Josh, ever the jetsetter, talks about being part of the Whitney Biennial and Venice Biennale and a 4:30am call with the European Parliament.

Yancey, ever the striver, talks about the latest on Artist Corporations and the path ahead, as well as all things DFOS.

We trace the genealogy of the web — from Web2's gatekeeping revolution to the attention economy to the subscription era's rebundling — and arrive at the present moment, where people are retreating into private spaces to build something new.

We both share a list of what we hope for and fear from a dark forest era: sustainable creative ecosystems, the return of editorial vision, new organizational structures, and a more sincere internet — alongside the risks of digital country clubs, culture wars on steroids, rent-extracting platforms, and the same extractive patterns repeating themselves.

It's not nostalgic. It's a path forward.

In this episode, we answer five questions from community members covering community governance, paywalled vs. free spaces, the real source of enshittification, and even how much it costs to run Metalabel.

Listen in as Josh and Yancey give the first-ever tour of Dark Forest OS, a new Metalabel release that creates shared private internets.

If you listen closely, you just might hear the breadcrumbs to a new world.

Drawing on Benjamin Bratton’s “The Stack,” the conversation examines how cloud platforms are assuming functions once reserved for nation-states, pointing toward what some call “network states.” But whose network state?

There’s a sharp line between two visions: one built on social democracy with private cultural spaces flourishing on top, and another where gutted welfare states force people into resource-sharing enclaves surveilled by Palantir and organized through Urbit.

Are we heading towards one or the other? Or both?

Adam Curtis documented how 1970s communes and EST taught people to pursue happiness within themselves rather than pursuing a better society. Are dark forests the same trap?

James C. Scott’s work on the “hidden transcript” offers a different frame. Private spaces aren’t just where people hide, they’re where shared understanding forms, where you say what can’t be said publicly.

Is dark foresting irresponsible or the product of our times? Listen in as we explore.

Why is this the case? And what can we observe about spaces like this?

In this week’s episode of New Creative Era, we connect the idea of “antimemetics” — ideas that are intentionally hard to share and see — with dark forests.

How should we feel about dark forests? Are they places of threat or respite? Are they spaces of retreat or infrastructure for dissent? Are they inherently revolutionary and counter-hegemonic or are they potential tools for oppression, too?

Listen in as we touch on the many ideas and beliefs that shape dark forests and why we gather in them.

In this episode, Josh and Yancey walk through what a Dark Forest is and why they’re increasingly central to not just our digital lives, but society at large.

Welcome to a new season and focus for New Creative Era.

This year we’re diving deep into the world of dark forests: private online spaces hidden from outside view. Why do Dark Forests exist? What goes on in them? What are their economics? What are their philosophies?

We’ll be exploring all of this, and much more.

But first, we have a lot to catch up on.

There are many things we love about this book and project: its lecture performance origins and tour (go here for more); its incredible design by Laura Coombs; and the depth of its research.

Rivaling all of those are the economics of the book, which use a new model designed by Mindy Seu that we at Metalabel are helping to implement.

This week we’re excited to turn this space over to Mindy to share more about what she’s designed.

This book is a financial experiment

When you buy this book, profit will be redistributed to the people cited within

By Mindy Seu

This is an abbreviated excerpt from the introduction of the printed version of A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET. It has been edited for clarity. We’ve also included a numerical breakdown here that was not included in the book.

A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET is a polyvocal retelling of sexual technologies in five chapters. It’s less an abridged history and moreso a collection of experiences, anecdotes, and historical artifacts that reveal the pervasive and perverted origins of many of our digital tools. There are many great scholars of sextech history, and I can’t claim to be one of them, but I am one of its active enthusiasts, accomplices, and gatherers, alongside my research in internet art and activism.

A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET is a project in two parts: (1) a participatory lecture performance told through the audience’s phones and (2) an artist book.

