How do things structure our concepts of the self? If we're so relational, what made the idea of the separable self believable? How could material culture contribute to a transition towards relational self-models?
In self-model-making we explore such questions through different disciplines, by reading, drawing, writing, discussing, making. Find below an overview of the sessions➪, and scroll down for more background on the questions➪ that started it and the setup of this research group➪.
We're now halfway, but feel free to join any session. Sign up for the newsletter➪ to receive the info!
Sessions
An overview of the sessions from March to September, split in three chapters. Each monthly session has a 'shadow session' to dive deeper into a text, topic or exercise. Click on a session to see more details. Past sessions (strike-through) contain a recap, and future sessions an idea of what will happen. If you have ideas for texts to read or things to do, let me know via DM or
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chapter
main session
shadow session
A. The Role of Self-Models
Mar 18 2025, 19.00-21.301. Self-models
What are they, what do they do?
aim:
get a better sense of self-models and their influence on ways of being
topics:
genres of being human, posthumanism, diagrams
text:
Braidotti on the posthuman
action:
visualising self-models we want
A self-image can be quite limiting. If I think of myself as 'smart' it gets harder to admit when I don't know something. Does that happen on a cultural level as well? Just like our worldview structures what seems possible and plausible (Campagna), what about our self-model?
In many fields people try to move beyond a modernist / humanist / essentialist model of the self as separate from the world – which grounded many forms of exploitation (Wynter; Braidotti), towards ways of recognising our entanglement with social and material contexts.
How to make sense of these ideas of the self and their influence? We started by each defining one thing we would want from a self-model, to keep our aims and desires close.
Based on a selection of theoretical excerpts, including Rosi Braidotti's critique of current dominant self-models and Sylvia Wynter's concept of 'genres of being human', we then discussed the limits of dominant models of the separate self, how self-models structure ways of being, and proposals for relational models.
Then Savva guided us through an exercise of intuitive and exploratory diagramming, focusing on a 'verb' that embodies a way of being a self in relation to the world.
We took a moment to look at each of our first attempts to visualise a self-model that resonates. It felt good to think through metaphor, and there was a shared desire of moving towards relationality.
Apr 1 2025, 19.00-21.30shadow session 1
Diagramming other genres of being human
aim:
dive into Sylvia Wynter and beyond through diagramming
topics:
genres of being human, Man(1), Man(2), naturalisation
text:
Sylvia Wynter - The Ceremony Found
action:
explorative diagramming
A session hosted with Savva Dudin, to dive deeper into both Wynter’s genre’s of being human and exploratory diagramming. While explanatory diagrams communicate existing knowledge, exploratory diagramming are a tool for expression, discovery and experimentation, to move beyond current understandings towards other ones.
We started with an attempt at an explanatory diagram of Wynter’s genres of being human that have been dominant in the West. A main lesson was that self-models affect ways of being by structuring affect. Self-models don't just describe what a human is, but then create distinctions that shape what we desire and what repels us, and hence who become kin or are excluded as 'other'.
Then Savva will continue guiding a proper explorative diagramming session. We examined some of the inner workings of such self-models and (through semiotic squares) looked for space for other models: e.g. in the angel, the fold, fear, photons, or the octopus?
Another lesson that surfaced was how the Western idea of the human as the autonomous rational end station of evolution doesn’t only naturalise differences between humans as ‘biological’ – e.g. making those who are marked as ‘irrational’ exploitable – but also structures desire towards perfectibility and progress.
Apr 17 2025, 19.00-21.302. Isolated selves
Which self in self-help?
aim:
finding the models behind current idea(l)s of ways of being
Foucault on the dandy, a transhumanist dream from Böstrom, Kohpeiß on coldness
action:
self-model-portraiture and compass-making
In this diagnostic session we’ll look for which self-models to unlearn. If our desires and repulsions are shaped by how we understand the human (Wynter), how are we limited by ruling ideas of the humanist / modernist / liberal / autonomous self? What are the self-models behind phenomena like self-help, self-employment, self-expression?
We started with a short intro on self-practices, from Patrick Bateman through the dandy, Foucault, transhumanism, Kohpeiß affect theory and the uncanny valley.
