JAY OWENS
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  • Home
  • About + Contact
  • Dust
  • Writing
  • Talks
  • Reading
  • Work
  • Media research
JAY OWENS
Reported features
Intelligence is Everywhere. "A new kind of nature writing sees new technologies as one more branch of the teeming tree of life." - cover feature for New Humanist, 2022.
Meet Me In The Metaverse. "As our lives become ever more digital, how do we untangle “real” experiences from virtual ones – and should we?" - New Humanist, 2022. 
Tell Me, Do You Intend To Fuck It? An essay on desire, materiality and the iPhone - Dirty Furniture, 2021

Post-Authenticity and the Ironic Truths of Meme Culture - Medium, 2018
  • Reactions & discussion at Metafilter; Design Observer podcast Episode 80: Age and Authenticity; Slate Money podcast 205 on brands, Airspace and authenticity; post of the month at Neil Perkin's adland blog.
  • Chapter in the book Post-Memes: Seizing the Memes of Production, eds. Alfie Bown & Dan Bristow, Punctum Books, 2019
My Friend, The Bot - Medium, 2016
  • Republished in Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association
Is Fashion Ready for a New Aesthetic? - Business of Fashion, 2012

Travel writing
The Ghost Grid of California City - Medium, 2016
Atomic California - Roads & Kingdoms, 2015

Opinion & shorter essays
Airbnb hasn’t lived up to its utopian claims - Guardian, 2020
The tech giants dominated the decade. But there’s still time to rein them in - Guardian, 2019
  • Discussion on KGO 810 radio (San Francisco) 
Ashes to Ashes - Smith Journal, 2019
Your mobile phone leaks
 - ICON magazine, 2012


Reviews
As Above, So Below: a review of Fred Scharmen's 'Space Forces' - Ancillary Review, 2022
Minimal Effort: a review of Kyle Chayka's 'The Longing for Less' - Apollo, 2020

Exploring the Future Beyond Cyberpunk - How We Get To Next, 2018
  • Republished at Quartz, Nine Sci Fi Subgenres to Help You Understand the Future, and The Big Smoke, Woke space opera, solarpunk and cli-fi: The new subsets of sci-fi taking root
  • Translated into Spanish for BBVA Open Mind, Una nueva ciencia ficción para entender lo que viene
Review of Keller Easterling’s ‘Extrastatecraft' - ICON magazine, 2015

​Profiled
Culture diary for Rahel Aima's Nightlife #23, 2021
Interview in Issue N°3 – Permanence, The Alpine Review, with Igor Schwarzmann, 2016
Ethnographer's Reading List - Ethnomatters, 2012


Other opinions
  • On the utopian possibilities of K-Pop fandom, for Pew Research - Visions of the Internet in 2035, also Fast Company
  • On a royal Instagram rivalry, in the New York Times - A Royal Instagram Mystery, Caity Weaver,
  • On political shitposting, in the New Statesman - “They’re doing this badly on purpose”: Why the Tories’ latest online ads look so ugly, Chris Stokel-Walker
  • How media spreads, in WIRED - How a petition to revoke Article 50 blew up and broke the internet, Chris Stokel-Walker
  • Hopes & fears, in VICE Motherboard - We Asked 105 Experts What Worries Them Most About the Future, Becky Ferreira
  • On deepfake videos, in VICE Motherboard - We Are Truly Fucked: Everyone Is Making AI-Generated Fake Porn Now,  by Samantha Cole
  • On bitcoin as a status symbol, in VICE Garage - Bitcoin Is the New Birkin Bag, by Kyle Chayka
  • On CV Dazzle, in The Atlantic - Anti-Surveillance Camouflage for Your Face, by Robinson Meyer
  • On Google Glass, in WIRED - Fashion Insiders Weigh In: Can Your Style Survive Google Glass? by Tim Maly