Tech Won't Save Us - Embracing Glitch Feminism w/ Legacy Russell

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Paris Marx is joined by Legacy Russell to discuss how glitch feminism challenges existing ideas of what constitutes the body and the effects of having those conceptions embedded within our technological systems.Legacy Russell is the associate curator of exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and will become executive director and chief curator of The Kitchen in September. She’s the author of “Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto” and is currently writing “Black Meme.” Follow Legacy on Twitter as @LegacyRussell.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:Donna Haraway, Sadie Plan, and Katherine Hayles on cyberfeminism.Alondra Nelson on afrofuturism.Nathan Jurgenson’s work on digital dualism and IRL.Support the show

Many of these technologies are not set up to recognize queer bodies. They're not set up and designed to recognize Black bodies. And so there is this kind of ongoing paradox where we are both hyper-visible, but also rendered to some degree illegible. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Legacy Russell. Legacy is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and on Tuesday it was also announced that she'll become the Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen in September, so congratulations to her on that. Legacy is also the author of Glitch Feminism and

of the forthcoming book Black Meme, which was the recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. Legacy gives us a bit of insight into what will be in Black Meme at the end of the conversation, but most of it revolves around glitch feminism. And this was a really fascinating conversation for me because obviously I talk about technology with different guests every single week but Legacy brings a different perspective from the art world and in particular from her background in art history that you know I'll be completely open in saying that it's not something that I have much of a background in or a knowledge about so it was really interesting to me to hear her kind of bring those insights into these larger conversations that we're having on this podcast about technology, about the impacts that it has on our world, about the impacts that it has on us as people, as individuals.

And, you know, Legacy's work in particular focuses on those impacts on Black people, on queer people, on female identified people. So I was really happy to have her on the show to discuss these issues and to learn from her perspective. And I'm positive that you will as well. Before we get into the show, the second issue of the newsletter came out on Sunday. The response has been really great. And I just wanted to remind you that if you haven't subscribed yet and you're interested in getting kind of a weekly update on tech news and critical perspectives on what's been happening in tech, make sure to subscribe to The Hammer, which is the name of the newsletter. And you can find a

link to do that in the show notes. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, a group of left-wing podcasts that are made in Canada. And you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. If you're liking the podcast, make sure to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. And if you like this episode in particular, make sure to share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who you think would learn from it or enjoy it. Every episode of Tech Won't Save Us is free for anyone because people who are able to support the show choose to do so. So if you want to support the work that I'm doing in having these conversations every

week and putting this podcast together, you can join supporters like Anna, David from Berkeley, and Allison from Queens in New York by going to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and becoming a supporter. Thanks so much and enjoy this conversation. Legacy, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. So glad to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and to chat. Obviously, you wrote this book, Glitch Feminism, that I really enjoyed and that I thought was fantastic. So I'm really looking forward to digging into that with you today a little bit further. And so I wanted to start with kind of, you know, the broader concept that you're laying out.

And in the book, you make reference to an earlier cyber feminism, which seemed much more closely linked to first and second wave feminism. So can you briefly explain what cyberfeminism was and how glitch feminism builds on that or differs from it? Absolutely. So the history of cyberfeminism is a complicated and complex one. I would say that, you know, to begin in this conversation, it's important to note, of course, that the conversation about Afrofuturism and cyberfeminism have run side by side and actually are deeply intertwined with one another. Yet it is interesting to see how often the conversations around cyberfeminism have been

whitened and then as well kind of best represented within certain forums as a discourse that centers white cisgendered women. And so the legacy of it is one that, you know, arcs back to the 1990s, you know, as well, some might say that it even predates that period. But you know, it was the 1990s, that was a period of time where many thinkers were considering what it meant to exist as a feminist body within a digital landscape. And, you know, great thinkers came out of cyberfeminism, you know, folks like Sadie Plant and Catherine Hales. You know, of course, cyberfeminism as an ethos has been greatly inspired by Donna Haraway and her ongoing theorizing on this kind of

construct of the cyborg, but as well, recognizing that the discussions of the first and second wave of cyberfeminism, I think, is something that glitch feminism really aims to spend time with. And it begins and opens with recognizing that the questions that are being asked about who becomes visible within these histories and why that is, and as well, too, the ways in which cyberfeminism actually has, you know, been a tool of a certain type of exclusion, replicating some of the same issues and challenges of feminist history that we have seen away from our screens through and extending beyond and influenced by the cultures of the internet. So within Glitch Feminism, the hope is to think