A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET, the book, is a fiscal experiment of redistribution. In it, you’ll find citations1 by 46 people who have shaped my understanding of the internet, sex, and sexual technologies. When you buy this book, they will split a percentage of profits. Let’s call this experiment “Citational Splits.”

A common payment model for publishing looks like this: a publisher takes a majority cut of book profits for production, storage, shipping, etc. The author receives ~10%. Other members of the team (like editors, designers, lithographers, etc.) receive a fixed lump sum. This is how it worked with my first book, the CYBERFEMINISM INDEX, for which I chose a formal publishing process with a publisher (Inventory Press) and distributor (DAP).

With A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET, I wanted to test out something new. All books are publics, built from references, quotes, and ideas from others. Not only did I want to cite everyone, I wanted to develop a new model of citation. Let’s credit everyone. Let’s pay everyone.

Self-publishing seemed like the only viable option for this. And so, I turned to Yancey Strickler of Metalabel, an artist publishing platform that makes transparent a profit-splitting mechanism. With Metalabel, you can easily allocate payouts and percentages to members of the team (see Yancey’s case study “The economics of self-publishing a book on Metalabel”). I expanded on Metalabel’s splitting mechanism to create Citational Splits, a pool in which those cited will equally split 30% of profits, in perpetuity, including all future reprints.

Our profit split for A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET looks like this.

• 10% — Metalabel

• 60% — Team

• 30% — Citations

Our team includes:

• Author: Mindy Seu

• Collaborator: Julio Correa

• Designer: Laura Coombs

• Editor: Meg Miller

• Illustrator: Ven Qiu

• Metalabel: Yancey Strickler

Our citations include:

• Ali Na

• Allie Eve Knox

• Ana Voog

• Ani Liu

• Ann Hirsch

• Anna Uddenberg

• Arvida Byström

• Bogna Konior

• Candela Capitán

• Carol Leigh

• Danielle Blunt

• Douglas Engelbart

• Dragan Espenschied

• Emily Chang

• Esra Soraya Padgett

• Gabriella Garcia

• GynePunk

• Hacking//Hustling

• hannah baer

• Howard Rheingold

• Jennifer Kaye Ringley

• Kate D’Adamo

• Ken Knowlton

• Kristina Wong

• Lena Forsén

• Leon Harmon

• Liara Roux

• Linda Williams

• Livia Foldes

• Lorelei Lee

• McKenzie Wark

• Melanie Hoff

• Melissa Gira Grant

• Mistress Harley

• Qiujiang Levi Lu

• Rachel Kuo

• Sadie Plant

• Samantha Cole

• Sarah Friend

• Sinnamon Love

• Soda Jerk

• Theodor Holm Nelson

• Tina Horn

• VNS Matrix

• William Pietz

• Zahra Stardust

You’ll find their names near their respective quotes and images in the book and lecture performance, as well as the bibliography and “people cited” sections.

The financial overview looks like this:

• Each book costs ~$12 to produce and ~$5 to ship.

• 5000 copies were printed; 4500 are for sale

• Most sell for the market rate of $35, but many are sold to bookstores for the wholesale rate of $20.

• Profit per book is ~$17.

• Those in the Citation Pool equally split 30% of profits.

  • The more people opt in, the more each individual’s percentage decreases.

  • If someone opts out, their share is reallocated back to the others in the Citation Pool.

• Of the 46 people who were cited:

  • 27 opted in

  • 4 reallocate their share

    • 1 of these people initially opted in but then chose to reallocate because they are not able to use Metalabel. Metalabel uses the payment processor Stripe, and it is common, though unethical, for payment processors to ban sex workers from using their tools.

  • 6 did not reply

  • 5 are deceased

  • 4 were unreachable

• The 27 people who opted in will receive ~$0.19 per book. If all copies sell, each person will earn ~$850.

• Each person will continue to receive splits in perpetuity for all future reprints.

