\[\*\] *this is a reduced and a read-only adaptation of [the fashion systems' algorithmic gaze](http://algorithmicgaze.online/), a research project that took place between 2018 and 2021. This text emerged from case studies of digital footprints and was later translated in a series of workshops that travelled through academic and public contexts.*

This essay encompasses the exploration and interconnection of the fashion system and the concept of the algorithm. As they both possess a certain rhythmic ability that blurs our perception of consumer agency, it is my belief that through the utilisation of algorithms by the fashion system in our current digital based society — these *rhythms function as tools for mystification*. Through the concepts of rhythm analysis, fashion in the non- textile realm, the propagandistic core of new media and defining the consumer-as-user within new media, I aim to *explore* and *explain* the way rhythms are used to mystify and subliminally influence the consumer on a daily basis.

This influential strategy ultimately manipulates the sense of autonomy and therefore ones agency. Unconsciously acting upon consumer culture attributes to the already polluting character of fashion and diminishes the consumers ability to convey change within the confined structures of consumer society. Once we realise that we are being addressed as full-time consumers by all media surrounding us in everyday life, regaining digital agency and taking responsibility within our digital environment is an important step to take.

Overall, fashion uses the attendance of natural rhythms in daily life and conditions these in order to affect its consumer. These rhythms influence the consumer which results into them adapting to the likings of the fashion system. Fashions’ strategy to influence consumers rests on spreading a rhythm of repetitive images throughout the consumers landscape. Because this overload of images influence the consumers sub-conscious we could state that seeing becomes consuming.  

 In the non-textile realm of fashion, its repetitional visuality helps to determine our decisions in terms of what trends to follow. The algorithm offers us options based on knowledge it has accumulated by our previous clicking behaviour, thus helps to push us in a certain direction. Because the consumer is not aware of these behind-the- scenes processes our engagement with fashion is mediated through the state of constantly updating wardrobe options, which motivates the consumer to buy, but also shapes and stimulates our consuming habits. Stimulating the consumers uniqueness through the use of algorithms, and their ability to learn from what you’ve previously shown interest in, enables a digital form of propaganda. When pushing the consumer to constantly update their wardrobe via new media, information is simultaneously gathered regarding the users commercial preference. This gathered information navigates itself through digital media as commercial propaganda and is used by fashion brands to adapt the consumers buying habits. 

Traditional forms of propaganda have been translated to an online realm in which control over infrastructure and narrative are monitored by algorithms and the fashion system. Fashions hidden and inherently commercial agenda uses these algorithms to create a deceptive online realm based on a bias narrative. This bias narrative purposely rules out (visual) information outside of the users’ preferable spectrum. 

Fashion online does net exist without new media and relies on it to create a propagandistic infrastructure, in order to sustain commercial profit. New media has created the possibility to connect to (and influence) the consumer in new ways, as it uses new media every day. Digital society has turned the consumer of fashion into a user of new media in which it encounters fashion online. Through the algorithm, information is portrayed in form of an interface specific to each user. This interface visualises the bias narrative by only showing content based upon the users digital history. By using digital media the consumer gives access to personal information which is obtained by the algorithm and transformed into push notifications that encounter the consumer in a rhythm of repetition across multiple new media applications. This deceptive online environment tends to us in form of ‘service’, in which the the consumer falls victim under the loss of digital agency. 

A rhythm of elaboration regarding the workings of the digital realm is needed to demystify the field of machine learning, as it is creating a narrative through our personal data in which we, as providers of this data, have absolutely no control over. We need to reprogram passiveness towards analysis of the algorithms we encounter on a daily basis and their influential effect on our habitual rhythms within the fashion system. •

the Fashion Systems' Algorithmic Gaze

The Softwear Directory acts as a resource library positioned at the intersection of fashion, digital culture and artistic research. It aims to highlight and provide insight into a wide variety of digital (design) practices through the sharing of sources, tools and (meeting) spaces.

