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kelly pendergrast

@kellypendergrast.bsky.social

2.9K followers 590 following 850 posts

technology // aesthetics // labor // shapes writing: kellypendergrast.com working: antistaticpartners.com

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · Apr 27

New open invitation - DM me if you are (ever) in the Bay Area and want to meet up irl - it’s 2025 & we’re going offline, comrades!

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · Nov 16

Open invitation for anyone to DM me if you want to gossip

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 3h

Nothing new here, really, but Knausgaard really does write about it technology, computing, and the world in such a sweet way.

Also now i'm sickeningly jealous of James Brindle's apparently blissful life on a greek island. harpers.org/archive/2025...

The Reenchanted World, by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Translated by Olivia Lasky, Damion Searls

On finding mystery in the digital age

harpers.org

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 8h

"i'm in the arena trying things"

Promotional picture of a bright blue cap with the words Doing Things embroidered on white. The hat is worn by a dark skinned model whose eyes are obscured by the hat's brim.

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 8h

Great piece about the "YOU CAN JUST DO THINGS" meme.

However, this further cements my theory that current tech culture exists downstream of 20teens millennial marketing culture. Outdoor Voices' "DOING THINGS" walked so "YOU CAN JUST DO THINGS" could run thebaffler.com/latest/high-...

High-Agency Individuals | James Vincent

The exhortation to “just do things” is in part a response to the specter of automation.

thebaffler.com

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 1d

A creative brand agency that is also a store that is also a ‘community’

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 1d

God totally yes a prime example … at least they’re just a shop (I think???)

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 1d

I really resent the brand-ification // creative agency-ification of outdoorsy-ness.

Eg this launch of Usal's presence in northern california, which brings nature cleanups, birdwatching, bikepacking, visible mending, etc etc all into play as elements of a brand aesthetic and lifestyle package.

Instagram post showing a lineup of events hosted by Usal in Northern California in October and November. The text appears over a background image of a rocky coastline. The event listings are:
DEADBEAT EARTH SWEEP
USAL SF OPENING PARTY
SUN PRINTING WORKSHOP
TRAIL RUN
- GOLDEN GATE PARK
SOUND FORAGING
- SAN FRANCISCO
LONG SLOW DAYS BIKE RIDE
VISIBLE MENDING WORKSHOP
SEAWEED & KELP IDENTIFICATION & HARVEST
MARIN COUNTY BIKEPACKING TRIP
LOST COAST CAMP TRIP
NATURE DRAWING WORKSHOP
URBAN ECOLOGY HIKE
CLAY HANDBUILDING IN GOLDEN GATE PARK
CREATIVE BIRDWATCHING
ALCHEMY SOUNDBATH
GORP GIRLS HIKE
- ROCK SPRING TRAIL

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 2d

Still on my mind

Tweet by Refaat in Gaza (username @itranslate123):
If I get killed by Israeli bombs or my family is harmed, I blame Bari Weiss @bariweiss and her likes.
Many maniacal Israeli soldiers already bombing Gaza take these lies and smears seriously and they act upon them.

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 3d

The ecstatic reception of the anthropic retail popup merch drop is sooooo funny. people talk about techies “reinventing the bus/library/etc” — this is “reinventing 2018 hipster b2c company marketing aesthetics”. What other ancient trends can we revive and sell to these guys????

Tweet by Sam McAllister saying “GOOD MORNING NEW YORK CITY
• •
COME DO YOUR BEST THINKING AT OUR THINKING SPACE IN THE WEST VILLAGE
SAY NO TO SLOP” with four photos of Anthropic merch

Tweet from Cooper Gadd saying “worth the wait” and a photo of hat that says “thinking” and some slim books on a cafe table.

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Reposted by kelly pendergrast

Serife (Sherry) Wong @serife.bsky.social · 5d

Balaji's network state conference was streaming live and I stumbled on to it tonight for a tiny bit.. some of these speakers I've seen in Sf at weird sad events speaking to like 50 transhumanists, if that. Over 400k ppl watching on twitter but only 300 ppl on youtube... thread of clips

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 5d

Well yea exactly - the big rizz archetype

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 5d

Truly!! Completely unserious to claim OBAA as anything like the decades best

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 5d

Whenever the Menswear guy posts about how you don’t need to be thin or athletic to dress well, and that big guys can look great and sexy, it’s always with a photo of this exact guy

Painting by Frida Kahlo of herself and a Diego Rivera. He is wearing straight legged high waisted black slacks; a kind of cummerbund, a blue chambray shirt, and an unbuttoned black jacket with rounded lines

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 7d

yes absolutely -- the website is coming but content not live yet. www.emptysetmag.com

www.emptysetmag.com

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 7d

If you're in NY, head to the release party on Oct 28!! Meet the cool crew, buy issue 1, read the essay I wrote for it!

Poster with information about the Empty Set magazine launch. Top half of the poster is a b+w inverted picture from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. Bottom half is text, which reads "Empty Set. Tuesday Oct 28th, 7:30pm. Dear Friend Books, 343A Tompkins Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216. Magazine Launch. Readings and performances by Terry Nguyen, Emma Heath, Steffi Cao, basalt, Yuki + Lele.

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 7d

For my buds still sad about the end of Real Life mag, and anyone else bored of the current state of writing-about-tech, it's time to get excited — a very exciting new left tech-etc magazine is dropping later this month. Empty Set! No website yet but follow on insta www.instagram.com/emptysetmaga...

Empty Set is founded on the idea that
technology writing is at an impasse. Despite
growing interest in "tech criticism," the genre
has found itself flattened and constrained
in recent years. As publications dedicated to
grappling with the many contradictory shades
of our techno-culture have shuttered-Real
Life, WIRED Ideas-
-the industry has shifted
towards hype cycle-based business reporting,
at best, and thinly veiled advertorials at
worst. Though there remain a few bastions of
critical thought, these have mostly survived as
watchdogs, too tired from keeping up with a
neverending cycle of abuses to speculate more
broadly on what our evolving relationship to
technology is doing to us.

