which is colonizing someone without them even realizing, is something that is prevalent and that has started even before that concept was created and developed by NATO. So, yeah, to me, those are different platforms. Films that I was part of for me to share ideas and for me to make sure that people had somehow a broader apprehension of what was happening to them, rather than just focus on this specific idea of I'm a feminist, I'm Afro-pessimist, I'm Afropolitan, all of that. [00:23:41.990] - Speaker 2Beautiful. Thanks so much. Just coming back real quick on the concept of memetics that you just mentioned. I know that you have an upcoming article for the University of MIM that you briefly told me about in our exchange while preparing for this episode. If you could tell us more, what's your relationship with that? How did it come I mean, you did mention within the UN story that it was during that time that you started to play around with memes, I believe. But what's up with memetics? What's your relationship with that? And how does it link with your practice? [00:24:14.350] - Speaker 1I have many projects coming up in correlation with Black people and memetics. If you are someone that evolves a lot on the Internet, if you're an Internet child just like me, You see that we are at the origin of many viral memes. Black people are always at the center. We make things go around. When African-Americans decided that they did not want to create trends anymore on TikTok, it went blank. No one was active on there. So that's why I also want to focus so much on the medics, because people tend to think that memetics comes from the idea of a viral internet memes. But as actually the opposite. So memetics, the term was created by Dawkins in the '70s or '80s, I believe, where he basically was studying notion of concept as being genes. So instead of influencing somebody's phenotype, they are influencing cultures. So they can die out, mutate, couple together, and all of that. And I really enjoyed that because that's how I already understood means and concept as a whole. So when I decided to maybe... I decided to contact the University of Memes in order to work with them and be part of their next project, I was so happy to see that they accepted me because I actually did not think that that would be possible, but I was very proud. [00:25:52.940] - Speaker 1And basically this article, I titled it Light Work. The reason why they wanted it to be called Light Work is because light is such a very interesting phenomenon. It's where reality is engraved. It has to do with Black people, but it's also the idea of lightness and something that doesn't have to be so heavy on people's shoulders, even though the origins and the whole context is heavy itself. So the first half of the article is basically a summary of all the projects and all the research that I've done along those, these past couple of years on YouTube and even for my own development as an artist and a researcher. So I'm basically talking about the origins of meme fragmentation or memetic warfare, because what I call meme fragmentation is a concept that I coined in my first article in Assiég.é.E.s. And basically it relates the idea It comes from the idea of in psychoanalysis, when you traumatize an ego, you fragment it. And so for me fragmentation is the idea that we as colonized people, traumatized people. There are some stuff that we can no longer identify with because our mind is fragmented around that specific notion. [00:27:23.590] - Speaker 1For example, the idea of God. I often talk about the idea of God because if you see and talk to interact with different peoples nowadays, they'll be like, I don't believe in God. I'm spiritual. I don't like that idea. I'm not into religions. However, if you get yourself out of the European colonizing context, religions actually have a huge impact and huge importance in societies because they rhythm communal life. They also have you relate more to your environment if you use it right. I remember that I was watching an interview with James Mall for, I think the name of the platform is Ancestral Place. I will look it up and then send it to you. Basically, what I liked was that James Mall said that Black people's religion is science. And when you actually do your research, you can see that when it comes to stuff like quantum physics, something that White people are still starting to dabble with and understand. We have understood that, and we master it. We've mastered it for the past couple of thousand years, not even a couple of thousand years, like 30,000 years. We've mastered that thing. And so I find it unfortunate that we are so disconnected from our cultures that we do not see how wealthy we are when it comes to all that. [00:28:58.010] - Speaker 1So That's the main model for that specific research. So the idea of a God and what it means and what it means for people who practice traditional African religions, how we have been painting to be people who believe in different gods rather than one creator, which is something that is extremely false, because when you look at the pantheons of African deities, they all are under one creative force, because those are just incarnating. They are just incarnating different aspects of that creation, but they are not the entire sum of the creation. So that's basically the premises of the article. Then it ends with how this fragmentation have caused us as a community to fight each other, lose empathy and sympathy with each other, attack each other. For example, I'm taking one specific example that is the brick girl, the girl who received... She said that she received the brick in the face from a black man because she refused to give him her number. So I'm talking about that. I'm talking about passport bros. I'm talking about all of those things. I'm talking about, how do you call that? Digital minstrelsy, and how many people Black people, especially black men, who are now seen as famous and influential within white spaces, are actually only doing this specific digital minstrelsy for them to be appreciated and not really disturb the white gaze of what Black people are supposed to be. [00:30:52.140] - Speaker 1So yeah, that's basically what the article is about. [00:30:57.930] - Speaker 2I cannot wait to read it. When is it coming out? [00:31:02.080] - Speaker 1It's coming out on the 17th of May. [00:31:05.770] - Speaker 2Oh my God. Amazing. I really want to read that because, I love also what you mentioned, and that's so real, the disconnection and fragmentation and trauma that all of us are experiencing, I mean, have experienced and still are experiencing. I was watching a video from Care, who's an amazing somatic worker, who we had the privilege to work with during our last residency with Dreaming Beyond AI, and they talk about the 14 generations in terms of generational trauma in our tissues that are at play. They were also making their point, yes, there's generational trauma, but also intergenerational knowledge and wisdom and joy that we need to connect to. That makes me think of that. I was also lucky to go to a workshop by Black Quantum Futurism here in Lisbon, actually. I think it was a few months ago. There was also this mention on all of this trajectory and the timeline of basically, like you said, tens of thousands of years of just knowledge and wisdom and creation from Black people when it comes to this topic. So I think that's a really, really important thing to mention. Yeah, absolutely. [00:32:09.840] - Speaker 1I would like in the future to maybe touch with the more ancient part of it, because when I was making collages, people often describe my collages as being Afrofuturist, which I didn't like. And I often say on my website, I'm not doing Afrofuturism, I'm doing Afrofantastic because I want black people to see themselves in the realm that is different from the one that we're living in. But it's not the future. It's just a different way to comprehend the aethers. Because even if you're looking about symbolism and dreams and all, it looks fantastic, but it actually has very real tangible meaning. So yeah, I agree with that. [00:32:47.960] - Speaker 2Beautiful. But this is so interesting, actually, the notion, because it's true. Even when I went on your Instagram, this is something, yeah, I would... Some of the collages and the art or the things that are depicted, definitely for me, are references to Afrofuturism. But I love what you say, the Afrofantastic. It's actually right now. There's a lot of things that we can connect to in the present as well. So we are arriving slowly at the end of the episode, and I'd love to talk about I don't know if it is Botdushka or Badushka. [00:33:18.790] - Speaker 1The name usually is Badushka, but Botdushka, again, it's a little pun. It's just for the term bot to be included into her name. But I I like her name to be