Logic(s) issue #20: Policy: Seductions & Silences

Since relaunching in 2022 as the first magazine to explore tech from Black, Asian, and queer vantage points, Logic(s) has seen steady growth.

Most immediately apparent, the publication has grown in size—from roughly eleven black-and-white articles per issue to an average of twenty-five full-color pieces, ranging from critical analysis to fashion to poetry. The magazine’s editorial ambit has also broadened, engaging emerging contributors in addition to established voices. Since its relaunch, Logic(s) has brought forward the work of more than fifty contributors, highlighting Black, queer, Dalit, incarcerated, trans, and Indigenous writing on technology from across the globe. Additionally, Logic(s) has grown through partnerships—including a collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union to report on Allegheny County’s family policing systems, the revival of a storied New York City space for Pride Month, and joint stewardship of a home for interdisciplinary work at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center.

Supporting this growth is a dedicated team that has seen over 25 new additions in 2024. Michael Falco, executive director of Incite, illustrates the dimensions of this work: “Building this type of work requires the steadfast commitment of so many community partners, institutions, and, critically, our subscribers. Our goal is to continue growing and to keep finding ways to more fully support our contributors and their growth in their practice.” 

In an ongoing effort to be more expansive and inclusive, this year Logic(s) also launched a Developmental Editor Fellowship that brings on thirteen writers, creators, and technologists in various stages of their careers to develop and edit bold interdisciplinary pieces that fuse fiction, fashion, poetry, and performance arts with critical writing on technology. In addition, Logic(s) is thrilled to unveil an innovative Liberatory Tech Fellowship in collaboration with The Human in Computing and Cognition (THiCC) lab at Penn State University, welcoming a cohort of graduate-level computing and engineering students as THiCC Fellows. In this role, they will serve as technical consultants, deepening the magazine’s capacity to convey specialized knowledge to those most affected by these technical systems. We are also currently raising funds to support a fellowship for Palestinian journalists.

Logic(s) will release its next issue, on medicine and tech, in June 2024. To support this work and receive the magazine’s next issue, subscribe at logicmag.io.

Editorial Fellows

Angela Chen is a journalist, editor, and author. She has been on staff at WIRED, MIT Technology Review, Vox Media’s The Verge, and The Wall Street Journal. Her reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Paris Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, Lapham’s Quarterly, National Geographic, and more. She is also the author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, which was named one of the best books of 2020 by NPR.

O. F. Cieri is a novelist with a background in anthropology. She has studied at BMCC and Hunter College. Her prior publications can be found on her website, ofcieri.com.

Rezina Habtemariam is a writer and researcher interrogating the technologies that make Black life (im)possible. Habtemariam is currently a project manager with the African Poetry Book Fund, global Black poetics is critical to her work. Habtemariam writes and thinks from Mexico City.

Osahon Ize-Iyamu is a Nigerian writer whose fiction has appeared in avenues like Lightspeed, Nightmare, Clarkesworld, and Strange Horizons. He is a graduate of the Alpha Writers Workshop and the Clarion 2023 Workshop (where he was an Octavia Butler scholar), and is a recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship. You can find him online @osahon4545.

Ra'il I’Nasah Kiam is a writer, artist, digital curator, and independent scholar and researcher. Their work focuses on Black politics and cultural production, the American South, and online misinformation/disinformation.

Jasmine Lewis (she/her) is a multi-intentional artist, scholar, and vanguard of social change who approaches her aspirations in the same way that she perceives the world—kaleidoscopically. In addition to founding the global storytelling collective TALMBAT, since 2019 Jasmine has served various communities through her work in movement-building and advocacy to craft a more equitable and inclusive society. Her mission is to live life authentically and impactfully, beaming a light of possibility to illuminate ways for future generations to blaze their own paths toward liberation.

Puck Lo (she/they) writes and makes films inspired by utopian politics and dystopian science fiction. As research director for Community Justice Exchange, a prison abolitionist organization, they spend their days dreaming up schemes to end state violence. Puck lives in Lenapehoking / Brooklyn, NY. Her latest film project, Unfinished, is a collectively reenacted queer revisionist history of race treason, anti-colonial resistance, fugitivity, and land in the US desert West during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Hannah Lucal is a researcher focused on technology and state surveillance whose work supports organizing efforts to end policing. She is a senior policy advisor with Just Futures Law.

