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jomc.bsky.social
joanne mcneil
@jomc.bsky.social
7.2K followers 410 following 520 posts
wrote a couple books including the novel WRONG WAY
joannemcneil.com
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jomc.bsky.social
average cool people with jobs in big tech...
photo of Mystery the pickup artist in big hat Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan Otto from a Fish Called Wanda
May 27, 2025 at 2:08 AM
jomc.bsky.social
Come join us at the Poetic Research Bureau next Wednesday in LA! We'll be talking to N. Katherine Hayles, Yasaman Sheri, and Tom Comitta on the subject of Mimicking Nature.

May 28, 2025 at 7:30pm
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, 90057

quarterlyhappensquarterly.com
flier with photo of flower drawn on an old computer. it says "Quarterly Q2 Mimicking Nature 2220 Arts + Archives May 28, 2025 at 7:30pm "The rules which govern the birth and life and decay of living systems don't apply in the realm of technology. A washing-machine does not grow old gracefully. It still retains its youth, as it were, its bright chrome trim, when it's been junked. You see these technological artifacts lying round like old corpses — in fact, their chrome is still bright." — JG Ballard 1975 What exactly is nature and how closely can we capture it or replicate it through experiments? For our next gathering, we will have Yasaman Sheri, Tom Comitta, and N. Katherine Hayles in conversation, moderated by Joanne McNeil. We will discuss the thin line between nature and everything else, whether anything really is “nonhuman,” and what about the natural world can and cannot be replicated." flier that says "featuring Yasaman Sheri, Tom Comitta, and N. Katherine Hayles in conversation, moderated by Joanne McNeil."
May 21, 2025 at 6:48 PM
jomc.bsky.social
whatever you are doing right now probably isn't as fun as watching Lynn Hershman-Leeson's Twists In The Cord (1994), a short documentary on the history of telecommunications told through interludes of cyber and phone sex archive.org/details/Twis...
screenshot from doc that shows the text "Worms and feminists like you belong underground" screenshot of 90s interface showing woman with hand over her face
May 9, 2025 at 10:49 PM
jomc.bsky.social
Just received my copy of OTHER NETWORKS
A RADICAL TECHNOLOGY SOURCEBOOK. Such an achievement by @loriemerson.net shop.mexicansummer.com/merch/495898...
Cover of Other Networks which is rust red with embroidery-style design and font. Book is shown on a table with a blue tablecloth
April 21, 2025 at 8:08 PM
jomc.bsky.social
Great Filmmaker Magazine newsletter today from @scottmacaulay.bsky.social on some of the unexpected ways tariffs will impact film production newsletters.filmmakermagazine.com
highlighted text from screenshot "But short term economic effects of the tariffs here in the U.S. will likely be seen in the form of higher prices for so many goods needed to make movies as well as the ripple effects of what is predicted to be a slowdown in advertising spends. About the former, lenses from Canon, Pansonic, and Sony, for example, are all made in countries facing tariffs from 24% - 36%. Canada is the number one exporter of the lumber used in movie sets to the States, and they are facing tariffs of 40%, reports the Wrap. Mike Orth, senior manager of 41 Sets, told the publication that he estimates set material costs to go up by 30% overall. And, “What’s concerning is if and when [studios] stop projects because of costs,” he says, also noting that tariffs will affect the cost of living of his employees."
April 4, 2025 at 8:25 PM
jomc.bsky.social
am i…being microtargeted?
Screenshot of a jeans listing for “high rise” jeans in Ballard wash
March 26, 2025 at 6:48 PM
jomc.bsky.social
there's a vast chasm between the lifestyles of those on either cusp of what makes up the US middle class. which culture produced by members of the upper end (or above it) tends to elide
www.nbcnews.com/business/per...
screenshot of text that reads "On that measure massachusetts has the highest threshold....between 66,565 and 199,716 to be considered middle class""
March 24, 2025 at 3:24 AM
jomc.bsky.social
me, just now: who is this psycho right up behind me, making it impossible to parallel park

*looked behind me*

…of course.
Waymo photographed from drivers seat
March 20, 2025 at 2:16 AM
jomc.bsky.social
When I handed Christopher Priest my well-worn copy of The Affirmation—a decommissioned library book, well-worn even before it came my way—and told him how much the novel meant to me, he couldn’t have been kinder.