Badushka. [00:33:32.170] - Speaker 2Okay, cool. Who's Badushka? Let's talk about her. She has the fliest style. She looks so good. She's out there doing her thing. She has the coolest wigs and makeup is on fleek. Who is she?! [00:33:48.460] - Speaker 1Badushka, at first, it was just my personal IMVU character. It was just my personal AV. My father kept telling me, You should show her to the world. You should show who she is. And I'm like, No, I like to keep it private for now. And then when I started showing it, I started maybe doing some type of satire of what an influencer is, but I wanted to be a different influencer, which would be an influencer that would be more introspective, still working on the notion of what a human is and what it's not. So I started maybe toying with the idea of the Encanny Valley. And so, for example, if you look at her Instagram, and you look at the different stories, some of the pictures and some of the videos that she takes within the universe of IMVU kind of look oddly real or oddly natural. And I like to play with it. So I think that for me, Badushka is first and foremost, just a place and a person who I can play with without giving myself too much pressure or aspiration to be this specific person. But with time, she also became the main face of the Human dot bot project. She is in the gallery tour video. She's like a representation of me in that specific place. When you look at my first YouTube videos, she's in it. She's the person I'm talking through. I'm talking through her. And so, yeah, Badushka, for me, is really just a place I can be care-free. [00:35:32.480] - Speaker 2I love that. Yeah, care-free black babes. Amazing. What's in the future for Badushka? What's up with her? What's going to happen to her? What is she dreaming of? [00:35:45.750] - Speaker 1What I want to... I have a few movies that I'm working on with her. I have this specific piece that I've been working on for the past two years with her. It's a short It's not a film. It's only, let's say, three minutes long, but it's a very personal one. So what I want to do with her is for her to become the main star of the different movies that I want to make, basically, even if it's just me reinterpreting different songs. I was thinking of making a series of her playing as Azealia Banks and just suggesting different ideas of what an Azealia Banks music video would be looking like nowadays. So I think that's what I wanted to be more. I'm planning on switching her place with me on my YouTube channel, meaning that I want to become the main person talking to the camera, but I still want her to be featured in the identity, the visual identity the channel. [00:37:02.640] - Speaker 2Super. Can't wait to see all of that. Amazing. Beautiful. Maybe just for the closing, if you can share some of your hopes and dreams and vision, things that are in your mind when it comes to the future of technology and AI or the different digital things that you play with and work with in your practice? I know it's a big question, but if anything comes to mind. [00:37:27.350] - Speaker 1I think that what comes to mind for me is the idea of still relating even to what seems to be inanimate. When we look at AI and we see it with fear, I think that it's important to appropriate this specific entity so that when the time comes, we know how to dismantle it. If it's becoming too much invasive. I'm also really into quantum computing. I'm also a lot into maybe thinking of different software that we can create together in order for us to master quantum computing as a community, as people who maybe want to create, universes and places where people who look like us are feeling safer and also protected. Looking at it with fear is not something that is going to help us. However, developing, in my opinion, a a proper consciousness and also a true apprehension of what our goals and ideas should be as a community or as different communities, a panel of communities, could be more useful for us. So I plan on working on that myself, and I plan on connecting with people who are seeking to do the same thing. So if you want to work on those different questions and issues, and if my projects are interesting to you, feel free to send me a message. [00:39:00.490] - Speaker 2On that, specifically, where can people find you? What does support looks like for you these days? Let us know. [00:39:07.760] - Speaker 1People can find me anywhere. You can find me on TikTok, you can find me on YouTube. You can also find me via mail. My mail is on my website, the homepage. You scroll down and you see my email. You just send me a message and I'll be really happy to reach you and connect with you. At the moment, I'm looking to interview Dr. Umar for my next project because I think it would be funny to... I think it would be actually gratifying to actually hear him and exchange with him. So wish me luck on that. [00:39:47.130] - Speaker 2For those who don't know if you can say who Dr. Umar is. [00:39:52.320] - Speaker 1Dr. Umar is actually... He's a meme for some people, but he actually is a psychologist. He's a psychologist. He's a Pan-African revolutionary. At least that's how he describes himself. And some of the stuff that he says are pretty revolutionary for me, pretty radical as well. I love his presence because I love to offend people in order for them to wake up. I'm really a major advocate for trolling people online, and so he does that perfectly. And that's That's why I love him so much because he will not back off and to just troll a few Black men. And also what's interesting is that when he's actually invited on those podcasts where you have a bunch of men just yapping, he is often the person that brings in the voice of reason. I think that's the type of duality that I like to work with and that I also identify with. [00:40:56.280] - Speaker 2Super interesting. He's definitely meme material, for sure. A controversial figure, but okay, yes, you heard it here first. If ever somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who knows Dr. Umar, let us know. Let's let that happen. [00:41:13.560] - Speaker 1Yes, please. [00:41:15.510] - Speaker 2Super. Zas, thank you so much for your time, for your presence. It's amazing to record with you. I appreciate you. And yes, sending you all the love from where I am to where you are. [00:41:25.600] - Speaker 1Yeah, me too. I'm so happy that I finally got to meet you. I spent a very good time, had a very good time with this interview, and I hope that we can connect once again, even if it is not for work. [00:41:39.070] - Speaker 2Absolutely. Thank you. [00:41:40.710] - Speaker 1Thank you. [00:41:44.720] - Speaker 2Thank you so much for listening to this episode of In the Loop by Dreaming Beyond AI, a residency project made possible by Ifa, Deichtorhallen, and Kampnagel. Make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Share that episode with a loved one who you think would enjoy it, and we love to have you as an Instagram Follower, a newsletter subscriber, and a community lover. Also, never hesitate to reach out if you have questions or ideas. We are at hello@dreamingbeyond.ai. Tchuss and take care. 8. allapopp & coalition building through embodied technology, Coalition building ✕ [00:00:00.640] - SarahHi alla![00:00:02.560] - AllaHey Sarah.[00:00:04.480] - SarahSo good to see you.[00:00:06.960] - AllaGood to see you too.[00:00:09.600] - SarahWhat are the vibes today? How are you feeling? How is your heart?[00:00:14.160] - AllaI'm feeling good. Confused but good, for the most part. How are you?[00:00:22.880] - SarahCool, I'm good. The sun is out. My heart feels, I mean every day my heart feels quite heavy foreverything that's going on in the world. But it does feel slightly light as well, just because it'sgood weather. I'm going to have a very cute weekend with people that I love and I'm actuallyheading to a Digital Liberation Retreat by our friends at Weaving Liberation next week in Bosnia.Yeah. So that's exciting.[00:00:48.790] - AllaAmazing.[00:00:50.710] - SarahSo thanks so much for taking the time. I'm so happy that we're going to record this together andto get into the flow and maybe let people know a little bit about you because we're so excited tohave you as one of our sparing partner and mentor for upcoming residency on Coalition in timesof AI. Really, really cool. And so intersecting struggles, cross disciplinary practices, I know thatyou do so many really, really cool things. So maybe if you can tell us a little bit more about some of the things that you work on that are related specifically to AI, community, technology and things that are maybe exciting to you at the moment in your work.