Zane Griffin Talley Cooper
@zgtcooper.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Digital Media & Film at St. Lawrence University | Affiliate @datasociety.bsky.social (Climate, Technology, and Justice group). Internet infrastructure and sustainability researcher. www.zanegriffintalleycooper.com
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Geographies of Digital Wasting
www.geographiesofdigitalwasting.com
Haven’t been here in a bit so for Bsky folks who may not know, @laurenebridges.bsky.social, myself, and a wonderful research team published this really cool multimedia project on e-waste called Geographies of Digital Wasting and y’all should check it out! www.geographiesofdigitalwasting.com
This is mentioned briefly in the article, but the entire hiring and promotion process for academics has been ensnared by this shit. Publishing 7 articles and a book in five years in order to get tenure is insane. Research contribution should be measured by quality not quantity.
“Reclaiming academic publishing as a public good requires a return to not-for-profit models & sustainable open-access systems. Quality, accessibility & integrity need to be put ahead of profit. Change is needed to protect the purpose of academic research: to advance knowledge in the public interest”
The 5 stages of the ‘enshittification’ of academic publishing
Academic publishing now shows the same decline that has hit social media and online marketplaces.
theconversation.com
January 11, 2026 at 9:01 PM
This is mentioned briefly in the article, but the entire hiring and promotion process for academics has been ensnared by this shit. Publishing 7 articles and a book in five years in order to get tenure is insane. Research contribution should be measured by quality not quantity.
Once again tapping the sign: datasociety.net/points/the-n...
January 11, 2026 at 3:59 PM
Once again tapping the sign: datasociety.net/points/the-n...
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the price of Bitcoin started rising to its highest point since early December a couple of hours directly before the U.S. invasion of Venezuela
January 5, 2026 at 4:44 AM
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the price of Bitcoin started rising to its highest point since early December a couple of hours directly before the U.S. invasion of Venezuela
Greenland’s prime minister has been on top of this, but U.S. media has been less nuanced on the distinction, often taking Trump’s words as fact, which is always a mistake. The admin has designs on Greenland but how real are they? This is still in question: bsky.app/profile/chad...
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen: “There is neither reason for panic nor for concern.
“The image shared by Katie Miller, depicting Greenland wrapped in an American flag, changes nothing whatsoever.
“Our country is not for sale, and our future is not decided by social media posts.”
“The image shared by Katie Miller, depicting Greenland wrapped in an American flag, changes nothing whatsoever.
“Our country is not for sale, and our future is not decided by social media posts.”
January 5, 2026 at 1:03 AM
Greenland’s prime minister has been on top of this, but U.S. media has been less nuanced on the distinction, often taking Trump’s words as fact, which is always a mistake. The admin has designs on Greenland but how real are they? This is still in question: bsky.app/profile/chad...
It’s important in this mess to distinguish between rhetoric/imaginary and on-the-ground reality. For these folks Greenland isn’t a real place with people and things, but more of an empty fetish object on which to project future imaginaries. I talk a bit about it here: datasociety.net/points/the-n...
January 5, 2026 at 12:58 AM
It’s important in this mess to distinguish between rhetoric/imaginary and on-the-ground reality. For these folks Greenland isn’t a real place with people and things, but more of an empty fetish object on which to project future imaginaries. I talk a bit about it here: datasociety.net/points/the-n...
I'm researching the relationship between humanoid robots and data centers, and I'm looking for resources that detail the cloud infrastructures of robots. Generally interested in relationships between these emerging robotics companies and AWS/Azure, etc. Any pointers would be much appreciated!
January 2, 2026 at 6:27 PM
I'm researching the relationship between humanoid robots and data centers, and I'm looking for resources that detail the cloud infrastructures of robots. Generally interested in relationships between these emerging robotics companies and AWS/Azure, etc. Any pointers would be much appreciated!
I completely forgot that movie existed but now suddenly I remember everything about it.
