Collapsing

This zine is about the potential of collapse as a method, for our research and zines generally, and for ethical empowering 'reciprocal generosity and pleasure' specifically. It looks for productive possibilities in the form of 'context collapse' – a term used by internet scholars to describe jarring collisions of juxtaposed fragments from different social contexts, often found in networked publics like social media networks. Juxtaposition is a tool long explored by zine makers and their montage predecessors, and so zines offer a useful form for re-examining collapse as a method. The zine will draw on the history of collapse in social communication studies and read it through both: 1) questions of sustainability in the midst of climate collapse and burnout collapse; and, 2) Karen Barad's feminist theorising of superposition and wave-function collapse in quantum physics. I want to draw on Barad's diffractive methods and agential realism stance to seek possibilities for resistance and action in collapse. Networks collapse time and space through new topologies of connection. The social and cultural consequences of a rapid growth of data storage and processing are violently unpredictable. High-carbon infrastructures can also become unstable in the face of spiralling climate instability. DIY methods of network building, and the care work that sustains them, are resilient in the face of collapse. Finding possibilities in collapse as a method offers ways of re-working ideas, sharing knowledge and acting in a world in which we are already implicated. As Gloria Anzaldúa teaches us "The ability to respond is what is meant by responsibility".

https://works.hcommons.org/records/c515q-gzg03