[00:01:32.900] - AllaYes. So thank you so much also for having me. I love being the sparring partner and I reallylook forward to for the residency to start in online form and in the physical form then. Totally. I'malso very excited and nervous about this, honestly. So, yes. And I hope that I could just be ofhelp, you know, in the, in the process with coming from my current practice. And this is where Iwill share maybe what I've been doing in this year. I come like, coalition building and communityis something that I actually sort of had to unlearn and relearn and now I'm unlearning it andrelearning it again actually because I come from Tatarstan in Russia and you know, in the postSoviet space, in the Soviet space, we being part of a collective was very normal. It's like yougrew up your family, but also it's not just your family, it's also all the families around. And what Iwant to say with this is that coming to Germany then and the country that is a western countrythat is so focused on individualism, et cetera and like, you know, going to the US in between, Iactually really liked this.[00:02:50.680] - AllaI was like, yes, individual, you know, like I need to become like, you know, this like individualkind of person and stuff. And then I started when I moved to Berlin, I encountered a different,this fight against this individuality and more like towards community and you know, communalorganizing, communal life. And this was so strange to me because I was like, why would peoplewant to do this? Because I did not, you know, because I come from a place where you had toliberate from being part of a forced community. And, and, and here people were like really likewanting to be part of a community. So a lot of its elements and I really don't know how it is, youknow, like how coalitions or communities work in other countries. I only now like beyond my, likewhere I come from and how things are here in Berlin. I think it's also pretty special, you know,here with like, with the all the left-oriented, you know, communities and like shared living andhousing situations, etc. So complex for me, this like the question of collectivity. Because a lot ofthings when I moved, when I started living in Berlin and became part of different, you know,collective organizations, organizings, I didn't like it really because I didn't understand whypeople do this.[00:04:09.960] - AllaBut of course now with the time, things changed a lot because, because I'm part of the dgtlfmnsm Kollektiv and I kind of grew into this understanding how to be part of a group of peoplebecause I really was more working individual, how to be part of a group, how to take care of each other, how does it work, how to accept care that is given to you and how does it empoweryou in the face of struggles that you face as a queer person, as a marginalized person, as amigrantized person. This is like my experience. So there are a lot of things that you encounterthat are not. That are like the things that I live through, that I understand this are not norm or likethis is not like a normative experience of other people who live here in Germany. Like being partof communities really gives me standing. So now what I started even I started my own kind of acommunal organizing. So now, this year was the first time when I actually initiated something. Iwon't call it a community, but I will call it a coalition. And probably there is a difference betweencommunities and coalitions.[00:05:19.310] - AllaI need to say I didn't think long enough about it. And it's a coalition that happened because Ineeded a space where I could reconnect with people who have my like lived experience similarto mine, who have a similar to mind background, people who come from post Soviet TransSoviet space. People who left the country for various reasons which are politically motivated,like to a bigger or smaller scale. People who are interested who. People who are, of course,critical towards like Russian government. People who belong to the anti war resistancemovement. The people who do not come from the center of Russia, not from Moscow, not fromSt. Petersburg, who belong to the margins of, you know, like post Soviet and Russian territories,from national republics and like regions that people in the west never even heard of. Becausewhen I say I come from Tatarstan, often the reaction is oh yeah, Kazakhstan. And I'm like, no,it's literally a different country... And what I organized. So I had this like, need to kind of likereconnect with people. But also because I work in technology and I am very interested in howlike exploring or interrogating, inquiring as an artist, how digital technology, AI.[00:06:37.860] - AllaTo me, AI is like an ultimate technology among technologies because it kind of encapsulates allsorts of technological developments that you had in the past 100 years. So. And I was like, Ireally need to, you know, talk about it. But I cannot continue speaking about this just with myWestern colleagues because it's just the. The type of a conversation is different. Some thingsare just not common. we often miss like lack like a common understanding. So I always have toadapt to a certain commonness around me and. And then translate my thoughts also towardstechnology to this, you know, common ground of. Of mentality of, you know, knowledge basethat you like that you have to sort of operate within as a person who is like living in migration.Yeah. So I was like, yes, I really want to hang out. I want to meet up. I want to collect this group.I want to. I want us to talk about technology. I want us to talk about how the Soviet Union is a.Like Soviet Union and Russia today are colonial forces, imperial forces. Because this conversation is very new and how to combine our understanding of technology and where theworld is heading without understanding that we're coming from colonial experience.[00:07:59.410] - AllaAnd this decolonial dialog in the trans Soviet space is very new. It's just like, really there's not alot of conversation about it. It's just like, you know, they're like little authors who write about it.There's Madina Tlastanova, who is. Who've been researching a lot on this. But then like for thepost Soviet space or trans Soviet space, but like, everything happens in a conversation. A lot ofthe research that happens within these groups that are interested in the, in the decolonial dialogof the trans Soviet space, as many indigenous cultures also or like ethnic often are focusing onthe past. So because you need to preserve tradition, you need to, you need to look at. Becauseyou know, in Russia right now what is happening is this trend of like crucification. So there is nolike money there. Like the money flows into, you know, support and development of the nationalcultures. The like, so many different national indigenous cultures that exist in, in the Russiaslash post Soviet space that were kind of funding the language development is not beingsupported. Basically there is no future for these cultures unless, you know, people dosomething.[00:09:15.970] - AllaSo people focus on really preserving these cultures and don't really look into the future. And Isay future, I often talk about future and technology sort of in like, not interchangeably, but to meit like really, really belongs together. Thinking about technology, thinking about the future,because they come from, from the same understanding, you know, like modernity and modernworld and so on. So like they really belong to me together. Anyway, I'm going on, going on mylike lecture mode now about the trans Soviet space. But okay, what I want to say is it's veryimportant to think into the future, to kind of speculate about future and future technologies to beable to influence how the world will develop. Coalition that was built is with my friend DinaraRasuleva, who is also my artistic partner in TATAR KYZ:LAR Music project, who is a Tatarpoetess, also we like Dinara helped me a lot to kind of find people because she's much moreconnected to the community. So we sort of like made these joint like invitations to be part ofthese research sessions. And they were called Decolonial Envisioning research sessions.[00:10:39.010] - AllaAnd with these 15 people, we started talking about, of course there is a moment where we talkabout we need to reflect who we are. Because like talking about coalition and community, Ialways come with the question, so who are we? Who is this group? Who are part of this group?Because I think it's important to when you become a group to identify what kind of group you are. Like, who are you for each other? And especially for us who come from a trans Sovietspace, because this collectivity was forced and there is this Russian language and Russian,Slavic, Russian, Ruski. It's called like in English, Russian and Russian, like as a country and asan ethnicity is the same, but in Russian language there are actually two different words for this.So I'm talking about like ethnic Russian. And this culture had Always been so dominant becausethere's always this idea of a big brother and a small brother. You know, it was very important forus to sort of open up the space and talk about who we are and, you know, so that there is nodomination, like, and there's no domination of language.