Like all experiments, there are many variables at play. These numbers are estimates. There are several factors that might change this estimate. For example, our calculations use market-price sales, even though we’ll have a mix of sales that are market-price and wholesale-price. Or, we might not sell many copies of the book. Or, Trump’s volatile legislation on tariffs will impact shipping costs (this has already impacted our palette shipping for getting 3,000 books into the USA). Or, we might need to hire more contractors. Or, we might be able to make the book cheaper, which would increase everyone’s percentage. Etc! We’ve done our best to approximate these numbers, but it is a living distribution.

A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET is a proof-of-concept for Citational Splits, in which those who are cited get paid for the use of their work. It’s an example of how small-scale or artist-run projects could reevaluate a broken system and make a small attempt at repair through redistribution.

It’s important to note that this is also a proof-of-concept for intentional opt-in. As an author, I am intentionally citing specific people, and I am intentionally redistributing profit to them. (This also means I could withhold profit from someone that I am critiquing, for example). Each person cited received a breakdown of the potentials and pitfalls of this experiment. They are then intentionally opting-in to participate and receive payment, or they are intentionally opting-out to reallocate their fee to others. It’s a concept in line with models of redistribution like sliding scale or pay-it-forward, and directly in contrast with existing micropayment models focused on automation and scale, such as automatic micropayment-per-click or -view for creators (like Instagram), or automatic micropayment-per-click for the platform (like Google). Instead of a payment model that encourages the proliferation of the attention economy through clickbait, intentional opt-in means that we choose where our money goes.

There has never been a single mode of citational praxis — oral histories can be understood as community citations, while retweets, shares, and screenshots on social media are a form of social citations. But academic citations have perhaps the strongest association with the word, and thus “citation” still carries a connotation of formality, structure, and exclusion. This ethos is reinforced in ways so banal we hardly even recognize them: in the early days of search engines like Google, link ranking was modeled after academic citations; links were sorted based on the authority of the writer, in addition to the quantity of clicks. Some academic journals give more or less prominence to different media: books in print are considered more legitimizing than ephemeral media, like websites. Sites like Wikipedia only accept secondary sources, while primary sources are considered delegitimate.

Some histories benefit from these structures of exclusivity and authority. These methods of citations are useful in many ways, but they also uphold certain points of view. Which histories thrive in ephemerality, from primary sources, oral histories, and whisper networks? In The Cancer Journals, Audre Lorde wrote, “And yes I am completely self-referenced right now because it is the only translation I can trust…” I want to cite those without a textual record as well.

This book is documentation of a performance. It is a history of multiple “voices,” whose citations are read aloud by the audience; performance as re-citation. It reveals the perverted histories of technology that we are not often taught. It cites a range of artists, scholars, sex workers, and the like. It connects citations with a micropayment model that redistributes funds, introducing a new model of attribution. This book doesn’t play by the rules of a book, and that frees it up to new possibilities. And this book, like all books, is a public; as readers, you are invited to take part.

Thank you to all of the friends and collaborators who made this possible:

Artist, Author: Mindy Seu
Designer: Laura Coombs
Editor: Meg Miller
Collaborator: Julio Correa
Illustrator: Ven Qiu
Timecodes Scripting: Jon Gacnik
Videographer: Gabriel Noguez
3D Artist: Tom Hancocks
Website Support: Charles Broskoski
Metalabel: Yancey Strickler, Lena Imamura
Consultant: Gia Kuan Consulting
Printer: DZA

The Instagram-Stories-as-Lecture format was first conceived of by Julio Correa in Seu’s Lecture Performance studio course (Fall 2023) at Yale School of Art. Seu further developed this format, in collaboration with Correa, for A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET. This was then translated into a book in collaboration with Laura Coombs.

Collect A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET

Creativity needs constraints. But these days it can be hard to know where the boundaries are. Black-boxed algorithms, contingent publics, and the continuing devolution of institutional authorities leave creative people the task of laying their own foundations for creative practice.