through what it means to be a different type of contributor across a cyber feminist arc and ask questions too about the ways in which as we kind of shape the next steps and stages of these histories that new contributors can be brought to the fore in intersectional forms, recognizing, you know, a kind of broader arc of identity and celebrating to what it means to kind of be a blurry body. And, you know, in particular, to ask questions about not only breaking what's broken in terms of broader social, cultural, gendered systems, right, but also as well, the kind of machinic systems of history making in and of itself. Yeah, you know, I think you touch on so many important topics there and

really outline how glitch feminism is about this kind of opening, right, breaking down these ideas that have come before and creating a space where, you know, we can explore even further these topics even further dig into things that, you know, might have been hidden a bit in the past. I wanted to touch on one additional piece of what you just talked about there. You talked about a previous link between cyber feminism and astrofuturism. I wonder if you could discuss a little bit more about that aspect of it, just so we can get that context as well. I mean, absolutely. So afrofuturism, although certainly astro, but Afrofuturism, you know, in an intersection with cyberfeminism is something that actually is really exciting and important.

But you know, what I found to be remarkable is that oftentimes, when I have been at conferences, and, you know, lecturing in different places around the world and going into various spaces that are producing exhibitions and thought around this idea of cyber feminism, that actually, there will be so many people who will reference, for example, Sadie Plant, but actually be lesser informed about the amazing contributions of Alondra Nelson. This is just, you know, kind of to think through the ways in which these bodies of thought actually have been segregated from one another. So, you know, this discussion of Black futures, which I think, you know, continues to be something that is incredibly important to this language of the internet, to the idea of what the digital can do, and as well, who is producing creatively through and beyond digital material,

new media material, the landscape of cyberspace, and really dictating what that looks like into a future space that, you know, so much of our conversations around a kind of nascent cyber feminism have been incredibly exclusionary, and as well have made the assumptions that Black people, that queer people have not been core contributors to this work. So, you know, the ways to that, this, of course, has been embodied is by looking at, you know, a kind of broader picture, when we look at the ways in which folks, you know, and speaking as a curator, working inside of a museum, folks have represented cyber feminist histories within institutional spaces so often comes with a very particular face and brand and idea of what the body is that that represents that, right. And so, you know, the kind of interest in thinking through

the contributions of an Afrofuturism, and as well, the intersectional contributions, you know, as is seen in Gleitfeminism across different sort of media and disciplines, which is a kind of uniquely queered space, right? The having many points of thought and constellation and conversation with each other allows for perhaps a broadening of the definition of cyberfeminism in and of itself, and as well to recognize that these thingsism in and of itself, and as well, to recognize that these things actually have always shared space, and that it is really the trouble, you know, that is the kind of root issue here is the way the story has been told. Yeah, I love that. I'm just nodding my head over here with everything that you're saying.

You know, I think it's so clear in so many different ways how the contributions of Black people, of queer people have been excluded from so many of these histories. And I think it's great now that there is starting to be this kind of reckoning with that to try to bring those elements of history back into the narrative so that we recognize they were always there. Absolutely. What is really interesting is that there's been this ongoing reckoning with art history and in relationship to kind of feminist narratives and the ways in which the kind of physical space of art history, the questions of the academy that have long been in conversation with a feminist discourse, but that cyber feminism and as well, like network medias, which is, you know, you know, thinking about things that are

informed through and beyond the internet, right, a culture of the internet, because not every artist who is mentioned in the book, right, you know, is necessarily a digital artist or internet artist, but rather, it is, you know, a group of creative people, thinkers who have been deeply informed by the histories of, you know, cybernetics, of cyberspace, who have come up as a generation on the internet, and, you know, have been, as a result, expressing themselves creatively through their online experience, right. So, you know, thinking about what that means, it is very important to recognize that the conversation of cyber feminism and cyber culture entering into what has been kind of a canonized or academy site and recognized as a core contribution to an art historical narrative

requires the same kind of examination, right? That our experience on our screens is not separate from that which exists within physical space. And we have kind of at points given permission for our understanding of the digital to exist as, you know, kind of possibility of ultimate utopia, which is, you know, part of the problem of this early nascent idea of separate feminism is that it prioritized, you know, this utopic language. And the question was utopia for whom, right? Who did that kind of, what was that space being envisioned for? And who was being kind of prioritized within the storytelling of that period of time? And then of course, beyond that, to recognize that there are so many questions tied to

what it means to now look out at an entire generation of folks who have come of age online through the internet internet and to see that the work that they have been producing has not only been in conversation with art history, but as well with expanding feminist narratives, thinking through the ways in which actually they need to be redefined because the language of feminism in and of itself actually is one that has troubled roots. And so that kind of active interrogation and, you know, discovery and questioning becomes, you know, an essential contribution to art history alongside of this larger technoculture discussion, right? Thinking about the ways, of course, that a sort of gendered problem has

continued to perpetuate itself through and beyond as informed by our technologies. Yeah, I completely agree with that. And, you know, the phrase utopia for whom, I think is one that really resonates. You were talking there about the digital experience of these people, you know, how the online was often separated from the real world and how we need to kind of break down that barrier.