As our digital dimension presents a wide variety of multidisciplinary practitioners and collectives scattered across the internet, we can find many underexposed, independent, critical and networked ways of approaching, working with and through digitised forms of culture, fashion and identity tucked away in its crevices. This directory offers a glimpse into the diversity of siloed practices that use different vernaculars, but can be indirectly linked as a collective creative body as they explore (parts of) our digital realm in personal and novel ways.

By collecting, stacking and linking these modes of (online) doing, making and experiencing fashion in its aesthetic, social and political forms, the Directory looks beyond the material product that fashion offers. While some of the subcategories are highly specific, ranging from educational programmes and experiments in digital materiality, to critical and independent practices that investigate the production of value, the impact of distorted images on our online identity, and the ability to self-publish online as a form of hacking traditional (fashion) media.

What is the added value of these shared sources and cross-disciplinary perspectives? And what impact might they have on our relationship with fashion? How can we incorporate, simulate or decontextualise their ways of doing?

The directory was initially compiled using a spreadsheet and has now, with a lot of help, been developed into a platform library, allowing more experimentation with filters, navigation, terminology and hierarchy. This online environment focuses on short, concise connections and, throughout the gathering process we have found overarching and timely issues that deserve more in-depth analysis and exploration. To fill this void, we are hard at work on our first periodical publication, featuring in-depth readings, conversations and interviews to accompany the growing content of this database. Think of it as a hard copy supplement to this soft copy environment. We hope to launch our first issue in autumn 2024 .

This project was born out of personal necessity and frustration. It is the result of archiving notes, creating spreadsheets, collecting books, indexing urls and filling the clouds with screenshots in order to keep track of developments that live on the fringes of fashion and digital culture.

The Softwear Directory was made possible with the help of the Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie and would not have been possible without the help of many amazing creatives, coders and critics who have shared their insights and expertise along the way.

CURATOR : Chinouk Filique de Miranda\
ART DIRECTOR : Kimberley ter Heerdt\
WEB DEVELOPER : Artemis Gryllaki\
ADVISORS : Hanka van der Voet  & Beata Wilczek

This project was made possible by the generous support from [Stimuleringsfond Creative Industries](https://www.stimuleringsfonds.nl).

SoftwearDirectory

fashion design research

🫧 The North Face Is Breaking Into the Fashion Arena Now? Disappointed. Not Gonna Lie.

A piece of patchwork writing that dives into the uniting of (fashion) protesters through decentralised narratives enabled by the internet, part of [Press&Fold #2 : the Resistance Issue](https://www.thisiswarehouse.com/shop/2022-04-29-press-fold-2-the-resistance-issue).

Online Fashion and the Illusive Act of Identity Creation

Longread on computational capital in fashion and (false) identity creation through algorithmic apophenia.

🫧 The Fashion Systems’ (Algo) Rhythmic Gaze

This thesis explores the digitisation of fashion and our digital agency as consumers.

Can the Hoodie Ever Be Truly Unisex?

An essay exploring the female perspective on the garments’ strategic competence, published by [Het Nieuwe Instituut as part of ‘the Hoodie’ exhibition](https://nieuweinstituut.nl/projects/the-hoodie), curated by [Lou Stoppard](https://loustoppard.com/). 

Nicholas Is, Well, He Is Kind of a Fucking Weirdo (1:01:49), Mediating the Online ‘Opinion-As-Review’-Review

A critical exploration of the cultivation of critique in the online comment section, part of Warehouse Review 002 | A review of reviews. 

Anti-Engagement Strategies, in Radical Fashion Exercises

Edited by Laura Gardner and Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran.

🫧 Idle Browsing

Critical Reflection & Debate Grant

Introduction to Web Development

Art & Politics

Graduated Cum Laude from Critical Fashion Practices Programme. 

Co-curator alongside [ Enzo Aït Kaci, Lotte de Jager, Jonathan Ho & Boris Kollar](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.fashionclash.nl/new-fashion-narratives-trajectory-2023/tag/Chinouk%2BFilique&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722953274648442&usg=AOvVaw0l1vVJfZOkIrTKgis-0i9k). This exhibition grew out of a residency period, and  unpacked how (re) sources from the past, act in the present and create new contexts for the future. The show exhibition ongoing and work-in-progress pieces from 17 different practitioners. 