Signature of Christopher Priest, “to joanne mcneil, the great unfinished” and stamp from public library on The Affirmation title page
March 16, 2025 at 5:12 PM
jomc.bsky.social
We talked about a lot of things from the threats Bluesky presents to non-impossible initiatives to preserve local journalism; but I especially appreciated the opportunity to discuss what a book even is in the 21st century
Quote from Apple Podcasts transcription that begins, “this is a dream that I have that so that’s so vivid that someone else can join me in this dream…” Quote from podcast transcription that begins “authors are really freaking out but…”
March 12, 2025 at 3:12 PM
jomc.bsky.social
screenshot of the text from previous post link, " In 2008, Krukowski and Yang’s publishing company Exact Change remastered Immemory for OS X; in 2011, the Pompidou created a version of it for the web using now-obsolete Adobe Flash. It’s been a “quicksand jigsaw puzzle,” Yang told me. Immemory was the first non-print project for Exact Change, which ordinarily publishes paperbacks by avant-garde authors like Denton Welch, Unica Zürn and Fernando Pessoa. The next version, which they are working on now, will be what Marker called his “Gutenberg edition.” Paper, after all, is “way more permanent than Mac OS 7.5,” Krukowski said. “If it’s locked in a secret format, that didn’t seem so tragic to” Marker, but this is the best chance for Immemory to survive. Yang, the project designer, is thinking through the technical and conceptual challenges of this particular adaptation process: is a link necessarily a page break? How much repetition is essential to faithfully transfer this work? The project’s model is Julio Cortázar’s 1963 Hopscotch, a novel that can be read in various sequences of pages."
March 7, 2025 at 4:33 PM
jomc.bsky.social
great idea, computer phone
Screenshot of my email from my phone screen. Time is 10:38, an iPhone automated message suggests following up in an email sent at 10:37
March 4, 2025 at 6:44 PM
jomc.bsky.social
Another excellent episode of The Dig. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor consistently offers clarifying analysis of what’s fueling the right: both this time around and from the beginning
thedigradio.com/podcast/woke...
Screenshot of podcast transcript that begins “and so the right has exploited this by picking up on the resentments…”
February 26, 2025 at 11:22 PM
jomc.bsky.social
Five years ago, LURKING: How a Person Became a User was published. I'm grateful I had the opportunity, and proud the work remains relevant.
bookshop.org/p/books/lurk...
cover of the paperback of Lurking (which was technically published in 2021) but the book as in book debuted five years ago. cover depicts multicolored squares in gradients and distortion that appears somewhat like a pixelated face.
February 25, 2025 at 5:22 PM
jomc.bsky.social
just look at the gorgeous jacket art by Robert Beatty. this book would make an great birthday/holiday/Mother's Day etc gift for anyone interested in the history of technology.
www.ebbooksellers.com/item/ni6NjGB...
www.skylightbooks.com/book/9781944...
cover of Other Networks which looks like gold embroidery on reddish hardcover
February 10, 2025 at 11:51 PM
jomc.bsky.social
related: I wrote a little about reviewers who fear their own taste and the checkbox-style approach to evaluating fiction jomc.substack.com/p/where-do-m...
Screenshot of the text “ There is always a sense of judgement day looming over hustle culture. That after you take your last breath, the Harvard admissions committee in the sky will review all your achievements and failures. The ultimate verdict—the ultimate review—is in your hands right now. (“Sorry dude, no passing through the golden gates. You gave four stars to William Friedkin's The Bug (2006), when clearly it only deserved two and a half or—at most—three. Off to the the B minus aesthete afterlife for you.”) Where I care about this stuff is, well, I wish there would be more good readers. That more people would turn to work with a sense of expansiveness rather than moral accounting. Art is created with work but our enjoyment and appreciation of it isn’t work. Well, it doesn’t have to be.”
February 3, 2025 at 1:11 AM
jomc.bsky.social
"Seriousness...is a commodity" Well, that just about sums up what's behind these comically lugubrious tendencies
imagejournal.org/article/into...
screenshot of text in article "Seriousness at Artforum and in the artworld in general is a commodity. Certain kinds of gallerists may want the magazine to be serious even if they have no real coordinates for distinguishing a serious article from the empty signifier of seriousness abused.” Van Laar and Diepeveen note that “questions of value are more bound up with estimations of seriousness than anything else—not class, not race, not gender.” They go on to assert that, “There is much at stake here, for whoever controls the definitions of seriousness controls the definitions of value, of prestige.”"
