Johan Ahlm Michalove

Johan Michalove is a researcher, design technologist, and writer constructing philosophical probes via speculative technologies and visualizations, spanning scales from street life to the planetary.

He is currently a PhD candidate at Cornell University in the Information Science department, where he is a member of the Computing on Earth Lab (led by Steve Jackson) and the Interplay Research Studio (led by Malte Jung).

His ethnographic research lies in rendering visible the delivery algorithms that mobilize thousands of e-bike couriers in the streets of New York. Drawing on Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis, he is creating new analytical approaches for tracing the urban temporal cycles that clash and flow with the delivery rider.

His technical research uses computation as a medium for rendering tangible speculative philosophical concepts. This includes an ongoing project exploring the semiotics of Language Models (LMs) drawing on post-structuralist theory. He uses computational tools to explore infinite semiosis in LMs and what this discloses about the interplay between the structure of language and the circulation of the social. Another project, Epistemic Engines, applied cybernetic theory to help groups collaborate at a distance.

He documents his emerging philosophical probes in his Substack: resonetics. Here he writes about meaning-making in LMs, ambient meaning and theories of vibes, cultural dynamics in networks, and planetary ways of knowing.

He loves design collaborations that require grappling with complexity. He co-founded the design studio 𓆩ZM𓆪, where he proliferated websites and created the visuals for an installation H.D. Reliquary in collaboration with Ben Shirken of 29 Speedway. He worked with an interdisciplinary team of designers to create Who Are We Now? as a web and print book, building a proprietary system that managed hundreds of images, plots, and the manuscript. At the University of Washington, he launched a low-cost robotic race car (MuSHR) that's now used by researchers and makers worldwide.

His prior affiliations include:

• The Terraforming Design Research Programme at the Strelka Institute (Moscow)
• 3A Institute within the School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University (Canberra)
• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena)
• Personal Robotics Lab at the University of Washington (Seattle)

Johan has a B.A. in Philosophy and B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington.