Portal.Web: An Intro to Cyber Witch Practices

• “it’s difficult for us to fully understand their complexities, algorithms, and materialities — how they work feels occluded, which shares its root word with “occult.”” ⤴️
• “It must also be said that one of the earlier forms of technology were enslaved people. In the book Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human, Alexander G. Weheliye develops a theory linking race to our understanding of the “human” by describing how racialization disciplines humanity into categories of “full humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans.” Within this framework, Blackness designates “a changing system of unequal power structures that apportion and delimit which humans can lay claim to full human status and which humans cannot.” This theory of “human” is precisely what relegated my people to a nonhuman status, to “machines.”” ⤴️
• “emerging technologies are often elevated to a magical state simply because they feel inaccessible to the mind” ⤴️
• “If technology is a word that shifts and changes over time, who gets to decide what is and what is not technology?” ⤴️
• “Many systems of knowledge are seen as “inferior” or not legitimate to what is considered normative knowledge; due to this less-than status, they are not considered to be technology.” ⤴️
• “tending to other-than-human beings is a legitimate relationship built with love and care.” ⤴️
• “What would it look like to intentionally communicate with the spirits of the silver, gold, and palladium found in our devices? What offerings could we give to our computers to show reverence so that we can better be in tune with them?” ⤴️
• “If we can have this relationship with plants, the waters around us, and fire burning in a candle on the altar, then perhaps we can also have it with our computers, cellphones, the Internet, and beyond.” ⤴️
• “they are just one form, the most current iteration of technology.” ⤴️
• “two. I was trained to see my work as an herbalist as being in tension with the technological work I was doing. But as I began to build deeper relationships with the hardware and software around me, I instinctively began to call myself a “cyber witch.”” ⤴️
• “And what was more magical than using symbols, code, and energy to build entirely new worlds that also altered me, the environment around me, and those who experienced it?” ⤴️
• “The digital realm is a visceral and profound convergence of where the imagined (virtual) meets the material:” ⤴️
• “through enacting queer fantasies through digital avatars before being “out,” to experiencing full erotic embodiment from cyber sex activities, and using glamour magic online (posting a selfie for the algorithm) to direct the necessary attention my way.” ⤴️
• “The logic of technology has become invisible — literally, occult.”” ⤴️
• “The lack of access is a product of gatekeeping and proprietary tools.” ⤴️
• “it feels important not to have magic and technology be conflated because of an apparent lack of autonomy and control — because so much of magic is about intention.” ⤴️
• “Jon Agars, in “What is technology?” states that at one point it meant “knowledge of how to make things that would otherwise not exist.”” ⤴️
• “multiple meanings that shift and change over time, becoming redefined as we encounter new tools and new ways of being in this world” ⤴️
• “technology is also the act of transforming knowledge into new inventions, or using a tool to bring forth new realities.” ⤴️
• “like to think that perhaps then our electronic devices also carry the cosmos and cycles of all natural events within them as well.” ⤴️
• “they exist and are from the same landscape that we are part of, both energetically and physically. Moving deeper into an understanding that all of our technologies are earth-based can provide more avenues for how we may interact with them.” ⤴️
• “The materiality of our devices include earth-based materials such as crystals and metal” ⤴️
• “Many have a strict perception of what “nature-based” means;” ⤴️
• “How does it inform how we think about them? What drives us to abstract our emerging technologies away from nature, connecting them only in symbolic ways?” ⤴️
• “extractive disconnection with the land and each other, and racialized hierarchies of “human.” Following this, I’d like to argue that the machine-nature divide does little to serve us. What do we gain by further separating our machines and technologies from the Earth and from us?” ⤴️
• “How many times must we hear about how things online aren’t truly real, how technology is not “natural” and at odds with earth-based practices, how “nature” is something that exists somewhere else away from us that we must travel to?” ⤴️
• “we aimed to better support the new paradigm of remote and online contexts and socially distanced communities.” ⤴️
