Networked Counterculture is a 30-page briefing in which we explore how the parameters of cultural production can be altered by using and abusing the logic of platforms that mediate them. 

With many artists and creatives feeling like their ability to connect with their audience is decided by the algorithms of digital platforms, it begs the question: can you break the mold and still find success online?

When you see MSCHF’s Big Red Boots you wouldn’t immediately think of counterculture. One of their latest drops, $320 gigantic red rubber boots inspired by 1960s comic character Astro Boy, seems to have no political or cultural agenda. Its sole purpose, it appears, is virally spreading through the network via countless influencer accounts. And yet there’s something about a MSCHF object that cuts through the noise in a way that feels different to your average engineered viral campaign. The Brooklyn art collective describes their own works as trojan horses: infiltrating a culture by mimicking its aesthetics, practices and norms. Once inside a network, they unleash their narrative potential, reeling us, the good people of the internet, to become participants in the spectacle.

Created in collaboration with WeTransfer, Networked Counterculture explores how projects like MSCHF, Corteiz and SAULT are subverting the logic of digital platforms, playing the algorithm at its own game and, most importantly, winning.

Networked Counterculture is a 30-page briefing in which we explore how the parameters of cultural production can be altered by using and abusing the logic of platforms that mediate them. 

With many artists and creatives feeling like their ability to connect with their audience is decided by the algorithms of digital platforms, it begs the question: can you break the mold and still find success online?

When you see MSCHF’s Big Red Boots you wouldn’t immediately think of counterculture. One of their latest drops, $320 gigantic red rubber boots inspired by 1960s comic character Astro Boy, seems to have no political or cultural agenda. Its sole purpose, it appears, is virally spreading through the network via countless influencer accounts. And yet there’s something about a MSCHF object that cuts through the noise in a way that feels different to your average engineered viral campaign. The Brooklyn art collective describes their own works as trojan horses: infiltrating a culture by mimicking its aesthetics, practices and norms. Once inside a network, they unleash their narrative potential, reeling us, the good people of the internet, to become participants in the spectacle.

Created in collaboration with WeTransfer, Networked Counterculture explores how projects like MSCHF, Corteiz and SAULT are subverting the logic of digital platforms, playing the algorithm at its own game and, most importantly, winning.

With our research into networked counterculture we sought to understand whether things could be different. Is it possible to exist in the network without compromising your artistic integrity? Is counterculture possible inside the system that turns us into perpetual content creators? 

With our research into networked counterculture we sought to understand whether things could be different. Is it possible to exist in the network without compromising your artistic integrity? Is counterculture possible inside the system that turns us into perpetual content creators?