As part of my MA, I am instituting a network of academic collaboration on the topic of digital utopianism with a particular tuning towards ‘digital eugenics’.

Essential to the format of this network is that it is as rhizomatic and free/open as possible, so my status as project initiator will be irrelevant as it will be centred on complete omission of regulation. In other words, the discernible conceptual assemblages and even conclusions that arise are completely driven by the interactions that take place on these platforms (the open connection of nodes/multiplicities and the intensities they engender). Therefore the network/node(s) will not be constrained in any way by some sort of bias or expectation towards a desired outcome – it will simply follow whatever course the discussion takes it.

The concept of the rhizome originates in the work of Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, and is a very influential concept in terms of the infrastructure of the internet and as a model of thought. It’s completely subversive in terms of challenging the conventional way we conceive thought and structure, which tends to be hierarchical and centred with a spine of unity that dictates its dynamic (D&G use the tree/arborescent image to illustrate this).

As with all works of philosophy (IMO) it is very hard to access at first, such is the way that philosophers tend to construct their prose. However, plenty of videos on YouTube are out there that simplify it well without compromise (which I needed before tackling the ‘Rhizome’ chapter of the book, ATP) – I personally recommend the two-part videos from John David Ebert (here) which are fantastic.

‘Digital eugenics’ is hardly an established or discussed field in the digital humanities. After a thorough search across different platforms, I did not find one academic publication on this notion. Rather than being discouraged however (as I may have done earlier in my life when I was preoccupied with following arborescent ways of thinking), I felt I had gathered enough material from research, passive viewing, and fiction to instigate and elicit discussion. Hari Kunzru’s, Transmission, in particular, has helped mould a substantial framework for the concept. Approaching much of the discourse and fiction on digital futures with this vigilant lens will, in my sincere belief, harvest ideas and responses to synthesise into this process (assemblage).