January 1, 2026 at 1:10 AM
I completely forgot that movie existed but now suddenly I remember everything about it.
Student projects were inspired by Brakhage, Deren, Dorsky, Parajanov, and many others. Dorsky was an all-around favorite last semester. As was Brakhage's Passage Through: A Ritual. Students loved the absence of image. Very proud of them for diving head first into some very difficult material.
December 27, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Student projects were inspired by Brakhage, Deren, Dorsky, Parajanov, and many others. Dorsky was an all-around favorite last semester. As was Brakhage's Passage Through: A Ritual. Students loved the absence of image. Very proud of them for diving head first into some very difficult material.
I haven't been posting a lot lately, but I wanted to share the syllabus for my Experimental Cinema course I ran last semester. A transcendent experience. Their final films were incredible. Here's the syllabus and some project screenshots: static1.squarespace.com/static/5d5ef...
December 27, 2025 at 7:00 PM
I haven't been posting a lot lately, but I wanted to share the syllabus for my Experimental Cinema course I ran last semester. A transcendent experience. Their final films were incredible. Here's the syllabus and some project screenshots: static1.squarespace.com/static/5d5ef...
It’s the most criminally underrated horror film of the 80s
June 16, 2025 at 12:20 AM
It’s the most criminally underrated horror film of the 80s
Any tech that doesn’t help directly address ongoing genocides, income inequality, the climate crisis, and the rise of global fascism is nonsense and should not be funded.
June 9, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Any tech that doesn’t help directly address ongoing genocides, income inequality, the climate crisis, and the rise of global fascism is nonsense and should not be funded.
As an aside, if any editor out there wants to pay me to write a piece on why measuring the immense social and environmental impacts of AI is getting us nowhere, and how we can reframe the discourse, I have a number of things brewing. Plus I’m poor and need some extra cash plzzzz.
My thinking is that, long term, AI use at universities will become pretty narrow and specific, once an untold amount of damage is done by trying to force AI tools into every level of operation. AGI is not a thing. It’s management propaganda for the most part.
June 9, 2025 at 7:12 PM
As an aside, if any editor out there wants to pay me to write a piece on why measuring the immense social and environmental impacts of AI is getting us nowhere, and how we can reframe the discourse, I have a number of things brewing. Plus I’m poor and need some extra cash plzzzz.
In regards to modes of extraction in grad school and western research practices, I’m gonna leave this here. @maxliboiron.bsky.social always has lessons to teach us about methods, research ethics, and how to produce (or at least endeavor to produce) just knowledge: discardstudies.com/2021/01/18/f...
Firsting in Research
Firsting in research, then, is not about being first to a place, first to know something, first to discover something. It is a proclamation of power to make property in someone’s home, to put…
discardstudies.com
June 9, 2025 at 4:21 PM
In regards to modes of extraction in grad school and western research practices, I’m gonna leave this here. @maxliboiron.bsky.social always has lessons to teach us about methods, research ethics, and how to produce (or at least endeavor to produce) just knowledge: discardstudies.com/2021/01/18/f...
As an aside, I’ve now noticed EBSCO providing AI summaries of its articles, which undermines the entire business model of academic publishing. This follows the death of close reading and how grad students are taught to read extractively. Why read any article ever again? Now we don’t have to!
June 9, 2025 at 4:17 PM
As an aside, I’ve now noticed EBSCO providing AI summaries of its articles, which undermines the entire business model of academic publishing. This follows the death of close reading and how grad students are taught to read extractively. Why read any article ever again? Now we don’t have to!
In terms of art, there are SO many great artists thinking critically about AI and its place in society. @eryk.bsky.social is one I consistently recommend as an artist who sees value in expression through the kinds of ecosystems of noise through which AI models articulate. Fascinating work.
June 9, 2025 at 4:10 PM
In terms of art, there are SO many great artists thinking critically about AI and its place in society. @eryk.bsky.social is one I consistently recommend as an artist who sees value in expression through the kinds of ecosystems of noise through which AI models articulate. Fascinating work.