New Fashion Narratives

The Hoodie-Special #3: Hoeveel lagen heeft een hoodie?

Short doc: New Fashion Narratives

The aestheticisation of online consumer identity

by Rianne van der Molen, part of Boekman magazine #135 issue. 

Hoe meer data we weggeven, hoe minder we te kiezen hebben.

Koffiedik kijken met Chinouk Filique: 'Afgelaste fashion weeks dwingen modewereld digitaal te worden'

Chinouk Filique de Miranda: a gap within a very rigid fashion system

The fashion designer as maker, researcher and digital whizzkid

Fashion is inextricably linked to digital culture, and digital media have opened up new possibilities for fashion consumption. As this expansive virtual space invites us to continually (re)shape our identities online, my PD research unravels and reconfigures the methods of resistance practices that live on the margins of online cultures - in the hope of discovering what different forms of digital agency in fashion might look like.

This project is carried out within the context of [the Fashion Professorship](https://fashionprofessorship.artez.nl) led by [dr. Danielle Bruggeman](https://www.daniellebruggeman.nl/blank) at ArtEZ University of the Arts.

Critical Practices in the Digital Margins

The Softwear Directory acts as a resource library positioned at the intersection of fashion, digital culture and artistic research. It aims to highlight and provide insight into a wide variety of digital (design) practices through the sharing of sources, tools and (meeting) spaces.

This project is brought to fruition with through collaboration with [Artemis Gryllaki](https://artemisgryllaki.net) and [Kimberley ter Heerdt](http://kimberleyterheerdt.com).

🫧 the Softwear Directory

a podcast periodical that unpacks different perspectives on fashion by inviting people and practices we admire and want to know more about, but also ones we might not fully understand and have a lot of questions about. A pilot season of three episodes is now live on all Podcast platforms, and via the [Warehouse website](https://www.thisiswarehouse.com).

Unzip, a Warehouse Podcast

The journal's first ever issue produced by a guest editor, combines a wide variety of perspectives on how fashion and digital cultures engage and intertwine, and how this affects (independent) fashion practices. It features contributions by, [Cinzia Magnani](https://digitalsocietyschool.org/insight/alumnistories-cinzia-magnani-2/), [Maud Acheampong](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEBRJBZdTw3ZlDucgWiEB0A), [Chet Julius](https://studiumgenerale.artez.nl/nl/studies/video/it+is+no+longer+necessary+to+follow+the+meanings+that+the+disembodied+fashion+system+tries+to+force+on+us/), [Maria Spadoni Battistoni](https://mariaspadonibattistoni.cargo.site), [Jasmine Bacchus](https://jasminebacchus.com) and many more.  

Fashion Studies Journal: on Fashion & Digital Engagement

This research-through-making- session, held during the De-fashioning Education Conference, hosted during the [Multi-logue Conference](https://digitalmultilogue.fashioneducation.org/TDM23),  considers ways in which multi-authored aesthetics can be recognized and underscored. Through digital tools and templates, participants will reassess their online visual language to (re)acknowledge the lineage of inspiration in fashion, collaboration with [Julia Kaleta](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nl.linkedin.com/in/julia-kaleta-14706172&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114845411&usg=AOvVaw1XDIdZkm2UUrzjWTv_60Kc). 

workshop ⥂ Are we creating, borrowing or invading? An active exploration of multi-authored aesthetics in (digital) fashion.