For the five groups highlighted below, that new foundation is collaboration itself. They’re proof that personality, communication, compromise – the classic constraints of getting along with others – can be leveraged to take on subjects that may seem too daunting, too unwieldy, too risky for an author acting alone. By taking the leap together, they germinate not only new ideas, but new models for creative living.

Whoa, Vol. 2: Conversations on AI × Creativity

While most apps promise to simplify your life, the Sublime app is set on enriching it – helping you see connections across all the things that inspire you while contributing to a wider shared network of ideas. Similarly, their latest release Whoa, Vol. 2: Conversations on AI x Creativity, doesn’t shrink the debate over AI into binaries, but expands it, going in depth with major thought leaders (e.g., Mills Baker, Seth Godin, and Oliver Burkeman) to give you access to the messy, nuanced ideas of these real people doing real creative work.

AI+MUSIC. CONTEXT + USES + ETHICS: Artificial Intelligence in Music Ecosystems

Want to move beyond the usual hype and fear for a more grounded discussion of AI? FUTURX is doing just that with its release AI+MUSIC: Context + Uses + Ethics, co-published with LARROSA. With over 150 members across 20 countries, this Spanish language global R&D initiative is cultivating a decentralized, future-facing community rooted in ethical exploration, collective learning, and the messy, generative space between code and creativity.

Living Room Sessions Zine #1: Cosmic Sans Software

For a playfully deconstructive approach to the representation of AI, look to The Institute for Machine Unlearning. Billing itself as “a para-academic playground for collective unlearning and feral pedagogy,” the group’s IRL workshop “Living Room Session #1: Remixing Better Images of AI” resulted in its first Metalabel release, Cosmic Sans Software. The zine brings together a raw and wild abundance of collectively authored collages to humanize our imaginations of AI.

Pathless Collective

Everyday human experiences of love, parenting, and work provide opportunities to step into the unknown. Pathless Collective, a publishing project and peer-led community bound by the concept of moving away from scripted ambition toward more meaningful and uncertain directions, has released Unwritten: Crossing the Threshold – a collection of stories about people choosing to transcend the ordinary.

The Department of Transformation

The Department of Transformation is an artist-led collective prototyping how we gather, learn, and change together. All their releases, whether designed to be used solo or in community, online or in person, create structures for embodied insight. With their latest release Cellular Balance Workbook, created by Rachel Herring, DoT helps you reimagine your relationship with your smartphone through practical strategies for restoring attention and intention.

Seu, author of the cult CYBERFEMINISM INDEX (2023), has again created a singular object with designer Laura Coombs: a palm-sized tome overflowing with images, documents, and research that reveal the erotic undercurrents of our digital lives. Only 5,000 copies of the first edition will be made, available exclusively on Metalabel and on Seu’s forthcoming world tour.

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Like many Metalabel releases, A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET is both a cultural artifact and an experiment in how culture is produced. Royalties will be distributed not only to the book’s makers but also split among the people cited within it. A new model of compensation designed by Seu and enabled by Metalabel that recognizes the collectivity of cultural lineage and ideas (more on this soon).

A SEXUAL HISTORY is the third book and fifth release from the Dark Forest Collective, a group that previously published The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet and Antimemetics — two books that have sold thousands of copies and distributed tens of thousands of dollars within the collective. Together these releases show the power of collaborative self-legitimization and how much agency and value we unlock when we come together around the dreams and visions we share.

To celebrate this monumental release, we asked Seu about the origins of the project and her vision for how it might reshape how we think about technology, sexuality, and the ways they intertwine.

Q&A with Mindy Seu

METALABEL: What are the origins of this project?

SEU: Years ago, Ann Hirsch stated, “Whenever [you put your] body online, in some way you are in conversation with porn.” I have been actively using the internet since my dad brought home an iMac G3 in the late 1990s. Three decades of online life have shown me that everything is in relation to sex and power. My interest in sexual technologies was formalized while working on my first book CYBERFEMINISM INDEX, a pseudo-encyclopedia with hundreds of examples of online activism, net art, academic articles, et al, about technology and its discontents, and the people who actively work to reshape it. And while several rhizomatic strands emerged from that project, I felt the most pressing was to tell a tale focused on sex-tech. 

