Issue 16: Related/Unrelated

Related/Unrelated is a feature — the link-heavy guts of my “slow trend” report — that I now write for paid subscribers only. Deep thanks to you all — and to those who joined me here most recently. I am grateful for your support. 

Read: In the last edition of Soft Labor, I recalled Egress, an exhibition that I organized at P!/K. gallery (RIP!) in Chinatown back in 2015. I have been interested in generative AI and its impact on women via the beauty/fashion industries for years now, and it’s both fascinating and terrifying to me that we’re seeing AI models begin to augment real people in online shopping. As I wrote a few weeks back, Levi’s has taken the lead on this trend, partnering with the Amsterdam-based company Lalaland.ai to deliver an AI-driven shopping experience that allegedly seeks to more readily increase people's ability to “see themselves” in those modeling the clothes. Oh the Internet backlash, it has been swift! Folks (including myself) have rightly pointed out that using AI-generated models isn’t a substitute for hiring and paying real people. Levi’s is now backpedaling, claiming that its foray into AI wasn’t intended to replace “real action” around inclusion. Sure. // Published by Inventory Press and distributed by D.A.P., Mindy Seu’s new and comprehensive Cyberfeminism Index has been making the book fair rounds lately. What is “Cyberfeminism,” anyway? The term emerged online c. 1991 — see the Australian collective VNX Matrix’s site for more on this history — while Monoskop has gathered the richest collection of videos, essays, artists, writers, collectives, and initiatives around the term that I have found. The Monoskop wiki/library/catalog — I’m sure you know it — is an amazing, well-maintained, living archive of oft-downloadable historical material! I still marvel at the fact that it continues to exist and evolve. // Lostcode.info is a graphic design project “exploring friction in translation,” by limiting certain user interactions to create what I find to be a rather poetic experience. I love a good conceptual website! This one was designed by Hilda Wong and developed by Ellen Lo.