> [!NOTE]- So...who are you? > My name is Ted Byfield. I work as a consultant. I split my time between the Deep North (NYC) and the Deep South (Tallahassee), and I’ve worked quite a bit across Europe. > > > [!NOTE]- Tell me more. > > The phrase “I work at the intersection of” has become a cliché in media-and tech-related fields. I was working those intersections — there are many, not one — when that sounded more like a red-light district than a Venn diagram. This site documents quite a bit of that thought and work. > > > > > [!NOTE]- Can you be more specific? > > > I’m interested in **education** and **design**, which at this point covers pretty much any context where someone needs to convey or exchange ideas in ways that, potentially, meet engineering ideals: accuracy, precision, validity, and reliability. I’m also interested, more abstractly, in **governance** and **systems** — *how* we make collective decisions and *what* we need to implement them. I should probably mention that I know more about the history and development of data visualization between, say, 1930 and 1980 than pretty much anyone else. Anywhere. Really. > > > > > > > [!NOTE]- What does that mean in practice? > > > > The bulk of my work consists of **editing** and **writing**. For many people, that suggests isolated work in offices, studies, libraries, and there’s some truth to that, but my approach is collaborative to the core. Individual creative expression is great, but collective effort — efforts *by* many people *for* many more — matter more. > > > > > > > > > [!NOTE]- For example? > > > > > This work has taken me around the world, from some of the world’s best publishers to conflict zones, from radical squats to august universities, from multinational legal and financial institutions to scrappy startups, and more. *For example*: [[1993–94 > Cop Sculpture|American Fine Arts]] (\[NYC] artist), [ARCO](https://www.ifema.es/en/arco/madrid) (\[Madrid] speaker), [Aristide Caratzas](https://www.caratzas.com/) (\[NYC] editor), [Ars Electronica](https://ars.electronica.art/) (\[Linz, Austria] organizer, presenter), [Austrian Cultural Forum](https://acfny.org/) (\[NYC] speaker), [Autonomedia](https://autonomedia.org/) (\[NYC] editor), [De Balie](https://debalie.nl/) (\[Amsterdam] organizer, speaker), [[2002 > The Blur-Banff Project|Banff Centre]] (\[Banff, Alberta] speaker), [Bauhaus-Universität](https://www.uni-weimar.de/) (\[Weimar] organizer, speaker), [Berkman Center](https://cyber.harvard.edu/) (\[[Cambridge MA] speaker), [Berlin Documentary Forum](https://archiv.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2012/berlin_documentary_forum_2/berlin_documentary_forum_2.php) (\[Berlin] editor), Birkhäuser (\[Basel] author [[2008 > Design Dictionary — “Virtuality”|1]], [[2008 > Design Dictionary — “Visual Communication”|2]]), [Cambridge University Press](https://www.cambridge.org/) (\[NYC] editor), [Brooklyn Museum](https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/819) (\[NYC] researcher, editor), [Columbia University](https://www.columbia.edu/) (\[NYC] graduate), [Constant](https://constantvzw.org/site/) (\[Brussels] speaker), [Creative Time](https://creativetime.org/) (\NYC] organizer, speaker), [City College of New York](https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/) (speaker), [City University of New York Grad Center](https://www.gc.cuny.edu/) (speaker), [Cryptome](https://cryptome.org/) (\[NYC / internet] contributor), [Cypherpunks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk) (\[internet] contributor), [DEAF](https://v2.nl/topics/deaf) (\[Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Rotterdam]), [Deichtorhallen](https://www.deichtorhallen.de/en/) (\[Hamburg] artist), [Design Trust for Public Space](https://www.designtrust.org/people/fellows/ted-byfield/) (\[NYC] journalism fellow, publisher), [DIA Center for the Arts](https://www.diaart.org/) (\[NYC] editor), [[2010 > “Safe•Connect — A Report”|Electronic Frontier Foundation]] (\[San Francisco] provocateur), [Engine Room](https://www.theengineroom.org/) (\[NYC] consultant, speaker), [Equilibrista](https://bookscouter.com/publisher/dge-equilibrista) (\[Mexico City] production consultant), [Eyebeam](https://eyebeam.org/) (\[NYC] consultant, speaker), [Farrar Straus and Giroux](https://us.macmillan.com/fsg/) (\[NYC] editor), [[1998–1999 > “DNS — A Short History and a Short Future”|First Monday]] (\[internet] author), [[1992 > Roger Ailes — A Retrospective in Context|Frieze]] (\[London] author), [Grow Networks](https://www.invus.com/case-studies/the-grow-network/) (\[NYC] lead editor), [Hallwalls](https://www.hallwalls.org/) (\[Buffalo] artist), [ICANN Watch](https://web.archive.org/web/20240110185144/http://www.icannwatch.org/) (\[internet] editor, board