Joe Zadeh

I wrote a new story for Noema Magazine about the phenomenon of ‘digital twins’: the quest to make real-time virtual replicas of pretty much everything, from cars, planes, forests and oceans to cities, planets and human bodies. Reporting this story involved travelling to Barcelona to visit one of the world’s most powerful supercomputer, where I was able to watch the beating of a digitally twinned human heart. Read online here.

I wrote a short essay for The Fence Magazine. It’s about my own series of doomed attempts to connect with nature since leaving London and moving to a small town by the sea. It’s about how easy it is to fall in love with representations and how hard it is the find the real thing. I didn’t chose the title, “Against Nature”, which mirrors that of an old Joyce Carol Oates essay from 1988, but it’s a work I adore and have no doubt been inspired by. Read here.

For Noema Magazine, I wrote about the secret history and strange future of charismatic power. Via 1920s Germany, the rise of Hollywood and the dawn of AI, it explores how our culture, politics and technology became infused with a mysterious social phenomenon that everyone can feel but nobody can explain. Read online here.

For Noema Magazine, I wrote a story about concrete: how it came to cover the modern world, the environmental destruction it causes, and the people trying to change it. It’s an essay that begins and ends in the Alps, and features Jean-Luc Godard, nuclear warfare, and the secret geometry of cathedrals along the way. You can read it online here.

For Noema Magazine, I wrote a longform feature about clocks, how they came to dominate our perception of time, and the existential problems we face because of them. The story received praise from Longform, Pocket, The Sunday Long Read and many other journalism recommendation sites, and became one of the most read articles at Noema Magazine. You can read it online here.

For Noema Magazine, I wrote about the ancient yet radical theory that consciousness is not just in brains, but spread throughout the universe; and why philosophers and neuroscientists are now quite seriously reconsidering it. Read it here.

For VICE, I wrote an essay about grief, coincidences, and the strangeness of life in the small Northumbrian village where I grew up. This was part of the ‘Home Coming’ series – devised by the genius photographer Chris Bethell – in which writers revisit their hometown. Read here.

An essay I wrote about the confusion and contradictions of growing up mixed race in north east England was featured in a fantastic book of essays called ‘Haramacy’. The title is inspired by the intriguing true story of a bank robber that opens and closes the essay. It was later published as an excerpt in Rolling Stone magazine, which you can read online here.

Is there anything you can ask Sir Paul McCartney that he hasn’t been asked a million times? I interviewed him for Noisey. Read the full article here.

Pandemics aren’t just for humans. For Noema Magazine, I wrote about the global proliferation of plant diseases and their effect on our food chains and forests. As the planet warms, devastating plant pathogens are being carried to new lands by the infrastructure of global capitalism, wreaking havoc on undefended crops and ecosystems. Read online here.

I travelled to the south-east coast of England to investigate a story about 14,000 unexploded bombs that have haunted a small seaside town for 76 years. Read here.

I spent four months visiting a tight knit community of brain injury survivors who have become artists. Here's a longread about the ancient and everlasting human compulsion to make pictures. Read on VICE.

For WeTransfer’s editorial site WePresent, I regularly contribute features on visual art. Recent stories include:

Two photographers capture Italy’s dying tradition of “tree men”.

Markos Kay’s fusion of generative art and organic life.

Using AI to tell queer love stories with Blake Wood.

Harley Chamandy’s ode to optimism.

Somayeh’s meditation on grief.

The voices in our heads with Samona Olanipekun.

The story of the last goldfish on earth with Kelly Yu.

The naive paintings of Sweden’s Kent Iwemyr (pictured).

Virtual reality and grief with Marta Klara.

Illumination and colour with Children of the Light.

The passionate photography of Alicia Vera.

The epic tapestries of Sandra Sawatzky.

The magical miniature worlds of Scale Model Studios.

The graphic characters of Jamie Hewlett.

In the 1970s, a quiet pocket of rural Wales became the psychedelic hub of the world. I went in search of the chemists, dealers and thousands of buried blotters. I came back with a story about village life, rural fantasies, terror in the hills, and the strange magnetism of Llanddewi-Brefi. Read it here on VICE. 

Two years ago, Will Lenney quit his holiday job at a dinosaur-themed crazy golf course in his seaside hometown of Whitley Bay, North-East England. At the time, his boss called him a "lazy twat". Now, Will sits in his bedroom six days a week, staring at his computer and looking at his phone. But when he turns on the camera in the corner of his desk, over a million people tune in. They all want to hear what Will Lenney has to say. Read my story about the real life of a professional YouTuber here.

When the most important people in his life all died in quick succession, Stephen Wright channeled his bereavement into turning his semi-detached house into a work of art. Read this one on VICE right here.

I went to Iceland to see how a bunch of politically minded youths are fighting Nazis, organising DIY festivals and generally shaking up the music scene. Read it over at The Face.

A Superman who can’t fly and a Rambo who fights zombies... I wrote about the strange and lo-fi world of Yesilcam – Turkey’s cult rip-off film industry. Read the full piece on The Guardian here.

I went to see a baseball game for the first time when I was in Chicago. I wrote about hot dogs and nostalgia, and The Face kindly published it. Have a read.

I spent a morning with Bob Mortimer, and we discussed life, death, hard northern men, and the absurdity of jokes with no punchlines. Read it here on VICE.

VICE sent me to the North East to visit voters and find out why a political sea change was on the cards ahead of the 2017 snap election. I went to Teesside, where the 4 constituencies that make up Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees are deeply divided. Here’s the story I found of why Labour’s vote is diminishing in areas of its ‘Northern Heartlands’. It goes far deeper than Jeremy Corbyn. Read here on VICE.

From his bedroom in North East England, Kane Robinson ran an obscure and innocent music forum for 12,000 enthusiastic indie fans during the rise of the Arctic Monkeys. Two years later, he found himself being pursued by the US Homeland Security and the Metropolitan Police. Just how did a Tesco trolley pusher from Newcastle become the biggest ever music piracy case in Britain? Read the full article here.

I wrote a story about the enduring cult of a man called George, or: how a controversial YouTube comedian reinvented himself as a melancholic r&b crooner. Read on Notion.

Jimothy Lacoste is blessed, and he wants you to feel blessed too. In fact, he wants everyone to feel happier. I spent an afternoon with him for Crack Magazine, and you can read it here.

I wrote about King Krule for the cover of Crack Magazine. It's a story that starts in the skies, crashes down to earth and finishes somewhere in between. Read here.

I spent some time with UK rapper and young genius, Dave (aka Santan Dave) for VICE Magazine. We talked about his life through the prism of his love for the piano. The story was originally in print, but you can read it online here.

Selfies, screams and sad monsters... I spent one fucked up night at the MTV Europe Music Awards on behalf of Noisey. I did my job, and I also vomited. Please read here.

Half in the sun, half in the shade of an overhanging fern tree, J Hus is statuesque and presidential, perfectly still, one hand rested on the inner wall of the glass chamber. He's alone in the there; his reflection bounces off each of the walls and surrounds him. Read the rest of my cover story with J Hus on Shortlist.

I interviewed the surreal, post-Soviet rap sensation Tommy Cash for The Guardian. Read it here. 

Artists who tire of the commercialised web are thriving in a space free from legislation, surveillance and monopolisation. I wrote for The Guardian about the artists embracing the darknet to explore uncensored internet frontiers. Read the full article here.

Fear and luxury on the Ultraviolence trail... I went to LA to profile Lana Del Rey for Clash Magazine. Read the full article here.