[00:11:49.310] - AllaThere is no domination of so kind of like, way of doing things on the table. There is nodomination of, you know, trauma or experience, even that you put on the table. Okay, so tryingto know this is my problem. Like, it's an ADHD thinking. So I'm going, like, on the rants ofdifferent associations. But I'm almost done with this description. Should I? Because I want todescribe a specific project.[00:12:18.640] - SarahYeah, please, go ahead. Go ahead. Absolutely.[00:12:20.960] - AllaOkay. So the project, because the idea to get together with this community was to think of howAI - this was the goal of this decolonial visioning research session - was idea to envision how AIcould. Could be imagined differently. How could this group embody some type of an AI andenvision some type of an AI rooted in, like, everyone's lived experience as indigenous person,as a migrant and as queer person, as, you know, artistic or cultural producer or political activist,etc. Like, rooted in this experience, but individually, but also because we all come from differentcultures, but also collectively reflecting what kind of collective are we? What unites us here?Where do we share experience? And how could we become technology? So for this purpose,first we had the session with Dinara Rasuleva, who opened up a space, and we became veryvulnerable and open, and we shared a lot of trauma and we cried and we kind of, like, becamevery close to each other and opened up a lot. And this is very precious, hearing stories from ourpast and things that we had to leave behind. Then at the end of our session, Dinara was askinga question.[00:13:30.130] - AllaSo what from this past of yours would you like to take to the future? And this is like a little bridgeto thinking, you know, about the future. And then, like, everyone could draw a tarot card. Interlinked projects, like, this is my older project called Cyboregoisie Tarot , and it's talking abouttechnology, queer ways of life and coexistence and the community kind of like, my experiencehere in Germany, it covers that. So people drew the tarot card and there was sometechnological, like, input in the tarot card. And then everyone could, like, everyone startedenvisioning their own type of technologies and little, like, imaginations of what rooted in theircultures. What could they take to the future? And then the next day, with Noam Youngrak Son,the resident of your residency from the last year (c.f. In the loop residency by Dreaming BeyondAI - on AI Time and temporality) . This is also how, of course I know Noam. And I'm so gratefulthat I got to meet Noam because we then were able to develop the second day of the session,which was about AI embodiment, where Noam prepared this amazing input about materiality ofAI based on Kate Crawford's understanding and the atlas of AI. This work, of course, thatbecame a book.[00:14:49.840] - AllaBut of course it's a much larger body of work, how AI is material and how it involves resources,like Earth resources, but also of course, bodies. And so because like, for many, like, for most oflike people in the group, right, these are completely new topics. Nobody knows about this.People don't know how it works. People like really do not even dare to tackle with technologybecause it's just too complicated. This is a very common, common issue that I encounter. Andcoming from this certain life lived experience, you just don't have space for, you know, thinkingabout technology. So Noam gave the input, that input. And then we played the larp. So no oneprepared this, the LARP cards, which were like super interesting because like we had to thenlike our little ideas that we had from the previous day, you know, we then had to deconstructthem into a character of a live action role playing. So the idea was to kind of think abouttechnology as something that is embodied. And LARP is a very embodied type of a gamebecause you develop a character and then you embody and you develop rules for a characterand how your character interacts with the world.[00:16:00.390] - AllaAnd then you sort of, this is how you play the game. And this is what we did, only our characterswere those technologies rooted in the native cultures of the participants. And so then step bystep, we creating those links, we created this visualization of an AI system, which is veryunproductive in a sense of what technology could be. But it was tremendous in sort of breakingthis limits in your head in what technology can be. And then on the last day with of course ourfavorite Iyo (c.f. Iyo Bisseck, Dreaming Beyond AI's Design lead).[00:16:38.140] - SarahYes, we love Iyo![00:16:40.450] - AllaYes, Iyo love you. Iyo prepared a part that was about archiving and raising archives collectively.Because then, you know, we took our little technologies and also we had to prepare little databanks of our family photos. And then with this, we kind of like worked on developing a set ofprinciples of how do we want to handle an archive. And this was an amazing process. So what Iwant to share is that like it was we did a lot of learning and learning from each other. And at theend everyone cried, you know, because it was such a sad, like happy sad moment of sayinggoodbyes. Because when it was over, it felt like we've developed something, we created. I thinkI was high like for three days, really like I was like almost like flying I felt. Because all of asudden we opened up a space that never existed. Because I was not like the conversation ondecolonial dialog in a trans Soviet space was something that was new for me. Rather, of courseI can, you know, I haven't been really in exchange with people about it and then others likereally haven't been in exchange like, or haven't really been thinking about technology.[00:17:55.030] - AllaSo kind of like. And we all of a sudden together we created this space. And this is type of acoalition that makes so much sense for me that it exists. And this made me like really changemy perspective on also how a community can be, you know, how it can work. Because ofcourse now we have chat that goes on, it's on telegram, it's been in March, you know, it stilllives on. And we kind of like communicate and people became friends, People started datingpeople. I don't know, like, you know, this is like a lot of things happened in that, in that, in thatgroup. And I'm just so grateful that, that I kind of like had support of, you know, people aroundme to implement it. And it was beautiful. And this became like a kickoff for like other things,further thinking for me to how else collectivity or like this kind of like organization could, youknow, what shapes could it take? Especially when we talk about technology, how could thischange technologies? When we think about technologies and when we think about thetemporalities, how could it be something else?[00:18:58.010] - AllaHow could it be different?[00:19:00.010] - SarahNo, in this space we don't apologize. I absolutely love it. I just have so many follow upquestions, so I need to gather myself. But there are so many super important connections andlinks from everything that you described. I'm very grateful also that you shared in such detail and openness the way you've been socialized and your past and childhood and all the contextaround that, which I think informs a lot of what you do today, which is so interesting. I think itwas great also to talk about, you know, the decoloniality, which I know is very important in yourwork. And there's so many obviously links to, you know, colonial practices and technology. Ifyou think of Congo and. And so many other things anyways that are at play to this day. So Iwould love to also hear you more on like the coalition building in practice. How you build thatcommunity, bringing 15 people together, asking people in your networks, from what Iunderstand also, like loved ones that you work with that can support you to do this work. Youmentioned also being part of dgtl fmnsm, who we love as well.[00:20:00.580] - SarahLove digital feminism. Friends of Dreaming Beyond AI <3 and yeah, and also, like, just, youknow, if we think of feminist values within coalition building, like the crying together, thevulnerability, how do we create sustainability as well? Like where, you know, does this groupand this coalition goes, what's the vision? Not in a, you know, again, like, I don't know,productivity, dictatorship way. But I love all of that. So I'd love to hear more like in practice, howdid that look like, you know, to create this coalition? Because, I mean, it's quite a lot of peopleactually. And it feels like a responsibility also even to bring these people together.