Morgane Billuart 04.11.2025
Blurb presentation
In the lecture The Final Form of Thought: Becoming the Product, Morgane Billuart explores how critical internet research has evolved within an attention-driven digital landscape. Tracing a line from the early net criticism of Geert Lovink to the influencer-like intellectual practices of Joshua Citarella, Alex Quicho, and Sophie Public, she examines how researchers navigate visibility, independence, and survival in an economy that rewards constant engagement.
Through this lens, the research, in its theoretical product (book) or in its practice (the podcast), reveals the growing tension between critique and commodification, where scholarly rigor meets aesthetic branding, and intellectual labor becomes inseparable from self-promotion. Becoming the Product asks: What does it mean to think critically when thought itself must perform online?
Biography
Morgane Billuart is a writer, researcher, and storyteller whose practice unfolds at the intersection of critical research and art direction. She is currently an affiliated researcher at the Institute of Network Cultures and the New Center for Research and Practice, and she co-hosts the podcast GirlEmployee with Carmen Lael Hines. Working across writing, visual media, and collaborative formats, she traces how technology shapes contemporary ways of imagining and relating to the world. Morgane has developed and shared work in collaboration with institutions such as the Institute of Network Cultures, Do Not Research, the Stedelijk Museum, Current Obsession, Blank Magazine, and Bianje Systems.
