Elae Moss

Elæ Moss (b. Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, 1979) is a nonbinary neuroqueer disabled multimodal creator and performer, cultural scholar, and educator. Their work of building Speculative Solidarities employs experimentation across analog and digital media to consider intersections between persons, forms of language, and systems, directed towards seeding resilient, open source strategies for ecological and social change.

Elæ is the founder and creative director of The Operating System, a radical open source arts organization, online platform, and publishing initiative. Prior to coming to Pratt, they taught in the CUNY system for 10 years, in addition to serving as a teaching artist for myriad organizations and schools for learners of all ages, and working for many years in the trenches of NYC’s hospitality and service industries. They are dedicated to the development of and access to collective learning models, tools, and resources, and in 2019 founded Liminal Lab, an open access peer learning platform, as an extension of the OS. [see https://www.theoperatingsystem.org/liminal-lab/]

Elæ’s work and performances have appeared widely. Recently, they presented [MOVE SEMANTICS]: RULES of UNFOLDING, co-curated with Jeff Kasper as part of EFA Project Space’s “BRIGHT FUTURES” awarded season. Other recent projects include: the APRIORI Field Station at STWST/Ars Electronica, R&D with the Mycelium Network Society, the Speculative Resilience Radical Practice Library for Bushwick Open Studios and the Anarchist Bookfair at Judson Church, How to Human: Disruptor Mechanism Protocol for the Segal Center’s Performing Knowledge Festival, Building Interpersonal Infrastructures at SOHO20, and Collaborative Precarity Bodyhacking with storm budwig and Cory Tamler for the Exponential Festival.

Publication credits include Vestiges, Big Echo: Critical SF, Tagvverk, Matters of Feminist Practice, The Transgender Narratives Anthology, Choice Words: Writers on Abortion, the Urgent Possibilities: Feminist Poetics & Pedagogies annex series, and many more. Books include Ground, Blood Altas, Overview Effect, Sweet and Low: Indefinite Singular, Bodies of Work (in collaboration with painter Georgia Elrod), and The Precarity Bodyhacking Work-Book and Guide. Find and follow their social practice projects online via IG @thetroublewithbartleby, or at http://onlywhatican.net.

BA, Sociology-Anthropology / Studio Art, Interpretation Theory Concentration, Swarthmore College. Thesis: “Measure Twice :: A Case for Socio-Spatial Practice.” MUP, Master in Urban Design, CCNY School of Architecture. Thesis : “Two if By Sea :: A Water-Based Solution for Sunset Park, Brooklyn.” Coursework complete towards PhD, Cultural Anthropology (with American Studies Concentration), The Graduate Center, CUNY.