And in your book, I feel that you use this term AFK, away from keyboard, that, you know, the technological existence is positioned as a central feature that then informs how one lives when they step away from keyboard, the, you know, the technological existence is positioned as a central feature that then informs how one lives when they step away from the computer or the screen. So do you see it that way? And can you expand on how you see that relationship working? AFK and IRL as, you know, kind of different terms is something actually that was originally

theorized by an incredible thinker, writer, sort of techno-futurist in many ways, Nathan Jergensen, who has continued to build out discourse around this idea of digital dualism. And this is a term that he's done a lot of thinking around, which really pushes us to think about this idea of on versus offline. And so in Nathan's work, oftentimes the conversation around digital dualism asks us to kind of better consider what it is that we consider is real when we say IRL. And it's not to say, of course, that folks, you know, cannot use that language, right? Sometimes people are, you know, often asking, you know, is it okay or appropriate, right? Is it politically correct to use the term IRL? And so, you know, I think that maybe that misses the point when we focus on that

as a question instead of asking about what is it that is asserted or established, what value set is being expressed when we say IRL versus AFK. And so the AFK being away from keyboard is an opportunity to think through the loop between what happens on our screens and the way in which it informs what happens out in the world and what happens out in the world as being deeply reflective of that, which, you know, of course, drives our cyber cultures and digital spaces. And so, you know, to think about the ways in which this language is positioned, right, also is an opportunity not only to think through this question of real as it has been used to support or discredit certain types of narratives. And in this case, in terms of glitch feminism, it's thinking about the legacy of feminism and recognizing that the feminist actions, movement, organizing, mobilization that has been happening through cyber culture is incredibly real, right? So, you know, thinking about that as being something that is real and tangible and has mobilized people through the screen and then away from it,

but also as well to be thinking very much so about this question of accountability. How do we hold ourselves accountable for the worlds that we are investing in away from our screen and recognizing that actually these technologies that we use are great mirrors of those same worlds? And so, you know, thinking from that position, from that place, asking questions about the ways in which, of course, by recognizing that loop, by investing in, of course, the continuity along it, that we can perhaps think through what it means to be creating space and the real world that we inhabit and recognizing that these technologies are not neutral and exist outside of the world, but are very much connected to the social relations and the ideas that go into their creation. Right, absolutely. I mean, I think all of the ongoing discussions, you know, not to kind of go off of on a tangent, but around kind of Silicon Valley,

right? And the ways in which, of course, you know, within tech specifically, that there have been so many questions about what it means to be best represented, right, as a person of color, as a queer identified person, as a female identified person within tech, that, you know, these are sort of systems biases that are being expressed. And so the way in which, you know, we can kind of rectify some of those things is to ask questions about, you know, we can kind of rectify some of those things is to ask questions about, you know, the assumed neutrality of some of these different spaces and places as they are being created. And as well, you know, to kind of go back to the question of utopia for whom, right, the way in which it points, you know, our idealizing of these

different sites does a great disservice to us being invested in and active in and, you know, kind of as well feeling empowered in our possibility, our ability to change and transform them. You know, I don't know if you feel this way as well, but I feel like a lot of the discussion around technology and the ideas that, you know, what is coming out of Silicon Valley, this particular, you know, agglomeration of ideas and people and capital and, you know, an economic system, that that is what technology has to be, that that is what has to be produced. And these ideas that, you know, this is naturally what technology should look like kind of closed down the possibilities and the idea to actually think through, like,

does technology need to work this way? Does it need to reinforce these ideas or these social relationships? And could it exist in a different way that would promote a different way of being? I mean, I would absolutely agree. And I think that, you know, I often like to think of the digital as an architecture, right? So I think about the language of monument and architecture often when I'm thinking about digital space, if only because I recognize that these are things that people have certain ideas about when you say, you know, architecture, you think of, you know, kind of associated with the physical space, you know, but the infrastructure and architecture of the internet, of digital

