README.first is a bilingual collection of mini-essays, published in the run up to the Plokta film festival. We’ve asked writers, researchers, theorists, artists, programmers, and others to pick an online video that functions as a stepping stone for their thought and practice and to comment shortly on why they find the video so significant, funny, or outright disturbing. The resulting reflections speak about Silicon Valley obsessions, our mediated social lives, the impact of technology on centuries old games, and more.

Vertical Atlas is a new publication on the geopolitics of digital technology. How to navigate the rapidly changing digital geopolitics of the world today? How to make sense of digital transformations and their many social, political, cultural, and environmental implications at different locations around the world? Vertical Atlas brings together the insights of a diverse group of internationally renowned artists, scientists and technologists from different backgrounds and places. From an investigation into the lithium mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo to maps of the fiber-optic submarine cables in the Atlantic and the ride-hailing platforms of China. Vertical Atlas is not ...