How is the self understood in the digital era? This issue investigates whether we have full agency in constructing ourselves and what kind of images of ourselves we are broadcasting. Online environments are playgrounds for identity construction, as well places that allow for becoming “the other.” At face value, online platforms seem to promise us the opportunity to become anyone we want—yet what happens online has consequences in the physical world. And what happens online is supported by the physical systems which undergird present society. Technology not only mediates the narratives of our daily lives, it shapes them. NXS is a research platform initiated by the Amsterdam based design studio Goys & Birls as well as an experimental printed publication, where each contributor comments and reflects on a previous contribution. Published biannually, NXS experiments with innovative content and brings together different points of view. A diverse selection of upcoming or established theorists and practitioners allows NXS to define an initial position and interlace articles, essays, interviews and artistic works which refer to each other. Aiming to explore the emotional and sensual side of hardware, software and algorithms, that normally have been assessed by their functionality, aesthetics and ethics, NXS invites artists, theorists, poets and off-context cultural participators to capture the current emotional status of networked society and hardware-enhanced relationships. This second issue includes contributions from Armen Avanessian, Hannah Barton, Karolien Buurman, Gilles De Brock, Ivan Cheng, Kim de Groot, Benjamin Grosser, Andrea Karch, Kristýna Kulíková, Geoffrey Lillemon, Geert Lovink, Aaron McLaughlin, Dr. Alberto Micali, Shintaro Miyazaki, Nina Power, Daniel Rourke, Sophia Seawell, Marloes de Valk and Keith J. Varadi. Curated and designed by Monika Grūzīte, Juliette Lizotte, Florian Mecklenburg (Goys & Birls) Published by Goys & Birls, 2017Printed in a limited edition of 300 copiesSoftcover with a silkscreened cover, 76 pages, b&w, 6 × 15 inches
