Ruby Justice Thelot is a designer, artist & cyberethnographer based in new york city. he is an professor of design and media studies at nyu.

His work focuses on digital phenomenology, virtual ontology and the implications of being-on-line. he writes about  virtual realms, digital communities, and artificial intelligence.

his work and research have been presented and published in journals, magazines and conferences, all over the world. he is the author of the books "a cyberachaeology of checkpoints" and "a few essays of taste" (metalabel's 2025 zine of the year)

he is the founder of 13101401 inc,  a design and research studio.

he currently works as a product manager.

he's on substack, youtube, twitter and instagram.

 

 

Selected design work and publications

Book published by Irrelevant on the Checkpoints digital community which lived from 2012 to 2021 under the comment section of a YouTube video. Read an interview in Dazed about it.

Essay co-written with Rue Yi on the formal and linguistic fragmentation of digital space. Published by Folklore.

Video-essay. "Techno-evangelists are the modern magicians. How can we navigate the ever-complex techno-magic?"

Comparative cyberethnography essay on communities in the furry fandom and the crypto-space

Meta-essay on the telos of technology by way of Heidegger

On early Christianity and NFT adoption

Design research essay about the iPod and the STEM Player