iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Long shoot yesterday for me and Dylan Hayes' second short, 𝑩𝒂𝒃𝒚𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆. It stars Johanna Adde Dahl and Matthew Brenher, with Chris Upstone producing and Owain Morgan as Director of Photography. As a writer, there's often not masses to do on set. But this time I was on behind the scenes duty!

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Was in Liverpool last week catching up with science fiction pals, doing some library cataloguing, and an impromptu screenplay runthrough. Nice (sort of) break from PhD deadlines!

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Andor Analysed Pt. 2 launches on September 3rd! Location is Pelican House (Bethnal Green). We'll be talking about a handful of the chapters and screening an episode of Andor Season 2. There will be BOOKS too, obviously. luma.com/fw1bny6z

luma.com

Launch of Andor Analysed, Part 2: Welcome to the Rebellion · Luma

We are launching the second Andor collection at Pelican House. Join us for a screening and discussion on the second series. Andor Analysed is the second…

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Here's the trailer for me and my mate Dylan's short film 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐧: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦. Part 90s culture documentary, part found-footage horror film, we shot it all in a day with an old VHS camera. It stars Brenda Emmamanus and Aidan Cook. Watch this space for a launch / screening!

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Elon Musk's financial engineering culminates in tomorrow's SpaceXAI IPO. He sold the failing X to xAI, then xAI to SpaceX. Now, he expects public investors to pay out billions in fresh capital for a vision of endless value unlocked by AI and data centers in space. Or something.

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Jon @thelitcritguy.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

NEW WRITING: On Curry Barker's excellent horror movie Obsession, objectification and the alienating horror of the contemporary social world. Very excited to be back at @currentaffairs.bsky.social www.currentaffairs.org/news/obsessi...

currentaffairs.org

“Obsession” and the Horror of Treating People Like Products

In director Curry Barker’s hit indie horror film, we can see the fundamental ghastliness of consumer society.

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

The first copies of Andor Analysed Part 2 have hit print! I've got a chapter in it on why a show about someone who will definitely die and some other people who will probably die is actually utopian. Book isn't available to order yet, but I'll share a link to the Red Futures website once it's up.

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Palantir chore coat, Anduril Porta Pro. Can't wait for hipster-war-crime summer!

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

The metaverse is dead... Or at least Meta's original vision for the metaverse is. It's down $80 million and phasing out support for Horizon Worlds. At BSLS 2026 I looked at how recent metaverse narratives are moving away from cyberpunk, while retaining a critical (and often satirical) edge.

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Back in 2018, David Graeber reflected on fascists attacking @bookmarksbookshop.bsky.social: "Why do they attack a bookshop? Because they don't have any ideas" Same thing when DOGE bro admits "There were no books". They torched research funding because all they have is crypto-bullshit and memes.

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Our latest issue of the Journal of Science Fiction is out now! I've got a short thing in there critiquing the relationship between sf and silicon valley. Plus, there's a bunch of neat stuff around cyberspace, neoliberalism, and (unavoidably) AI. publish.lib.umd.edu/index.php/sc...

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Given the release of a certain library of heavily-redacted files, there couldn't be a better time for this banger from @maxhaiven.bsky.social and @plutopress.bsky.social to arrive.

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Frube in the shower Is there anything sweeter or more indulgent? 🍓

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Yesterday me and some pals shot our first short film on an old Panasonic M10 VHS camera. It's a horror twist on the BBC culture series Arena - an interview with a fictional photographer who, we learn, has taken his work too far. "Warren Mann: The Dark Room" will be out some time next year.

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with smart glasses is a good guy with anti-smart-glasses glasses

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

In December I'll be co-hosting a workshop entitled "Utopia, Dystopia and the Post-Capitalist State" with the wonderful people at @ucl-ccs.bsky.social. This is an open CFP, and we're keen to bring together researchers across multiple disciplines. For more information, drop me a message!

What political formations might follow the capitalist state? Anarcho-capitalists imagine the dismantling of the nation state in favour of deregulated territories and zones. Techno-feudal overlords seek to dissolve the state into a network of platforms that they own and control. Imaginaries on the left include visions of abundance and democratic planning, hyperlocalised disaster communism and various modes of degrowth primitivism.

These utopian/dystopian visions exist in tension with one another. Dreams of green industrial strategy and coordinated climate adaptation rub up against nightmarish petrofutures. Fears of a future police state co-exist with horror at the idea of police, prison and border abolition. Militarisation is presented as the only guarantee of peace while pacifism is denounced as utopian.

We invite proposals spanning literature, film, games, political theory, sociology, science and technology studies, critical finance studies, and more:

How is the future of the state, governance and sovereignty being imagined?
- What mediums are being used to construct and communicate these imaginaries?
- How are utopian and dystopian framings used politically – as critique, legitimation and strategy?
- How do these competing visions of future states interact with one another?

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

The GenAI ecosystem in two charts. The first covers its (circular) funding - what could possibly go wrong? 👀 The second addresses everything else: the footprint of physical infrastructure, resource use, human labour, etc. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... www.cartography-of-generative-ai.net

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Sam Altman last week: Unless we bring more AI-ready compute online, we might have to choose between curing cancer and free global education Sam Altman this week: We've launched an AI brainrot engine lol gizmodo.com/openai-offic...

