Tessa Lena with Team Human: Letting go of our Personal Brands in a Digital Age

Each month we have a guest lead a conversation involving the Team Human values.

This month we'll talk with musician and writer Tessa Lena. Tessa's work explores the technology of language and asks the question: if our use of language shapes our reality, how does the use of language for branding or self-branding impact our sense of humanity?

Technologies and social media platforms ask us to adapt ourselves into a performance mode, remodeling us into a product sold, rather than a person engaging with others. This even can take the shape of the seemingly "good," with people finding identity in causes like environmentalism, privacy, or liberalism. With this comes forms of self-censorship that Tessa has felt first-hand as a Russian-born New Yorker.

Tessa will explore the art of dialogue and sincere face-to-face talking with mutual respect and openness. We'll explore how we can navigate an environment that defaults to seeing individuals as brands and symbols rather than people.

See some of Tessa's work here:

https://medium.com/tessa-fights-robots/tale-of-tiny-man-with-scissors-how-abstract-thinking-became-concrete-prison-a1e41159f68c

https://tessafightsrobots.com/tessa-lena/branding-algorithms-rage-against-format/

https://vulnerablewin.com

Tessa Lena is a Russian-born musician and writer living in the East Village of New York. Her music and her blog are about staying human in the age of robots and algorithms. She is the founder of VulnerableWin, an initiative designed to restore the art of sincere dialogue. Her motto is, “ See a fellow human.”

We'll start the event meeting and catching-up. Our guest will share some of their work and then have an open discussion on the topic/issue they're presenting.

Our goals for these events are to hear and share new ideas, challenge ourselves and others, and be able to leave the event with opportunities for ground-level action.