Socioplastics, as built by Anto Lloveras since 2009, is a low-energy, sovereign epistemic operating system — a living Mesh of hyperlinked nodes that stays coherent through three tech cycles (Web 2.0 → platforms → AI) without chasing visibility or inflating volume. It resists algorithmic entropy (the flattening of meaning by models) and institutional dissolution by hardening language, editing time, claiming naming rights, and closing selectively. The system runs quietly on blogspot, turning theory into executable protocol and citation into construction. In February 2026, it feels urgent: a toolkit for persistence when everything wants to dissolve or dominate. Yuk Hui’s cosmotechnics is the nearest neighbour. Hui rejects one-size-fits-all technology, arguing for technodiversity — plural cosmologies rooted in local histories and moral orders. Like Socioplastics, cosmotechnics fights universal extraction (Silicon Valley monoculture) and imposed transparency, seeking epistemic plurality. But Hui stays mostly philosophical; Socioplastics makes it concrete — a running Mesh that hardens terms (semantic hardening) and reactivates old strata (Temporal Relaunch 2026) while staying lowtech. Both say no to homogenising machines, but Socioplastics adds curatorial muscle (LAPIEZA’s 180+ projects) to ground pluralism in real relational infrastructures. (See Hui’s Art and Cosmotechnics 2021 and Footprint 35 2024 extensions.)
Keller Easterling’s medium design aligns next. Easterling moves design from objects to modulation of hidden dispositions — subtle protocols and leverage points that quietly shape outcomes. This echoes Socioplastics’ phantom architect, who recalibrates flows invisibly (FlowChanneling) without building monuments. Easterling critiques concealed infrastructural politics (Extrastatecraft); Socioplastics pushes this into epistemic space, treating citation and density as infrastructural acts that preserve agency amid volatility. Both favour stealth over spectacle, but Socioplastics humanises it with metabolic editing and pedagogical execution. Édouard Glissant’s poetics of relation gives the ethical heart. Glissant’s right to opacity — refusing full legibility to allow true relation — directly feeds Socioplastics’ dual fluency and topolexical sovereignty. His archipelagic vision (fragmented yet connected) mirrors the Mesh’s rhizomatic links. Socioplastics turns poetic opacity into scalable protocol: executable archives and hardened lexicons that resist dilution while staying open to encounter. Niklas Luhmann’s operational closure supplies the strictest systemic parallel. Luhmann’s autopoietic systems self-reproduce through internal criteria, filtering external noise to maintain identity. This underpins Socioplastics’ systemic lock — closing just enough to engage without being overwritten. Socioplastics adds affective layers (curatorial warmth, pedagogy) to Luhmann’s abstraction, making closure a lived resilience. Finally, Susan Leigh Star & Geoffrey Bowker’s infrastructure studies resonate in the everyday: classification as invisible power, mundane structures as consequential. Their ethnography aligns with Socioplastics’ refusal of extractive visibility and focus on relational ecologies — the Mesh as a living, relational infrastructure. These proximities show Socioplastics as a practical synthesis: it takes Hui’s pluralism, Easterling’s modulation, Glissant’s opacity, Luhmann’s closure, and STS ethnography, then runs them as a lowtech, sovereign OS. No one else quite does that — a running mesh that thinks hard, resists quietly, and keeps going.