Glitch Feminism

Our software and our wetware are constantly glitching. How could it be otherwise? Rather than try for perfect order, let's embrace the glitch and find out how else it all could play out. Let's just admit we're done with the old empire of imperatives about both flesh and tech and tune in to those who are playing in the ruins, hacking their way through to another life. This book takes you there. -- McKenzie Wark, author of Capital is Dead GLITCH FEMINISM offers wry insights into the opportunities inherent in the implications of formerly discarded traces of both ourselves and our culture. This fascinating, profound and engrossing book places Legacy Russell as one of the more provocative, radical and original thinkers of her generation.' -- Lynn Hershman Leeson, artist and filmmaker Russell helps us understand that the components of our identity are in fact technologies. Glitch Feminism offers a powerful shift in mindset that empowers a generation of activist remixers. -- Lil Miquela A timely rethinking of cyberfeminism from an intersectional perspective-a deeply personal investigation of blackness and queerness in and through technology. This erudite, vividly-rendered text weaves astute discussions of contemporary artistic practices with personal narrative, capital-T Theory, and virtuosic riffs on twenty-first-century slanguage. -- Mark Tribe, founder of Rhizome A glitch is an error, a mistake and a failure to function," and with this warning, Legacy Russell takes us on a lightening tour through the terminologies and theories of AFK, IRL, Glitch Ghosts, Digital Dualism, Binary Bodies, and other markers in the current lingo of on-line criticism. She translates the Internet world as she lives it right now. Russell is an important writer to follow as she points out shifting viewpoints of Internet politics in real time. -- RoseLee Goldberg, Director of Performa Glitch Feminism offers technological failure, machinic anxiety, and seams in the interface as the very platforms from which we may begin to rework singular identities into inventive networks, proposing a reboot of feminist discourse. While channeling the boldness of the manifesto form, Legacy Russell offers a nuanced look at inspiring artists whose works reprogram systems of race, gender, and sexuality in the virtual places between living bodies and data bodies. Here, the paradox is the opportunity: the glitch shows you how things work, just as they don't. -- Malik Gaines Russell's book is as expansive and plural as the identities it explores, considering art, aesthetic theory, queerness, Blackness and anti-Blackness and, necessarily, the modalities and futures of activist practice. * BerlinArtLink * Combining art, tech, feminism, Blackness, queerness and critical theory, Russell offers an alternative to error and encourages us to embrace the glitch. -- Karla Strand * Ms. Magazine * Luminous ... [Glitch Feminism is] a gorgeous document of a number of mostly Black trans, queer, and gender-nonconforming artists working today, from E. Jane and Juliana Huxtable to Shawne Michaelain Holloway, Wu Tsang, and American Artist. -- Rahel Aima * Bookforum * Luminous ... [Glitch Feminism is] a gorgeous document of a number of mostly Black trans, queer, and gender-nonconforming artists working today, from E. Jane and Juliana Huxtable to Shawne Michaelain Holloway, and American Artist. -- Rahel Aima * Bookforum * Glitch Feminism is a vital new manifesto and Russell's research as a curator breaks new ground on themes of gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new-media ritual. * artnet News * Glitch Feminism portrays the online avatar as a laboratory where black, queer, and gender non-conforming artists have explored, experimented, and ultimately expanded notions of the self. -- Mikkel Rosengaard * Bookforum * A pocketbook, guide, and beautiful envisioning of a radical art history ... Glitch Feminism upends the notion of "glitch-as-error," reapplying the te

Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator at The Kitchen. Formerly she was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, and a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. She is the author Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020), while, BLACK MEME, is forthcoming.