[00:20:41.230] - AllaI think a very important aspect for me was, unfortunately, we live in capitalism ongoing. Andsuch an important aspect is money. And I'm grateful that I was able to also pay for people's timebeing there. So many things that are important. Love each other, care for each other, you know,respect each other, listen to each other, take time. You know, like, I'm learning all of this stillongoingly, how to, you know, be part of a group. And also I fail a lot, you know, in this. And I likeacknowledging these failures is already a big step. I think that money, you need funding forthese groups to be able to come together because this type of work cannot be unpaid. For me,the work starts long before the group talk comes together. For me, the work starts at the pointwhen, like, I'm like, okay, so where do I find money for this? Because I won't ask people tocome and do things for free. Or it's a question what people I would ask, but I will never askmigrants, for instance, to come and do things for free. Like this type of funded situations.[00:21:57.340] - AllaThey do exist, but usually you have to do something for that. You have to provide work, youhave to deliver a result. And here we. There was no. I was just inviting people. I was like, I amgrateful for you to take three days. And this is the amount of money that you will get for justtaking time for this. And, and really this is the world I want to live in. And it was my little kind of like utopia that was happening in those. Yeah. In those three days. So, yeah, I think money isunfortunately very unsexy, but a very pragmatic moment. And I guess you guys know how it isbecause this is exactly like where you're grinding to no?[00:22:37.330] - SarahAbsolutely, and I mean, the horrible thing about capitalism is that we are forced to participate.So at the end of the day, you know, we need funding money to be able to create the spaces thatwe envision, to be able to not reproduce the extractivist practices of like, unpaid labor or to like,just be. No, just, you know, "can I pick your brain or like, have a little bit of your time" and justlike, you know, not pay people? So absolutely. This is super, super key and I'm very happy thatyou mentioned that because indeed, all of the values, you know, active listening, care,accountability. Yes, yes, yes. But baby, we need money as well to get things started. So thankyou so much. That's. That's a very important point. You did mention utopia and like, you know,some of the visions that you have. So I want to also ask you about that a little bit. If you candescribe for, for me, for the listeners, people will be taking time to hear about that. Your vision ofwhat I, what I like to call, I know is used in different concepts. Softer, lighter, you know, moreloving, digital future.[00:23:38.000] - SarahWho's around you? How does it feel in your body? What is in your ear in terms of soundscape?And how does it feel in this utopia?[00:23:49.840] - AllaI just said utopia and I immediately regretted that I said utopia. I actually promised myself not touse this word, but it just became so, you know, part of the, of this. It's a habit how we expressthings, especially in the context of, you know, queer utopia etc, where it is still kind of positivelyconnotated. But on the, on the term of utopia and dystopia, I just, you know, right now I'm at apoint when I'm like, these things exist simultaneously. What is utopia for one is dystopia foranother. I really do not want to call place where I want to get a utopia because. And I don't wantto strive for this either. And this is why I do not know where I want to go. And if, like to yourquestion of how does it feel? You know, like, I really like this question because it really made meagain realize that I really do not feel, know I'm. I feel these days that I'm moving in the dark. Butit's not a bad. It's not a. Like this darkness doesn't feel bad. It's not really scary, but I just do notknow the direction I feel like that my eyes are closed and I'm just, you know, touching thingsaround me and I might hear things and I might smell things, but, like, really, I do not know whichdirection I'm going.[00:25:02.180] - AllaAnd also I do not know where I want to. Like, where I will get. For sure, where I want to get isyour world that is just more fair, more open and honest and healthy. Like, one of the mostpositive experiences with activating the senses, activating, envisioning, was actually with thispie. My mom taught me how to bake this pie, really from scratch. And I even made like a littlevideo, you know, how to mix it all, how to cut the dough, how to prepare the ingredients, how tomake this decoration. And yeah, it was just this moment when it was me and my mom and myother family members, my siblings, and we were just there. And it was not an easy moment, butit was so uniting, making this pie and then baking it and then having it together. And this mademe think of a pie as a type of a communication device. Something that allows, like a pie likethat, the process, it's the recipe, the steps of its making, the ingredients that you put inside, howthis becomes a communication device. Device so that only people who participate in thecreation of this device and who.[00:26:14.260] - AllaOnly people who put the ingredients inside know what's inside and what is happening. It's also atemporary communication device, one that only works for those who've been part of its creation.And this, and this is, you know, a vision that is so unfinished, but it has taste, it has smell, it hastouch to it, it has life and history and connection. And somehow when I think of, you know,future of some type of a different temporality than maybe now or a better world, I think that Iusually say future, I actually mean better world. That this is. Yeah, this is my glimpse of hope.Something that makes me, you know, excited. And this was like one vision that came out ofthose sessions. And right now I'm like, there will be a conversation with the computer scientistthat I will have soon on the panel. And I was like, asking the moderation, can I please talk to thisperson about my idea of the device like that. And just to hear their perspective, how would theythink this could be implemented? And somehow in advance already I'm like, probably it's goingto be a very terrible idea because they come from a training, they come from a.[00:27:28.610] - AllaI don't know, but, you know, like, now my big question is how this, this. Could this become anactual thing?[00:27:35.930] - Sarah I think it's a great idea. Definitely. Yeah. As that person about that, I love this. And maybethey're gonna be like error 404, you know, then. Then that's also informative. No, I don't know. Ilike the idea and just what you said about. I, I'm taking notes because I. There's something that.What you said about, you know, things that are unfinished or like some idea that you have specifically about this device being unfinished remind me of something that Ramon Amaro saidwhen I met him. So that's the author of The Black Technical Object thing about. Yeah, around.Around technology and blackness and so many other concepts together. And I met him back inApril in Rotterdam, and he mentioned something about being okay with unfinished thoughtsession reflections, not always drawing conclusions, because a lot of what we work on is notgoing to be finished for a long time. And that's. And that's okay, you know, like something alsowrong. We can save the world next week, which I thought was really interesting. But yeah, theidea of, you know, being okay with the unfinished and maybe through coalition building, thereare things that can, you know, advance shift, redirect, be different.[00:28:45.110] - SarahAnd that's okay.[00:28:46.630] - AllaTotally. It's a great reminder. Thank you also for this. Maybe generally helps me for today andthe past few days and for the coming days, I think, to be just like, yes, it's actually totally finebecause the, The dance we're dancing is really like. It's one that you dance on a long breath. Imight never see the ends of it. And I just get so impatient.[00:29:13.570] - SarahI feel that. Beautiful alla we are coming slowly to a close of this beautiful episode, and I'm sograteful for all of the wisdom and experience and beautiful things that you shared. I want to askif there are things that inspire you, give you hope around the work that you're doing, and ifthere's something that you'd like to recommend to our listeners in terms of something thatinspired you recently and that can be in the form of art and music. Any content that you thinkwould be interesting for our listeners to listen to or come across.[00:29:46.650] - AllaHonestly, I think that I can't. Not now, but I will think about it. And while the episode is beingedited, I will just send you a link and this will be in the description of the podcast.