Then we tried to self-model-diagnose. Starting with recognising a situation where dominant models may affect how we relate to the self or other. Meta-feels like guilt/pride/shame/cringe deal with conflicting desires that might expose conflicting self-models.
We each chose a situation where we have a meta-feeling towards ourselves or another, and tried to unpack the self-models behind that situation – its divide between what's good/desirable and bad/repulsive. Some through visualising, others through writing – auto-fiction, self-portraiture, auto-theory, diagramming – and then shared them with each other.
To me it felt half therapeutic half adventurous to get a glimpse of inherited self-models. In the shadow session we can analyse these more.
May 5 2025, 18.30-21.00shadow session 2
Navigating our self-model-space
aim:
finding personal aims for self-models to grow into
Kathy Acker's Seeing Gender, on growing from 'girl' to 'pirate'
action:
compass for navigating self-models
In this extra positioning session we dove deeper into analysing the conflicting self-models behind situations of meta-feels (shame, cringe, pride, etc) and Savva’s suggestion of breakdown (fail/glitch), to get a better sense of what self-models to unmake and which to grow into.
For the spirit of self-model breakdown and reorientation, we started discussinng a nice short text by Kathy Acker on growing from 'girl' to 'pirate'. We used Foucault's fourfold scheme of subjectivation for the analysis, a kind of galette.
And for positioning we eached tried to make a kind of compass to navigate self-model-space.
B. The Role of Technology
May 21 2025, 19.00-21.303. Material conditioning
How does tech make selves?
aim:
exploring lenses to analyse the influence of things on self-models
e.g. Karen Barad on agential realism, Peter-Paul Verbeek on mediation theory?
action:
subjective portrait of a thing?
So far, we've explored how self-models structure ways of being (session 1) and how our current ways of being might be limited by certain self-models (session 2). So we looked at the role of ways of thinking. But what is the role of our material conditions, especially the things that humans design, in making some self-models more thinkable than others?
To find out we first we need a good lens to analyse the role of the material world in shaping ideas and relations. In this more methodological session we tested different theoretical frameworks to analyse the effect of technologies.
There are many, but they usually focus more on how things structure our being (like what we do, think, feel), rather than how we think about being.Technologies, as things that humans made, not only express our ideas and values, they also structure and shape them. They mediate our relationship to the world (Verbeek), but how do they mediate the relations to our selves?
Technological mediation of the world-relation.
Metamediation of the self-relation.
We tested different frameworks by applying them to an object that felt significant in our lives. In text or visually we tried if these frameworks could help us understand why these objects felt significant.
It turned out some mundane objects like a toothbrush or pen implicitly invite particular selves and self-models, but also that things like a notebook or weight explicitly structure our relation to our self.
June 10 2025, 19:00-21:30shadow session 3
How do self-models materialise?
aim:
analyse personal self-technologies
topics:
self-relating, self-technologies, metaphors
theory:
agential cutting, mediation, cosmotechnics
We tried to get a sense of the different ways that self-models materialise. How things structure specific ways of relating to our selves.
There are many historical examples of explicit self-technologies: from mandalas, temple architecture and spiritual rituals, to figurines, self-portraits and psycho-analytical diagrams. Each is a technique of framing and working on the self. And when new technologies are introduced they often start acting as accidental self-technologies: they come to influence how we relate to what it means to be human. The steam engine as a model for the working human, the computer for the thinking human, the corporation for the human planning their livelihood.
How are self-models materialised in everyday things around us? The notebook, the smartwatch, the houseplant, the ring.
We each picked an object that was significant not just in our life, but in how we relate to ourselves. Maybe it captured something of our identity, or made us see ourselves differently, or try to act or look otherwise, etc. We then tested some lenses in sequence to be able to compare them.
I liked that it became clear how material details of things could provide tactical escapes for being otherwise in normative structures: a bike versus traffic rules, a necklace versus masculine logic, a shirt versus shielded formality.
June 26 2025, 19:00-21:30 CET4. Modernist technologies
Did design invite the separable self?
aim:
exploring the complicity of design in making modernist subjects
topics:
modernist design, colonial tech, neutrality
text:
Vitsoe speech by Dieter Rahms, Kathryn Yusoff, Rolando Vazquez, Learning from Las Vegas.
action:
discipline jumping & retroengineering self-design
I was taught good design provides the user with clarity and usability. Overview and grip, the eye and the hand, to grasp and manipulate the environment. Did design invite the separable self?
