Land
Planting seeds in your ancestor’s garden can be catastrophic as it was for Aniedi, the protagonist of Gabrielle Harry’s, When They Call, You Answer. In this world, teletowers give a straightforward and efficient alternative to the meandering trials of language acquisition for the children of elders who fail to pass mother tongues down. But perhaps it is precisely this friction and frustration which is most in need of cultivation at a time when those in power would like to strip the land barren. Underneath all the slogans, government master plans, militia origin stories, and corporate tech marketing, lies the question of land. Tech takes place somewhere, there’s no digital without the earthiness of analog; be it graves, the American Dream of your personal car on an open road or a Montevideo data center. We come to you at this late hour because Logic(s) has exited Columbia University’s Incite Institute by the skin of our teeth. May the range and depth of our editorial vision embedded within this issue drive you to donate, subscribe or become a member.
Editor’s Letter
Editor’s Letter by J. Khadijah Abdurahman
“To Be a Banaban Is to Be of the Rock” with Katerina Teaiwa
Visualizing the catastrophic environmental consequences of phosphate mining on Banaba Island in the Pacific Ocean.
Opting in to a Surveillance Future with Chris Gilliard
The paradoxical link between the surveillance bought as luxury goods and the surveillance foisted on the most marginalized against their will.
Exposing Google’s Seizure of Water in Drought-Impacted Uruguay: A Conversation with Enol Nieto Jiménez and Daniel Pena
The ongoing collective fight against Google’s data centers in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The Im/Possibilities of Using the Law for Abolition with Paromita Shah
On the spectacle of border militarization and law as a technology of abolition.
Afterlives of Racial Covenants in Durham, North Carolina with Hacking into History
Remembering how racial covenants operated as a mechanism of codifying white supremacy.
There Is No Remedy Here with Danez Smith & Jonathan Moore Palacios
Smith reflects on their relationship with their work as well as the expectations and consumption of Black art in this violent political landscape.
Memory Work as Antidote to Salvadoran Displacement with Alejandro Villalpando & Paula Ayala
On armed resistance following the 1980s civil war in El Salvador and the infrastructures of memory among the United States-based diaspora communities.
Louisiana's Coastline in Crisis Xander Peters
An investigation into the now cancelled $50 billion Coastal Master Plan authorized by state lawmakers.
Under the Scan Gun: Algorithmic Worker Management in English Coal Country Craig Gent
Warehouse scan guns and other ways of manipulating worker pacing and decision making.
Casteist by Design: How Discrimination Configures India’s Platform Economy
Caste driven development, implementation and popularity of Indian worker management and delivery apps.
When They Call, You Answer by Gabrielle Harry
“The ancestors. They don’t speak aloud. They send messages directly to our minds.”
Lincoln and the Harvester C-100 by R.S.A. Garcia
Until the Harvester arrived to clear large tracts of agricultural land, the Farmhand 4200 was the only bot in Tantie Merle’s village.
falling in love in arabic / In Sitti’s Garden by Rasha Abdulhadi
On sustaining Palestinian land and livelihood.
the joke / less hope by Danez Smith
Two poems from Smith’s latest collection, Bluff.