[00:30:03.490] - SarahThat is perfect. Perfectly fine. Thank you so much. Super. All right. Any final words, somethingelse that you want to say that maybe we didn't touch on?[00:30:12.850] - AllaThank you so much, Sarah. No, I love talking to you and thank you for preparing this episode,for your beautiful questions and for your amazing energy and I'm like, just really looking forwardfor all of us seeing each other more often in the next. In the next months, online and offline andbeing on this episode is part of it for me. And, like, part of this ongoing conversation. I'm gratefulthat we could do this and thank you for your kind and patient ear.[00:30:43.240] - SarahYes. Thanks so much.[00:30:44.920] - AllaYou're the best.[00:30:45.960] - SarahThank you. 9. Mac Andre Arboleda & the sickness of the internet, Coalition building ✕ [00:00:02.820] - Speaker 1Hi to the dreamers, to the feminist techies, to the revolutionaries. My name is Sarah, and welcome to another episode of In the Loop by Dreaming Beyond AI. I hope that your heart feels light, your nervous system regulated, and your mind free of worry. Today's episode is with one of our residents, Mac, who was selected for our residency on coalition building in terms of AI: Intersecting Struggles. Mac Andre Arboleda is an artist interested in exploring the sickness of the Internet through research and dialog, art and text, organizing, and publishing. Mac was born and raised in the Philippines. His past life includes leading organizations such as the UP Internet Freedom Network and Artists for a Digital Rights Network, co-organizing events such as Zine Orgy and Monseleupa, and skimming with artist collective, MAK Pies Press. In this episode, we talked about the hard work of coalition building in practice, the importance of cross-disciplinary approach, and why softer digital futures cannot include Taylor Swift. Enjoy the episode. So Mac, thank you so much for being in this episode of the Dreaming Beyond AI podcast. So happy to have you here. And we just had a side kiki to prepare the episode.[00:01:25.340] - Speaker 1I know you have a lot of good news, which I'm so happy about. So the vibes are high. Just so the listener understand the vibes are high and the girls are excited. So what's up with you? What's the energy? And how are you on this end of month of June?[00:01:41.000] - Speaker 2Yeah. Hi, Sarah. Thanks so much for inviting me to this podcast. There was, I can confirm, a side kiki that happened before the start of this podcast. I'm doing great. The weather is a bit better now in the Philippines. We just ended summer. We canceled it. And now it's like monsoon season, so it's a bit raining, it's a bit colder, cozier. And yeah, I'm super excited for the months ahead and I'm just chilling. Yeah, doing great.[00:02:15.920] - Speaker 1Beautiful. So just kicking off with maybe asking you to present a little bit of your work related to the theme of the residency that we had with Dreaming Beyond AI. I know there's so much that you've been working on and that you do, which is so exciting, but something maybe related to intersecting struggles, coalition building in terms of AI, text justice that you'd like to share, to bring a bit of context about who you are.[00:02:44.660] - Speaker 2Sure. My name is Mac Andre Arbolada, and I'm the founding President of an organization called the UP Internet Freedom Network. It's this youth-led alliance, focusing on digital justice and the COVID-19, in 2020. It was a year where it was the lockdown in the Philippines. This was during a time when the Congress was railroading this anti-terrorism law. Of course, the lockdown was very strict in the Philippines. I was studying back then in university, and a lot of the youth activists in our region, in Los Banos or in Southern Tagalog, were a lot of digital threats. They were receiving messages. A lot of students were getting hacked. A lot of students were also being red-tagged Red Tag, this this phenomenon where activists are accused of being communists and therefore are criminalized by the state. This was a time where people We were starting to become really concerned with their safety online. I thought it was a really great opportunity to start an organization that really talked about concerns around internet freedom and digital rights. We've been doing that for the past five years. I'm also the co founder of the Artists for Digital Rights Network, which is an alliance of artists.[00:04:32.860] - Speaker 2This one was established in 2021. Mostly, cultural workers from the Philippines and Indonesia formed this loose coalition to work around issues on this information and censorship. I also continue a personal artistic practice, exploring what I call the sickness of the internet through research and dialog, art and text, organizing and publishing. I've started this residency with Dreaming Beyond AI since March or April. This project that I'm doing is called the Institute of Alice Kuo Studies, which is like this fake institute based on this politician in the Philippines, to think through conditions of another Philippine life. We're We're talking about pirate strategies, mediatic capacities, and governance networks that respond to the crisis that we're facing now. For the residency and for this institute, I've been doing reading groups, focusing on digital labor, Internet issues. I've been doing pirate broadcasts, creative workshops, critiquing language and tech, doing talks, and also writing texts on the links between security and seduction. I'm all over the place, but something that I really enjoy is working together with people and doing sexy things and trying to make initiatives that are mix of play and seriousness. Because what we're facing now is very serious.[00:06:33.740] - Speaker 1I love that. I don't think you're all over the place in a bad way. Let's reclaim being all over the place in a positive, sexy, and fun way. That's important as well. But I do feel like there's always a common thread as well. I would love to hear you more about, specifically, the coalition building aspects of things, but the different communities that you work with. I really feel like in times of fascism and in times of all the wild things that we are experiencing, it's so important to be creative and strategic, but just bringing different skills to the table. And I feel like when we talk about building things together, being able to protect each other, be there for each other, care for each other, there's just so many things that need to be thought through. And I feel like with these different experiences, it's just so beautiful and important and intentional, the way that you approach this. So any specific practices that you find is fundamental when we talk about coalition building in the different environments that you've been evolving in?[00:07:43.120] - Speaker 2Yeah, I think coalition building is hard work, like criticism. It's hard work to take after the Filipino poet Angela Suarez. I think one thing that... So my upbringing in what I I do has been informed a lot by this publishing collective that I was part of called Magpies Press. They were a collective that I co-founded this independent Publishing Expo called Zine Orgy in 2015. I was doing this for about five years. So a lot of my upbringing in the arts was in zines and do it yourself, DIY cultures. I think about, especially in the work that I do, it's so important that coalition building takes a lot of its strength and maybe motivation from this is caused to be anti-discriminary or cross-discriminary in a way, because there's a lot of micro fascisms or fascism within these disciplines from the academia and the art world. When I say sexy, it definitely means being cross-disciplinary because there's a lot of blind spots maybe in the way that, for example, every field operates, especially when it comes to actually bringing people together or creating solutions. And that's the aspiration of these coalitions that I've participated in where we really want to mix, for example, artists and cultural workers with academics, journalists, and activists.[00:10:00.830] - Speaker 2It's really necessary to bring these people together because we have so many different concerns. What was the question again?[00:10:20.480] - Speaker 1Practices for a coalition building. But you were saying at the very beginning that it's hard work, and then sexy being cross-disciplinary, that we need to be also strategic about the different disciplines that we center and work towards and stuff. But I don't know if there's... Because I know you have examples and things, but I feel like it's so interesting because within the in-person part of the residency, there have been so many conversations to the point all of us were tired. What the F is actually a coalition building? What do you mean? What does it mean for you? What does it mean for you? So it talks about that a lot. But I love the idea that throughout the episodes and me talking again, post in-person residency to the artist, to the mentors, we can have this archive of practices that are extremely important to make sure that we work towards coalition building, even though, of course, it will never be perfect, it will never be one size fits all. There may be one or two things that you think are super important to make it work?