In this session we looked at the role of modernist design in making us modern selves. If I'm so relational, why do I often feel so separate? How do the things we use and surround ourselves with make us think of ourselves as separate from these surroundings?
We started by discussing the modernist design spirit. Dieter Rams saw the world as “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Instead, design had to be "neutral and restrained.”
Some critiques of modernist design target this neutral disguise as actually 'becoming ornament’ (Learning from Las Vegas), others focus on how it turns us into spectators and the world, including those who are othered, into resource (Vazquez, Yusoff). But how does it shape self-models?
We started from modernist objects we felt suspicious of shaping our ideas of self – the ikea knife, alarm clock, turnstiles, exhibition complex. Through writing and visualising we tried to find what self-perceptions or self-practices they enact and what models they make more desirable or repulsive.
I found it interesting how even mundane elements of our environment can come to embody frames of judgements about selves. Like they materialise a pressure to be authentic, clear-thinking, decent, or productive. It seems this happens through specific material aspects, like minute control, NFC reading, a full-metal body, etc, but this deserves a closer look.
What do these objects really do? How are they modernist? And are these judgements related to the separable self?
July 30 2025, 18:30-21:00shadow session 4
Self-rearrangement
aim:
play with how our everyday selves are shaped by things around
topics:
everyday, identification, rearranging
theory:
Alexander's patterns, systems perspective, goodness-of-fit
In this transition session from critiquing modernist design towards relational ways of being, we worked through the thinking of Christopher Alexander, the late Austrian-British architect and theorist, who often feels to me like a modernist trying to escape modernism.
To Alexander, “the system viewpoint is a modern, disciplined, version of the sense of wonder.” It is through recognising systems that you would become "aware of oneness and wholeness in the world.”
We discussed the text these quotes are from, Systems Generating Systems, as it seems to provide a nice framework to analyse the workings of our interactions with things (system) to ‘generate' a self-model (system).
Then Savva lead us through some exercises based on Alexander. From a place where we feel everyday, we picked some objects and arranged them on a scale of how much we identify with them. There was a battle of self-models that was materialised in them.
Then we put them back in their original location, but rearranged them in a way that felt like a better fit. One thing I noticed was that instead of moving the things of our shadow self out of sight, we all tried to reckon with them. A desire for self-consistency?
C. Toward Relational Self-Tech
Aug 25 2025, 18.30-21:005. Relational selves
Where and when are we already relational?
aim:
get a sense of dwellings of relational selves
topics:
raves, radio, transindividuality, swims, jams
texts:
Wark's Raving, Radio Alice, Morton's Being Ecological, Ensor's Queer Fallout
action:
auto-theory, starterpacks
What are situations where we already feel relational, and what are their material conditions?
I think my fascination for windows is on how material surroundings condition selves: does modernist architecture create a separable self? What kinds of selves are excluded?
If the separable self is a product of ruling systems of power – rational! (patriarchy), self-perfecting! (modernity), winning! (neoliberalism), mastering! (capitalism) – can we find other kinds of selves in the cracks?
To help remember moments where we might feel emotional, intoxicated, sociable, humble, we discussed excerpts from McKenzie Wark on raving, Timothy Morton on being ecological, Collective A/Traverso on radio, and Sarah Ensor on sociability.
We started by giving words to the feeling we would be looking for in a relational self, scanning recent memories based on those, and picking one that feels closest.
Then to get a sense of their/our dwellings – what are the ways that these selves are materialised? – we assembled different starter packs for relational selves.
Starter kit of Kirsten's relational self
There were some clear patterns in our relational moments and its conditions, including a loss of grip, on the situation and on time, and the presence of other people. A recurring reflection was on whether we need a sense of being alone as a rite of passage to relationality.
Sep 8 2025, 18.30-21:00shadow session 5
Love
aim:
when is love relational
topics:
romantic love, mysticism, erotics
theory:
somatics, self-dissolution, complicity
All this talk about relationality but without mentioning the word love? Savva wondered.
