Zine: The Figures
Presented at the 2025 Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Conference Inaugural Zine Festival & Library
ZINE AS RESEARCH | Imagined bodies are not neutral. In order to respond to the complexities of the real and the abstract in digital media and the history of media and technology, I formed a method of analysis guided by fictional characters with theory-based personalities and aesthetics. In this project, making the zine was central to the research process.
This zine follows three original characters called The Figures: 2V the Animated Chrono-Fairy, The Network Figure, and The Hollow Ghost. My structuring claim is that theorists, scholars, artists, aesthetics, and ideologies live in the mind as individualized variants, like puppets or familiars, each one distinct from the “original” and animated and voiced as needed. This represents the normal processes of analysis and scholarly work. I incentivize this concept by illustrating hybrid theory-beings that represent specific analytical and critical aims, and the creature-making itself drives the central process of this approach. This "queer reproduction" was inspired by Anne Pollock's work on epigenetics and the politics of toxicity and queerness, and is activated through Teri Silvio's framework of animation and study of puppets, Shunsuke Nozawa’s concept of characterization, and Wendy Chun’s work on networks and discriminatory data. The Figures in this zine aim to interrogate the queered dimensions of connection and embodiment in digital media and technology.
Digital artwork by Camille Coy, cutout images are from her collection of vintage comics and science fiction magazines or as cited.