Call for Contributors — Critical Playground

Critical Playground is an independent platform exploring how technology, design, art, and culture shape creative futures. We examine emergent infrastructures—algorithmic, material, and economic—that are restructuring how culture is produced, perceived, and lived. We situate creative technology within the systems that govern production, circulation, and value.

Critical Playground invites freelance writers to contribute analytically rigorous work at the intersection of design, technology, art, and culture.

We are interested in submissions that engage one of the following editorial themes:
• Designing with AI — AI as cultural and infrastructural system
• Materials That Behave — Responsive, adaptive, or emergent material performance
• Politics of Platforms — Power, labor, governance, and monetization in creative infrastructures
• Post-Digital— Hybrid making across hand, code, and machine
• Designing for Collapse & Continuity — Climate adaptation, maintenance, stewardship
• Creative Research as Practice — Knowledge generated through making and experimentation

We are commissioning in-depth articles (typically 800–900 words) that situate projects, studios, labs, exhibitions, or technologies within broader cultural, institutional, or technical contexts. We do not publish press releases, product announcements, or promotional copy.

Pitch submissions must include:
• Working title and subtitle
• 150–250 word pitch
• Proposed editorial theme
• Preliminary image references
• Author bio (to be included on site if article is published)

Commission Details
• Rate: $300 per commissioned article
• Length: 800–900 words unless otherwise agreed
• Rights: Contributors retain copyright

Send pitches to submissions@criticalplayground.org
All submissions are reviewed by the editorial team. Selected contributors will be contacted to confirm commissioning details.

More information on editorial themes is available:
https://criticalplayground.org/become-a-contributor/