[00:11:23.180] - Speaker 2Yeah, it's hard to answer that question because I feel like... I don't know where it begins. Yeah, because for example, when I entered university, I studied in the state university, which is known for so much activism in the country, there's There's just an entire legacy of activism where the coalitions were already there before I even thought about them. Even Even the organizations that I've helped establish, they were out of... The people who formed it had existing work and were already very active in their communities. A lot of these formations always come from problems that we are facing and have facing for such a long time. But the ones find myself in the formations have always been meeting points of different disciplines because I think it's because when you have some existing organizations, for example, they only sometimes focus on, let's say, the field of computer science or even the discipline of human rights can sometimes be very limiting. And so there's a lot of fun that needs to be had with mixing these things together. It's looking at the future challenges also that we might face.[00:13:18.260] - Speaker 1Actually, I was just having a call with the Dreaming Beyond AI team earlier, and I was telling them that I'm super into conflict management and conflict resolution at the moment, this type of conversation and inspiration, and the fact that I literally feel like this will be the end of us as individuals and collectives and communities, because we very seriously need to equip ourselves with the tools to be able to approach conflict navigated, so that we avoid that the minute there's something off, then the whole collective crumbles about the friendship stops or whatever. So that's some of the things that I have in mind. But I love what you said about the different disciplines that we need to bring together, and also making sure we have fun, which I think is also super It's very important because we do take ourselves way too seriously. And if the word is coming to an end, we shall dance. So I love that.[00:14:07.120] - Speaker 2Yeah, I think that's such an important point also. A lot of my experience has been with really organized student activism, for example, where there's so much formality and order with organizing, whether it be activities or protests or the very foundation of coalition or a collective. Something that's so important for me to think about is how it's so important to really just also remember to be a person when you're organizing because there's a lot that is missed when A lot of our social relations is instrumentalized into this purpose or meeting certain goals. But then we forget sometimes to be a person and just be nice sometimes or just have fun and laugh. And these are the very feelings that are sometimes missing that can cause isolation or feelings of distrust or feelings of not being included And there are also the same vulnerabilities that are exploited when the right, for example, is organizing. So yeah, just thinking about this need to Be human, even in coalition building.[00:15:51.600] - Speaker 1Absolutely. And I was listening to this podcast my entire life. I was listening to this, and they were talking about how it's important to also be honest when you join a collective, whether it's a collective of artists or activists or researchers, educators, whatever, or a mix of things. Because usually there's something around when you join a type of collective, you're trying to repair something or there's a connection with your own experience and maybe wounds and things of needing to feel seen or whatever, and that it would actually be super generative and productive, to be honest about that. Each of us, we join, we get around the table, have that conversation. So that there's a much deeper understanding when we have a certain conversation after somebody feeling a little bit defensive about that or someone needed to take up space about that other topic. Being human and being able to see each other, extremely important. Thank you for that. Cool. So talking about being human and thinking of how to do things differently, I would love to hear you about your personal vision on softer digital futures, which actually is a link to the question that I have about another word is and some of the inspiration and hopes that you have.[00:17:03.820] - Speaker 1Because with Dreaming Beyond AI, a very important part is the dream in beyond. Anything that you have in mind in terms of things that you are inspired by, that you would like to see more of, people that you'd like to surround yourself with more spaces, geographies that you'd like to be in more. But also, how does that look like to have softer digital futures? What do you think would be needed? Who can help us get there?[00:17:29.560] - Speaker 2I Yeah, I think that's an interesting question because I do define my practice, exploring what I call the sickness of the Internet. And this is something, a practice that I've tried to define by... When people ask me, what does that actually mean? For me, there's a triad of what sick Internet means. It means, number one, the internet is so sick. Number two, I'm so sick of the internet. The third is the internet literally makes me sick. This is something that is maybe also a guiding framework for imagining what the softer digital future could mean. I guess when I think about it, right now, a phrase that comes into my head is permaculture life. It's something about, how do we produce or embody or just exist without producing so much waste? I'm thinking about, for example, how all these data centers are producing so much water waste. I'm thinking about, digital life is pretty much everywhere. I no longer I take the position of digital life permeating our everyday existence. It's not just the screens that we see. It's also like, especially here in the Philippines, for example, we have such a huge mall culture. What a software digital future could look like is no malls with CCTV cameras and facial recognition, no military presence in the countryside, no surveillance, more libraries, more parks, more forests, more gardens.[00:19:37.420] - Speaker 2I've been recently very inspired. I'm thinking of maybe establishing a Philippine version of this thing called Log Off Movement. It's inspired by founders Emma Lamke and Clara Vazerman. They're based in the US. I think I met one of them in Costa Rica two years ago. It's such a simple idea, literally just like, Log off and touch graph. But I'm thinking about how it's such an important idea, just even logic. I feel like right now, the complete norm is how we need or technology is almost inevitable. By technology, it could mean at the very basic interaction with screens and data. But I I think of a life where being online doesn't necessarily generate the same value that exploiting our data or producing war or selling us things. For example, what could a four-day work week look like in a softer digital future? It may mean Instagram is banned three days of the week. Maybe that's great. That's really what I've been thinking about recently. I feel like it's so important to hold on to a logic of just really not participating or really divesting from these kinds of digital technologies because I think nowadays, it's a complete illusion that we could log in without really exposing us to different kinds of dispossession and exploitation.[00:21:36.640] - Speaker 2I feel like it's something that's going to feel really great in our bodies because I feel like even just being in front of a screen has made me really sick. It just makes me sick these days. I feel like it's taking away so much of my body's capacities or latent desires to just move around and see the sunset or listen to music. I think, well, this is my personal opinion. I think a software digital future would also just not include Taylor Swift. That's not... (laughs) You can edit that out. Her These songs are not going to be in my software digital future.[00:22:32.900] - Speaker 1I'm dead. That was so uncalled for! (laughs) wow, the Swifties are going to get at us.[00:22:41.620] - Speaker 2Because the cultural production that Taylor Swift represents is also, I'm going to say it, it's tied to Spotify. The recent investments that the CEO have made to invest in military AI startup. There's really completely different kinds of listening and producing, I think, are what… It's the task of really visioning I'm envisioning what this software digital future could be.