TOXIC QUEER MASCULINITIES
IN PROGRESS - PHD RESEARCH,
VISUAL CULTURES, GOLDSMITHS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
VISUAL CULTURES, GOLDSMITHS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
TOXIC QUEER MASCULINITIES - TOOLS FOR NAVIGATING AI-INTEGRATED SUBJECTVITY
PhD research investigating the influence of AI-integrated digital platforms often used by queer communities—such as Grindr, Scruff, and Instagram—on the mediation of queer subjectivities and intimacies. Drawing on architectural practice, speculative design, visual cultures, and queer theory, the research critiques how these systems commodify identity, fuel cultural toxicity, and aggravate mental health challenges within LGBTQIA+ communities. While digital mental health crises are well-documented, there remains a pressing need for tools leveraging design as methodology to address these challenges.
The Wingman AI–set for release on Grindr in 2027–illustrates a paradigm shift in how AI-integrated systems mediate intimacy, agency, and self-perception. By automating elements of attraction, such as image selection and dialogue, this tool reframes human connection as a series of transactional data exchanges. Developed with profitability as its primary goal, such technologies celebrate certain behavioural and aesthetic standards, encouraging homogeneity through feedback loops prioritising marketable data. For queer users, who often depend on digital platforms for community in marginalised settings, these systems exacerbate exclusionary ideals of desirability, reinforce harmful social and racial hierarchies, and intensify mental health disparities.
This PhD uses a mixed-method visual practice to translate AI critiques into tangible, accessible visual tools. Through participatory workshops and a PhD-funded symposium, the project develops resources for queer individuals to critically engage with AI and assert their choices in digital spaces with heightened awareness of AI’s effects on subjectivity.
Keywords - Digital Identity, Algorithmic Desirability, Platform Capitalism, Speculative Publishing, Post-Ontology, Selfhood, Social Metrics, Networked Subjectivity, Feedback Systems, Performativity, Identity Capital, Media Aesthetics, Designed Fiction, Cybernetic Intimacies, Validation Culture.
PhD research investigating the influence of AI-integrated digital platforms often used by queer communities—such as Grindr, Scruff, and Instagram—on the mediation of queer subjectivities and intimacies. Drawing on architectural practice, speculative design, visual cultures, and queer theory, the research critiques how these systems commodify identity, fuel cultural toxicity, and aggravate mental health challenges within LGBTQIA+ communities. While digital mental health crises are well-documented, there remains a pressing need for tools leveraging design as methodology to address these challenges.
The Wingman AI–set for release on Grindr in 2027–illustrates a paradigm shift in how AI-integrated systems mediate intimacy, agency, and self-perception. By automating elements of attraction, such as image selection and dialogue, this tool reframes human connection as a series of transactional data exchanges. Developed with profitability as its primary goal, such technologies celebrate certain behavioural and aesthetic standards, encouraging homogeneity through feedback loops prioritising marketable data. For queer users, who often depend on digital platforms for community in marginalised settings, these systems exacerbate exclusionary ideals of desirability, reinforce harmful social and racial hierarchies, and intensify mental health disparities.
This PhD uses a mixed-method visual practice to translate AI critiques into tangible, accessible visual tools. Through participatory workshops and a PhD-funded symposium, the project develops resources for queer individuals to critically engage with AI and assert their choices in digital spaces with heightened awareness of AI’s effects on subjectivity.
Keywords - Digital Identity, Algorithmic Desirability, Platform Capitalism, Speculative Publishing, Post-Ontology, Selfhood, Social Metrics, Networked Subjectivity, Feedback Systems, Performativity, Identity Capital, Media Aesthetics, Designed Fiction, Cybernetic Intimacies, Validation Culture.
TOXIC QUEER MASCULINITIES - TOOLS FOR NAVIGATING AI-INTEGRATED SUBJECTVITY
IN PROGRESS
Creative Direction & Research Agenda, Adam Peacock
Supported by Goldsmiths University of London UK, UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK South and East Network for Social Sciences (SeNSS)