space, of cyber culture is, you know, as fixed, and also as impermanent as what exists within physical space, right? So the assumption of fixity, I think, is something that comes through, you know, a variety of kind of assertions and assumptions. And when we think about, too, the presence of some of these kind of major corporations that have, you know, established their footprint within digital space, and therefore, of course, you know, limit our viewfinder to in terms of the ways in which, you know, we are able to engage with one another, participate in, you know, different systems of discovery that, you know, these are things that at one point did not exist, right? So they had to come into being. And, you know, for that, you know, given the fact that there is,

there was a life before and that there is going to be a life that extends beyond, right? I think it is a wonderful opportunity to keep considering what does it mean to, you know, resist, refuse, to reshape, to navigate and interrogate and reimagine some of what not only these platforms can do themselves, but to propose things that extend and stand specifically outside of them as a goal and intention? You know, when you were discussing the ideas of AFK and IRL, I feel like you're kind of presenting how there's this false binary between, or at least has been this false binary between, you know, what happens online and what happens

in the real world. And I feel like in the book, there's this strong thread about not just breaking down binaries, but also challenging existing expectations that exist about the body, right? About this physical thing that we all inhabit. And I feel like there has been a lot of progress in pushing back against these kind of constraints that have exist around ideas around the body in recent years. But I wonder how you perceive that, you know, what the benefits are of breaking out of these traditional ideas around the body and what the body should be, and where you see inspiration for greater progress toward those ends. I will say that a lot of my thinking around this question of the body has been shaped by queer thought and Black feminist thought. And so, you know, recognizing that across a broader

history, there have been so many points in the kind of supremacy of a kind of historical narrative that have made the assumption that Black and queer bodies are actually not human. And so, you know, for this, right, as kind of part of the problem of a historical narrative, the way that it has been told, the violence that, you know, queer and Black bodies have been subjected to over time, the way in which, of course, we see those things perpetuated, right? They're living out in the world with us right here, right now. We are seeing them in the news. We are seeing how these stories, you know, are deeply flawed in even the progress to your point, right? The progress that we have made that, you know, even with that, that actually there still is so much work to do. So, you know, for me, when I think about this question of what does it mean to expand the

definition of the body, it's about encouraging all of us to think through the assumptions of, you know, who has the right to live? What does it mean to be a body and to see that as a privilege, right? To be seen as a living, breathing human in the world is actually something that is not a given. And that actually, the ways in which, of course, these things need to be negotiated, have to take into account and reckon with and reconcile, you know, with my great hope, with some optimism, complicated historical arcs that actually have established other models for who belongs within that taxonomy and as well who is shut out of it. So with my ongoing work and as well, this is something that I've continued to think about as I've navigated into research and writing for my second book,

it is very much an essential question. What does it mean to be a body? And as well, what does it mean to break what's broken as a goal, right? As a kind of manifesto, as a hope, as a kind of mantra and prayer for the future. And that in expanding the body, we liberate all of us, right? It's a collective and liberation, action and work. And that really is the project of book feminism and as well, the hope for what, you know, the artists also within the book who are doing such incredible work and thinking through what these different proposals can be, you know, how do you expand the definition of the body as, you know, a raced and gendered and ableist, you know,

transphobic architecture, right? And that in that in expanding it, actually, that there is a great and kind of generosity and sort of expansive hope for a future self, right? And that that actually is a collective goal, a mission that we all share. In building on that, the book is obviously not just about the body and feminist thought and breaking out of these molds, but is also about the relationship of that to technology. So how do you feel that, you know, again, this relationship that we're talking about, about, you know, the online and the offline, how do you think that our online world is affecting the way that we see the body? And I guess, how do you think that is that is affecting the way that we think about those issues? I would say, you know, first and foremost, I think that our ways of engaging within digital space at points makes very simple the way of certain kinds of ad placements and pop-ups, these are things that make the assumption that we are inherently legible, right?

And so for me, my great curiosity and kind of goal in thinking about our presence through these different institutions as they stand on the internet is one that mirrors similarly some of the questions that we have asked out in the world. And oftentimes, I think people struggle to make that connection, people who are new to the conversation, they'll, you know, look at this idea of, you know, our digital architectures, and, you know, ask about how it might be possible for us to perhaps redispline ourselves through them, given the fact that the choices provided to us feel so limited and specific. But, you know, what I often encourage folks to do is to think about the ways, of course, that that has been made possible out in physical space, right? That people actually, you know, very much so in terms of the collection of one's biometrics, those histories, what that has looked like. It is the pushing back on those things that has actually allowed for a widening of definition and as well for new opportunities for us to have conversations about how we want to be classified.

