Digital design theorist Cade Diehm joins NM to discuss his new paper, “The Para-Real: A Manifesto” (published via C/O Berlin and New Design Congress), which gives language to a zone that’s become increasingly prevalent as digital spaces merge into continuous territories. The Para-Real is not the “metaverse,” Cade argues, but a fertile, momentary form of consciousness where the physical here-and-now falls away. We discuss what this state produces in users and speculate on nth order effects as the Para-Real scales. 

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Cade Diehm is founder of The New Design Congress, an international research organization forging a nuanced understanding of technology's role as a social, political and environmental accelerant. Cade’s personal work can be accessed via https://shiba.computer.