Published in Digital Diplomacy

·Pinned

Bodies of data or“databodies”?

In this piece I argue that predatory technologies became our digital default because of the naive assumption that the Internet would keep our bodies invisible. As a result we now have a largely unregulated technology industry, with data protection regimes that cannot guarantee the integrity of our physical bodies. This…

Facial Recognition

7 min read

Published in The Bazaar of the Bizarre

·Nov 13, 2021

you cannot control

each sensation that shakes your brain like tremor grief deeper than the sum of all aches agony travelling through the bones like free riders on a passenger train damp Novembers that drip through the vein like test tubes blood bitter and thicker making you surrender to each throb dusking your soul freezing the brain when the skin remembers each bruise and sting like memory foam madness lurking in the corner of each mouth and conversation just how much space you take up with pain

Pain

1 min read

Poetry

you cannot control

Agony of a soul — habiba Ben Zakour-Zouabi

each sensation
that shakes your brain
like tremor
grief deeper
than the sum of all aches
agony travelling
through the bones
like free riders
on a passenger train

damp Novembers
that drip through the vein
like test tubes
blood bitter
and thicker
making you surrender
to each throb
dusking your soul
freezing the brain

when the skin remembers
each bruise and sting
like memory foam
madness lurking
in the corner
of each mouth
and conversation
just how much space
you take up with pain

Published in The Bazaar of the Bizarre

·Nov 6, 2021

they said

I should not look at my body too soon, they said these swollen and bruised breasts one nipple pointing higher, the other laying low neither should I show you stubs that used to nurse you for so long they provided comfort when you were upset can I mourn yet? or cells from these cancerful breasts will travel to the rest of my body brows thinning and medicines making me so sick I won’t want to get out of bed, they said

Cancer

1 min read

they said

I should not look at my body too soon, they said
these swollen and bruised breasts
one nipple pointing higher, the other laying low

neither should I show you
stubs that used to nurse you
for so long they provided comfort when you were upset

can I mourn yet? or cells from these cancerful breasts will travel
to the rest of my body
brows thinning and medicines making me so sick
I won’t want to get out of bed, they said

Published in The Bazaar of the Bizarre

·Oct 29, 2021

there is rhythm in how the heart bleeds

there is rhythm in how the heart bleeds and the heart bleeds more than the wound after surgery or the leaves flying off the autumn trees and the heart sweats more than the sun that cuts through the incision the way the surgeon’s knife cut through the skin nerves and muscles to get that…

Cancer

2 min read

Oct 2, 2021

Embracing the complexity of cancer

A few weeks ago I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. I spent the last 18 months worrying about my health and the well-being of my loved ones in the face of a global pandemic, completely forgetting about the fact that my life can be threatened by diseases other…

Cancer

4 min read

Oct 25, 2020

The unwanted touch of the digital era

“Our bodies, with the old genetic transmission, have not kept pace with the new language-produced cultural transmission of technology. So now, when social control breaks down, we must expect to see pathological destruction.” –Donna J. Haraway Last summer (which now seems like centuries ago) I was on the beach with…

Bodies Of Evidence

10 min read

Jun 18, 2020

The dangers of binarism

The coronavirus pandemic — and the unfolding economic, social and political crises that followed — made it abundantly clear that seemingly logical trade-offs between our fundamental rights are arbitrary, misleading and harmful. In this piece I argue that binarism is not only deeply rooted in our thinking, it is also…

Data

7 min read