cybernetic serendipity

art in times of panic

article by zach braner, illustrated by sable bellew

Escapism demands more of me these days. It used to be enough to open Netflix. There’d be some decades-old program with just enough of a nostalgic ember burning for me to huddle around, warming me into gentle numbness. But the world has changed, my mind’s a bit jumpier, and I take my escapes as they come. That means endlessly wandering the internet as I do classwork, waiting for a fateful surprise—waiting for cybernetic serendipity.

That’s a phrase I encountered halfway down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I was ostensibly there for some class-related research, but of course the inner mind knows better—Internet, take me away. Seeing the phrase cybernetic serendipity, then, was a bit like seeing your deepest subconscious desire printed on a billboard over the freeway. Wikipedia had gifted me a blue hyperlink that promised the exact thing I didn’t know I was looking for. The phrase “cybernetic serendipity” is not vivid; it’s got enough syllables to refer to just about anything (except our present moment—whatever cybernetic serendipity is, this is not it). Perfect—I closed all my other tabs and clicked through.