We believe that technology writing can be so
much more. After all, despite what we so often
assume, technology isn't synonymous with
the latest gadget, or digital this-and-that. It
is ancient-as old as our bodies and words.
If language was one of our first technologies,
then shouldn't technology writing give rise
to poetry? If our bodies were the basis upon
which all technical prostheses emerged, then
shouldn't technology writing know how to
move? The tech writing remaining today is too
sober, too timid in style and subject matter
to capture what it feels like to inhabit our
world: the millenarian fervor of the techno-
evangelists, the riptides of rage and desire we
traverse daily on our devices, the anxieties and
distant hopes that shimmer on the horizon.
We need writing that not only thinks about
technology, but with it.

The stakes are clear. Having failed to
address this latent world- where technology
becomes religion, flesh and code intermingle,
and ghosts haunt the machine--we've let the
worst among us steer the conversation. Peter
Thiel sells out lectures on the Anti-Christ
while pseudo-intellectual bloggers peddle
dollar-store fascism by misreading Hegel. In
our failure to experiment boldly, to speculate
and myth-make and take all the strange
corners of our techno-culture seriously, leftist
technology criticism has handed over the reins
of sensemaking to feudalist wannabes and
reactionary trolls. Donna Haraway once wrote
that "it matters what stories we tell to tell other
stories with…. what thoughts think thoughts."
Empty Set is dedicated to finding the concepts
and thoughts that we'll need in order to tell a
new story about our technologized lives.

Writing in the dust of this critical landscape,
it's only fitting that our first issue takes on
decay. Though the promise of technology is
one of eternity (living forever, endless access
to information) it's rot that undergirds our
world today: brainrot, entropy, planned
obsolescence, 404 errors, poor images, lossy
compression, nutrient-rich humus, carbon-
rich biomatter turned oil and coal. Rot is a
process that encapsulates the short-sighted
excesses of our techno-culture, as well as a
potential force we might channel into new
hopes. After all, without decomposition there
could be no regrowth, nothing underfoot for
life to arise in. By sitting with this decay, we
hope something new might take root.

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 12d

💯

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 12d

Something here about backlighting (a core aspect of genAI image aesthetic)

Softness, fur, fiber — a glowing halo that separates the subject from background

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 12d

Mark Zuckerberg is introducing a feed that's just 100% AI slop. No pesky creativity from real people to get in the way. Eat up little piggies

Introducing Vibes -- a feed of expressive AI-generated videos from artists and creators in the Meta AI app. Create and remix videos with leading models and music for free.

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 12d

One Battle After Another was kind of like if Wes Anderson made a realist movie

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 12d

After watching OBAA last night i am now giving myself the ick by reading PTA interviews ... ew ❌ (www.thrillist.com/entertainmen...

Interviewer: When HAIM became famous, it was so cool because these Jewish girls from the Valley were rock stars. And I was a Jewish girl from the Valley. You've used the Valley in so many of their music videos that you've directed. How did you initially establish that rapport with them and how did that lead to casting Alana?

Paul thomas anderson: Well, our shared experience connected us growing up here, but the story is well documented that their mother was also my art teacher at elementary. It makes the Valley small. It's funny, we don't have any time or any money when we make those videos. And so, you do what you have with what's right in front of you, and you fight them with what you've got—as the Israeli army says, "Fight them with what you've got." And the best special effect in the HAIM video is them. That became kind of rule of thumb for how we would approach doing these things. All the people that I've worked with for 20 years lived in the Valley, the grips, the electricians, camera assistants. Some maybe live in Los Feliz, but we all live right here. The film developing lab is right here. It's in Burbank, FotoKem. So this is our backyard. This is a home game for us, and we know it.

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 14d

"No technology is inevitable and if you are laid off from your job, it will be because your boss decided to do so."

Glad to have a piece about Stop AI, the dubious group that has nonetheless become a container for a broad range of concerns and soapboxes. bayareacurrent.com/why-bay-area...

Why Bay Area Group Stop AI Thinks Artificial Intelligence Will Kill Us All

The group behind all those flyers wants you to think about AI doom, tech power, and human extinction.

bayareacurrent.com

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 20d

really pissing me off!

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 20d

God i hate a film festival!! all these old assholes selling out a festival screening in minutes -- where are you every other week of the goddam year? Where are you on a random wednesday!!! Mill valley film fest kiss my ass!! i didn't want to go anyway.

Reposted by kelly pendergrast

San Francisco Review of Whatever @sfreviewofwhatever.bsky.social · 20d

“I Feel Safe in San Francisco” is a delicate, ranging, topographic memoir by skateboarder-poet Rod Roland, featuring photography by Reggie Guerrero (@meadowy.bsky.social) and a new poem by Tenaya Nasser-Frederick and Rod Roland.

Street scene: An empty sidewalk with a pink vertical bollard, a building with two doors behind it, and black and peach checkerboard tiling.

Tomato pink background with black outlined rectangles and black and blue text within:
I don’t think skateboarding is a cure for anything. It’s more a do or don’t thing. I feel self-conscious writing about it instead of doing it. That’s just how it’s done. If you aren’t trying, then you’re not skating.
I’m not so worried about being judged by other fifty-year-old skateboarders reading this. Fuck you. No, I’m kidding. But seriously, why don’t you try and write a review of San Francisco and skateboarding.
Rod Roland, I Feel Safe in San Francisco

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kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 20d

Absolutely

kelly pendergrast @kellypendergrast.bsky.social · 20d

I plan to never find out