Invited by amy pickles & Sofia Boschat Thorez. The [Colonial Infrastructures worksessions](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://varia.zone/en/colonial-infrastructures-fashion-24.html&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114844926&usg=AOvVaw0IoAPAzUA1IYITGftLejC9)  intend to be moments of collective learning to make tangible invisible colonial mechanisms of hierarchy and oppression that are prevalent in everyday communication technologies, yet often difficult to comprehend. The session facilitates collective research into, and consideration of, current citation practices in relation to fashion.

workshop  ⥂ Colonial infrastructures: on Fashion

This workshop was carried out multiple acrross various networks and timezones : ArtEZ University, Mozzfest, State of Fashion intervention #3. In this workshop participants looked into their position as a user-consumer within your personal digital landscape. By investigating ‘scrolling behaviour’ while using new media platforms and its algorithms, in order to analyse your personal digital footprint, they try to find and highlight interrelated (subliminal) commercial structures.

workshop ⥂ Investigating our Digital Footprint

Paper presentation during the Responsible Fashion Series, an International Fashion Colloquium hosted by University of Antwerp.

Deconstruction, Recognition and Alternative Engagement — A Proposal To Democratise the ‘Dictator Aesthetics’ of Fashions’ Digital Narrative ’

Paper presentation as part of the Fashion Tales Conference,  hosted by Modacult & Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

Fashioning the (False) Political Self Through Sharing — the Fashion Systems’ Adaptation of the Virtual Synopticon ’

part of Transparance\_Transparency Symposium at Ecole Superieur de Mode, UQAM

The Impact of Tech on Transparency & Aesthetics in Fashion

A panel talk alongside [Kathy Moscou](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kathy-Moscou&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114831542&usg=AOvVaw0xPczb3MArTtvVBd0_QDGH), [Jason Edward Lewis](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://jasonlewis.org/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114831602&usg=AOvVaw2-RhAcJyMEwCw33J3lxFkK) and and[ Milan Tanedjikov](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.linkedin.com/in/milan-tanedjikov-89196728/?originalSubdomain%3Dca&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114831648&usg=AOvVaw1E6XAAlA3Pnx7CVE3QtmxU), moderated by Raphaël Viens discussing the reality of teaching to the future generation of designers.

Thoughts on Design Education: Radical Pedagogy

exploring colonial roots of mental health risks related to fashion, including a disconnection from the materials our clothes are made of, an ever-ongoing pressure to stay on top of trends, limited notions of Western beauty, alongside [Pak Chiu](https://www.pakchiu.com), [Patricia Brien](https://patriciabrien.com), [Joline Jolink](https://www.instagram.com/joline_jolink/) and moderated by [Yophi Ignacia](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yophiignacia/?originalSubdomain=nl).

Under pressure : Fashion and mental health

part of Suppa Soup Sessions, hosted by the [Advertising & Beyond department](https://www.wdka.nl/programmes/advertising). 

Curating the Screenshot, Towards a Shared Sensibility

For the launch of [Booklook #2](https://booklook.website/), I moderated a conversation between Mika Perlmutter, [Lejla Vala Verheus](https://lejlavala.com/), Alessandra Varisco & [Anouk Beckers](https://www.anoukbeckers.nl/).

Fragments of DIY Stories

part of the [Messyverse](https://felixmeritis.nl/themessyverse/), a festival, art exhibition and context program, focused on self-expression, representation and identity within new digital worlds held at Felix Meritis. Talk hosted by [Giancarlo Pazzanese](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.linkedin.com/authwall?trk%3Dgf%26trkInfo%3DAQEtDCTmwgTFigAAAZAn8-4Ah6ae_s__WzDLGrPBgg-SEeyzDBANV4vgJt21lifkhS1z3B70oUtUtZ4HSplyvHhA4l41NtxedFwX23gY260EoTl5L9F0HO9MxcI5A8d0MX_zGhA%3D%26original_referer%3Dhttps://structuresoflegacy.substack.com/%26sessionRedirect%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.linkedin.com%252Fin%252Fgpazzanese%252F&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114832566&usg=AOvVaw2wECXTHU4OBx-aeCSOxMxI) and in conversation with [Tumelo Setlaba](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nl.linkedin.com/in/tumelo-setlaba-a25759125?original_referer%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.privacywall.org%252F%26challengeId%3DAQGXpPSsDXk_nQAAAZAn9Fu83cxPv6FTyvTMeJl5Aiog5yDP19yTzkUeqkFZQA-DaUOlj27jtT-gsfI_-_CvAIaFS8UTMRoB8Q%26submissionId%3D496c5e3f-a8e5-d917-b6d6-24c510e10072%26challengeSource%3DAgGsflWujsknRgAAAZAn9GSAlgEaSVR7RssbuHSzL2rWsAkday38KfvreR2312c%26challegeType%3DAgEyUYBXgVfDRwAAAZAn9GSDyOyc77lVriRdjx0ljpzwUaxOX5BCPRs%26memberId%3DAgGTkfraboH30wAAAZAn9GSG6vd_vIC29lY-Bl2LTlBdwZA%26recognizeDevice%3DAgHd1gRWKytWzgAAAZAn9GSKqVJLF7ExhhN_NaxfxNNdIHrQVqSo&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114832640&usg=AOvVaw2278hv7nX0yTSj7Eqld81Y).

