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Libra Season: iPhone Modernism by Travis Diehl

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The shock-of-the-new is back in literature, rebooted for screen time – and with it, the question: To what end should writing reflect our networked selves? “Phones are a terrible medium for performance art,” my friend said, then technologist Mindy Seu directed everyone to whip theirs out. For the next forty-five minutes, a hundred people sat in the dark, faces glowing, following along on Instagram Stories with the lecture-performance A Sexual History of the Internet. Other than the phones, the piece is a fairly conventional tour of key innovations in how we get off online. Two things I learned: The first JPEG was a pirated Playboy centerfold. And there’s a subgenre of BDSM called data domination, where a sex worker takes remote control of your computer. The smartphone, Seu said, is a teledildonic device, a sex toy, relaying stimulation across time and space. “This will be an exercise in restraint,” the lecture began. “Please do not touch your screen unless told to do so.” That was the i

Libra Season: iPhone Modernism by Travis Diehl Peter Vack, Sillyboy , C4G Books, 2024 Libra Season iPhone Modernism By Travis Diehl 29 October 2025 Literature , Online Culture , Mindy Seu , Peter Vack , Pierce Day The shock-of-the-new is back in literature, rebooted for screen time – and with it, the question: To what end should writing reflect our networked selves? “Phones are a terrible medium for performance art,” my friend said, then technologist Mindy Seu directed everyone to whip theirs out. For the next forty-five minutes, a hundred people sat in the dark, faces glowing, following along

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