Eliza McCullough is a researcher and writer interested in the intersection of technology, labor, and racial justice. She recently cofounded Digital Thread, a collective that explores the role of technology in political violence via short-form video. She has a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Tendai Mutambu is a writer, editor, and exhibition curator based in Barcelona who specializes in contemporary art and artists’ moving image. He has an interest in organizing cultural workers and was a founding member of Dignity and Money Now (DAMN), a New Zealand–based artists’ rights advocacy group.

Muhib Nabulsi is a Palestinian organizer, writer, editor, and filmmaker living between Naarm and Magan-djin in so-called Australia. They’re currently trying to reconceptualize what it means to write/edit/publish in times of ongoing Western state-sponsored genocide.

Ed Ongweso is a Brooklyn-based writer who focuses on technology, finance, and labor and is Logic(s)’ finance editor. He cohosts the This Machine Kills podcast on the political economy of technology.

Shivangi Mariam Raj is a writer, translator, and independent researcher based between Paris and Delhi. She works with The Funambulist, a platform that examines the politics of space and bodies.

Data Science Fellow

Ali Alkhatib’s work centers on how machine learning and other algorithmic systems project and inscribe certain politics and power dynamics. Before coming to Logic(s), Ali was interim director at the Center for Applied Data Ethics at the University of San Francisco. He studied anthropology and informatics at UC Irvine, and then computer science at Stanford.

Lead Fact-checker

Simi Kadirgamar is a fact-checker with seven years of experience under her belt, including work at the New York Times, The Intercept, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. Her eclectic research interests include the political economy of disinformation, political organizing within the world of martial arts, and the national security state in South Asia.

Lead Copy Editor

Sam Smith[1] , a New York City–based manuscript editor, brings to the Logic(s) team nearly a decade’s experience collaborating with scholars, journalists, and activists to bring forward a range of critical works, with a particular focus on technology and society, political theory, and cultural criticism. Their background in organizing and advocacy, including prison abolition and trans-border solidarity initiatives, informs their editorial approach.

Social Media

Bri Griffin is the social media manager for Logic(s). They’re interested in research related to internet culture and digital curation.

Design

raya marie hazell (she/they) is the daughter of multiple diasporas. As an independent artist and freelance designer, her work spans physical, digital, and social space. Through collage, installation, digital design, and ritual performance, raya hosts stories around climate grief, blackness and legibility, critical technological futures, and the political power of collective mourning.

Fact-Checkers

Mattene Toure, Elizabeth Adetiba, Kadal Jesuthasan, Rosemarie Ho, Amber Fatima Rahman, Sophie Hurwitz, Matt Dagher-Marghosian

Copy Editors

Jasmine Butler, Jean Yoon, Nia Abram, Anisha Dutta, Andrea Abi-Karam, Kayla Herrera Daya, Leena Aboutaleb, Dao Tran

Liberatory Tech Fellows

Ankolika De is a second-year PhD candidate in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University, advised by Dr. Kelley Cotter. She is interested in designing technologies that can empower historically marginalized communities. More recently, she has been evaluating how fast-changing information infrastructures impact those who use such structures for empowerment. Her work has been accepted in top-tier venues such as CHI, ICA, and journals like New Media and Society. Ankolika was born and raised in Mumbai, India, and is proficient in the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam. She is also a part of Natya—Penn State’s only competitive Indian classical dance team—and is an avid dancer. In her free time, she likes reading, cooking, and traveling. Before coming to Penn State, she completed her undergraduate degree in computer science with a minor in psychology from City University of Hong Kong, advised by Dr. Zhicong Lu. She graduated with first-class honors.