[00:23:22.720] - Speaker 1A statement. I like it. Wow. Facts. This news, because there are two things I want to say. I was going to ask you about a tech-related news on your nerve lately, or that was made you reflect in like, this definitely is the type of things that will not belong in our software digital future. And that news that you just mentioned about the Spotify CEO is definitely one of them. And it's so telling about the times that we're in as well. But the other things I want to say is that please create some type of like, log out club because we need that so much. I've also been inspired because I was just googling now trying to find it again. Yeah, there's this offline club, actually, a collective that got created, I believe in the Netherlands, but I see that they're now in London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Berlin, Copenhagen. And it's literally, I do think it's a bunch of millennials, I will say. Let's be real. Coming together and just doing crochet or play board games. And you literally need to leave your phone aside at entry, which I love, love, love. So I think there's more and more of this need of completely divesting and being able to connect IRL because that's key.[00:24:39.180] - Speaker 1So I love that you talked about that as well. But yeah, so actually coming back to this, any tech-related news that got on your nerve that you think is problematic that we should call out, and maybe another tech news that brought you a little more hope and felt softer about the future?[00:24:58.500] - Speaker 2Yeah. So I mean, then The news that definitely got on my nerves is the Spotify investment. I think that's something that is completely my concern, both in my, I guess, creative research and also just in the organizing work that I've been doing with my comrades, it's this bizarre, this insane amount of investment investment in war. I think that's really something that really riles me up because when you see the cyber security security investments that are happening in the region of Southeast Asia, they often speak about how it's transnational threats, like scam hubs, that are the main reason why they're doing it. But it's just while it is an extreme concern as well, this is also tied to the logic of just increased securitization and militarization that is happening in the region. So the Philippines alone, we've had A gazillion countries doing military exercises in the archipelago. This is all setting up for this fake war between the US and China that is happening in our side of the region. We see that what's happening in Europe is not very... The logic is not different from what's going to happen or what these imperialist powers are wanting to happen in our region.[00:26:49.960] - Speaker 2Seeing this company, Spotify, to be even investing in this thing is absolutely crazy because what's happening is our cultural production is contributing directly to more violence and more bombings and more wars, basically. This question of cultural production really needs to be looked at and what does it mean to create under these conditions? Something that gives me hope, that's quite difficult, but something that continues to inspire me today is the work of many tech unions Here in the Philippines, there's been a recent strike announced by, I think it was Kawasaki in the Philippines. Also, I'm still reeling from the victory of Nexperia Workers Union, which is a tech union in the Philippines in a semiconductor factory. They won a victory last March for higher wages and the reinstatement of some of their union workers who were busted by the management. This is a semiconductor company that is owned by the Netherlands. This is producing millions or billions of dollars in revenue every week. The workers are extremely exploited. One of the union leaders, Mary Anne Castillo, she's a 55-year-old semiconductor factory worker who has been working with the company for more than 30 She was one of the people involved in leading this strike, the victory.[00:29:05.430] - Speaker 2There's a lot of hope to be cleaned from or taken from the workers unions that are organizing across the country. Of course, they're also facing so many attacks. They're also tagged as communists or terrorists. But this is the fantasy production also that's so necessary to hold on to, especially as artists. We often think or we often spend so much time trying to speculate about the future or imagining what software digital futures could look like. But I think there's a lot of creative imagination that is also coming from people that we don't consider to be artists. And these are workers who are really spending so much of their blood and sweat every day that sustains this global order of things.[00:30:15.680] - Speaker 1Dope, I love that you mentioned that power to the workers. And I think definitely I agree that there's hope and inspiration to be drawn from tech unions, massively. And I really, really, really, really hope that the coming month and years will feed us with many more wins because we need those to keep going. But beyond the wins, also just the journey of organizing and being able to create solid, solidarity to continue to fight you because there's a lot. So I appreciate you mentioning that. We are arriving at the end of this episode, so I just want to ask you if you want to leave a recommendation for our listeners about a piece of content that can be a meme, that can be a music, a playlist, a book, a video that you recently sold that could be of inspiration in the context of coalition building, revolutionary practices, doing life together, being human, or anything else that you'd love to recommend.[00:31:14.380] - Speaker 2Yeah, I'm going to pull a quote from this event that I want to recommend to listeners. So right now, I think I would love to recommend that listeners listen to this talk that was organized just a few weeks ago. It's about the Philippines boycott of Frankfurt Book Fair. This year, the Philippines is a guest of honor in Frankfurt Book Fair. There's a Palestinian-led campaign to boycott the Book Fair because of the Book Fair history and silencing Palestinian voices, censoring, and also just this material support and cultural support for the ongoing genocide in Casa. There's a quote by one of my favorite scholars and author. Her name is Nefertiti Diyar. She says, Our humanity is bound up with the wretched and dispossessed of the Earth. That is the responsibility of writers and artists and bookmakers to proceed from that ethical principle rather than seeking out the same terms of value that have determined this global support for genocide. This was a talk that had guests from the Center for International Studies in the Philippines, a Palestinian-American journalist based in Germany named Heb Jamal, Better Living Through Xeroxography, which is another zine expo in the Philippines, Gantala Press, which is the Philippine affiliate of Publishers for Palestine, and Khalil Pierre from Palestine Library, Publishers for Palestine was also there.[00:33:12.020] - Speaker 2It's this coalition building that's really important to be part of and support. There's so much to learn from the many different kinds of coalitions that are happening in support of the Palestinian movement, for example. It just goes to show us that the people of Palestine are really teaching us so much in organizing and just living and what it means to move forward. I think, yeah, we need to be ganging up and really listening to what Nefertita Dior calls the wretched and dispossessed of the Earth. I think this is where coalition building should really pay attention to, because I think coalition building with the exclusion of the most dispossessed, it may end us up in the same place where we were five years ago, three years ago, two years ago.[00:34:27.840] - Speaker 1Powerful. Really strong words to conclude. I absolutely love that. I appreciate you. Thanks so much, Mac, for your time, for all your wisdom, sharing your experience with us, all of the beautiful insights that I'm sure will be so inspiring to the listener. Partners. I appreciate you. Thank you.[00:34:49.280] - Speaker 2Yeah. Thank you so much.[00:34:54.400] - Speaker 1Thank you so much for listening to this episode by Dream Beyond AI. You can always find all the episodes on SoundCloud or on our website, dreamingbeyond. Ai. Coalition Building in Times of AI: Intersecting Struggles is a residency program that was made possible by a collaboration with IFA. If you have any questions that you're trying to connect, let us know at hello@dreamingbeyond. Ai, and you can also find us on Instagram at dreamingbeyond. Ai. See you soon. 10. Xin Xin and strategies for community-built technologies, Coalition building ✕ ◄ ► ☰ ✕ Imprint/ Legal Search for the pink drops Drag to navigate, click structure to enter Accessibility/ Privacy Policy

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