Noam Youngrak Son is a communication designer, design theorist, and culturalworker. Their design work encompasses small-scale publishing projects,speculative worldbuilding, workshops, lectures, writing, net art, and occasionalperformative interventions. Son has expanded their focus from design to theoryin order to critically engage with the ontology of the design industry, media, andbroader material culture. This turn is informed by their observations of culturalassemblages that echo the extractive operations of capitalism on racialized andmore-than-human populations. They are particularly attentive to theinterconnected notions of speculation—both as an open artistic approach andas a process of value increase in capitalism. They research the tendency of theformer in design to be subjugated by the latter and explore alternative methodsfor speculative design practices to realize their transindividual potential throughcollective organization and workshop facilitation. In this process, Son utilizesqueer publishing as a technology for mobilizing attention beyond thefinancialized “scarce resource” of the attention economy. In this context,publishing extends beyond mere printed matter to encompass the maintenanceof communities and the cultivation of interspecies relationships.