Digital Fashion: Next Wave of Green Capitalism?

a lecture and panel as part of the Virtual Symposium hosted by the National Museum of African American History and Culture and Smithsonian Design Museum

Engaging with digital (dynamic) marketing, In Times of Commercialised Diversity

hosted by [Beata Wilczek](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://beatawilczek.net/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114835613&usg=AOvVaw2opbYQP555XksrvA8kI0-Z)

Fashion, Algorithms & Digital Literacy

Round table talk curated by [Warehouse](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.thisiswarehouse.com/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114838386&usg=AOvVaw2U9CrRc_8NnLo2w8so8Qkr) as part of [State Of Fashion](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://youtu.be/HjeFTMU1vdM?si%3D_NYRU4w3gburqaZH&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1722947114838239&usg=AOvVaw1h9v9B9wBjaGbhoJpcPwYU), on the agency of fashion practitioners and the creating of disruptive cycles and  alternatives approach to fashion, alongside [Dr. Monica Titton](https://www.monicatitton.net/), [\
Aïcha Abbadi](http://www.aichaabbadi.com/), [Shanzhai Lyric](https://shanzhailyric.info/) and [T’ai Smith](https://ahva.ubc.ca/persons/tai-smith/).

Fashion Against Capitalism

in conversation with [Femke de Vries](https://www.femkedevries.com/about/), as part of Digital Fashion Symposium, a collaboration between [Parsons, the New School](https://www.newschool.edu/parsons-paris/) and [London College of Fashion](https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-fashion)

Digital Narratives; Language, Memory, and Body.

A 10 month reorganisation project in which a new community structure and toolkits were created, and tested throughout various OBA locations in the city of Amsterdam.  

Design Research (lead)

This research was commissioned by the Tech & Innovation branch of the Municipality of Amsterdam, in which a new validation process was conceived the interpretation of online slang used amongst online subcultures. 

In this four year trajectory, I investigate the intertwining of fashion and our virtual landscape, and the implications for our digital capacity to act. It focuses on identity in the digital age and the extent to which people possess the possibilities to construct different forms of subjectivity. The aim is to contribute to larger developments in an increasingly global and digital society, such as new forms of consumerism, capital and cultural value.

🫧 PD researcher

the Disruption office ; A futurist Urban Culture consulting and design firm, that draws from street culture as a continuously transformingparameter of society. The language, taste and worldview of urbanites is increasingly shaped by the culture from our immigrant neighborhoods. We sample the heritage of postcolonial Superdiverse cities and translate this into projects and products that make cities future ready.

Design Research

As part of the YoutDem trajectory, a multi-year project that aims to make the dynamic but often precarious ecologies where youth culture is loved more sustainable. It is a platform for and by young people, and the [development of young cultural makers](https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/events/school-toekomst) is its central focus. 

Design Research collective, creative partnership between the OBA and the Municipality of Amsterdam. 

Social Designer & Researcher

With a focus on concepting and communication, 4th year students conduct a design research trajectory grounded in theory & practise to conclude their graduation projects.