METALABEL: Can you tell us about the object itself?

SEU: A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET is a project in two parts: (1) a participatory lecture performance told through the audience’s phones, and (2) an artist book. Here is a video trailer for the lecture performance by Gabriel Noguez:

I worked with Laura Coombs, a good friend and my favorite designer, to translate the lecture performance into a printed object. Our two primary material references were the iPhone and the little black book. We ended up with a black vinyl-leather cover that wraps 704 black pages printed with silver ink. It’s like a brick — the dimensions of an iPhone extruded to 3 inches. 

METALABEL: What does the sexual history of the internet say about us and the technology we use?

These are stories of lust and extraction, policing and innovation. The first node in ARPANET was a Sigma 7 computer that ran the SEX operating system, shorthand for “set X.” The first ASCII nude was a prank. The first JPEG was a stolen image. In “The Cybernetic Sex Worker” (2021), Gabriella Garcia wrote, “From e-commerce to streaming video to content creators, the internet as we know it was built on the back of sex work.” And now, as the discourse of sex work has hit the mainstream, from MasterCard cutting ties with PornHub, OnlyFans becoming a household name, or TikToks sharing tips about Findom side hustles, it’s time for any adult who has sex and uses the internet to learn about the longstanding history of the two. 

METALABEL: A lot of people are credited on this. Why is that?

SEU: All books are publics — they are built from references, quotes, and ideas from others. For several years, I’ve contemplated different modes of citational praxis, from my essay “On Gathering” for the Knight Foundation or “Multidimensional Citation” co-written with Laura Coombs and Laurel Schwulst for Serving Library. Community citations, social citations, academic citations — each includes some version of social capital. But what if we could redistribute fiscal capital? With Metalabel, I wanted to test out a new model of attribution (more on this soon). 

METALABEL: Why publish with the Dark Forest Collective?

SEU: Dark Forest, the undercommons, marginalia, the “domestic cozy” — all of these are different names for the communal other, an inclusive place for discourse rather than our current platforms of broadcast. 

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“A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET” by Mindy Seu
Published by The Dark Forest Collective
Leatherbound paperback, 704 pages
First Edition 5000 copies
Release Date: September 2025

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Since his 2002 breakthrough Super Mario Clouds — a hacked Nintendo cartridge that left nothing but drifting clouds on the screen — he’s transformed the familiar into works that carry humor, nostalgia, and weight. What once felt trivial becomes a melancholy memory.

Arcangel’s early online experiments set the stage for a proper blue chip art career, with work exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, the Barbican, and other international institutions. He continues to release new work through his Arcangel Surfware label (very much in the Metalabel spirit) that explores art and code at their edges.

Over the past year alongside our curator Molly Soda, we’ve been exploring with Cory how we might collaborate. Today the right project has arrived.

MY_PHOTO

For his debut release on Metalabel, Arcangel presents MY_PHOTO. Made with a Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD75 camera — a clunky digital relic that saves JPEGs onto 3.5" floppy disks — the project echoes past explorations of obsolete media and unusual landscapes.

The result is a digital artwork containing a series of images created by the artist in a limited edition of 64, with each edition containing a file folder that replicates the original floppy disk on which the photos were taken.

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To better understand the context of the piece, we reached out to Arcangel in Norway to learn more about the work.

Q&A with Cory Arcangel

METALABEL: What are the origins of this project?

ARCANGEL: The origin of this project was acquiring a Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD75 during my Ebay binging years in the 00’s. The Mavica MVC-FD75 is a digital camera that saves photos by writing JPEGs directly onto a 3.5" floppy disk.

It continued when I moved to the southwest coast of Norway ten years ago, and being so surprised the skyscapes change every three minutes because of the wind.