• “it’s difficult for us to fully understand their complexities, algorithms, and materialities — how they work feels occluded, which shares its root word with “occult.”” ⤴️
• “It must also be said that one of the earlier forms of technology were enslaved people. In the book Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human, Alexander G. Weheliye develops a theory linking race to our understanding of the “human” by describing how racialization disciplines humanity into categories of “full humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans.” Within this framework, Blackness designates “a changing system of unequal power structures that apportion and delimit which humans can lay claim to full human status and which humans cannot.” This theory of “human” is precisely what relegated my people to a nonhuman status, to “machines.”” ⤴️
• “emerging technologies are often elevated to a magical state simply because they feel inaccessible to the mind” ⤴️
• “If technology is a word that shifts and changes over time, who gets to decide what is and what is not technology?” ⤴️
• “Many systems of knowledge are seen as “inferior” or not legitimate to what is considered normative knowledge; due to this less-than status, they are not considered to be technology.” ⤴️
• “tending to other-than-human beings is a legitimate relationship built with love and care.” ⤴️
• “What would it look like to intentionally communicate with the spirits of the silver, gold, and palladium found in our devices? What offerings could we give to our computers to show reverence so that we can better be in tune with them?” ⤴️
• “If we can have this relationship with plants, the waters around us, and fire burning in a candle on the altar, then perhaps we can also have it with our computers, cellphones, the Internet, and beyond.” ⤴️
• “they are just one form, the most current iteration of technology.” ⤴️
• “two. I was trained to see my work as an herbalist as being in tension with the technological work I was doing. But as I began to build deeper relationships with the hardware and software around me, I instinctively began to call myself a “cyber witch.”” ⤴️
• “And what was more magical than using symbols, code, and energy to build entirely new worlds that also altered me, the environment around me, and those who experienced it?” ⤴️
• “The digital realm is a visceral and profound convergence of where the imagined (virtual) meets the material:” ⤴️
• “through enacting queer fantasies through digital avatars before being “out,” to experiencing full erotic embodiment from cyber sex activities, and using glamour magic online (posting a selfie for the algorithm) to direct the necessary attention my way.” ⤴️
• “The logic of technology has become invisible — literally, occult.”” ⤴️
• “The lack of access is a product of gatekeeping and proprietary tools.” ⤴️
• “it feels important not to have magic and technology be conflated because of an apparent lack of autonomy and control — because so much of magic is about intention.” ⤴️
• “Jon Agars, in “What is technology?” states that at one point it meant “knowledge of how to make things that would otherwise not exist.”” ⤴️
• “multiple meanings that shift and change over time, becoming redefined as we encounter new tools and new ways of being in this world” ⤴️
• “technology is also the act of transforming knowledge into new inventions, or using a tool to bring forth new realities.” ⤴️
• “like to think that perhaps then our electronic devices also carry the cosmos and cycles of all natural events within them as well.” ⤴️
• “they exist and are from the same landscape that we are part of, both energetically and physically. Moving deeper into an understanding that all of our technologies are earth-based can provide more avenues for how we may interact with them.” ⤴️
• “The materiality of our devices include earth-based materials such as crystals and metal” ⤴️
• “Many have a strict perception of what “nature-based” means;” ⤴️
• “How does it inform how we think about them? What drives us to abstract our emerging technologies away from nature, connecting them only in symbolic ways?” ⤴️
• “extractive disconnection with the land and each other, and racialized hierarchies of “human.” Following this, I’d like to argue that the machine-nature divide does little to serve us. What do we gain by further separating our machines and technologies from the Earth and from us?” ⤴️
• “How many times must we hear about how things online aren’t truly real, how technology is not “natural” and at odds with earth-based practices, how “nature” is something that exists somewhere else away from us that we must travel to?” ⤴️
• “we aimed to better support the new paradigm of remote and online contexts and socially distanced communities.” ⤴️