What does that look like? You know, who remains part of that conversation? And what does it mean to kind of be an autonomous and sort of emancipated subject within those conversations as we navigate through our lives? So of course, you know, so much of this is kind of bound up within our understanding of who can and cannot be read. And, you know, the ways in which, of course, our digital platforms have been set up, have been set up often to really push us to make as digestible and legible as possible our bodies as they are existing in interaction within our digital communities. But what has been really remarkable is that similarly to this question of the body, right, that because many of these different platforms, you know, express some of our deepest social and cultural historical biases, right, that actually within that, there is a ongoing problem of recognition that, you know,

many of these different technologies are not set up to recognize queer bodies, they're not set up and designed to recognize black bodies. And so for that reason, there is this kind of ongoing paradox, right, where we are both, you know, hyper visible, but also as well, you know, rendered to some degree illegible, largely because of, you know, this idea of the readership of the body who gets to be read and classified as such within the taxonomy of the digital. So part of what glitch feminism hopes to do, right, and kind of pointing out different examples across amazing artists who are working within the fields of technology and contemporary art is to really push us to think through ways where we may kind of glitch through that,

right, and intervene and as well experiment and explore about, you know, that kind of tension between a hypervisibility and an invisibility. And then, you know, as well, thinking of this idea of what it means to kind of strategically non perform within this environment of digital network, right, which, you know, I think becomes, you know, a whole other set of things, like, if these platforms are not built for us, right? What does it mean actually to fail within them? And that actually, you know, really is the driving question behind much of my research, like this idea of failure. How does that become something that is an opportunity?

You know, what you're talking about there about the legibility, I think makes a lot of sense. I feel like over time, and I'm sure that you've observed this as well, it seems like there's been this kind of development through, you know, kind of the progression of the internet as it has evolved over time to want to classify us more and more to make us more legible within its systems, you know, to serve ads or for many other purposes. And now we are kind of seeing those technologies also move into the physical space. And you talked there about queer and black bodies not being as legible to these systems, whether that's,

you know, I think we see that with facial recognition systems and other forms of artificial intelligence. And, you know, I feel like that kind of sets up already, as more and more things require us to be legible to these systems, it kind of builds these inequities into the infrastructure, not just of online life, but increasingly, you know, what we encounter in the real physical world as well. Absolutely. And I will say that there's, you know, it's like useful to break it down. Because of course, you know, in order for there to be an algorithmic assumption about, for example, what a woman is, right, there has to be a way, you know, within the sort of architecture, the framework of it, right, to classify what that looks like, right. And so

the problem begins there, right, because it is the way in which we are enacting certain types of not only recognition, but also establishing models of who should be visible through these taxonomies that becomes, you know, a kind of core component of some of these supremacies that are built within these different systems. So, you know, this is also why I think it is incredibly exciting and kind of, you know, optimistic, challenging, rigorous, like, you know, complicated, really sticky material when artists get involved in that conversation, because artists actually don't have to always play by the rules, right? And that I think is one of the things that is a real gift and joy about the production of art, right? That actually, it encourages people to kind of break outside of the models of what,

you know, might be a sort of standard scientific research or standard process of production within the arena of technology that actually, you know, the spaces in between become a ripe site for research, right, and for kind of creative possibilities. And so for the exercise of the book, right, it allows the creative imagination of these different artists, you know, ranging from American artists to E. Jane, to Mark Aguilar, to Shani Michelin Holloway, to Manuel Arturo Abreu, amazing people who have done deep work to think about these systems, right? Ways to refuse and as well to kind of reestablish what these systems should do, who they should work for, and as well to kind of take back some of that power and agency. Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point. As these systems move in the physical space, as there's this desire to, you know, make more of us legible and to have us fit

into these categories of what is considered, you know, a man, a woman, black, white, whatever, you know, do you think that there's a way to kind of retain that queerness, that flexibility, and indeed to make progress toward a glitch notion of the body in the face of a tech infrastructure that seems to want to do the opposite? Yeah, I mean, I guess I would put that question back to you all, right, to folks who are listening in terms of, you know, asking that question about physical space. Is it possible to do that type of glitch work in the physical world when we are constantly faced with similar structures that work to actively position us within very selective channels, right? And as well to silo one another through these different processes. I feel like that these conversations should be held at the same plane and to be kind of weighed up along, you know, kind of a similar vein in that

recognizing ourselves and the work to be done out in physical space, the way in which, of course, that, you know, these questions of presence and participation and power continue to be ones that the boundaries that have been established for us by the state, right? You know, recognizing that the similar possibilities of kind of this question of state presence, of kind of corporate presence, of capitalist presence through and beyond our sort of cyberspaces as they exist in a shared way and also, you know, as well in our kind of disparate and separate satellite cyberspaces, because I do believe that there are many, that these are things that are kind of shared ambitions. And so, you know, to your question, I do believe that there are opportunities there for all of that to kind of happen. But that is really the confluence between the two that, you know, allows for the kind of progression forward and the ways in which, of course, those things can be done toward new and radical means.