Swapnika Dulam is a second-year master’s student in computer science at Penn State University and a graduate research assistant in the THiCC Lab. She is from India and did her integrated dual degree (BTech + MTech) in computer science and engineering from JNTUHCEH, India. She has four years of industry experience as a full-stack developer and has designed distributed systems with Restful API using Java, Angular, ReactJS, etc. She aims to develop sociotechnical systems to ensure fair treatment of all people, irrespective of race, gender, or religion. She is interested in cognitive science and works with ACT-R cognitive architecture. She believes in sustainable living and has a green thumb. She has a lot of hobbies, including crocheting, baking, playing Kalimba, ceramic wheel-thrown pottery, and more. Her goal is to make the world a better place for future generations.

Sanjana Gautam is a PhD candidate at Penn State University, advised by Dr. Mary Beth Rosson. She has led research projects in the domains of educational technology, responsible AI, crisis response, and social media informatics. Her work focuses on designing AI-based socio-technical systems that are inspired by human behavioral theories. She is driven by the quest to create safe and inclusive spaces for all. Prior to starting her PhD at Penn State University, she completed her bachelor’s in computer science with a minor in economics at Shiv Nadar University, India. She has published at top-tier conferences such as CSCW, CHI, EMNLP, EACL, among others. Outside of work, she enjoys art (Madhubani), dancing (the Indian classical dance forms Bharatnatyam and Kathak), and traveling.

Tianqi Kou is a PhD student in information science at Penn State University working at the intersection of feminist science and technology studies and AI ethics. He is particularly interested in applying a feminist epistemological lens to the study of technology and epistemic values embedded in machine learning research practices and evaluation. Currently, Tianqi is researching the concept of replicability in ML research, focusing on how its conceptualization can be modified to improve scientific communication of ML research, which Tianqi has presented at philosophy of science and data science conferences as an invited speaker. Born and raised in China, Tianqi is also interested in bringing transnational perspectives into thinking about AI ethics, the means of resistance for AI industry labor, as well as LGBTQ+ rights. Prior to his doctoral training, Tianqi received a BS in economics at Harbin Institute of Technology and an MS in statistics and machine learning at Fordham University, and worked in the industry as a machine learning engineer. Outside of work, Tianqi enjoys climbing, filmmaking, and being a parent to his pets Gin, Tonic, and Dionysus.

Mukund Srinath is a PhD student in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University. He is interested in creating scalable, fair, and trustworthy information retrieval and natural language processing systems. Mukund is currently working on improving the online user privacy landscape by helping users better understand what happens with their data online. Mukund was born and raised in Bengaluru, India. He did his bachelor’s in electrical and electronics engineering and worked as a software engineer for two years. Outside of work, Mukund enjoys reading, hiking, playing squash, and badminton.

Anya Martin is a PhD student in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University. She is interested in the ways that machine learning methods change research practices and is currently studying the increasing use of machine learning in climate modeling. She previously completed her master’s in computer science with a specialization in machine learning methods at the University of California, Los Angeles.

True collaboration is democratic, provocative, and innovative. This belief is at the heart of a new partnership between The Clemente, a Lower East Side Latinx cultural staple for three decades, and Incite, which is dedicated to inspiring action through knowledge and dialogue.

Over the next year, we will leverage the unique strengths of a community-based cultural center and an academic institution to create path-breaking approaches to knowledge production. Through this partnership, Incite will hold studio space within The Clemente. The collaboration will take an interdisciplinary approach that includes joint events, commissioned works, and collaborative research projects that facilitate collaboration between the two institutions and beyond.

“By putting arts and creative practices on the same footing as academic work, we can inspire new ways of understanding,” said Libertad Guerra, Executive Director of The Clemente. “This is an exciting way to imagine together and surface ideas that couldn’t arise in one site alone. Having the support of an academic partner and a connection to an enhanced network of thinkers and creators is deeply meaningful to our work and our continued growth.”

By facilitating inventive forms of collaboration between artists, activists, students, researchers, and others from within and outside our communities, we will support new understandings and practices that advance public action around pressing concerns.

The Clemente x Incite is designed to push against boundaries that isolate and exclude people from each other and from knowledge production.

