As cosmetic procedures become both more invisible and more extreme, our connection to reality is fraying.
In pursuit of 'Instagram face,' are we losing the imperfections that make us human?
Plastic surgery is becoming so normalized and undetectable, it's changing our relationship to reality. The New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino considers how beauty standards have dovetailed with AI.
Why we’re still obsessed with 90s aesthetics in 2026
Decoding the visual cycle: how tactile 90s aesthetics bridge the gap between sterile tech and human emotion in 2026.
The Age of Instagram Face
From 2019: How social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look.
The biggest lie tech people tell themselves — and the rest of us
They see facial recognition, smart diapers, and surveillance devices as inevitable evolutions. They’re not.
Ontology of the Accident: An Essay on Destructive Plasticity
In the usual order of things, lives run their course and eventually one becomes who one is. Bodily and psychic transformations do nothing but reinforce the permanence of identity. But as a result of serious trauma, or sometimes for no reason at all, a subject’s history splits and a new, unprecedented persona comes to live with the former person - an unrecognizable persona whose present comes from no past and whose future harbors nothing to come; an existential improvisation, a form born of the accident and by accident. Out of a deep cut opened in a biography, a new being comes into the world for a second time. <br /> <br /> What is this form? A face? A psychological profile? What ontology can it account for, if ontology has always been attached to the essential, forever blind to the <i>aléa</i> of transformations? What history of being can the plastic power of destruction explain? What can it tell us about the explosive tendency of existence that secretly threatens each one of us?<br /> <br /> Continuing her reflections on destructive plasticity, split identities and the psychic consequences experienced by those who have suffered brain injury or have been traumatized by war and other catastrophes, Catherine Malabou invites us to join her in a philosophic and literary adventure in which Spinoza, Deleuze and Freud cross paths with Proust and Duras.
Ontology of the Accident: An Essay on Destructive Plasticity
In the usual order of things, lives run their course and eventually one becomes who one is. Bodily and psychic transformations do nothing but reinforce the permanence of identity. But as a result of serious trauma, or sometimes for no reason at all, a subject’s history splits and a new, unprecedented persona comes to live with the former person - an unrecognizable persona whose present comes from no past and whose future harbors nothing to come; an existential improvisation, a form born of the accident and by accident. Out of a deep cut opened in a biography, a new being comes into the world for a second time. <br /> <br /> What is this form? A face? A psychological profile? What ontology can it account for, if ontology has always been attached to the essential, forever blind to the <i>aléa</i> of transformations? What history of being can the plastic power of destruction explain? What can it tell us about the explosive tendency of existence that secretly threatens each one of us?<br /> <br /> Continuing her reflections on destructive plasticity, split identities and the psychic consequences experienced by those who have suffered brain injury or have been traumatized by war and other catastrophes, Catherine Malabou invites us to join her in a philosophic and literary adventure in which Spinoza, Deleuze and Freud cross paths with Proust and Duras.
Cyberpunk 2077 — Official E3 2019 Cinematic Trailer
Opinion | I Didn’t Want It to Be True, but the Medium Really Is the Message (Published 2022)
How we look matters as much as what we see.
Fearing the Black Body
Winner, 2020 Body and Embodiment Best Publication Award, given by the American Sociological AssociationHonorable Mention, 2020 Sociology of Sex and Gender Di...
What does the future hold?
I've been told I'm good at hiding bodies... pic.twitter.com/ZZBHOvzOKt
Survival of the Prettiest (Published 2017)
Darwin’s theory of aesthetics may be the sexiest, most dangerous idea in evolution.
Cory Doctorow at CF 25: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It
Grow like Trees: An Organic Approach to Societal Regrowth
2026 is the year that system breakdown became impossible to deny. Democratic norms, societal norms, rule of law, the fabric of the social contract tearing as we watch. Or hide, unwilling or unable to face the unravelling. The hopeful among us see opportunity through the dark. Tentatively or boldly we
About — Every Object an Archive
We interview people about their experiences with technological objects that were once everywhere, but are now being replaced or redesigned. We are interested in the physical experience of living with these objects, their handfeel and relationships to our bodies. We are also interested in how they shaped our habits, relationships, and ways of being. Technologies are more than physical objects: whole worlds of infrastructure, process, policy and culture are built around them.