member), [Jan Van Eyck Academie](https://www.janvaneyck.nl/) (\[Maastricht, NL], speaker), [Joseph Kosuth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kosuth) (\[NYC] researcher, translator), [La Mama ETC](https://www.lamama.org/) (\[NYC] technician), [Ljudmila](https://wiki.ljudmila.org/) (\[Ljudmila Digital Media Lab, Slovenia] speaker, [[1999 > “Lex Americana”|author]]), [Location One](https://www.location1.org/) (\[NYC] consultant, organizer, moderator), [LUX](https://lux.org.uk/) (\[London] speaker), [Lydia Lunch](https://www.lydia-lunch.net/) (\[NYC] technician), [Marsilio](https://www.marsilioeditori.it/marsilio-editori-about-us) (\[NYC/Rome] managing editor), [MIT](https://web.mit.edu/) (\[Cambridge MA] speaker), [[2008 > Software Studies — “Information”|MIT Press]] (\[Cambridge MA] author), [[1999 > “Le Bogue, petite peur de l’an 2000”|Le Monde diplomatique]] (\[Paris] author), [[2016 > “How to Lie with Analytics”|Mozilla]] (\[San Franciso / internet], author), [*Mute*](https://www.metamute.org/) (\[London] author), [National Endowment for the Humanities](https://www.neh.gov/) (\[Washington DC] grant recipient), [National Security Archive](https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/) (\[Washington DC] editor), [[blg/nettime/nettime]] (\[internet] organizer, moderator, editor), [New Museum](https://www.newmuseum.org/) (\[NYC] researcher, author), [New Press](https://thenewpress.com/) (\[NYC] editor), [New School University](https://www.newschool.edu/) (\[NYC] professor, faculty senate chair), [NTNU](https://www.ntnu.edu/) (\[Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim] consultant, editor, writer, teacher), NYU (\[[ITP](https://tisch.nyu.edu/itp) / [Tisch](https://tisch.nyu.edu/), [MCC](https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/departments/media-culture-and-communication), [Steinhardt](https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/)] visiting scholar, speaker), [Open Society Foundations](https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/) (\[NYC / Sri Lanka] researcher, consultant, grant recipient), [Open Syllabus](https://www.opensyllabus.org/) (\[NYC] co-founder, board member), [Oxford University Press](https://corp.oup.com/) (\[NYC] editor), [Pantheon](https://knopfdoubleday.com/imprint/pantheon/) / [Schocken](https://knopfdoubleday.com/imprint/schocken/) (\[NYC] editor), [Paradiso](https://www.paradiso.nl/en) (\[Amsterdam] speaker], [Parsons School of Design](https://www.newschool.edu/parsons/) (\[NYC] professor, program director, chair), [[1993–94 > Cop Sculpture|Pat Hearn]] (\[NYC] artist), [Performing Garage](https://theperforminggarage.org/) (\[NYC] technician), [Prado](https://www.museodelprado.es/en) (\[Madrid] speaker), [Piet Zwart Institute](https://www.pzwart.nl/) (\[Rotterdam] speaker), [Pluto Press](https://www.plutobooks.com/) (\[London] advisor), [Public Netbase](http://netbase.org/t0/intro) (\[Vienna\ speaker, advisor), [Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/) (\[NYC] editor), [[1991 > “Ludus Magistri — For Players of All Ages”|Real Art Ways]] (\[Buffalo] artist), [*The Register*](https://www.theregister.com/) (\[London] writer), [Richard Foreman](http://www.ontological.com/) (\[NYC] technician), [[2015 > Open Education — A Study in Disruption|Rowman and Littlefield]] (\[London] author), [Shih Chien University](https://www.usc.edu.tw/) (\[Taipei] speaker), [Schloss Solitude](https://www.akademie-solitude.de/en/event/custodians-online-the-struggle-over-the-future-of-pirate-libraries-and-universal-access-to-knowledge/) (\[Stuttgart], speaker), [Serpent’s Tail](https://serpentstail.com/) (\[NYC] managing editor), [Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art](https://en.shenkar.ac.il/) (\[Tel Aviv] speaker), [Society for Artistic Research](https://societyforartisticresearch.org/) (\[academia] editor, writer), [SRI](https://www.sri.com/) (\[Palo Alto] speaker), [Steve (Buscemi) and Mark (Boone Jr.)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Buscemi#Career) (\[NYC] technician), Survival Research Laboratories (\[NYC/San Francisco] technician, operator), [Tactical Tech](https://tacticaltech.org/) (\[Berlin / London / internet) consultant, advisor, speaker), [*TBTF*](https://tbtf.com/) (\[internet] writer), *Telepolis* (\[internet] writer), [The Thing](https://thing.net/) (\[NYC / internet] consultant, advisor, board member), [Todd Haynes / Apparatus Films](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097489/) (\[NYC] technician), [Union Theological Seminary](https://utsnyc.edu/) (\[NYC] student), US House of Representatives (I was quoted in Congressional testimony!), [University of