Weekend Societies in the Walled Garden

Dr. tobias c. van Veen holds doctorates in Philosophy and Communication Studies from McGill University. His work addresses philosophy, technology, and race in critical media studies, and he has published widely on digital social movements and remix/DJ culture, Afrofuturism and posthumanism. He is currently working on his first book, _Afrofuturism and Abolition: Exodus, Music, and MythScience_, forthcoming from Bloomsbury Academic. Tobias is co-founder of the Afrofuturist Studies & Speculative Arts series at Bloomsbury Academic; lead editor of the “Black Lives, Black Politics, Black Futures” special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (2018); editor of the Afrofuturism special issue of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture (2013); and co-editor of the special issue Echoes from the Dub Diaspora (2015). Since 1993 tobias has exhibited with galleries and festivals worldwide as an award-winning media/sound artist, photographer, filmmaker, turntablist, and curator, working with Garden City Electronic Music Society (GCEMS), New Forms Festival, MUTEK, TheUpgrade!, The Society for Art and Technology (SAT), Mobile Digital Commons Network, STEIM, Turbulence.org, and others. He is director of the Afrofuturist short film LOST ALIEN (2018), distributed by Cinema Politica, and his sound/video installations have been featured by New York Live Arts and the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM) in the exhibitions Curating the End of the World (2020) and Altered-Worlds: Black Utopia and the Age of Acceleration (2021). Tobias hosts the Other Planes: Afro/Futurism Podcast on CreativeDisturbance.org, is creative director of sound-art label IOSOUND.ca, and he spins vinyl on Twitch at http://twitch.tv/pandemixDJs.