Out of this ever-changing sky and my quest to figure out what to do with the Mavica, this project emerged as a kind of game: whenever I spotted a skyscape worth capturing, I would drop whatever I was doing, find the camera (sometimes by running home), and take a picture from my terrace.

METALABEL: Can you tell us more about the files themselves?

ARCANGEL: The download is an ISO image of the floppy — a virtual version of the disk. The disk contains 36 JPEG cloudscape pics I took. 36 is all that fit on the floppy, FYI ;-)

The project was fun. I’ve always loved floppy disks as sites for artwork(s). The JPEGs themselves feel quite loose. Last but not least, I think some of the pics are quite stunning (especially as I got better at it over the months and learned how the lens and Mavica compression algo “worked” together).

METALABEL: How are you thinking about technology and making new media art in 2025?

ARCANGEL: When I started doing this kinda work it was quite obscure. While that's changed to some degree, what really has changed to an unrecognisable degree is that the medium itself — code — now literally runs the world!

METALABEL: Why publish through Arcangel Surfware?

ARCANGEL: Arcangel Surfware runs parallel to my more trad "studio" work and functions like an R&D lab. It's a place to test ideas, and just kinda have fun.

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We’ve been happy to hear it. That’s what the heart of this project has always been about. Creating a new path of collective self-legitimization where we, the people around us, and increasing circles of others can lift each other up. Where our collective presence and co-mingling brings increasing meaning, opportunity, and sense that our work matters for ourselves and the world at large.

We focus on releases because they’re the most visible way to engage with these ideas. But the financial exchange is a doorway, not an endpoint. A threshold of commitment that connects us more deeply with what we believe in and who we are at a moment in time. 

On either side of that exchange is magic. The magic of creating and manifesting the piece, whatever it is. This isn’t always easy, but it does provide endless depth. And then there’s the magic of discovering and submitting to something that moves you, maybe the best feeling of all.

My hot take is that the feeling the artist has when they make the work and the feeling the audience has when they take in that work are the same thing. They are a physical property, a manifestation of the Oneness, a current of God in the real world. This is what I meant when I told Spike magazine that: “Information is an echo of truth. Art is a stalactite of God.”

Whatever the trend forecasters label this belief in metaphysics, that’s the level we’re on here. Making and celebrating the work because we want to. Because we have to. Because it’s fun to. Because we ache to. Because even though we don’t always know what’s happening, we have no other choice but to.

We each come with our reasons, all valid. We want to be a place that helps make them real.

Here’s what the people are feeling this week, with commentary from Metalabel curator Danielle Paterson.

NEW RELEASES

BIZARRE WORLD OF PROPERTIES (USA EDITION) by Skyhoje

Skyhoje has pulled a series of strange, hypnotic Zillow listings into a boxed set of prints. It’s an inside look at some of the weirdest homes in America, where personal taste and fantasy collide. Bizarre World of Properties offers a quiet, unnerving tour through the edges of taste, fantasy, and domestic space.

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Rich Text by Strike Design Studio

How has the software we write with started to write us back? This debut issue connects printing presses and union fights to modern design tools and AI scripts, tracing how fonts and formats enforce power. Rich Text looks at where design becomes control, and where small shifts in form can push back.

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100 Days Drawing Club with Oriane Brunat ༄ by Jisu Lee and Birdcall

A hundred days, one drawing at a time. The club begins in mid-September with a live orientation and ends in late December with a closing session. Participants receive a mailed kit and share daily drawings in community, building a quiet thread of practice and mutual care. Simple structure, lasting impact.

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11:11 Cigarette Incense by Zeopatra

A pack of cigarettes to hold and smell but never smoke. Each stick becomes a small ritual, a pause, a wish. Lit at one end, held like a memory, and carried like a habit. The scent is sage, lavender, and rosemary. A scented vice to keep close, ready whenever you need a moment.

