About - Reality Studies

Welcome to Reality Studies, the place where complex realities make a little more sense.

Reality feels very strange. Every day, something triggers the sensation: a piece of news that feels more satire than truth, another new social practice or bewildering technology. Then again, reality has always been unreal.

“Reality…one of the few words which mean nothing without quotes.”
—Vladimir Nabokov

I was trained as a poet, and ultimately landed in foresight strategy, with an emphasis on polycrisis, overshoot, adaptation, collapse, and resilience.

While it’s fair to assume all my work lives somewhere between those two poles, that’s especially true for Reality Studies. Since grad school, my career has taken me from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, from journalism to new media art, with no small share of side quests.

In addition to my writing, you’ll also find the Urgent Futures podcast here. Every week, I sit down with leading experts whose ideas clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos. It’s available wherever you listen to podcasts, and the full video versions are on YouTube.

I consult with all kinds of folks on foresight and media strategy through Postreality Labs—read more about that here. Some other things I’m currently doing:

Adjunct Assistant Professor in USC’s Media+Arts Practice program, teaching “Creative Critical AI” coursework
Senior Curator at Nxt Museum, the first museum for new media art in the Netherlands (as well as an ongoing independent curatorial practice)
Board Member of the Centre for Applied Ecological Remediation, which you can read more about here (and I hope you’ll support!)

I also write about, culture, media, foresight, and technology on Forbes, as well as outlets like Billboard, Flash Art, NBC News, The Verge, and WIRED.

My hope is that the newsletter and podcast help reality feel a bit more navigable. In Reality Studies, you’ll find feature-length stories, analyses, and other bites. It’s an interdisciplinary endeavor that brings together concepts across futures studies, philosophy, technology, art, politics, and current events.

I’m excited to learn from the community that might emerge from these efforts—so stick around, say hi, and tell your friends.

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Clarifying the chaos, from culture to the cosmos. Fresh perspectives on art, media, technology, philosophy, and the future—and where they intersect.

People

Jesse Damiani

@damiani

Collapse Foresight, Strategy, & Resilience. Adjunct Assistant Professor, USC (Creative Critical AI). Senior Curator, Nxt Museum. Affiliate, metaLAB at Harvard. Writing in Flash Art, Forbes, NBC News, The Verge, WIRED.