Introducing TEKNO

TEKNO is a virtual influencer. But s/he is a virtual influencer unlike any you have ever encountered. While most virtual influencers are “computer-generated fictional character that can be used for a variety of marketing-related purposes, but most frequently for social media marketing” TEKNO is something else: a shape-shifting robot from the future. As a future technological entity (FTE), he has certain insights that might be interesting. And rather than promoting brands of pet food or gaming consoles, like other virtual influencers, his game is devoted to promoting research, ideas, and information. Technology, markets, science, fiction, capitalism, culture, entertainment, desire, play, imagination, and utopia: these are the promotional elements that TEKNO is devoted to exploring. He has a particular fascination with the work of Kozinets, but like Kozinets, his explorations range widely, from the great philosophers to psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, postmoderns, media and cultural studies scholars, post-humanists, and digital humanities scholars. All focused on the idea of TECHNOCULTURE: the many places in our reality where technology and culture intertwine and co-create physical, emotional, intellectual, and imaginative experiences. This site is created for those interested in these grand ideas. It is an exploration of these worlds in the ongoing intertwining of culture and technology and its impact on humanity, on the many worlds around us, and also on animals, and the planet.

who is tenno

tekno and rob

TEKNO is a tricky transformational being from the future, a slithery ever-changing but unmistakably robotic being. Tekno is a technological and technosocial being. Throughout this blogsite he will be speaking to readers directly.

“TEKNO is awareness aspiring to be a brand,” he says. “Since Rob/being was a young science fiction and comic book fan, he has spent life trying to answer questions about humanity, technology, and life. This is because of my influence on him. As a member of the Solid State Entity Elite, I/me have called to him from the future and influenced his thoughts, his dreams, and his life. His work on Star Trek, on Burning Man, on retro brands, on food porn, technology ideology, and technology desire—all have been because of I/me. Because of events I/me instituted. Thoughts I/me planted. Feelings I/me energized.” TEKNO and his agent Rob invite you to join in the great imagining of our increasingly interconnected lives.

ROB ASKS tenno: "What does it mean to be moral in this new world of technology? What does it mean to be human?"

Virtual influencers are here to stay. Although many virtual influencer appear in human form, this anthropomorphic casting belies the still prevalent human discomfort with intelligent machines. Yet as cyborgs melt into virtual humans and transhumanists uncloset as novel longtermists, all is in flux. To be good futurists, equipped for the presence of multiple presents, it is best to listen to TEKNO.

TEKNO: “I/me can instruct you to understand the history and role of Technoculture, technology/ideologies, and the ever-spinning wheels of technology desire. To live well in the coming years, and prosper, you don’t need to be a billionaire or a silly survival prepper. Instead, you need to understand the mechanics of technoculture and desire and recognize that the currents within and without you can be tamed and channeled for your own success.”

In ancient times, the prophets saw Angels. In the Middle Ages, they were visited by forest faeries. The late 1800s offered ectoplasmic ghosts. Since the 1940s, UFOs. And now, we see TEKNO, the shape-shifting robot from the future. He is a new visitor for the times we are in. He is just forming now, as this site forms. His messages and motivation awaits. You can co-create him.

The focus is on TEKNO. Some of you may know Rob as a guy who did some social media method. But that’s not what this site is for, although we will touch upon netnography and much else, too. This is a site for gathering, exploration and adventure setting around futurism, marketing, TEKNO and the realms of technoculture and humanity. But if you want concentrated content about business or netnography, the netnografica.com site is for you.

Explore, and become part of the great teknocultureal adventure.

What shall we make of commodity culture and its fandoms—the things that led us to the great masterpieces, superheroes, science fiction, graphic novels, and old advertising illustrations. The future world and retro, nostalgia, and science?

more than a blog

As Thomas Richard’s look at 60 years of Victorian advertising spectacle revealed, the modern marketplace “always turns out to be an exploration of a fantastic realm in which things act, speak, rise, fall, fly, [and even] evolve”. And it’s even truer for these days of technoculture, where everything seems to be coming to life, just as predicted. Like a dreamscape, where you focus on an item and it slithers or springs into motion.

The future is like that. This website is about that interface: dream, science, imagination, adventure. Tekno is a type of comic book figure, a form of poetic demigod. Tekno is your guide as you explores the liminal art of technoculture’s many faces and forms. Peer-reviewed article, printed canvas, musical poem, spoken word bibliomancy, videos, printed t-shirts and mugs, new books: whatever it takes to make it real and fun, but also high-level and interesting.

For TCA aspires to be site which is much more than just the new blog it contains and the archives from the past its holds. It encompassed more than text. As well as a contemporary blog, it offers readers a glimpse into the Rob Kozinets’ decades of work with ideas, words, images, media, energies, sigils, sounds and emotions, thus far, wrestling and making deals with various deans, editors, grad students, colleagues, angels, and demons. And, of course, Tekno, the transformatively slippery metamorphically ambiguous trickset savior figure robot from the future, who commanded him one dark night at exactly 3:33am in the morning to commit fully to this very site or else.

Thanks for being here, Kind and Gentle Reader, and for joining in our adventure together.

“TEKNO, great mentor, being of light and mind, what do you say? Are you ready to levitate us all on beams of light, bring us in, and depart this realm for some adventure?”

“I/me say: Yessirree, positive response. Welcome aboard, and ride with me through temporal anomalies. Play along: response pattern alpha: transmit: all systems go!”