Online Fashion Systems,   

2025/2026 Syllabus

The Online Fashion Systems module explores how fashion operates within digital cultures, networks, and infrastructures. Framing aesthetic strategy as a critical and creative method, the course investigates how online systems shape meaning, identity, and value — and how practitioners can engage with, subvert, or reimagine these frameworks.

Through a mix of theory, practice, and experimentation, participants will engage with digital platforms, images, and interfaces as cultural materials. The module emphasizes digital agency and literacy, encouraging participants to see the internet not only as a medium but as a dynamic structure for connection, communication, and creation.

   
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Online Fashion System(s) GLOSSARY


This reader is a time capsule-in-progress. It contains the interpretations, thoughts and questions that arose during discursive sessions held as part of the Online Fashion Systems module within the MA programme in Critical Fashion Practices at ArtEZ University of the Arts. Acting somewhat like a screenshot, it captures a moment of collective thought and provides an opportunity to ponder and reflect. It also offers a temporary anchor for ideas within the context of continuous digital overload.

The essays collected here are the outcome of the sessions, and emerge from this moment of pause. Each year, the module invites a new cohort of thinkers to share their insights and personal experiences of navigating the intersection between their digital environments and their evolving critical fashion praxis. Topics range from explorations of the self and the digital tools we use to ways of escaping algorithmic interference and discovering alternative online communities.  

As our study module grows, so does its output. We therefore invite you to develop your own reader alongside it, and encourage you to compile your own (ever-expanding) collection; whether curated around a specific topic or point of interest, or based on random selections that pique your curiosity. By assembling these texts, you are cultivating a living collection that places seemingly separate voices in conversation and supports the ongoing evolution of your own.  


Author Terminology Description Essay
Anna Trevisan

Deepnudes

Deepnudes are AI-generated, non-consensual nude images created by digitally undressing individuals in photographs. The term combines "deepfake" and "nude", emphasising its role as a deceptive synthetic media practice that fuses physical and digital violations. Deepnudes disproportionately target women, undermining their bodily autonomy by enabling the unauthorised manipulation and distribution of sexualised images. Unlike traditional forms of revenge porn, deepnudes do not require real, explicit photographs, making them a dangerously sophisticated tool for harassment, blackmail and digital exploitation. This phenomenon highlights the ethical dangers of AI and the urgent need for legal protections and digital consent frameworks. The Undressed Body in the Age of Deepfakes
Anna Trevisan

Digital Bodily Sovereignty

Digital bodily sovereignty is a reclaiming of agency over one's digital and physical body. It arises from the recognition that misogynistic digital spaces are fertile ground for environments that systematically undermine women's autonomy and consent, thus reflecting and perpetuating a wider systemic problem rooted in offline realities. As such, digital bodily sovereignty refers to the right to control one's digital representation, ensuring agency and autonomy over how one's image is used online. Digital bodily sovereignty challenges the erosion of consent in digital spaces, where AI and deepfake technologies enable non-consensual alteration of the body. It argues that violations of digital bodies amount to real-world harm, and calls for feminist resistance to misogynistic digital infrastructures that commodify and exploit personal identity without permission. The Undressed Body in the Age of Deepfakes
Anna Trevisan

Misogynyware

The term "misogynyware" comes from the conflation of the words misogyny and software, in reference to the digital infrastructure upon which the internet is built. Inspired by the existing black feminist term "misogynoir", it highlights how internet platforms, algorithms and AI technologies embed systemic discrimination due to the historical dominance of white, cisgender, heterosexual male developers. This bias manifests in content moderation policies, recommendation systems and AI tools that disproportionately sexualise, monitor or undermine women's autonomy. Misogynyware describes how digital spaces perpetuate real-world gender inequalities, shaping online experiences in ways that prioritise male perspectives while silencing or exploiting marginalised groups. The Undressed Body in the Age of Deepfakes
Charlie Dröge <Digital Anti-Digitalism A paradoxical phenomenon in which anti-digital ideals - such as the desire to disconnect, return to tangible experiences or embrace physical practices - are disseminated through digital spaces. It highlights the contradiction of using digital platforms to advocate for non-digital engagement, revealing the tension between digital and physical realms. Digital anti-digitalism critiques the pervasive influence of digital culture while relying on it for visibility, forming an ironic loop in which resistance to digitality is itself digital. Ultimately, it questions whether a true 'return' to the physical world is possible when mediated by digital technologies. Practices of Digital Anti-Digitalism: The Return System
Charlie Dröge

Digital Healing

As a subcategory of the broader 'hopecore' movement, digital healing refers to online content that promotes emotional well-being, self-care and personal growth. Through platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, digital healing manifests itself in motivational posts, affirmations, reminders of self-compassion, and messages encouraging self-acceptance.  Practices of Digital Anti-Digitalism: The Return System
Charlie Dröge

Online Outsideness

Online outsideness, a second branch of hopecore, emphasises seeing beauty in the mundane and encourages viewers to recognise the abundance of joy in their lives, even if it's not immediately visible to the naked eye. It focuses on the human experience, romanticizing the little things that people just do - whether it's building offline relationships, learning something new, getting outdoors or simply finding hobbies away from the screen. While online outsideness encourages users to seek offline experiences, its aestheticized content of nature, human connection and everyday life - urging viewers to 'touch grass' and unplug from screens - paradoxically encourages this need for unmediated experience through the use of digital media. Practices of Digital Anti-Digitalism: The Return System
PART of the Critical Fashion Practices MA programme at Artez University of the Arts.