Amsterdam](https://www.uva.nl/en) (speaker), [Verso](https://www.versobooks.com/) (\[NYC / London] advisor), [Vienna Akademie der bildenden Künste](https://www.akbild.ac.at/en/home?set_language=en) / Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (speaker), [*Vuelta*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuelta_%28magazine%29)(\[Mexico City], production consultant), [De Waag](https://waag.org/en/) (\[Amsterdam] consultant, organizer, speaker), [Wooster Group](https://thewoostergroup.org/) (\[NYC] technician), [WSIS](https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=30022&nr=102&menu=3170) (\[Geneva] contributor), [Yale Law School](https://law.yale.edu/) (\[New Haven] visiting fellow), [Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science](https://seas.yale.edu/) (\[New Haven] speaker), [The Yes Men](https://theyesmen.org/) (\[NYC / internet] contributor), [Zone Books](https://www.zonebooks.org/) (\[NYC] editor, researcher, translator), *inter alia*. > > > > > > > > > > > [!NOTE]- That’s a lot! And now? > > > > > > Nowadays, much of what I do now is plan, specify, and document research networks for European universities. I focus on ways to *effectively* integrate art and design with the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields. All of these fields bring strengths and weaknesses — my aim is to “design” research programs, structures, and procedures that leverage their strengths without imposing their weaknesses. Grants I’ve worked on have been funded by Horizon Europe and become successful COST Actions. > > > > > > > > > > > > > [!NOTE!]- That all sounds more interesting than I thought! > > > > > > > It is. If you’re interested, [contact me](mailto:[email protected]). > [!NOTE]- What is this? > This is an archive-in-progress of things I’ve written, made, and done. Not all. > > > [!NOTE]- It doesn’t seem very inviting. > > That’s a fair criticism. But a lot of this site is about unpacking the assumptions involved in “normal” design. > > > > > [!NOTE]- What do you mean? > > > The net is only a few decades old, but it’s like a modern ancient city with shiny new structures rising amidst ruins: abandoned blogs, broken software, fading projects, out-of-date info, etc. One of my goals was to reverse that by gathering things I’d scattered around the world. > > > > > > > [!NOTE]- That doesn’t mean it needs to be so…inscrutable. > > > > True — but the “pink slime” design that prevails now (say, Medium / Substack or Pixpa / Wix), didn’t feel right. And looks can be deceiving: Google has stuck to its light, bright visual style even as the entity behind it has grown into, arguably, the blackest box ever. I’m interested in the poetics of design — say, whether something looks and feels like a glossy brochure, the [Pompidou Centre](https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/collection/our-building), or (in this case) a black box. > > > > > > > > > [!NOTE]- So how should I use it? > > > > > That depends on what you’re looking for — and how. This site isn’t really a blog (though [[blg|it has one, sort of]]) or a brochure (though you can read it that way). Or you can try searching for something that interests you, or clicking around the table of contents on the left, or scanning some timelines (say, [[blg/nettime/nettime|nettime]] or [[blg/social-media/social-media|social media]]), or checking out pages dedicated to specific tags (for example, [[tag_design|design]], [[tag_education|education]], or [[tag_law|law]]), hovering over links, or poking around in the galaxy visualization. Enjoy. *** #### New! > [!note]+ added 2024-11-24 > > [[2024-08-22-17th-c-conceptual-art]] — on a 350-year-old art “joke” and [Lewis Mumford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford) on the aesthetics of self-destruction > > [[2024-08-23-illustration-and-computation]] — on the 1970s, when we could imagine computers representing themselves but they couldn’t quite do it yet > > [[2024-08-20-phil-donahue-rip]] — on the evolution of talk-show formats, with a funny story about an arch-conspiratorialist and a *truly* fanatical zionist (none of this recent rhetorical stuff) > > [[2024-08-20-gramsci-stats-overflow]] — a meme I made, partly inspired by Stefan Mau’s *excellent* book *[The Metric Society: On the Quantification of the Social](https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Metric+Society%3A+On+the+Quantification+of+the+Social-p-9781509530403)* > > [[2024-08-19-third-parties-and-doing-good]] — on protest votes > > [[2024-08-18-so-many-new-moons]] — on the names for all these new “supermoons” > > [[2024-08-10-on-ethics-and-robotics]] — on being in/consistent in public, I guess? > > [[2024-11-24-crime-is-the-new-governance]] — just what it says on the label