Building Countercult changed how I think about data and design

Recognition was part of the early record

I received a Gold Key in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 2014, while I was living in Orange County, New York. In 2013, I won the overall Congressional Art Competition award for New York’s 18th District with my black-and-white photograph “Tranquility.” I also received an award through the U.S. Army Arts & Crafts Contest. These were separate recognitions, not one continuous credential. I value them as early moments when work I had made entered a public context, while knowing that an award cannot explain what an artist will build next.

Sources: Scholastic Awards, Gold Key levels and national consideration ↗ Times Herald-Record, 2013 Congressional Art Competition winner ↗ U.S. House of Representatives, Congressional Art Competition ↗ U.S. Army, Arts & Crafts Contest ↗

At FIT, the work became collective

In 2016, Sarah Langenbach and I were developing the bee-education project that became FIT Hives. FIT selected it as one of its three Commitments to Action for CGI U 2016 at Berkeley. FIT’s President’s Blog says the project first received support through the Innovation Grant program, which also supported a bee documentary involving Film and Media students Max Hechtman and Shoshana Rabinowitz. In April 2017, Sarah and I formally founded FIT Hives with Think Big Challenge support, installing two roof hives with the Honeybee Conservancy. FIT’s nearby Natural Dye Garden received a separate Innovation Grant. FIT Hives continues with Innovation Grant support, and the beekeepers are still paid for their work today. These are connected but distinct stages and projects. The experience taught me that a strong idea still needs a place, partners, decisions, and care if it is going to work in the world.

Sources: FIT News, “Student Projects Headed to Clinton Global Initiative University” ↗ FIT President’s Blog, “Bee-Education Project Takes Flight” ↗ FIT Innovation, “What We Can Learn From Bees” ↗

The question was larger than the interface

I did not begin with a plan to build a software company. I kept returning to a practical problem: independent cultural work is often described as a scene, a list, or a campaign, while the relationships and knowledge that sustain it are harder to find and maintain. Building Countercult pushed me to treat that as an infrastructure problem, not only a communications problem.

Data structures are cultural decisions

A public record is never just a neutral container. Someone decides what can be described, which context stays attached, what should be current, and what should remain private. Those choices affect who can be found, how they are approached, and whether the next step is useful to them. That is why I care about product design, data structure, and consent as parts of the same work.

The numbers help, but they do not explain a life

Eurostat estimates that 8.9 million people were in cultural employment across the EU in 2025, or 4.3% of total EU employment. It reports that 31.6% of people in cultural employment were self-employed, compared with 13.7% across total employment. The measure combines cultural occupations and cultural industries. It is not a count of artists alone, and it does not tell us whether somebody earns enough. It is useful context, not a substitute for listening to people about the conditions they work in.

Sources: Eurostat, cultural employment in the EU ↗

Tools change the work, not the responsibility

Research on generative AI makes me wary of simple claims about speed. One customer-support study found a 14% average rise in issues resolved per hour, with different effects for newer and more experienced workers. A separate experiment with experienced open-source developers found that early-2025 AI tools increased completion time in its specific tasks. Those results are about different workers and different work. They are not a forecast for every creative practice. The responsibility for context, accuracy, consent, and the result still belongs to people.

Sources: Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, Generative AI at Work ↗ Becker, Rush, Barnes and Rein, METR coding study ↗

I did not leave creative direction to build a platform

Working on product and software has made me more, not less, interested in how people encounter an idea. The interface is one part of the experience. The words, the choices behind the record, the way a person is invited in, and whether the project creates a real route to work all matter too. I move between creative direction, product, technology, culture, and market questions because the work rarely respects the neat divisions between them.

Countercult is where I keep testing the connection

Countercult is the cultural infrastructure I am building with artists, cultural workers, collaborators, and supporters. The Network supports public discovery, Studios delivers paid work, and the Fund creates a business-owned budget for selected local creative work. These parts connect, but they are not one automated mechanism. I have written about the boundaries in the Countercult Journal, and I want this professional record to stay clear about where my own work connects and where it remains distinct.

Sources: What Countercult publishes, protects, and builds ↗ Cyberpunk as a question of who builds the system ↗ What AI can and cannot do for cultural infrastructure ↗

What I want the system to do

I want digital infrastructure to make cultural knowledge easier to find when that is useful, and harder to misrepresent or expose when it is not. That is not a claim that every part is finished. It is the standard I use to make decisions as the work develops.