Our Digital Selves x MODEM

In 2022, Anastasiia Fedorova collaborated with Amsterdam-based office for design and innovation MODEM and The Fabricant, a digital fashion house, on a research paper titled Our Digital Selves which studies the ambiguous relationship between the real and the virtual self. The paper explores the history and the potential of identity expression online: the evolution of social media, Juliana Huxtable’s poetry, The Matrix as a transness metaphor, ‘Exactitudes’ and the history of subcultures – and the power of embodying something different, bigger, stranger than yourself. It also examines how our virtual alter-egos could change the ways we think about ourselves.

The visuals for the paper come from the ‘Ecstatic Wholeness’ collection by The Fabricant — combining garments and jewellery worn historically in The Netherlands with an aesthetic that draws on contemporary clubland references, particularly the hardcore Gabber scene, which originated in Rotterdam in the 1990s.

The paper was originally released on SHOWstudio, and is now available to read in full on the MODEM website here.