So talking about AI as a uniform technology that is doing stuff is asinine and baby discourse. Specific AI models designed for specific purposes. Flooding the FAA with AI doesn’t mean anything. What contracts/models/services/limitations/etc. ATM AI is just smoke connoting false political promises.
June 9, 2025 at 4:08 PM
So talking about AI as a uniform technology that is doing stuff is asinine and baby discourse. Specific AI models designed for specific purposes. Flooding the FAA with AI doesn’t mean anything. What contracts/models/services/limitations/etc. ATM AI is just smoke connoting false political promises.
AI is not an object, a thing, or an intelligence. It is not even singular. It is a complex web of relations between hardware, software, human operators, energy production, resource extraction, political negotiations, Land (with a capital L), and the local ecosystem within which it’s deployed.
June 9, 2025 at 4:03 PM
AI is not an object, a thing, or an intelligence. It is not even singular. It is a complex web of relations between hardware, software, human operators, energy production, resource extraction, political negotiations, Land (with a capital L), and the local ecosystem within which it’s deployed.
I could see Vibrant Matter used in an Anthropic whitepaper. Maybe it already has.
June 9, 2025 at 3:58 PM
I could see Vibrant Matter used in an Anthropic whitepaper. Maybe it already has.
Might be a hot take, but: I engage with and find useful numerous aspects of New Materialism, but as a broad theoretical intervention, it sometimes feels like an AI model trained on black and indigenous thought that regurgitates it into concepts western academics can use and profit from.
June 9, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Might be a hot take, but: I engage with and find useful numerous aspects of New Materialism, but as a broad theoretical intervention, it sometimes feels like an AI model trained on black and indigenous thought that regurgitates it into concepts western academics can use and profit from.
Perhaps AI seems like such a natural boon to progress because, in some ways, it mimics the ultimately extractive nature of most of western research. The hoovering up of old ideas and centuries of deep thinking and relating in order to devise a new methodology or coin a new branded neologism.
June 9, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Perhaps AI seems like such a natural boon to progress because, in some ways, it mimics the ultimately extractive nature of most of western research. The hoovering up of old ideas and centuries of deep thinking and relating in order to devise a new methodology or coin a new branded neologism.
I keep returning to @alexhanna.bsky.social’s provocation that AI is anti-process and I think that’s spot on. We need to be process-oriented luddites.
June 9, 2025 at 3:39 PM
I keep returning to @alexhanna.bsky.social’s provocation that AI is anti-process and I think that’s spot on. We need to be process-oriented luddites.
Don’t wanna read The Sound and the Fury? Extract the core ideas with AI. Never mind that the process of reading is most of the point.
June 9, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Don’t wanna read The Sound and the Fury? Extract the core ideas with AI. Never mind that the process of reading is most of the point.
Students already use AI to not read and write. Including these tools in canvas/blackboard institutionalizes the position that reading and writing don’t matter and, subsequently, neither does thinking. The AI model of education is fundamentally extractive. Take what you can, trash the rest.
June 9, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Students already use AI to not read and write. Including these tools in canvas/blackboard institutionalizes the position that reading and writing don’t matter and, subsequently, neither does thinking. The AI model of education is fundamentally extractive. Take what you can, trash the rest.
The former explores the possibilities, limitations, and ethical dimensions of using AI in media production, while the latter is a management decision that, under the guise of efficiency and progress, will make education worse.
June 9, 2025 at 3:34 PM
The former explores the possibilities, limitations, and ethical dimensions of using AI in media production, while the latter is a management decision that, under the guise of efficiency and progress, will make education worse.
Analyzing and utilizing AI tools for video production, editing and graphic design are far different applications than providing AI summaries of readings in Canvas, or substituting hiring TAs for AI chatbots….
June 9, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Analyzing and utilizing AI tools for video production, editing and graphic design are far different applications than providing AI summaries of readings in Canvas, or substituting hiring TAs for AI chatbots….