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

Thanks! We worked with a great photographer called Gia Jones, who shot all the onscreen and promo stuff

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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

So please remember: when you invest in the SpaceXAI IPO, you're backing a fat-rolling grifter.

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

You can imagine him waddling around the Lands Between, occasionally switching between magical swords, a stave, and functionally-identical shields. It's clunky and boring to play. Plus, his stats didn't support this approach; he didn't have the health or stamina to be a "tank". Shit build.

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

When Elon shared his Elden Ring build in 2022 it was universally derided. Essentially, he had set up a character to be a magic user carrying WAY too much equipment with little, if any, discernible benefit. Combine this with heavy armour and his character could barely dodge - it had to "fat roll".

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

And the best measure for genius, as we all know, is how good someone is at video games...

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

Putting aside whether this vision is realistic (it isn't), the speed at which SpaceXAI will enter many index funds (concerning), or the changes to the capitalisation of the letter "x" (distressing), this is really about the market's faith in Musk as a "genius".

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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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Reposted by gabriel burrow

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

Lots of other great stuff at the conference, from a keynote on stupid Mars discourse (Mars sucks) to a deep dive into Alan Turing's work in the humanities and the women that shaped early discussions of machine minds.

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

I presented on the Emerging Technologies panel with two pals who research fembots and artificial mothers. We discussed exploitation, AI girfriends, and the role science fiction has in shaping the way technology is conceptualised and created.

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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 · 24/11/2025

The event page is now live for (free) registration, with a great roster of speakers across literature, visual media, games, and development finance! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/utopia-dys...

eventbrite.co.uk

Utopia, Dystopia and the Post-Capitalist State

This workshop looks to the future, assembling an interdisciplinary group of scholars to ask what might come after the capitalist state.

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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 · 19/10/2025

Will be hosted at UCL (for boring logistical reasons the exact room isn't confirmed yet, but likely somewhere in 20 Bedford Way). Funding isn't available I'm afraid.

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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

If your models could solve real-world problems with sufficient compute - and it's a scarce resource - why would you squander it on people generating and sharing silly videos? A) Because they're not actually very good at solving real-world problems B) You're morally bankrupt C) Both

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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

Cyberspace but it's just really big Mr Beast videos

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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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gabriel burrow @gabrielburrow.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Ok, it's not shit with randoms once you get to the later night lords...

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Reposted by gabriel burrow

☀️ 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 · 05/06/2025

The annoying part is this will become Elon's go-to excuse for SpaceX failing to achieve its various unrealistic goals (Mars etc.)

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

You're spot on about its coherent and seductive qualities though. A tough - but necessary - read.

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

The critique of profit-only tech and the Dot-com bubble ("Lost in Toyland" etc.) is bearable... Then he gets onto what he wants to replace it with and it's *deranged*.

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