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DJ Meisner: Collected Drawings & Paintings presented by Do Not Research

When painting is the only thing that doesn’t feel like scrolling. Made between 2020 and 2024, these drawings and paintings layer text, image, and impulse into a restless visual stream. Trained in photography, Meisner sidesteps polish in favor of urgency, pulling from the internet, memory, and mental noise. The result feels like a sketchbook flipped mid-thought, messy, pointed, alive. This second edition gathers the work into a compact 48-page volume.

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Thank you for reading and sharing this space with us.

<3
Metalabel

But that’s only half the journey.

The other half is finding the formats that bring that essence to life.

In tech, people call this product-market fit. When what you’ve made clicks so much people show up faster and faster. Before that moment, that same team might have found themselves lost at sea. The before and after can be that stark.

It’s not dissimilar for creative work. Some formats and styles won’t suit us no matter how hard we try. Other formats and styles make our vision vivid and intentions easier to feel. It’s also possible to be ahead of your time, your format needing to soak into culture to be accepted beyond a small audience. Some new formats are jarring (“The Rite of Spring”) and need time to be understood.

Think of David Bowie, James Baldwin, Marina Abramović, or Georgia O’Keeffe. The talent and voice were always there. Formats were constantly tested and explored until they found the ones that resonated, then explored more.

When we’re struggling, try checking these dials: 

• Am I making something that’s on my frequency? 

• Am I expressing it in a format that amplifies it?

• Is there an audience that really gets it, even if it’s small?

Nothing is fixed. There is no failure, just ever-clearer fits.

NEW RELEASES

The War of the Worlds Did Not Take Place

The War of the Worlds Did Not Take Place is an original piece by Nick Susi and Domingo Beta, with a score by VÉRITÉ that was performed live at FWB Fest in the deserts of California last weekend. The piece reworks the famous 1938 Orson Welles-invoked radio panic into a media critique and reflection on today. Available as a digital edition and a 24-page physical tabloid. Love.

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The World is Yours by Ambessa

Early experiences of play and education shape everything that follows. The World is Yours collects childhood memories from renowned artists, designers, and educators, imagining new possibilities for how learning begins. Edited by Ambessa with design by Meghna Saji, this hardcover zine uses personal storytelling to rethink the classroom from the ground up.

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Techno Primitivism: Issue 02 by Special Effects

A follow-up to her sold-out zine from 2024, artist Rachel Jackson is back with Techno Primitivism 02, another beautiful collision of earth and technology. Also of note: two other new releases from the excellent, LA-based Special Effects by Brandon Bandy and colleen hardagan.

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surface treasures - issue four by Maddie Potocnik

surface treasure – issue four rescues everyday poetry from Craigslist. This digital zine curates 92 found images and 20 missed connections posts collected in July 2025, preserving fragile acts of portraiture, collage, and anonymous intimacy against their 30-day expiration. Designed by Maddie Potocnik, it pieces together a quiet portrait of longing, chance, and digital ephemera.

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Crude Encryption by Ruby Bailey

Ruby Bailey’s Crude Encryption renders vulnerability into coded spectacle. Nude selfies become ASCII, laser cut wall pieces, and etched mirror works, turning intimate bodies into puzzles that machines can’t decode. Frosted and metallic surfaces seduce and withdraw, implicating viewers as they gaze. Released as part of the first collection from Synthetics collective, the work exists somewhere between digital trace and physical object.

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Feelings: Friends or Foes? by Lavisha Jain

Emotions are one of our most powerful tools. Feelings: Friends or Foes? explores the layered, often unnamed sensations that shape how we live, connect, and change. Through a collage of image and text, the work traces the physical and emotional terrain of being human, reframing feeling not as something to manage, but something to move through with awareness and care.

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Artist Corporations update coming

Later this week the first Artist Corporations update will get sent out sharing news on where we are now. If you’d like to stay in the loop, subscribe here and publicly show your support here.

Learn more about A-Corps