“This not only deepens our relationship to the wider New York community, but most importantly complements and contributes to the growth of a city institution that’s an essential and growing site of activism and creative output,” said Michael Falco, Incite Executive Director. “Academic institutions need to invest and support expertise in all of the places it resides—it’s the only way to address and begin to solve the intractable problems of our age.”

Bones Jones getting the new space ready.

Jones’ work photographed for Logic(s) magazine.

Logic(s) magazine Designer in Residence Bones Jones will be Incite’s inaugural artist in residence at The Clemente and will cultivate a space that unites Incite and The Clemente. Jones, through his brand House ° Bones, strives to provide a platform and spaces where everyone can find connection and their unique expression.

Through immersive experiences and creative expressions in his work at Logic(s), Bones has pushed readers to think deeply about the implications of our technological dependence.

“I would say I dreamt, but in reality was awake many nights staring into the eyes of my first studio,” Jones said. “This partnership for me is like oil to a fire, and I’m so excited to set a high bar as the first resident, helping build a world between these partners.”

Through this partnership, we will decenter Columbia University’s campus as a primary site of collaboration, public programming, and thought, supporting expertise embedded in communities. Importantly, this collaboration leverages each organization’s strengths, including existing partnerships, funders, and our unique programmatic offerings.

Incite has previously hosted its My Vote Project Community Conversations series at The Clemente, a model for the power of what happens when we conceive, situate, and reimagine academic programs in alternative contexts.

“We believe this is the beginning of an enduring relationship and an exciting model that draws from the arts, education, and activism to develop and sustainably grow new initiatives and transformative ideas,” said Natalia Nakazawa, Studio Program Director at The Clemente.

We’ll keep you updated as this partnership evolves.

New York, 7/25/2023 – Logic(s) Magazine, the first black, queer and Asian publication dedicated to exploring the intersection of technology and social impact, is excited to announce its newly appointed Managing Editor, along with several other roles including a new Creative Director, Critical Infrastructure Editor, and Lead Fiction Editor, among others. 

In addition, Issue 20 of Logic(s) will be centered around global tech policy in partnership with Safiya Noble and the team at the UCLA Center on Race & Digital Justice. The next issue is expected to be released in September 2023. 

The first issue of the relaunched Logic(s), supa dupa skies: move slow and heal things, published in June, lays the groundwork for our approach moving forward: a magazine featuring visual essays, poetry, reporting from incarcerated people, fashion, fiction and more. 

As the new Managing Editor, Dr. Sucheta Ghoshal will work with Editor in Chief Khadijah Abdurahman to further the magazine’s goal of highlighting undercovered tech stories. She will also collaborate with Michael Falco, Incite Executive Director, to expand the magazine’s operations and public impact. Sucheta is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington where she runs a research lab called Inquilab that focuses on cultivating community-centered critiques of culture, economy, and politics of technology while simultaneously designing and developing technologies of resistance and accountability with communities otherwise affected by the hegemonic practices of tech. As a researcher and a community organizer, Sucheta has been embedded in grassroots social movements in the US South and the Pacific Northwest for the past decade, and in the Global South for longer. 

Claire Zuo, the production editor for Logic(s), now takes on the additional role of Creative Director. The role includes both commissioning visual pieces and thinking more broadly about the magazine as a visual artifact, and will continue to collaborate alongside Logic(s) designer Justin Carder. 

Joining our team of a half dozen fact checkers, copyeditors, designers, and administrators includes: 

Ra’il Inasah Kiam joins as the newly appointed Critical Infrastructure Editor. 

Erin X. Wong (they/she) is the Fiction Editor for our upcoming issue, after contributing as a fact-checker and copyeditor for supa dupa skies. 

Ed Ongweso, who wrote the fiction piece The Circle in supa dupa skies, will serve as Finance Editor.

Bones Jones of House ° Bones will continue as Designer in Residence for issues 20 and 21.  

By amplifying the voices of trailblazers, innovators, and change-makers, this growing team will cultivate a vibrant platform that inspires readers to harness the power of technology in creating a brighter and more inclusive tomorrow.