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

As Mark Zuckerberg continues to humiliate himself trying to capture the AR and VR space, I figured it was worth taking the pulse of the "metaverse". tl;dr: It’s sub-par escapism for people experiencing a sub-par way of living—cyberpunk with the knobs turned down. gabrielburrow.com/2025/09/22/m...

gabrielburrow.com

Metaverse or Torment Nexus?

There’s a common joke within science fiction circles derived from a Tweet by author Alex Blechman (2021). It reads, “Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale. Tec…

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

Your dad doomscrolling LinkedIn at Glastonbury

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Was great to catch up with Birkbeck colleagues at this year's CACC conference. So many cool projects underway (mushrooms, Cornish knockers, human compost, a breast cancer memoir, Silicon Valley theology, etc.) Being a humanities researcher in the UK often feels pretty bleak. But not yesterday!

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☀️ Starshine @starshine.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

me and 2000 Patriots on our way to go secure home depot

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

🌌 Our latest issue of JOSF is LIVE 🌌 Lots of cool stuff in there, including an essay on science fictional librarians from fellow editor John J. Doherty. I didn't work on this one – getting stuck into our forthcoming VR special issue. Watch this (virtual) space. publish.lib.umd.edu/index.php/sc...

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

"In the clown nursery it's always time to dance."

HEADACHE - "THE HEAD HURTS BUT THE HEART KNOWS THE TRUTH"

Lyric sheet for "THE HEAD HURTS BUT THE HEART KNOWS THE TRUTH"

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Looking forward to this! I'll be talking about the aesthetics of digital activism in contemporary science fiction.

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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

My new book #MoreEverythingForever is out now in the UK too! If you're tired of Silicon Valley billionaires forcing their awful ideas on the rest of us, this one is for you. www.hachette.co.uk/titles/adam-...

hachette.co.uk

More Everything Forever

'Disconcerting . . . a disturbing and important book' NEW SCIENTIST The bad science and sinister ideas behind Silicon Valley's foolish obsession with immo...

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Jordan from Rizzle Kicks and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. This is my Super Bowl.

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Late to the party (I was rewatching S1) but the Andor 3-episode premiere ending with Mon Mothma drunkenly dancing to "Niamos!" is inspired. Go off, queen.

media.tenor.com

a woman in a yellow dress is dancing in front of a disney+ logo

ALT: a woman in a yellow dress is dancing in front of a disney+ logo

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Gassed to be joining the Museum of Science Fiction's Journal of Science Fiction (try saying that five times fast) as an Editor. It's an open-access, peer-reviewed publication with an interdisciplinary approach to all things SF (books, games, film, oral history, and more). Right up my street.

media.tenor.com

a man is wearing a virtual reality headset while looking at a screen .

ALT: a man is wearing a virtual reality headset while looking at a screen .

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

UK launch for @koheisaito.bsky.social's Slow Down, hosted by @ariskomporozos.bsky.social & @ucl-ccs.bsky.social! A wide ranging conversation spanning the commons, planning, revolutionary reformism, and why you should collectively own forest with your mates.

Kohei Saito and Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Still recovering from last week's #BSLS2025 in Lancaster! So many great interdisciplinary panels and talks, spanning robots, clones, gene editing, astrology, etc. I presented a paper on SF models and the ways they're being instrumentalised as part of a session on New Narrative Structures.

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Michael H Whitworth @profmhwhitworth.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Sydney Padua speaking wonderfully about play and creativity at #BSLS2025

Sydney Padua speaking and gesturing; a b/w cartoon is on the screen

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Like many people, the recent glut of Studio-Ghibli-styled AI images has left a bad taste in my mouth. My grandma (we called her “granarch” because she was 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘤) wrote “Howl's Moving Castle”, which was adapted by Hayao Miyazaki into a film of the same name.

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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

OpenAI is using Studio Ghibli-style memes as an ad hoc promotional campaign for its new image generator—despite Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki's famous hatred of AI. Sam Altman made his X avatar a 'Ghiblified' portrait. Disgracing Miyazaki is part of the point: It's more proof to them tech has won.

bloodinthemachine.com

OpenAI's Studio Ghibli meme factory is an insult to art itself

Sam Altman is promoting his new image generator by appropriating the work of one of the greatest living animators—who is "disgusted" by AI.

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Dan Hassler-Forest @danhf.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

The large kettle-like entity will return as Phillip Jeffries in Avengers: Doomsday

Phillip Jeffries in Twin Peaks: The Return

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

“Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Researchers from @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social quote Tolstoy to explain how multi-agent LLM systems fail (as much as 75% of the time). Source: arxiv.org/pdf/2503.13657

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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Back in 2023, I tried to test ChatGPT based on Marie-Laure Ryan's “Embedded Narratives and Tellability”(which features a fictional AI storyteller). I used Ryan's prompts, planning to analyse the output's tellability. It was pointless: ChatGPT just copied the stories from the original article.

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