New Design Congress

Spheres of Identity

To understand the threats of digital identity, we must shift from rigid models, and instead observe and and describe the topologies of digital representation as they truly are, rather than as they are purported to be.

Research Note

Self-(De)termination: The Fatal Ambiguity of Digital Identity

As you read this, the world has entered an era where no recorded voice or face can be trusted, driven by an incomplete reckoning of the electronic self that endangers individuals and societies alike. How can this be brought to an end?

Research Note

Identifying & Defining the Digital Self

What does it take to assemble a digital identity? What do different implementations of digital identity share? An abridged introduction to digital identity as part of a larger New Design Congress research project.

Essay

The Para-Real: A manifesto

Defining the space where digital realms and the physical world converge, and their powerful or transformative potential.

New Design Congress
is an independent research group confronting the gap between what is said to be happening and what is actually happening.

If you refuse to accept this unequal future, join us—another world is possible.

Latest Activity /

Cable

Blue Skies, Blue Screens

In CABLE 2024/05, we launch the next digital identity Research Note, "Spheres of Identity", track our research into stagnation and the potential of the Para-Real, and document growing scepticism and transgressions of AI.

Cable

Spare a thought for the parched data centre

CABLE 2024/03-05 (a little late!) covers updates about our digital identity work, and a short note on our research into the massive environmental footprint of data centres and AI.

Cable

Another world is possible

In CABLE 2024/02, we share the second digital identity research note, our appointment to the DC4EU, document our meeting with Furscience, and reflect on the new popularity of 90s cyberpunk anime as a systemic anxiety.

Research Note

You Best Start Believing in 90s Cyberpunk Dystopias, You're Living in One

A short reflection on the resurgence of 90s cyberpunk as an example of societal anxiety around digitisation.

Cable

Paperclips, Decomposition and Disillusionment

On collapse in three theatres: conflict, context and culture.

Essay

Too Late for the Earth, Too Soon for the Stars

On the Para-Real, virtual ecologies, climate grief, and the experiences of the middle children of history, born too late to explore the Earth and too soon to explore the stars.

Stream

IPFS and digital preservation in the multi-crisis present

A presentation on the 2022 ground-breaking research into how decentralised digital archiving, its technologies and institutions are out of step with the realities of rising instability and complexity of the 21st century.

Para-Real

The Para-Real, Tactical Media & the Failure of European Tech Criticism

At the Institute of Network Cultures, Cade lays bare the multi-decade failure of tech criticism and open source, and the hubris of European funders masquerading as operatives for change.

Research Note

Material Dematerial

A deeply held contemporary belief is that our digital-first world is of pure intellect. This blind optimism, already ridiculous 70 years ago, has become much more constricting in the new century.