The internet can be a shitty space: unwanted dick pics, digital colonialism or data binaries cause new structures of social inequalities. How can we dismantle these structures and fight for social change? How can we re-imagine them through intersectional feminist practice?
Feminist Futures is a participatory art project and a workshop format that aims to diversify and open up the narrative of the future of the internet. By imagining and writing feminist science fiction stories (such as comics, poems, or short stories) of the internet in 2030, we retell the future of the internet and narrate the futures we actually want to live in. Fiction, in this context, becomes a cultural communal practice that enables political action by re-writing and co-creating feminist futures.
A feminist science fiction story of the future of the Internet in 2030. This can be a poem, an essay, a manifesto, a comic, and much more. So please don't forget to bring pens & paper!
We're hoping that many efforts and discussions will continue after Mozfest. Share any ideas you already have for how to continue the work from your session.:We already have created the Feminist Futures archive (www.feministfutures.net) in which we publish the stories that are written in our workshops. So on the one hand we aim to connect with more people around the world, and on the other hand we want to make their work visible by archiving their stories. Also, Feminist Futures is an open source workshop format, which means that everyone can run it after they have participated in it. So we want to strengthen the community, build ties, and form alliances for a feminist Internet.
How will you deal with varying numbers of participants in your session?:We have run these workshops since nearly two years so we have quite a lot of experience with varying numbers, backgrounds, and feminist practices. We have also been facilitating the workshop online several times and learned that small break out sessions can be a valuable option to have discussions on feminism in smaller groups. If there are only 3 participants that is great because we can go in depth with everyone, if there are 30 we are well prepared as we are two facilitators and have experience with more participants.
Co-founder of MOTIF Institute for Digital Culture, an independent think tank that operates at the intersection of technology and society.
Helene von Schwichow is a co-founder of the think tank MOTIF Institute for Digital Culture. Her work focuses on AI, the platform economy and the internet of the future