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unpacking digital culture

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/UNPACK

tags: internet, digital, sociology, trends, visual, research, politics, culture, subculture, media, identity, art, music, online communities by @unpackmagazine

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4 months ago

@jnaqu, whose real name is Jena Quach, is a 2D illustrator and animator based in Orange County, California
her work explores the world of femininity, relationships, and girlhood, through a surrealist style at the crossroads of traditional illustration and animation inspired by the 1980s-90s

her approach is also shaped by several influences
we feel an introspective dimension in the vein of Satoshi Kon’s Paprika ; Jnaqu also works with a reclaiming of the city and nature, somewhat like Chiho Aoshima

alongside her illustrations, she develops zines and sketchbooks, and regularly shares her sketchbook pages and short animated films

/unpack🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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2 months ago

should the tumblr era come back ? by @unpackmagazine

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3 months ago

for more than four decades, Canadian photographer Greg Girard (1955) has travelled through the cities of Asia, tracing the quiet transformations taking place beneath their rapid expansion

his work moves between continents, following the circulation of people, cultures, labour and dreams between Asia and North America

through intimate portraits of everyday life, working-class communities and nocturnal cityscapes, Girard turns his gaze towards those who inhabit these changing environments
his photographs capture the traces of American influence on Asian societies, while revealing the complex ways in which people adapt, resist and make these spaces their own

between neon-lit nights and ordinary moments, Girard’s work becomes a meditation on migration, modernity and the human lives unfolding within cities in constant motion

/unpack🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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3 months ago

what’s our actual relationship with tech?

/unpack🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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3 months ago

everyone thinks they exists in their own unique way
but zoom out, and patterns start to appear

these images are from People of the Twenty-First Century by Hans Eijkelboom, who spent over twenty years photographing people in cities like Paris, New York and Shanghai
side by side, strangers begin to look almost identical: the same colors, the same silhouettes, the same trends

maybe our tastes were never entirely our own.

identity isn’t created in isolation.
it’s shaped by what we consume, the images we see, the music we hear, the people we follow
we used to inherit culture mostly from our families and immediate surroundings
today, we curate it through endless online feeds.

we like to think we’re choosing who we are
but maybe we’re all just choosing from the same algorithm?

full article in bio
/unpack🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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3 months ago

byrottenbird (Shikishima Kuon) is a Japanese multidisciplinary artist whose work sits between photography, digital painting and visual experimentation.

he paints nostalgia the way old phones remembered it.

cities blur into dreams, school uniforms drift through streets that feel both familiar and impossible, and every image carries the glow of an early digital memory
inspired by the imperfect textures of iPhone-era photography, glittering light, compression artifacts and painterly glitches become emotional tools rather than technical flaws

his work lingers somewhere between youth and memory. through fragmented cityscapes and fleeting moments of adolescence, byrottenbird transforms the everyday into something quietly surreal, exploring how memory, urban life and technology shape the way we remember the past

/unpack🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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3 months ago

discussion on how club culture evolved in the age of algorithms, and how music followed

full article in bio
/unpack 🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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4 months ago

south korean illustrator @jujuqqqzzzzzzz channels the visual energy of 2000s manga (NANA, Paradise Kiss, Bleach, Tekkonkinkreet) into portraits of youth

her drawings are built on contrast: precise linework and soft atmospheres, everyday realism and subtle surrealism
focusing on fleeting expressions and quiet moments, she captures a generation suspended between intimacy, fantasy, and self-construction
simple at first glance, her images linger through their emotional precision and cinematic sense of mood

/unpack by @unpackmagazine

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4 months ago

full article in bio

/unpack 🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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4 months ago

Algorave-short for algorithm + rave—emerged at the intersection of internet culture, hacker communities, and a broader shift toward algorithmic systems. As platforms began structuring attention, work, and taste, a counter-impulse formed: making the logic of systems visible instead of invisible.

In this context, live coding becomes both performance and exposure. Artists write code in real time to generate music and visuals, projecting their screens so audiences can watch sound being constructed line by line.

The movement grew out of early-2010s experimental electronic scenes and hacker culture, shaped by artists like Aphex Twin, where ambient structures, IDM, and glitch aesthetics treated digital instability. One of the movement’s most influential figures is Renick Bell, a computer musician and programmer based in Hô Chi Minh City.

That transparency also fits a broader cultural mood marked by fatigue toward overly polished aesthetics and controlled narratives. In an era shaped by political tension and increasingly rigid cultural codes, algorave’s openness / its glitches, bugs, unfinished states / can read as a refusal of smoothness and perfection.

Over time, its sonic references have also evolved. Where early algorave leaned toward experimental and ambient lineages, today’s artists often draw from the fragmented, hyper-digital pop worlds of Oklou or Charli XCX ; music shaped by online circulation, emotional compression, and post-genre fluidity.

Alongside this evolution, new performance languages are emerging beyond keyboards; such as hand-tracking systems, where gesture becomes code and the body becomes interface.

Across all its forms, algorave insists on one idea: music is not a hidden product. It is a visible system, unfolding in real time, with all its friction still intact.

/unpack🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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4 months ago

Graham Rounthwaite is a London-based illustrator and art director born in England in 1970. After earning his Master’s in Illustration from the Royal College of Art, he built a career spanning illustration, photography, and creative direction working across fashion, music, tech and commercial industries.
His client list speaks for itself: Levi’s, Sony, MTV, i-D Magazine, and behind the lens, he’s shot Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, 50 Cent, and many more. He’s also collaborated with photographers like Terry Richardson and Peter Lindbergh, and has received recognition from both the Art Directors Club of New York and D&AD.

At the heart of his practice is his illustration work. At a time when digital art meant clean vectors and polished Photoshop work, he came in with something far bolder and more raw ; deeply rooted in early 2000s British youth culture. Without any filters or idealization ; only people, drawn with a rare kind of vulnerability.
You can feel his photography background in every drawing: relaxed poses, natural emotions, and a masterful play with texture, color, and light that makes his illustrations feel almost like stills from real life.

Decades later, his work still hits. There’s an honesty and simplicity to it that young people keep finding themselves in, and that never really gets old.

/unpack🐠 by @unpackmagazine

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4 months ago