So we spent an evening reading excerpts on love from Cixous, Weil, Birtalan, Carson, Desideri & Harney, Wilk, Vasallo.
When is love actually relational? And when can you call relationality love? We collectively commented on the excerpts with our reflections and followed along.
Even though they were all slightly or quite different, one thing that was recurring was some kind of restraint. A staying with the hole, biting without eating, phantom touch. Relationality requiring a kind of self?
Sep 29 2025, 19.30-22:006. Relational rites
How to make conditions for relationality?
aim:
a rite of passage to the relational self
topics:
rites, transformation,
text:
Preciado, transindividuality,
action:
speculation in story or material
We started to get an idea of the dwellings of relational selves. But what does it take to move from an isolated to a relational self-model?
In this session we’ll sketch out a rite of passage: what we want to move away from (and unmake), move towards (and become), and what material companion(s) we might need.
We’ll work with the materials we’ve gathered so far, both our response to the exercises and the theories we’ve discussed. Always welcome to bring in new material as well.
I’ll guide this ritual of prompts to compose the outlines of a rite of passage, working towards a brief for material companions of a coming-of-self ritual.
Oct . . 2025shadow session 6
tbc
Conclusion (?)
Nov 2025Public closing event!
tbc
Something at Extra Practice where we can share texts and small artistic works, in a publication, small exhibition, and readings!
The Question that started it
Throughout my studies there was this question I kept running into. At each stop on my journey from design to philosophy to artistic research, I learned to recognise that humans are always relational: that how we act, see, think, and are, is deeply entangled with the things and beings around us.
Why was this something I had to learn in the first place? What made me ever believe the dominant self-models of the modernist, liberal, humanist subject that would be fundamentally separate from others?
Especially since these myths of separation seem so central in today's crises. Separable self-models work to justify many forms of oppression and exploitation of those bodies who are cut off from them. Qualities like rationality may be claimed as universally human, but have often only been granted to one side of divides such as human v. "stupid" animal; white v. "barbaric" black; man v. "emotional" woman (Wynter; Braidotti).
In a way, it's a question about the gap between how we are (ontology1) and how it feels (phenomenology2), and how our surroundings (situatedness) influence (mediate) the experience of this gap. Specifically, I suspect material culture (technology) to be complicit, and I invite you to join me in finding out.
1the philosophy of the nature and basic structure of reality. 2the philosophy of human experience.
The research group
I've started working on this question in a project I call subject matter, but so far I've been doing it mostly by myself, retreated in the shadows. Now I got curious if others might share this interest.
The self-model-making group opens to whomever wants to think self-models though philosophy and creative practice, in a series of monthly research-with-me sessions at Extra Practice (on site & online).
The aim is to explore through different disciplines how material culture could contribute to a transition to relational self-models. We'll visit what this transition could look like on the levels of self (way of being), self-model (way of thinking), and material culture (influence of things made):
essentialist
→ relational
self
isolated
→ ?
model
autonomous
→ ?
making
modernist
→ ?
In six sessions we'll explore A) how current dominant self-models might restrict and oppress ways of being, B) how material culture might be complicit, and C) how it instead could invite relational ways of being:
Each 2,5h session combines discussing readings➪ and creative exercises. They are meant as a space to approach each topic through different ways of knowing (theory, practice, conversation, reflection, etc) so we can find a way to enter depending on our practice and desires. Each main session has an accompanying 'shadow session' which expands the topic, e.g. go deeper into a text, try out an exercise, make a trip.
A rough outline of a session:
time
activity
19.00
introduction of theme
19.15
discussion of text(s)
20.00
break
20.15
exercise to do / make
21.00
round of sharing
21.30
end
We will share lessons from the group in a publication, which will be worked on throughout the process and printed at the end. In Sep/Oct, after the six sessions, there will be a launch event: a place for people who join to show works they made, share readings, and discuss ideas and questions.
Newsletter
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Readings
This is a working list of readings, made with Ianis Dobrev from the Chimerical Intelligence Lab. It will be updated for each session and lead to a reader of extracts.
from the Chimerical Intelligence Lab. It will be updated for each session and lead to a reader of extracts. 