About Logic(s) Magazine:

Logic(s) is a groundbreaking publication dedicated to exploring the intersection of technology and social impact from a black, queer, and asian perspective. Our mission is to inspire and empower individuals and organizations to leverage technology for the betterment of society. 

Contact: Jun Harada | jun@signal.org | 312-282-9444 (mobile)

Sunday, June 25th, was a quiet and uneventful night in New York’s East Village—at least at the street level. Around 9:00 PM, small groups began to gather on a stretch of East 4th Street between Cooper Square and Second Avenue. After locating a nondescript door (this took some teamwork) and passing down several flights of stairs, guests found themselves in a markedly different world.

The scene: an open concrete pit, an above-ground swimming pool, a disco ball, a rope swing, seats from a passenger jet, and a model in red emerging from behind plastic sheeting—all vibrating with music and lit in purples and blues.

This was the world of Whimsical Magic, described by its invitation as “a visual feast of imaginative design, provocation, and fusions of multimedia delight.” Part fashion show and part theater, Whimsical Magic was produced by fashion designer Bones Jones (House°Bones) and Maurice Ivy in support of Logic(s) magazine.

Some of the night’s whimsy came from the venue itself. Now known as Ella Funt, the space at 82 West 4th Street was an early bastion of drag and queer entertainment. Known in the 1950s and 1960s as Club 82, performers were men dressed as women, and wait staff were women dressed as men. Marking the end of Pride Month, Whimsical Magic was considered by its producers an awakening of this storied space.

“Queer Black Infiltration” by Bones Jones for Logic(s).

The show featured Bones’ Spring/Summer ‘23 collection, which was recently photographed for the inaugural issue of Logic(s)—the first magazine to explore tech from Black, Asian, and queer vantage points. In an accompanying interview with Editor-in-Chief J. Khadijah Abdurahman, Bones discusses relationships between aesthetics, tech, attribution, and Black queer kinship.

Bones’ work finds good company in the magazine’s latest issue, “supa dupa skies: move slow and heal things.” Pushing the bounds of tech journalism beyond product reviews and doomsday speculation, this issue critically engages with topics including surveillance via digital prison mail, the role of caste in Silicon Valley, and the link between plantation labor and modern computing. It also pushes boundaries in form, mixing long-form essays and interviews with fiction, Tezhip (the Turkish art of illumination), poetry, and fashion.

Whimsical Magic presented an expansion of Bones’ Spring/Summer collection to the fashion, art, academic, tech and LGBTQ+ communities of New York. Over the course of two hours, the event delivered on its promise to celebrate, delight, and provoke.

Rather than having a clear start, unexpected and delightful vignettes (including an impromptu marshmallow roast with a blow torch) mounted in intensity until the crowd was transfixed on the action happening center-stage. But center-stage, as guests soon learned, was a suggestion at best. Models emerged from behind plastic sheets, and, instead of returning after a catwalk, subverted expectations by dipping in and out of the crowd. Stanchions separating the crowd from the performance were taken down and refashioned into garments.

Attendees received copies of the first-ever issue of Logic(s).

As did its beginning, Whimsical Magic’s end blended into the rest of the night. The crowd lingered and celebrated before filtering back to the world above, bringing with them copies of Logic(s), renewed joy, and a little bit of magic.

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Logic(s) is now available for subscription. To find out more, click here.

To shop Bones’ work, click here.

Special thanks to Reginald Robson for technical production and artists Christine Shepard, Viper, Mimi Tao, and Beau Jangless for their contributions.

Logic(s)—the first Black and Asian queer tech magazine—is set to detonate, remix, and reclaim the tech journalism genre. Logic(s) is now accepting pitches for its inaugural issue, supa dupa skies (move slow and heal things).

Logic(s) is deeply interested in pieces reflecting on a critical caste, abolitionist approach that moves beyond demands for corporate inclusion or police prosecution of hate crimes. The magazine is also looking to receive submissions thoughtfully engaging with the distinctions and connections between caste, race and nationality in the development of new technologies or grassroots campaigns refusing them.