I completely take that. And I think it's great to also turn that question back to the audience and have them reflect on that question and have them reflect on how we achieve these goals to create this kind of world and implement these technologies in a way that works to forward this notion of glitch feminism. Now, you also work with artists. You're a curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem. There has also been a trend of moving toward a greater degree of commercialization and commodification of art online. I feel like there's more platforms that are trying to promote the commodification of interactions. There's a move toward things like NFTs, non-fungible tokens, to put a price on digital art through the blockchain, through cryptocurrencies, things

like this, that also have some concerns about environmental issues and other things like that. I wonder what you make of that development, especially in light of, you know, the kind of work that you do and the interest that you have in art and artists' ability to, you know, do that kind of work and challenge these ideas that we have in society, I guess. Absolutely. I mean, I will say, so, you know, at the City Museum in Harlem, as a curator within, you know, this incredible space, I am, you know, deeply fortunate to be working within an institution that shares in mission values and goals, much of my ongoing work through and beyond museums. So as an institution founded in 1968, it continues to be this kind of incredible space because it existed in the future

when it was originally founded. The fact that it even came into being was responsive to a lot of the challenges, institutionally, art historically, what have you, that were being reflected in the world, right? And this, of course, is a period of time that predates the digital as we now know it, but absolutely has, you know, kind of augured in many ways in its inception, in its founding, right? Some of these questions about the economy, the currency, the presence, participation, the agency of, you know, Black artists and, you know, as an extension, artists of color. So, you know, with that, I think that we're existing in a unique and kind of amazing period of time, because there have been, of course,

such radical change and transformation over the past, you know, year, if not months, right, alongside of, of course, from 1968 to present. And, you know, to this point about what it means to kind of circulate within that, right, I feel that it is an incredibly vulnerable period of time for artists of color, you know, as well for female identified artists, for queer artists to be thinking about really what it means to be represented within institutional spaces, and then as well within a kind of broader art arena. I think the NFT conversation, while at points it makes me deeply annoyed and frustrated, I also appreciate and recognize that there are opportunities there to really talk about some of the values being asserted

by the systems of the art world that are deeply flawed, right? And that, you know, for example, this idea that people would, previous to the pandemic, right, of course, now that things are slowly reopening, we may see different trends, but there was a sort of voracious culture of art fairs, right, everywhere around the world was kind of engaging in these, you know, sort of models of infrastructure that would, you know, kind of rise out of night, right, like they literally would come out of nothing, these big tented infrastructures that would carry all of this artwork, people would travel from all over the world. And then, you know, to be seeing some of the same individuals who were deeply, you know, participating and complicit within those different spaces, now critiquing the environmental concern

of NFTs is, you know, deeply paradoxical. It comes to me as something that, you know, requires some closer examination, right? So I think that when we talk about the footprint, the impact of some of these different technologies, it's really also important to be talking about the kind of value sets that we have established around them. And I think that, you know, Black artists and, you know, as well, the kind of economy around NFTs as folks have begun to talk about, you know, what it means to have agency through these different technologies, really, it's about thinking about maybe a certain kind of restorative and reparative system within an economy that has, you know, very complex way over time, long excluded black people, people of color,

queer identified people, female identified people from an art market, right, from being, you know, deeply compensated, and, you know, kind of the questions of equity that come with the idea of one's work circulating in the world, right. So, you know, I feel like with NFTs in specific, there is a kind of wonderful and incredible and challenging and, you know, deeply flawed as well, discourse that's going on around what these technologies can do that are driving the NFT kind of market, if only because, you know, it has turned on its ear some of the assumptions about, you know, who and what has value within a kind of creative industry. And I do feel very strongly that,

you know, as I've continued to kind of think deeply about what a system or a model of digital reparations could look like for historically marginalized and oppressed peoples, that actually the NFT space gives, you know, a great sort of site to begin to kind of activate and explore what that looks like. And, you know, I recognize that, of course, that that can be echoed, you know, in other channels across different histories, you know, of course, within a kind of Black history thinking about the legacy of royalties, right, and the ways in which, of course, the, you know, ongoing troubles of having material quite literally thefted from you creatively, and then, you know, kind of existing in the world toward

profit that actually you do not see the returns for. These are things that actually become really critical to pay attention to as part of the sort of creative engine of what it means to work and be an artist in the world right here and right now. And of course, having that arc back to 1968 and then even before that. So, you know, within all of this, I feel very strongly that it is a useful period to be thinking deeply about these different models. And as well that, you know,