January 30, 2025 at 10:26 PM
jomc.bsky.social
wow, way to convince me I must read Sara Maitland’s work immediately, googs
Google search results for “Sara Maitland”. My highlight over the line “Hermit and author SARA MAITLAND”
January 23, 2025 at 5:59 AM
jomc.bsky.social
cool. thanks
Screenshot of la fire alert and then another alert saying “disregard that last evacuation notice”
January 10, 2025 at 12:22 AM
jomc.bsky.social
this one got me.
www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles...
screenshot from reddit r/losangeles. picture of a burned out page from a novel. title "piece of ash that fell from the sky in South LA"
January 9, 2025 at 1:55 AM
jomc.bsky.social
no more smart phones in 2025, no more cell phones or even landlines. This year we’ll communicate through the giant red horns in The Prisoner control room
Enormous red horn shaped phone in Prisoner tv show purple room
January 2, 2025 at 8:20 AM
jomc.bsky.social
could be (hope I’m) wrong but….
Screenshot text “ My prediction is that many of these followers are going to switch up their media habits in 2025. Let’s give it a name, even if it hasn’t happened yet (and hopefully won’t): The Great Unfollowing. It will happen across the board. Podcasts will see the number of people donating through Patreon have dropped, subscriber numbers on paid services will fall. Maybe you’ll maintain the same number of followers on social media but it will be hard to tell how many in that number are actual humans paying attention to you and your posts.”
December 18, 2024 at 9:23 PM
jomc.bsky.social
screenshot of text "More than its Web3-esque elements, what worries me about Bluesky is that it is iterating on a model that has, time and time again, failed users: social media at scale. Global-scale platforms like Facebook and Twitter foment problems both top-down (shareholders calling the shots) and bottom-up (users who share gruesome content like beheading videos that must be scrubbed by human content moderators). Not to mention that, at present, the AT Protocol system of record-keeping and data storage is massively centralized. As Lemmer-Webber explained on her blog, DustyCloud.org, it would be enormously expensive for an individual to run their own “relay,” or capture and transmission of data, across the AT Protocol. If Bluesky were like a physical mail delivery service, she writes, the way it operates is like dumping all the mail at the post office. The problem isn’t only receiving this massive trove, Lemmer-Webber says, but also “it’s the responsibility of interested parties to show up and filter through the mail to see what’s interesting to them.” These are serious technical challenges to surmount, and when you throw venture capital in the mix, user-focused solutions seem unlikely." screenshot of text "The decline of X is an opportunity for us all to rethink social media and how we participate within it. Is “following” and “unfollowing” a necessary behavior when people gather online? Is the social graph a useful way to orient yourself in the digital world? Is our personal data something we should own like property, or should we have rights over it and to it like human rights? Is there a way to integrate in-person connections, or is a social network exclusive to networks? What is content anyway, and why should we post it or look at it? What we know from experience is that organizations that seem small and scrappy at one moment can come to dominate aspects of our personal and professional life seemingly overnight. The World Wide Web itself might have had a heel turn—it didn’t, but potential for catastrophe was there 30 years back. We also know that organizations in the business of developing online communities depend on the users who populate these communities. A better internet is possible, but what remains uncertain is how to get there."
December 17, 2024 at 5:36 PM
jomc.bsky.social
David Velasco and his staff acted with integrity that is memorable, courageous & striking in contrast with “fuck you I got mine” kind of sentiment that’s otherwise pervasive in the arts www.memoreview.net/magazine/iss...
Quote from link “Look, to be the editor-in-chief of a magazine like Artforum, especially at the time I was handed the reins, took a very political brain. It’s not like I wasn’t aware of the factors that were involved in survival. I know about survival. It’s just that economic survival was not first and foremost in my mind. Money comes and goes. It’s possible to have very little and then suddenly have more. That’s not the case with credibility.”
December 2, 2024 at 7:02 PM
jomc.bsky.social
www.thestar.com/news/canada/...
Quote from article “ “When companies scale, they need to monetize,” McNeil said. “Bluesky could very quickly become a totally different experience.” McNeil also warns against being swept up in the hype. “I don’t necessarily think that the numbers we are seeing now are proof that it’s sustainable,” she added, pointing out the fact that rebuilding an audience and community on sites such as Bluesky can feel overwhelming, and require a ton of energy she’s not sure users possess.” Quote from article “ “I suspect that we’re going to be moving to a different kind of community online,” she explained. “If you want to have this virtual water cooler, you can do that in a group chat with your friends. If you’re a journalist who needs to get your stories out, there are podcasts or newsletters. “I’m not exactly sure what it will look like, but I don’t necessarily think that Bluesky is the answer.””
December 1, 2024 at 4:44 PM