Compensation for successful submissions begins at $1,200 for shorter essays of 1200-1600 words, and $2,000 for longer features of 2000-4000 words and up. Other media will be compensated at the same rate depending on length.

About our partnership with Logic(s)

Logic is a magazine founded in 2016 with the goal of deepening conversations about tech in journalism.

In 2023, Logic is taking an even bigger step in that direction by relaunching as Logic(s) with the help of INCITE at Columbia University. In its new form, Logic(s) will be headed by Xiaowei Wang and J. Khadijah Abdurahman and will become the world's first Black, Asian and queer tech magazine. Logic(s) will critically engage with tech in ways that—simply put—no other publication has been able to.

INCITE has committed to providing administrative and other support to the magazine over the course of three years—with the aim of making Logic(s) a sustainable venture. As INCITE’s mission is to create knowledge for public action, this partnership—which gathers critical knowledge in forms for the public—is an opportunity to meet our mission and develop models for platforming critical knowledge.

Will partner with INCITE under new leadership and mission, with continued focus on critical commentary on the role of tech.

In partnership with INCITE, the technology magazine Logic will re-launch in January 2023 as Logic(s), and will transfer leadership to longtime staff member Xiaowei Wang and Director of “We Be Imagining,” J. Khadijah Abdurahman. Wang and Abdurahman expect to produce three issues of the magazine annually, taking it in creative and urgent new directions.

“This will mark the beginning of the first Black and Asian queer tech magazine in existence,” said Abdurahman. “Black, Asian, and queer are not only descriptors of our individual identities but also mark the kind of theoretical and political approaches we hope to infuse the magazine with.”

Logic initially launched following the 2016 US election cycle. Since then, it has released 16 issues and published multiple books, providing a much-needed platform for critical and nuanced longform reflection on technology.

“Our aspiration when we started Logic was to deepen the conversation around technology. We wanted to intervene in a genre that, at the time, was far too deferential to the industry, and often deeply incurious about how 'tech' actually worked," said Ben Tarnoff, one of the magazine’s co-founders along with Moira Weigel. “Five years later, I'm proud to say that we've played a role in making tech criticism less foolish. But magazines inevitably need to evolve past the moment that produced them in order to remain of use. Abdurahman and Wang are the ideal people to lead Logic into its next phase by finding new ways for the magazine to serve the organizers, scholars, artists, and workers who are working to remake technology from below."

Logic(s) will retain the core commitments of the magazine’s founding while laying the groundwork to radically shift both the tech journalism genre and dominant publishing models. The recently published Beacons edition (edited by Abdurahman) was a pilot for what this transition will look like, including a commitment to an interdisciplinary mode which places poetry, visual art, and sci-fi on the same axis as the longform essay. Logic(s) will seek to elevate work that draws on the conceptual frameworks of impoverished and marginalized people; commission stories about the public sector adoption of automated decision-making systems like Medicaid eligibility determination or coordinated housing entry for child welfare; and increase the magazine’s engagement on international issues.

“We already have several stories and themes in mind to address, from Facebook’s installation of submarine cables in Djibouti, to shifts in how mail and other services are delivered by US carceral institutions, to queer organizing for mesh networks in Appalachia,” said Wang. “In the process, we will continue to deepen and broaden the invitation to fields traditionally outside of tech discourse that have a set of methods and tools to think through the social implications of digital technologies and data collections.”

Abdurahman and Wang will serve respectively as Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the magazine and will be supported by an editorial or related board of advisors. INCITE has committed to providing administrative and other forms of support for the next three years, to help Logic(s) establish a stable foundation and sustainable path for the future. The project will also receive financial support from UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2I2) and the Omidyar Foundation. Prior to the transition, Khadijah and Xiaowei will work closely with the magazine’s existing staff to prepare to take on the duties of day-to-day production and distribution in the new year.

The new team will build upon the foundational infrastructure and editing that has been a labor of love by a network of people over the past six years, including Aliyah Blackmore, Alex Blasdel, Sarah Burke, Jim Fingal, Jen Kagan, Christa Hartsock, Celine Nguyen, Ben Tarnoff, Max Read, Moira Weigel, and many others.