I often think about the idea that representation and visibility are not the same thing. I think we are in a moment where many folks are seeing themselves as being hyper visible. And at points that can become incredibly confusing, because we assume that that means that we are equally represented. And that is actually not the case. So you know, it remains a critical part of this discussion, how do we better define and clarify on what it means to be hyper visible versus represented fairly? And then as well,

how does that become an investment in a long term plan, like a sustainable model that moves into the future that imagines, you know, not a precarious blackness or precarious queerness, but rather one that actually is truly invested in to the words of artist E. Jane, a culture that loves us, right? So that really, I think, is the great hope for some of this work. And two, what I think some of the ongoing controversy around some of these digital technologies may teach us, right? There may be lessons there that we can continue to build on as we keep going. Yeah, I think that's a really good point to talk about the values, right? And how these new technologies, these changes that are emerging, you know, over the recent years, or over the recent year, or even months, can give us the opportunity to think about structures that

existed before, and the problems that were embedded within them. And then to think about, you know, is what is coming out of this, you know, is this new development, what we want to see, or does it help to critique what's there. And then we can see maybe there's some benefits to this, but maybe it's not the exact perfect thing that we would want to see in the end. And it helps us to move towards something that is, you know, that better reflects the values that we would want to see in the ideal world that we want to create. Absolutely. And I mean, I think that all of the critique of these different systems is really important, right? I think that, for example, the environmental and ecocritical discussion about the presence of art fairs in the world is of equal importance to the ecocritical discussion about

NFTs, right? Because at the end of the day, right, having these discussions about this question of impact, right? Who is impacted when these things kind of, you know, are produced, how they're produced, how they kind of rise up out of nothing, right? And then they appear to kind of disappear or be circulated in different forms and formats. They often have a disparate impact on Black people, on people of different class backgrounds, right? Who are often, you know, within the direct proximity of the art fair model,

for example. You know, this question of what it means to invest in a community space, right? That actually the digital is, you know, a network space, it is a community space. And so the work that we do there should be equally aware and mindful too, of what it is to, you know, invest in the future of the world. You know, I think that's a great point. And even in discussing values and, you know, what kind of systems we want to create, you also talk about in the book, how glitch feminism is

also a means of world building, right? And so I wonder if you have a vision for an online world for what the internet would look like in, you know, your ideal scenario, according to the ideals of glitch feminism, how would our online experience differ from what we have in the present? Not to be contrary, but I will say like, you know, really, I'm not interested purely in the betterment of an online world, right? I want, of course, betterment of the world. So my, you know, my answer to that question would be really to think through the ways in which these different ways of being right. And of course, becoming in the world can allow for a better internet,

right. And I think that that as well as a vast and complicated thing, because there is maybe no singular vision for what that can look like. I will say that, you know, a version of a better internet is one that does the sort of deep tissue and tender work of thinking through what it means to compensate creative people. And so, you know, with that, recognizing that creativity comes in all forms, right? Creativity comes through the lens of contemporary art, it comes through the lens of sex work,ivity comes through the lens of contemporary art. It comes through the lens of sex work. It comes through the lens of folks who are engaging in the production of gaming as, you know, it exists through digital space. It comes through the various economies that stand within the kind of virality of different material and media as it is

produced mimetically or otherwise, right? There are all these different versions of like how one would define and engage a creative self through digital space. And so, you know, with that, the great hope is to think through these questions of economy and equity. And, you know, I feel very much so as I continue with my work and research that that is kind of the big question, right? Like how do we grapple with that question through a broken model of a capitalist structure? And so, you know, this too is also where I think we learn a lot, especially, you know, within the arena of art history and contemporary art. You know, it is a great and amazing moment, a democratic moment to think through the ways in which, of course, the digital has been instructive to some of the flaws and hierarchies

within what has been perpetuated as being this kind of art world academy space, that creators and creative people actually are not producers purely of content. And to your point about this period of time of people trying to engage artists via the digital, right, in the midst of this pandemic, this question of content becomes, you know, mired in problems, because, you know, it makes the assumption that everything necessarily is to be bought and sold, and as well, not always to be credited, and as well, you know, is intended to exist purely for the advancement of whichever institution, right, is kind of engaging these different makers and thinkers. And so, you know, that would be, I guess, you know, kind of this question about what

