A Story from the Feral Class

This is the first of my personal notes on the book “Feral Class,” which I recently published with Minor Compositions. These posts will include reflections on comments by others about the book, as well as revisiting particular snippets and sections within it. It will also include insights into my current stance and issues related to class situations. It will also feature links to reviews.

My creative practice has always operated in two distinct modes. Publicly, I am recognised for my work in media art, digital culture, and activism—a body of work that has been widely examined in essays, books, and exhibitions. Privately, however, I have nurtured a separate, more visceral creative impulse: a raw and untamed output of stories, poems, and hidden memories. This deeply personal work has long remained in the margins, but it now insists on its rightful place in the world.

Feral Class is the first book to emerge from this private sphere, offering a direct look into my own life. For three decades, my public work has focused on hacking, art, and critical thinking, exploring the intersections of technology, society, and ecology. Throughout that time, I consciously constrained my creativity to projects that fit within a specific cultural framework, namely, the discourse of media art.

While the digital art landscape is vast and still largely uncharted, it has surged into the mainstream spotlight, primarily driven by recent movements built around NFTs, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence. These technologies have created a powerful new framework, complete with its own culture, economics, and aesthetic conventions. For a time, this framework provided me with an exciting frontier for experimentation and community engagement. It still does. However, many of the people I’ve worked with over the years have sides to them that are not necessarily evident in their work, and that is what I mostly value about them: that side. The fragile, gritty and confused side.

I find it increasingly difficult to justify creating art that is deeply entwined with technology merely because it fits neatly within a recognised genre, or looks contemporary; this is not enough for me. To me, this act of conformity feels less like true experimentation and more like putting on a uniform. It is a way for a specific tribe to instantly recognise one of its own, using a shared language that, while potent, can also become a limiting box. What began as a radical space for expression risks developing its own orthodoxies and rules, becoming a new kind of institution that dictates style over substance, even when critical of the medium’s uses; it can end up being just another form of lip service, promoting the technology itself rather than the ideas or challenges it hopes to convey. 

This realisation has given rise to my rediscovery of my Feral Class spirit. This is not presented as a definitive answer, but rather as a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between knowing and unknowing, and an expression of one’s own connection to the complexities of life. Grounded in personal experience, its very existence places it automatically outside the institutional loop. The term signifies a conscious departure from established frameworks, an active decision to break free from their constraints. “Feral” denotes that which is wild, untamed, and undomesticated, operating beyond structured systems. This is not a rejection of technology per se, but a rejection of its co-option as a market-driven genre label, typically controlled by those who dismiss outsiders and the working class as mere economic and political capital. 

My colleagues who follow Marxist theory may not like my new perspective. This change is deeply personal; it’s not a political statement or an intellectual theory. It comes from recognising a part of life that exists beyond art and politics. Yet, ironically, my work still reflects the societal truths of my own class experience, as well as those of others who feel disenfranchised. At its heart, it is about being human. Which sounds simple, perhaps it is. Yet, I find it amazing how long it has taken me to reach this point of unearthing all the layered gunk that trying to survive has created. It’s like being buried for years underneath thick layers of armour and skin. Some of it is protective, but an awful lot of it is suffocating as it subdues one’s real selves. Like a mountain or a plant, which simply exists without needing a reason, feralness needs no justification.

The book is still in presale mode and will not be available in bookshops until January 2026, unless you purchase it directly from the Minor Compositions website. 

Feral Class is my love letter to every outsider, consisting of visceral stories and unflinching critique. I expose how class war plays out in galleries and grant panels, but this isn’t about victimhood. It’s a blueprint for making art that terrifies the establishment. This art uses resources they’ll never understand. These include grit, ingenuity, and a radical refusal to be ruled from the top down. My journey proves creativity doesn’t start in lecture halls; it resides in the dark corners they’ve tried to pave over. 

Get the book here – https://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=1561

The image shows my brother DJ’ing at Ruth’s & my wedding party in London. Photo by Samantha Garrett. 1996.