a better internet, you know, would look like. It would be a space where people are perhaps more empowered to be creative, to see, you know, less of a kind of extractive model of one's creative self and as well a greater fluidity of personhood, allowing for people to perhaps experiment, explore, and play on the internet in a way that perhaps one would hope for in the world as well, which of course, you know, continues to build greater and, you know, I would say more careful people who are full of care individuals as they continue to grow in the world and as well through their sort of cyberspaces. Yeah, and I think that's something that we would all want to see, right? The technological systems that promote caring, but also promote our ability to engage in that creativity. And I also take your

point about, you know, the links between not just creating a better online world, but as we've been talking about through this conversation, how there's a direct connection between what that online world is going to look like and what the actual physical world, the real world that creates it is actually putting into that. And, you know, I know that we're coming toward the end of our time here. So I just wanted to switch gears a little bit. You know, we've talked about your work on glitch feminism, but you're also working on a new book called Black Meme. And so to close the conversation, I was hoping you could give us a little bit of insight on what you're working on with that book. So Black Meme is my second book, and I have been really thrilled to continue to kind of write and research around this in these past years. looks at this question of what viral material is, right? And the ways in which blackness as,

you know, a kind of personhood as an agent, as a subject has been circulated through mimetic morality. I think oftentimes when people think about the language of the black being, right, the way that of course, that it has been personified and embodied, right? Certain things come to mind that, you know, come as the sort of gifts that we share or kind of materials that we circulate via our digital platforms. But, you know, I want to kind of contextualize really what a Black meme is by going further back from 1900 and working our way to present day and thinking about the ways in which actually models of viral culture and memetics have been established long before the origins of the internet as we now know it. So with that, it has been, you know, a really incredible exercise of thinking through, you know, what are those cultural examples? What are those points across in American history and specifics? I'm looking at America as a Black American writing this book in

the here and now and, you know, thinking about examples such as, you know, Rodney King's beating at the hands of the LAPD, right, which was, you know, of course, the beginnings of the LA rebellion, and, you know, was a really important period of time where, you know, this tape became known as the first ever viral video. I'm thinking about even as we go further back, the circulation of postcards of lynchings of Black Americans, which literally were, you know, traveled through the mail, hate crimes, right, evidence of hate crimes and domestic terror that were collected and circulated. And even to this very day, you can go on eBay and you can buy them. There's still an economy for these materials, right? So this idea of what it is to go viral

is something that extends beyond TikTok. And so this is why, you know, I think it is incredibly important for people who are interested and invested in the histories of technology, right, to see that technology is not purely the thing that happens to our screen, but it's about as well, the ways in which these materials, these technologies, as we use them, right, actually have been predicated on social structures and systems that actually predate our laptops, right, or our smartphones. And so, you know, this also, too, you know, arcs right back to the present when we think about, again, these questions of content creators, right, and digital influencers, and how these

conversations, of course, have been so deeply driven by Black people. And, you know, what that means, right, I think, as well, you know, to kind of resurface this conversation and question about digital reparations and royalties is to think through the ways, of course, that these kind of content engines engage the same kinds of practices of extraction that we have seen and modeled in other forms of media and kind of new media broadcast as it has come in different forms over these years from 1900 to present. So, you know, it's a complicated and challenging conversation to have. I think it's one that, you know, is really important, though, because, you know, I recognize that when we are using these technologies, it's, you know, it's important to stand within them and to participate within them, but as well to stand outside of them, right? And to see actually that, you know, what we are engaging is not a singular event that has been created by the internet itself, but rather actually it's something that, you know, has stood all around us and continues,

of course, to remain a critical part of the way in which we engage visual culture. As we see, of course, that Blackness continues to go viral, both Black life, right? And, you know, Black creativity, Black cultural production, and as well, Black social death and Black physical death. All of these things become, I think, you know, uniquely important. And it's the pin that brings together Black Meme as a book, which I look forward to sharing with everyone, you know, as it comes into the world. Yeah, you know, I think I speak for everyone listening when I say it sounds like it's going to be a fascinating book and to provide this really important context around this modern

idea of virality and how it interacts with this historical development over a much greater period of time. Legacy, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat today to share your insights on glitch feminism and so many other topics. Thank you so much. Thank you. Such a pleasure. Legacy Russell is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and will become the Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen in September. She's the author of Glitch Feminism, and is currently working on a new book called Black Meme. You can follow Legacy on Twitter at at Legacy Russell. You can follow me at at Paris Marks, and you can follow the show at at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the

Harbinger Media Network, and you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. And if you want to support the work that I put into making the show every week, you can go to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and become a supporter. Thanks for listening. Thank you.